Via Watching America, an op-ed from a Kuwaiti Arab-language newspaper. Most likely a CIA or Mossad plant, but just in case, let me quote some of it:
“Osama bin Laden never forced anyone to go to Iraq, kill its people and destroy its infrastructure. He has forced no one to kill innocent people in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, America and Europe. Bin Laden didn’t tell European Muslims hate the countries that have given them refuge and made them rich after their poverty, fed them after their hunger, provided them with freedom after being enslaved in their own Muslim counties, and finally educated them after they were ignorant. You, the Muslims of the West, made all of these catastrophic choices out of your own free will. You willfully sought evil and failed to return the West’s goodwill with goodwill. What do you expect from the Westerner, when he sees his own citizens killed in the name of religion? Sees hate in the name of religion? Sees terrorism harm him in the name of religion?”
Perhaps that is what can be called a moderate Muslim. And the giveaway? A mention of free will. Not particularly popular as a philosophical precept with the radical Islamist crowd.
The point being, these are the very kinds of allies we need in the war on terror—but unfortunately, people like Ahmad Al Baghdadi, the author of this piece, are largely ignored by our own western media, because their personal narratives don’t jibe with the now historically institutionalized idea—pushed obliquely by our press and some of our political class, as well as doctrinally by our academic elites—that the violence and hatred we now see aimed at America has been earned by 220 years of imperialist crimes and international bullying, and by a stubborn and arrogant insistence on maintaining sovereignty rather than joining the transnational progressivists in their quest for micromanaged Utopia.
Sad to say, but to many on the left who put power above all else, Mr Baghdadi is a cypher—a man whose voice will be lost in the din of “Bush Lied” chants held in the safety of University Commons areas, where the fear of fascist Amerikkka descending is oft decried, but is less of a concern, at day’s end, than who has the best Wednesday Happy Hour prices on Bud drafts and pot stickers.
(h/t Allah)
Funny how those loudest on the subject of diversity of backgrounds or skin tones seem to disappear when the subject of diversity of opinions or mindsets digs through the narrative.
Sigh, as they say.
It’s very hard to determine how many people in the Mideast buy into the Islamism entirely and how many are willing to “go moderate,” given the Islamists dangerous and often lethal enforcement of “consensus.”
The polls “over there” are ugly as hell, but who can tell how many are just “going along to get along.”
And am I “overusing” quotes?
tw: It’s a given.
How many Muslims do you think will actually pay attention to what this man has to say?
Al-Baghdadi lucky to escape censure, dismissal from post, or fatwa – at least so far. Dar ul-Islam allows less dissent than Airstrip One, if such a thing possible.
Its really hard to break into the club of muslim op-eds that get translated into our media.
Actus sort of has a point here. Certainly the American media seems to like your average suicide bomber alot better than its likes people like Al Baghdadi. Thus, people like him get no coverage, support or respect. Perhaps the media would be happiest if he just died quietly? I’m not saying, mind you. I’m asking. Any journalists there willing to take a crack at this one?
He could make a shahada video.
Ah, the million monkeys effect.
Speaking of pot stickers, I wonder how ‘dillo tastes in small wonton skins, with a crispy bottom. We’d better see some dancin’ soon…
TW: He expected to be disappointed, and was.
Well that was a huge waste of time.
I wrote a long comment talking about the reaction to this article on Muslim blogs and Muslim’s fundimentalist rejection of both reason, of humaneness and even their surrendering sanity whenever there is a conflict between the form and the literal word of a scripture.
But when I hit the submit button, I got a message saying that a “forbidden entry” was found in my post (it was the url of a popular Mulim blog that I linked to as an example). And so all my careful writing was gone.
In summary, I have found that Muslims do not apply reason to scripture – they accept all of it, they often twist their own minds far past the breaking point to accept their scripture and thus to introject even the hatred implied in the worst verses – even if they have to create in themselves paranoid delusions to emotionally support such introjections.
That second paragraph should read:
“… whenever there is a conflict between the former and the literal word of a scripture.”
Anyway the signers of the manifesto include the famous apostates – and that isn’t going unnoticed by Muslims.
The Muslim blogs are taking the tact of pretending that the authors are corrupt and writing this blasphemous trash in order to make money. Akyol & Baran are painted as corrupt profiteers, pandering to the corruption of infidel society.
Clearly there is no logical reasoning behind such a characterization – the only actual reasons given are the incompatibility between what was written and scripture. This is followed by the usual non sequitur litany of logically unsupportable grievances against infidels everywhere in order to lubricate the sidestep.
If you read Muslims you will find that this pattern is as common as water. Projection of corruption and unsupportable litanies of grievances are crutches used to avoid reasoning that leads to scripturally problematic conclusions or attitudes.
As an example of an the very limited range of acceptable attitudes: if in some scriptures Allah himself calls the infidel unjust and hates not only infidels, but also all those who would befriend an infidel, clearly a Muslim can do no less. Ever, under all circumstance.
Josh Scholar, you could be describing “progressive” avoidance of reason when it conflicts with their “scripture”.
Actually it seems to be a common failing of human beings generally. I saw a reference to a study that claims to show that people “listen” to political ads with the emotional parts of their brains and thus making a reasoned case for X is likely to be ineffective tho fear-mongering or appeals to avarice (“free” health care) might be.
If true, it confirms what I have long suspected: that we are wasting our time arguing about politics…facts don’t matter much. A case in point is a brother of mine who went to college in Austin, TX who was a flaming liberal until he bumped up to the reality of providing for his family. Now he is more conservative than I am.
Actus has a point, and Josh Scholar makes a number of good points. Muslims have mastered cognitive dissonance as an art.
I’ve done some searching on him and it seems that he’s been in trouble in the past for his views.
Kuwait Bar team to defend liberal
<a href=”http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=220″>Kuwaiti Liberal Ahmad Baghdadi: There’s No Difference between Armed and Unarmed Religious Groups</a>
Kuwaiti Progressive Scholar: ‘All the Good is in Secular Thought, All the Evil in Religious Thought’
Academic Leaders Demand Release
As far as Muslims are concerned, I doubt his views will register, except for those who are looking for Muslim voices of protest.
But we should not ignore him. I don’t know if he’s still seeking asylum. If he is, we should help him. He can be an invaluable asset for our understanding of Arabs and Muslims, as he seems to view things clearly, without the cognitive dissonance.
Muslihoon, yep that’s about right. Try to promulgate some sane ideas in a Muslim country – go to jail, over and over.
By the way, my comments on this article on a muslim blog (that I may not be able to name since there are filters against certain urls on protein wisdom), were deleted.
My comment had been to the effect that the problem with Akyol & Baran is that they are perfectly logical and reasonable, that certain scriptures are neither, and that Muslims should join modernity and learn to apply reasoning and common sense to scipture and to life. Face the fact that even God can’t make one plus one equal three and any scripture that says so is wrong.
But this is the way of debate on Muslim blogs. On crux issues there is no debate allowed.
Josh —
Expression Engine does the filtering by some blacklist that is part of the software. pw has nothing to do with the filtering; nor is he sure how to overcome it, he being less of a code guru than a guy who makes cock jokes and worships Bush.
Just FYI.
That’s funny, the forbidden URL was Aziz Poonwalla’s (not the same place I posted on by the way).
I’m sure you know his blog, he’s not a spammer. I wonder if there are any other spam-innocent blogs in Expression Engine’s blacklist?
TW “RESPECT” as in George Galloway’s left-Muslim pseudo alliance party.
I’ve had trouble linking Time Magazine articles. It doesn’t happen frequently, but when it does, it is infuriating. Sorry. Email me the URL and I’ll see if adding it to their whitelist helps.