The Beauty of Death
Kahlil Gibran
Part One - The Calling
"Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights;
Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body;
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume,
And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead."
"Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired;
Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit;
Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.
Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for
It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests."
"Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers
Raise their crowns to greet the dawn.
Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light
Between my bed and the infinite;
Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of
Her white wings."
"Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips.
Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers;
Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me;
Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes,
And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath."
Part Two - The Ascending
"I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the
Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;
I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are
Hiding the hills from my eyes.
The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the
Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;
The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter
That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight
And red as the twilight."
"The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams
Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;
And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity
In exact harmony with the spirit's desires.
I am cloaked in full whiteness;
I am in comfort; I am in peace."
Part Three - The Remains
"Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me
With leaves of jasmine and lilies;
Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest
Upon pillows of orange blossoms.
Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy;
Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress;
Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your
Finger the symbol of Love and Joy.
Disturb not the air's tranquility with chanting and requiems,
But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;
Mourn me not with apparel of black,
But dress in color and rejoice with me;
Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close
Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore."
Place me upon clusters of leaves and
Carry my upon your friendly shoulders and
Walk slowly to the deserted forest.
"Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber
Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls.
Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets
And poppies grow not in the other's shadow;
Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not
Carry my bones to the open valley;
Let my grace be wide, so that the twilight shadows
Will come and sit by me."
"Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my
Mother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother's breast.
Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed
With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when they
Grow above me, and thrive on my body's element they will
Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space;
And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace;
And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer."
"Leave me then, friends - leave me and depart on mute feet,
As the silence walks in the deserted valley;
Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almond
And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan's breeze.
Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there
That which Death cannot remove from you and me.
Leave with place, for what you see here is far away in meaning
From the earthly world. Leave me."
I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. ~Kahlil Gibran
Friday, November 05, 2010
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Descent into Chaos and Hell
There were only two men who stood in their way, and once the Kennedys were assassinated the gates of hell would swing open wide. It was the president's plans for Vietnam that prompted his murder. By 1963 (the assassination year), the United States was becoming more and more involved in the Vietnam war. The U.S. had already sent supplies, arms, and several thousand advisers and instructors.
But the president wanted to go no further in aiding South Vietnam. He was ready to stop sending aid, even though South Vietnam claimed to have a democratic government and Generals eager to wage war against North Vietnam. The president said that Vietnam was too far away from the United States, that South Vietnam's claim to democracy was false, and that the U.S. had no business sending American troops to fight in what was really a local war. There would have been no death mill called Phoenix.
Phoenix was, among other things, as an instrument of counterterror, a grim reminder of the tactics that were, and perhaps still used against the Native Americans. A horrendous psychological warfare tactic in which VCI members were brutally murdered along with their families or neighbors as a means of terrorizing the neighboring population into (a state of submission). Such terror acts were, for propaganda purposes, often made to look as if they had been committed by the enemy. Compromise and discreditation operations are a tried-and-true method used in America, too. For example, CIA officer Howard Hunt forged State Department documents showing that President John Kennedy ordered the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. And the FBI discredited, through the use of forged documents, Martin Luther King, Daniel Ellsberg, and Jean Seberg. Among others.
President Nixon backed his words with actions. He ordered one of his aides, a former Army intelligence specialist and president of the Young Americans for Freedom, Tom Huston, to devise a plan to surveil, compromise, and discredit his domestic critics. The Huston Plan was called evidence of a "Gestapo mentality" by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina.
What Ervin meant by the "Gestapo mentality" was Phoenix in its conceptual sense -- the use of terror to stifle dissent. Reflecting Nixon's "Gestapo mentality," offensive counterintelligence operations were directed against dissenters in America: blacks, leftists, pacifists, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and American Indians. Today as we look at our nation, we may ask, how much are they doing it to us now? Be that as it may, it is a fact that the CIA has long sought to neutralize its domestic opponents, using illegal means, in the name of national security .The fear of surveillance being as effective as surveillance itself, the result was that many Americans refrained from writing letters to their representatives or otherwise participating in the democratic process, knowing that to do so was to risk wiretaps on their phones, FBI agents' reading their mail, being blackmailed for past indiscretions, made victims of vicious rumor campaigns, losing their jobs, or worse.
Moreover, the suppression of dissent in America was championed by the same people who advocated war in Vietnam. And when it became apparent that America had been defeated in Vietnam, these reactionaries -- like the Germans after World War I -- vented their bitterness and anger on the disparate groups that formed the antiwar movement. Using Phoenix "offensive counterintelligence" tactics, the security forces in America splintered the antiwar movement into single-issue groups, which were isolated and suppressed during the backlash of the Reagan era. Today the threat of terrorism alone remains, pounded into the national consciousness, at the bequest of big business, by abiding media.
Indeed, without the complicity of the media, the CIA could not have got away with killing President Kennedy or of implementing Phoenix, in either Vietnam or America. A full disclosure of the facts and of the Province Interrogation Centers and the Provincial Reconnaissance Units would have resulted in its demise. But the relationship between the media and the government is symbiotic, not adversarial. The extent to which this practice existed was revealed in 1975, when William Colby informed a congressional committee that more than five hundred CIA officers were operating under cover as corporate executives and that forty CIA officers were posing as journalists. Case in point: reactionary columnist and TV talk-show host William Buckley, Jr., the millionaire creator of the Young Americans for Freedom and cohort of Howard Hunt's in Mexico in the 1950's.
When it comes to the CIA and the press, one hand washes the other. In order to have access to informed officials, reporters frequently suppress or distort stories.
Colston Westbrook, according to Mae Brussell in a July 1974 article in . The Realist, was a CIA psywar expert. An adviser to the Korean CIA and Lon Nol in Cambodia, Westbrook from 1966 until 1969 reportedly worked (undercover as an employee of Pacific Architects and Engineers) as an adviser to the Vietnamese Police Special Branch. In 1970 Westbrook allegedly returned to the United States and was gotten a job at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Brussell, Westbrook's control officer was William Herrmann, who was connected to the Stanford Research Institute, RAND Corporation, and Hoover Center on Violence. In his capacity as an adviser to Governor Ronald Reagan, Herrmann put together a pacification plan for California at the UCLA Center for Study and Prevention of Violence.
As part of this pacification plan Westbrook, a black man, was assigned the task of forming a black cultural association at the Vacaville Medical Facility. Although ostensibly fostering black pride, Westbrook was in truth conducting an experimental behavior modification program. Westbrook's job, claims Brussell, was to program unstable persons, drawn from California prisons, to assassinate black community leaders. His most successful client was Donald DeFreeze, chief of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). It was West- brook who designed the SLA's logo (a seven-headed cobra), who gave DeFreeze his African name (Cinque), and who set Cinque and his gang on their Phoenix flight to cremation, care of the Los Angeles SWAT Team, the FBI, and U.S. Treasury agents. While it might sound like something out of the wildly fictitious world of James Bond movies — or at least the world of “Get Smart” — MKULTRA was in fact a real-life, top-secret program that ran throughout much of the 1950s and ’60s in which the CIA attempted to master brainwashing techniques and hypnotize ordinary people into doing its dirty work. The question is not whether the program existed, but whether it was ever taken beyond the experimental phase and into directing its hypnotized subjects into committing assassinations and other such activities.
Those who believe that Sirhan Sirhan was an unwilling and unwitting accomplice to the program believe that government agents spotted him while they attended live hypnotist shows to look for MKULTRA subjects and saw that Sirhan was a particularly easy person to put under a spell.
“They were spending millions going to universities around the country looking for subjects. In December ’63, the CIA was thinking about getting rid of it, but their deputy director Richard Helms issued a memo asking to keep it alive. It’s believed he had just used the program to get away with the murder of JFK,” explains Michael Calder, the author of the investigative book “JFK vs. CIA,” who developed that book from his master’s thesis at UC Berkeley. “They found new drugs that in combination with hypnotism are able to create amnesia for events prior to and during killing. I thought that sounds like Sirhan, and I’ve been reading LAPD documents for the past year trying to draw all the connections together.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg concerning the inconsistencies that riddle the official account of the night of Robert Kennedy’s death. Sirhan allegedly fired eight shots from a gun that could only hold five bullets. He didn’t have time to reload before being tackled by famed NFL player Rosie Grier. Those eight bullets supposedly managed to hit RFK three times and graze him a fourth while also managing to injure six other people that night.
The so-called “Magic Bullet” that Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have used to kill Robert Kennedy’s older brother five years earlier had nothing on Sirhan Sirhan’s acrobatic ammo.
Add in the other bullet holes found in the pantry after the shooting, which were never fully investigated, and, even more importantly, the fact that RFK’s own autopsy said he was killed by a bullet to the back of the head that was fired at such close range that he had powder burns in his flesh. This would mean that the shooter would have to have been behind RFK basically jamming the gun into his head and also the two places in his back that were shot.
Yet every eyewitness describing Sirhan Sirhan’s actions said he shot at RFK from the front and from at least one to five feet away.
But the president wanted to go no further in aiding South Vietnam. He was ready to stop sending aid, even though South Vietnam claimed to have a democratic government and Generals eager to wage war against North Vietnam. The president said that Vietnam was too far away from the United States, that South Vietnam's claim to democracy was false, and that the U.S. had no business sending American troops to fight in what was really a local war. There would have been no death mill called Phoenix.
Phoenix was, among other things, as an instrument of counterterror, a grim reminder of the tactics that were, and perhaps still used against the Native Americans. A horrendous psychological warfare tactic in which VCI members were brutally murdered along with their families or neighbors as a means of terrorizing the neighboring population into (a state of submission). Such terror acts were, for propaganda purposes, often made to look as if they had been committed by the enemy. Compromise and discreditation operations are a tried-and-true method used in America, too. For example, CIA officer Howard Hunt forged State Department documents showing that President John Kennedy ordered the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. And the FBI discredited, through the use of forged documents, Martin Luther King, Daniel Ellsberg, and Jean Seberg. Among others.
President Nixon backed his words with actions. He ordered one of his aides, a former Army intelligence specialist and president of the Young Americans for Freedom, Tom Huston, to devise a plan to surveil, compromise, and discredit his domestic critics. The Huston Plan was called evidence of a "Gestapo mentality" by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina.
What Ervin meant by the "Gestapo mentality" was Phoenix in its conceptual sense -- the use of terror to stifle dissent. Reflecting Nixon's "Gestapo mentality," offensive counterintelligence operations were directed against dissenters in America: blacks, leftists, pacifists, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and American Indians. Today as we look at our nation, we may ask, how much are they doing it to us now? Be that as it may, it is a fact that the CIA has long sought to neutralize its domestic opponents, using illegal means, in the name of national security .The fear of surveillance being as effective as surveillance itself, the result was that many Americans refrained from writing letters to their representatives or otherwise participating in the democratic process, knowing that to do so was to risk wiretaps on their phones, FBI agents' reading their mail, being blackmailed for past indiscretions, made victims of vicious rumor campaigns, losing their jobs, or worse.
Moreover, the suppression of dissent in America was championed by the same people who advocated war in Vietnam. And when it became apparent that America had been defeated in Vietnam, these reactionaries -- like the Germans after World War I -- vented their bitterness and anger on the disparate groups that formed the antiwar movement. Using Phoenix "offensive counterintelligence" tactics, the security forces in America splintered the antiwar movement into single-issue groups, which were isolated and suppressed during the backlash of the Reagan era. Today the threat of terrorism alone remains, pounded into the national consciousness, at the bequest of big business, by abiding media.
Indeed, without the complicity of the media, the CIA could not have got away with killing President Kennedy or of implementing Phoenix, in either Vietnam or America. A full disclosure of the facts and of the Province Interrogation Centers and the Provincial Reconnaissance Units would have resulted in its demise. But the relationship between the media and the government is symbiotic, not adversarial. The extent to which this practice existed was revealed in 1975, when William Colby informed a congressional committee that more than five hundred CIA officers were operating under cover as corporate executives and that forty CIA officers were posing as journalists. Case in point: reactionary columnist and TV talk-show host William Buckley, Jr., the millionaire creator of the Young Americans for Freedom and cohort of Howard Hunt's in Mexico in the 1950's.
When it comes to the CIA and the press, one hand washes the other. In order to have access to informed officials, reporters frequently suppress or distort stories.
Colston Westbrook, according to Mae Brussell in a July 1974 article in . The Realist, was a CIA psywar expert. An adviser to the Korean CIA and Lon Nol in Cambodia, Westbrook from 1966 until 1969 reportedly worked (undercover as an employee of Pacific Architects and Engineers) as an adviser to the Vietnamese Police Special Branch. In 1970 Westbrook allegedly returned to the United States and was gotten a job at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Brussell, Westbrook's control officer was William Herrmann, who was connected to the Stanford Research Institute, RAND Corporation, and Hoover Center on Violence. In his capacity as an adviser to Governor Ronald Reagan, Herrmann put together a pacification plan for California at the UCLA Center for Study and Prevention of Violence.
As part of this pacification plan Westbrook, a black man, was assigned the task of forming a black cultural association at the Vacaville Medical Facility. Although ostensibly fostering black pride, Westbrook was in truth conducting an experimental behavior modification program. Westbrook's job, claims Brussell, was to program unstable persons, drawn from California prisons, to assassinate black community leaders. His most successful client was Donald DeFreeze, chief of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). It was West- brook who designed the SLA's logo (a seven-headed cobra), who gave DeFreeze his African name (Cinque), and who set Cinque and his gang on their Phoenix flight to cremation, care of the Los Angeles SWAT Team, the FBI, and U.S. Treasury agents. While it might sound like something out of the wildly fictitious world of James Bond movies — or at least the world of “Get Smart” — MKULTRA was in fact a real-life, top-secret program that ran throughout much of the 1950s and ’60s in which the CIA attempted to master brainwashing techniques and hypnotize ordinary people into doing its dirty work. The question is not whether the program existed, but whether it was ever taken beyond the experimental phase and into directing its hypnotized subjects into committing assassinations and other such activities.
Those who believe that Sirhan Sirhan was an unwilling and unwitting accomplice to the program believe that government agents spotted him while they attended live hypnotist shows to look for MKULTRA subjects and saw that Sirhan was a particularly easy person to put under a spell.
“They were spending millions going to universities around the country looking for subjects. In December ’63, the CIA was thinking about getting rid of it, but their deputy director Richard Helms issued a memo asking to keep it alive. It’s believed he had just used the program to get away with the murder of JFK,” explains Michael Calder, the author of the investigative book “JFK vs. CIA,” who developed that book from his master’s thesis at UC Berkeley. “They found new drugs that in combination with hypnotism are able to create amnesia for events prior to and during killing. I thought that sounds like Sirhan, and I’ve been reading LAPD documents for the past year trying to draw all the connections together.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg concerning the inconsistencies that riddle the official account of the night of Robert Kennedy’s death. Sirhan allegedly fired eight shots from a gun that could only hold five bullets. He didn’t have time to reload before being tackled by famed NFL player Rosie Grier. Those eight bullets supposedly managed to hit RFK three times and graze him a fourth while also managing to injure six other people that night.
The so-called “Magic Bullet” that Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have used to kill Robert Kennedy’s older brother five years earlier had nothing on Sirhan Sirhan’s acrobatic ammo.
Add in the other bullet holes found in the pantry after the shooting, which were never fully investigated, and, even more importantly, the fact that RFK’s own autopsy said he was killed by a bullet to the back of the head that was fired at such close range that he had powder burns in his flesh. This would mean that the shooter would have to have been behind RFK basically jamming the gun into his head and also the two places in his back that were shot.
Yet every eyewitness describing Sirhan Sirhan’s actions said he shot at RFK from the front and from at least one to five feet away.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad
These figures are a rough estimate of the death
[The Great Annihilation] of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad.
Africa:
Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic, and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march. Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone, p. 62, 1888.] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak, the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the wholesale slave trade in Africa.
(120 million Africans)
Christians:
The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:
(60 million Christians)
Hindus:
Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the funeral pyre of the Hindus.
(80 million Hindus)
Buddhists:
Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis (servants to Islam); everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M.Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]
(10 million Buddhists)
Jews:
Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have
geographic political power. [But for Muslim complicity in the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews during WWII, see: http://www.tellchildrenthetruth.com/gallery/
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8A956196-F4A6-41EE-803F-DE6D30800D96 ]
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/tears-of-jihad/
This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad
No wonder muslims' slogan is, "islam is the solution," 270 million dead can't lie, islam for them was the solution unlike any other solution. It was their final solution that made extra solutions unnecessary ...
For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
[The Great Annihilation] of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad.
Africa:
Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic, and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march. Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone, p. 62, 1888.] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak, the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the wholesale slave trade in Africa.
(120 million Africans)
Christians:
The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:
(60 million Christians)
Hindus:
Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the funeral pyre of the Hindus.
(80 million Hindus)
Buddhists:
Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis (servants to Islam); everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M.Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]
(10 million Buddhists)
Jews:
Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have
geographic political power. [But for Muslim complicity in the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews during WWII, see: http://www.tellchildrenthetruth.com/gallery/
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8A956196-F4A6-41EE-803F-DE6D30800D96 ]
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/tears-of-jihad/
This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad
No wonder muslims' slogan is, "islam is the solution," 270 million dead can't lie, islam for them was the solution unlike any other solution. It was their final solution that made extra solutions unnecessary ...
For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
Friday, September 24, 2010
Stepping Beyond The Works of Men
I am destroying Islam, but I must give something back to the people in its place.
Something that is far beyond shackles of religion; for a religion belongs only to small gods who have no power. Though many profess and esteem love. They are not the source of Divine Love. The Creator is the mystery that we all seek. If one thing is holy then all we can perceive is holy. The hand of the Creator touches all. It is in this respect that I am grateful that he is indifferent to the dogmas and religion we create in our vain effort to capture his image. Seek with the heart and you will find the Great One there. For only His gift of Love is the key to a good life, in this world and the next.
`````````````````````````````````````````````
On Prayer
Kahlil Gibran
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."
Something that is far beyond shackles of religion; for a religion belongs only to small gods who have no power. Though many profess and esteem love. They are not the source of Divine Love. The Creator is the mystery that we all seek. If one thing is holy then all we can perceive is holy. The hand of the Creator touches all. It is in this respect that I am grateful that he is indifferent to the dogmas and religion we create in our vain effort to capture his image. Seek with the heart and you will find the Great One there. For only His gift of Love is the key to a good life, in this world and the next.
`````````````````````````````````````````````
On Prayer
Kahlil Gibran
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Long Suffering of Malaysia
"Malaysia is often held up as the model of what a modern Muslim-majority nation can be. The ruling class, the bumiputra (literally “princes of the earth”) are largely, though not entirely, Muslim. But when Malaysia’s High Court ruled in late December to lift a government ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah,” Christian churches became the targets of fire-bombing attacks. This eruption of violence suggests that there is trouble brewing just beneath the surface even in this supposed paradise of Islamic moderation."
"At last count, eleven Christian churches and one Sikh temple have been attacked in Malaysia. That makes twelve attacks against places of worship in half a month’s time. What does it say about Islamic values when the impetus for these attacks was the use of a particular word?"
"First, I love you in spite of your beliefs and deeds. I would like nothing more than to free you from Islam. I agree with Renan, the famed scholar, who, after dedicating himself to understanding Islamic scripture, wrote: "Muslims were the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain others in the practice of this religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him."
"Second, on Christians, you are responsible for the awful mess the world is in. Christians have turned a personal relationship with our Creator into an emasculated religion, confused and aimless. In the name of that religion, they have perpetrated inhumanities. Today, for fear of appearing hateful Christians are apparently willing to let a billion people live in virtual slavery, perishing in ignorance and poverty. Tolerance of evil is not a Christian virtue. They are called to be discerning."
"Third, on Jews - I love you in spite of yourselves. Fourteen centuries ago your forefathers sold Bible stories to Muhammad and then mocked him when he goofed them up. By doing so you manufactured your own enemy. Now, you are a divided people, unsure whether to appease or fight the terror you helped inspire. As the world's most lettered people, I fear that you understand less than you know. I pray that you come to trust your God before it is too late."
"Fourth, on secular humanists, liberals, and agnostics - you are guilty of the very things you denounce in others. History is as condemning of man separating himself from God as it is of man-made religions establishing themselves as intermediaries to God. The last hundred years have been especially indicting; atheistic doctrines have annihilated more people than all religions combined. Truth is not relative. Yet in today’s media, secular humanists judiciously edit under the guise of enlightenment. While irritating, this practice is particularly lethal as it relates to Islam. The errant recasting of the religion as peaceful, the reshaping of jihad into a spiritual struggle, the impression you convey that Islam is tolerant and that the terrorists have corrupted their religion, is wrong. Thousands have died in the wake of your illusions."
"Fifth, on Islam itself - without deceit and sword, Islam would have been stillborn. An infinitesimal fraction of the one billion people subservient to Islam today actually chose their fate. In Mecca, fourteen hundred years ago, after a decade of preaching, as few as fifty men chose to follow Muhammad. But that all changed in Medina. There, according to the Qur'an and Hadith, Muhammad became a political tyrant, a terrorist, and a thief. His willingness to lead seventy-five armed raids against defenseless civilians swelled his ranks as swiftly as the spoils of "war" filled his pockets."
"Equipped with booty stolen from others, Muhammad and his followers conquered and then plundered their neighbors, starting with Arabia. The only choice they offered their victims was "your money or your life." Once subjected to their will, Muslims compelled submission under penalty of death. Islam is, and has always been, a doctrine devoid of choice. It prospers at the business end of a bloody sword. Soon you will see why."
"The vast preponderance of today’s Muslims do not know their prophet or their religion very well. Theirs is a life of ignorance, despair, tyranny, and mind- numbing ritual. They are kept in the dark, purposely deceived, for the benefit of cleric and king. And there is no incentive for them to learn. Exposed to the truth, they would reject Islam, a decision that could cost them their lives. The Qur'an itself confirms this startling reality. In the 5th surah, the final revelation chronologically, Allah ordered Muslims "not to question the Qur'an," for those who did, he said, "discarded their religion." In that light, we should feel good about freeing Muslims from the oppressiveness of Islam. For by freeing them we will free ourselves from the scourge of Islamic terror."
"Despite what you've heard in the media, there is but one Islam, a singular correct view of Muhammad, Allah, and Jihad. It is the one printed in the Qur'an and Hadith. There is no independent record of Muhammad in history from which a variant view may be drawn. The Hadith and Qur'an are the sole repository of information on this man, his times, means, and mission. The Muhammad of Islam, the god of Islam, and the religion of Islam must be as these sources present them."
"Lastly, Islam has no alibi, no reason to cry, "Unfair." The Qur'an condemns all non-Muslims - Christians and Jews as well as those who worship many gods and no gods. It is an equal opportunity hater. Its attitude toward unbelieving infidels is overwhelmingly hostile. A cursory reading of the first ten surahs is sufficient to prove that the relatively few nice verses were contradicted and replaced, "abrogated" in Muslim parlance, by a staggering number of nasty ones. In fact, the Qur'an was written to justify some of the most ungodly behavior the world has ever known."
"The simple truth is: true good Muslims are bad people. Islam makes them that way. While there are plenty of "bad" Muslims who are good people, they are as impotent as bad Nazis in the Third Reich or bad Communists during Stalin's era. The Qur'an defines good and bad Muslims for us. It says a good Muslim is a Jihadist, a man who leaves his home, sacrificing his wealth and life, fighting in Allah’s Cause. Allah says they will be rewarded with stolen booty if they survive or with a heavenly bordello if they die. Bad Muslims, on the other hand, are peaceful. Allah calls them "hypocrites" because they are unwilling to fight. He even says that peaceful Muslims are "the most vile of creatures" and that hell's hottest fires await them. If you are a peace-loving Muslim, your god hates you."
"Good Muslims, those who read Islam’s scriptures long before I cracked their covers, planned, funded, staffed, executed, and celebrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11. They proudly told the world what they were going to do - terrorize Americans and Jews into submission. They boldly proclaimed why they were going to do it - for the advancement of Islam. They even told us who they were - good Muslims. But we ignored their announcements. It was as if on the morning of December 7th 1941, nobody noticed the rising sun insignias on the planes bombing Pearl Harbor. The bombers of September 11th 2001 wore insignias too. Theirs was a crescent moon."
"For those who support the politically-inspired notion that terrorism is not condoned by Islam, that terrorists have corrupted an otherwise peaceful religion, consider this. The world's foremost authority on the Qur'an is sheik Abdel Rahman. He was the senior professor of Qur'anic studies at Islam’s most prestigious university, Al-Azhar, in Cairo. Today, the sheik is a convicted terrorist, serving time in an American prison for the '93 bombing of the World Trade Center. If the Qur'an espouses peace, that's hard to explain."
"The conflict between truth and perception doesn't end there. Rahman’s disciples, an Egyptian sheik and a Saudi terrorist - Osama bin Laden - told a film crew that Islam was their motivation for the second bombing. "Everybody praises the great action which you did which was first and foremost by the grace of Allah," the sheik began. "This is the guidance of Allah and the blessed fruit of jihad... a beautiful fatwa. May Allah bless you." Bin Laden agreed. "We calculated in advance the number of the casualties the enemy would suffer, and who would be killed based upon the position of the planes as they hit the towers. I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the planes would melt the iron structure of the buildings and collapse them. This is all I had hoped for." The sheik replied, "Allah be praised." He shared how Muslims watching television "exploded with joy," telling bin Laden, "Egyptian TV ran a subtitle below the images of the crumbled buildings: 'In revenge for the children of al Aqsa, Osama bin Laden executes an operation against America.'" Bin Laden replied, "The brothers who conducted the operation knew they were on a martyrdom mission. Allah bless their souls."
"Al-Qaeda was actually accepting "credit" for a terrorist act it did not conceive. The plan was concocted, staffed, and financed in the al-Kod mosque in Hamburg, Germany. Today, the mosque's imam still preaches fundamental and uncorrupted Islam. He doesn't need to twist it, interpret it, or take it out of context. The imam's message is for all Muslims, and it is preached in every mosque. Listen as he reads verses from the 8th surah, the one I disguised earlier. These words come directly out of the Qur'an's "Spoils of War," surah: "Allah has sent you from your homes to fight for the Cause. Allah wished to confirm the truth by his words: wipe the Infidels out to the last. I shall fill the hearts of the Infidels with terror! So smite them on their necks and every joint, and incapacitate them, for they are opposed to Allah and His Apostle. Whoever opposes Us should know that Allah is severe in retribution. The Infidels will taste the torment of Hell. So when you meet them in battle do not retreat, for all who turn away from fighting will bring the wrath of Allah on themselves and their abode will be Hell. It was not you who killed them, but Allah who did so. You did not throw what you threw. Allah did to bring out the best in the faithful." Using this reasoning, it was the Islamic god, not Muslims, who flew the planes into the World Trade Center. "So, fight them till all opposition ends and Islam is the only religion."
"Now you know the truth. Allah wants infidels "wiped out and terrorized." That makes war and terror mainstream Islam. And Allah was just getting warmed up. "If you meet them in battle, inflict such a defeat as would be a lesson for those who come after them, that they may be warned. Surely the Infidels cannot get away. Prepare against them whatever arms and cavalry you can muster, that you may terrorize the enemies of Allah."
"Reading Allah’s orders out of the Qur'an's 8th surah, imams preach: "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will kill a thousand Infidels, for they are a people devoid of understanding." This is the math of terror. It is possible because infidels are ignorant of Islam. And you should know, the Qur'an defines "Infidels" in the 5th surah. "They are surely Infidels who say Christ, the Messiah is God." (5:72)
"So as not to be accused of unfairly singling out a less-than-peaceful surah from the Qur'an, listen to how Allah recruits suicide bombers in the 4th surah: "Those who barter their life in this world for the next should fight in the way of Allah; whether he is killed or victorious, a glorious reward awaits." "Urge the believers to fight...to keep back the might of the Infidels." "Seize them and kill them wherever they are." "Muslims who sit idle are not equal to those who fight in Allah’s Cause with their wealth and lives. Allah has exalted those who fight for Islam."
"The Islamic Sira proclaims: Ishaq:587 "Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."
"Need more proof? Are the deeds of the most respected Qur'anic scholar, the words of the most illustrious Islamic terrorist, and the scripture readings of the most revered imams insufficient? After all, a senior Saudi sheik said we shouldn't listen to bin Laden because he was an "unlicensed cleric." Never mind that popularity polls show bin Laden's approval rating at seventy-five percent among Muslims - much higher than any other cleric or leader."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before being overrun by Islam, the people of Malaysia and Indonesia were overwhelmingly Hindu and Buddhists. In fact what are today the ASEAN countries had one religion (a mix of Hinduism-Buddhism-Animism) and one culture till the 15th century.
The Bas Reliefs of Borobudur in Indonesia and words like Putrajaya (name of the new Malaysian Capital), Tan Sri (honorific title in Malaysia), Garuda (Indonesia’s national air carrier), and names like Megawati Sukarnoputri (Indonesia’s former President), Imam Samudra (the Bali Bomber), which have been derived from the ancient Indian (Sanskrit) language are the only reminders of the Buddhist and Hindu past of the current Muslim population of Malaysia and Indonesia. The clash of the gentle ancestors of the Malays and Indonesians with the violent Muslims is a clash of contrasts.
This is so as there is no greater contrast than that between Buddhism and Islam. While Buddhism is intrinsically and universally non-violent, Islam is a violent, cruel and murderous paranoia as we witnessed in 9/11, 7/7, 3/11 and numerous other events in recent history. The 14 century long history of Islam has been equally violent and bloodied and cruel.
When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story.
The Myth of Islamic Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence.
Posted by Rich Trzupek on Jan 22nd, 2010 and filed under FrontPage.
Everyone agrees that the word “Allah” pre-dates the birth of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In Malaysia, as in most of the Muslim of the world, Allah simply means God, the same God that, according to the Quran itself, both Christians and Jews worship. Nonetheless, use of the word Allah among non-Muslims has long been prohibited by law in Malaysia. A December 31 ruling by a Malaysian court overturned that law, a move that upset many of the nation’s Muslims, who make up about sixty per cent of the populace. They claim that non-Muslims will use the word to corrupt Muslims into accepting infidel beliefs.
Once again, we are presented with evidence of Islamic intolerance and insecurity. To his credit, Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib condemned the attacks, which undermine both his “One Malaysia” policy and his re-election prospects. But no matter how much tolerance the leader of this nation may preach, the actions of his co-religionists speak much louder. Emboldened by an increasingly aggressive, violent, world-wide Islamic resurgence over the last few decades, this episode reveals what expatriates who have lived in Malaysia have long claimed: that the supposed harmony of Malaysia is nothing but a glossy veneer that barely covers up the inequities and prejudices of this society.
The Malaysian constitution grants special privileges to the bumiputra, or as they are called in the constitution, Malays. Malays are defined as those citizens who profess the religion of Islam, habitually speak the Malay language and conform to Malay customs. The constitution directs the King of Malaysia (Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy) to safeguard the special position of the Malays and to ensure that a certain percentage of public services and scholarships and other similar educational privileges are reserved by the federal government for the benefit of Malays
"At last count, eleven Christian churches and one Sikh temple have been attacked in Malaysia. That makes twelve attacks against places of worship in half a month’s time. What does it say about Islamic values when the impetus for these attacks was the use of a particular word?"
"First, I love you in spite of your beliefs and deeds. I would like nothing more than to free you from Islam. I agree with Renan, the famed scholar, who, after dedicating himself to understanding Islamic scripture, wrote: "Muslims were the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain others in the practice of this religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him."
"Second, on Christians, you are responsible for the awful mess the world is in. Christians have turned a personal relationship with our Creator into an emasculated religion, confused and aimless. In the name of that religion, they have perpetrated inhumanities. Today, for fear of appearing hateful Christians are apparently willing to let a billion people live in virtual slavery, perishing in ignorance and poverty. Tolerance of evil is not a Christian virtue. They are called to be discerning."
"Third, on Jews - I love you in spite of yourselves. Fourteen centuries ago your forefathers sold Bible stories to Muhammad and then mocked him when he goofed them up. By doing so you manufactured your own enemy. Now, you are a divided people, unsure whether to appease or fight the terror you helped inspire. As the world's most lettered people, I fear that you understand less than you know. I pray that you come to trust your God before it is too late."
"Fourth, on secular humanists, liberals, and agnostics - you are guilty of the very things you denounce in others. History is as condemning of man separating himself from God as it is of man-made religions establishing themselves as intermediaries to God. The last hundred years have been especially indicting; atheistic doctrines have annihilated more people than all religions combined. Truth is not relative. Yet in today’s media, secular humanists judiciously edit under the guise of enlightenment. While irritating, this practice is particularly lethal as it relates to Islam. The errant recasting of the religion as peaceful, the reshaping of jihad into a spiritual struggle, the impression you convey that Islam is tolerant and that the terrorists have corrupted their religion, is wrong. Thousands have died in the wake of your illusions."
"Fifth, on Islam itself - without deceit and sword, Islam would have been stillborn. An infinitesimal fraction of the one billion people subservient to Islam today actually chose their fate. In Mecca, fourteen hundred years ago, after a decade of preaching, as few as fifty men chose to follow Muhammad. But that all changed in Medina. There, according to the Qur'an and Hadith, Muhammad became a political tyrant, a terrorist, and a thief. His willingness to lead seventy-five armed raids against defenseless civilians swelled his ranks as swiftly as the spoils of "war" filled his pockets."
"Equipped with booty stolen from others, Muhammad and his followers conquered and then plundered their neighbors, starting with Arabia. The only choice they offered their victims was "your money or your life." Once subjected to their will, Muslims compelled submission under penalty of death. Islam is, and has always been, a doctrine devoid of choice. It prospers at the business end of a bloody sword. Soon you will see why."
"The vast preponderance of today’s Muslims do not know their prophet or their religion very well. Theirs is a life of ignorance, despair, tyranny, and mind- numbing ritual. They are kept in the dark, purposely deceived, for the benefit of cleric and king. And there is no incentive for them to learn. Exposed to the truth, they would reject Islam, a decision that could cost them their lives. The Qur'an itself confirms this startling reality. In the 5th surah, the final revelation chronologically, Allah ordered Muslims "not to question the Qur'an," for those who did, he said, "discarded their religion." In that light, we should feel good about freeing Muslims from the oppressiveness of Islam. For by freeing them we will free ourselves from the scourge of Islamic terror."
"Despite what you've heard in the media, there is but one Islam, a singular correct view of Muhammad, Allah, and Jihad. It is the one printed in the Qur'an and Hadith. There is no independent record of Muhammad in history from which a variant view may be drawn. The Hadith and Qur'an are the sole repository of information on this man, his times, means, and mission. The Muhammad of Islam, the god of Islam, and the religion of Islam must be as these sources present them."
"Lastly, Islam has no alibi, no reason to cry, "Unfair." The Qur'an condemns all non-Muslims - Christians and Jews as well as those who worship many gods and no gods. It is an equal opportunity hater. Its attitude toward unbelieving infidels is overwhelmingly hostile. A cursory reading of the first ten surahs is sufficient to prove that the relatively few nice verses were contradicted and replaced, "abrogated" in Muslim parlance, by a staggering number of nasty ones. In fact, the Qur'an was written to justify some of the most ungodly behavior the world has ever known."
"The simple truth is: true good Muslims are bad people. Islam makes them that way. While there are plenty of "bad" Muslims who are good people, they are as impotent as bad Nazis in the Third Reich or bad Communists during Stalin's era. The Qur'an defines good and bad Muslims for us. It says a good Muslim is a Jihadist, a man who leaves his home, sacrificing his wealth and life, fighting in Allah’s Cause. Allah says they will be rewarded with stolen booty if they survive or with a heavenly bordello if they die. Bad Muslims, on the other hand, are peaceful. Allah calls them "hypocrites" because they are unwilling to fight. He even says that peaceful Muslims are "the most vile of creatures" and that hell's hottest fires await them. If you are a peace-loving Muslim, your god hates you."
"Good Muslims, those who read Islam’s scriptures long before I cracked their covers, planned, funded, staffed, executed, and celebrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11. They proudly told the world what they were going to do - terrorize Americans and Jews into submission. They boldly proclaimed why they were going to do it - for the advancement of Islam. They even told us who they were - good Muslims. But we ignored their announcements. It was as if on the morning of December 7th 1941, nobody noticed the rising sun insignias on the planes bombing Pearl Harbor. The bombers of September 11th 2001 wore insignias too. Theirs was a crescent moon."
"For those who support the politically-inspired notion that terrorism is not condoned by Islam, that terrorists have corrupted an otherwise peaceful religion, consider this. The world's foremost authority on the Qur'an is sheik Abdel Rahman. He was the senior professor of Qur'anic studies at Islam’s most prestigious university, Al-Azhar, in Cairo. Today, the sheik is a convicted terrorist, serving time in an American prison for the '93 bombing of the World Trade Center. If the Qur'an espouses peace, that's hard to explain."
"The conflict between truth and perception doesn't end there. Rahman’s disciples, an Egyptian sheik and a Saudi terrorist - Osama bin Laden - told a film crew that Islam was their motivation for the second bombing. "Everybody praises the great action which you did which was first and foremost by the grace of Allah," the sheik began. "This is the guidance of Allah and the blessed fruit of jihad... a beautiful fatwa. May Allah bless you." Bin Laden agreed. "We calculated in advance the number of the casualties the enemy would suffer, and who would be killed based upon the position of the planes as they hit the towers. I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the planes would melt the iron structure of the buildings and collapse them. This is all I had hoped for." The sheik replied, "Allah be praised." He shared how Muslims watching television "exploded with joy," telling bin Laden, "Egyptian TV ran a subtitle below the images of the crumbled buildings: 'In revenge for the children of al Aqsa, Osama bin Laden executes an operation against America.'" Bin Laden replied, "The brothers who conducted the operation knew they were on a martyrdom mission. Allah bless their souls."
"Al-Qaeda was actually accepting "credit" for a terrorist act it did not conceive. The plan was concocted, staffed, and financed in the al-Kod mosque in Hamburg, Germany. Today, the mosque's imam still preaches fundamental and uncorrupted Islam. He doesn't need to twist it, interpret it, or take it out of context. The imam's message is for all Muslims, and it is preached in every mosque. Listen as he reads verses from the 8th surah, the one I disguised earlier. These words come directly out of the Qur'an's "Spoils of War," surah: "Allah has sent you from your homes to fight for the Cause. Allah wished to confirm the truth by his words: wipe the Infidels out to the last. I shall fill the hearts of the Infidels with terror! So smite them on their necks and every joint, and incapacitate them, for they are opposed to Allah and His Apostle. Whoever opposes Us should know that Allah is severe in retribution. The Infidels will taste the torment of Hell. So when you meet them in battle do not retreat, for all who turn away from fighting will bring the wrath of Allah on themselves and their abode will be Hell. It was not you who killed them, but Allah who did so. You did not throw what you threw. Allah did to bring out the best in the faithful." Using this reasoning, it was the Islamic god, not Muslims, who flew the planes into the World Trade Center. "So, fight them till all opposition ends and Islam is the only religion."
"Now you know the truth. Allah wants infidels "wiped out and terrorized." That makes war and terror mainstream Islam. And Allah was just getting warmed up. "If you meet them in battle, inflict such a defeat as would be a lesson for those who come after them, that they may be warned. Surely the Infidels cannot get away. Prepare against them whatever arms and cavalry you can muster, that you may terrorize the enemies of Allah."
"Reading Allah’s orders out of the Qur'an's 8th surah, imams preach: "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will kill a thousand Infidels, for they are a people devoid of understanding." This is the math of terror. It is possible because infidels are ignorant of Islam. And you should know, the Qur'an defines "Infidels" in the 5th surah. "They are surely Infidels who say Christ, the Messiah is God." (5:72)
"So as not to be accused of unfairly singling out a less-than-peaceful surah from the Qur'an, listen to how Allah recruits suicide bombers in the 4th surah: "Those who barter their life in this world for the next should fight in the way of Allah; whether he is killed or victorious, a glorious reward awaits." "Urge the believers to fight...to keep back the might of the Infidels." "Seize them and kill them wherever they are." "Muslims who sit idle are not equal to those who fight in Allah’s Cause with their wealth and lives. Allah has exalted those who fight for Islam."
"The Islamic Sira proclaims: Ishaq:587 "Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."
"Need more proof? Are the deeds of the most respected Qur'anic scholar, the words of the most illustrious Islamic terrorist, and the scripture readings of the most revered imams insufficient? After all, a senior Saudi sheik said we shouldn't listen to bin Laden because he was an "unlicensed cleric." Never mind that popularity polls show bin Laden's approval rating at seventy-five percent among Muslims - much higher than any other cleric or leader."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before being overrun by Islam, the people of Malaysia and Indonesia were overwhelmingly Hindu and Buddhists. In fact what are today the ASEAN countries had one religion (a mix of Hinduism-Buddhism-Animism) and one culture till the 15th century.
The Bas Reliefs of Borobudur in Indonesia and words like Putrajaya (name of the new Malaysian Capital), Tan Sri (honorific title in Malaysia), Garuda (Indonesia’s national air carrier), and names like Megawati Sukarnoputri (Indonesia’s former President), Imam Samudra (the Bali Bomber), which have been derived from the ancient Indian (Sanskrit) language are the only reminders of the Buddhist and Hindu past of the current Muslim population of Malaysia and Indonesia. The clash of the gentle ancestors of the Malays and Indonesians with the violent Muslims is a clash of contrasts.
This is so as there is no greater contrast than that between Buddhism and Islam. While Buddhism is intrinsically and universally non-violent, Islam is a violent, cruel and murderous paranoia as we witnessed in 9/11, 7/7, 3/11 and numerous other events in recent history. The 14 century long history of Islam has been equally violent and bloodied and cruel.
When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story.
The Myth of Islamic Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence.
Posted by Rich Trzupek on Jan 22nd, 2010 and filed under FrontPage.
Everyone agrees that the word “Allah” pre-dates the birth of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In Malaysia, as in most of the Muslim of the world, Allah simply means God, the same God that, according to the Quran itself, both Christians and Jews worship. Nonetheless, use of the word Allah among non-Muslims has long been prohibited by law in Malaysia. A December 31 ruling by a Malaysian court overturned that law, a move that upset many of the nation’s Muslims, who make up about sixty per cent of the populace. They claim that non-Muslims will use the word to corrupt Muslims into accepting infidel beliefs.
Once again, we are presented with evidence of Islamic intolerance and insecurity. To his credit, Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib condemned the attacks, which undermine both his “One Malaysia” policy and his re-election prospects. But no matter how much tolerance the leader of this nation may preach, the actions of his co-religionists speak much louder. Emboldened by an increasingly aggressive, violent, world-wide Islamic resurgence over the last few decades, this episode reveals what expatriates who have lived in Malaysia have long claimed: that the supposed harmony of Malaysia is nothing but a glossy veneer that barely covers up the inequities and prejudices of this society.
The Malaysian constitution grants special privileges to the bumiputra, or as they are called in the constitution, Malays. Malays are defined as those citizens who profess the religion of Islam, habitually speak the Malay language and conform to Malay customs. The constitution directs the King of Malaysia (Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy) to safeguard the special position of the Malays and to ensure that a certain percentage of public services and scholarships and other similar educational privileges are reserved by the federal government for the benefit of Malays
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Religion of Hitler, And Muhammad.
Small gods need religions to exist, without people they are nothing. What need would the Creator of our matrix have of the vain actions of men? One can also see there is a world of difference between the gods who the Buddha said there were, and also communicated with and the gods believed in and propitiated by the world. While the gods of popular acceptance have the power to help or harm man, they are believed to possess specific powers and abilities.
Unless they are kept in good humour by proper attendance, it is believed that man can end up in real disaster. The gods in the Buddhist conception are merely a class of non-visible beings who have no power or influence over man or the world. Professor Marasinghe’s timely research raises many serious questions for those who have made Ritual Buddhism a mere second class Hinduism adopting any and all rites and rituals totally disregarding the clear teachings of the Buddha.
As for the politics of the Roman religion, it is still as dangerous as it was 70 years ago.
"The denial of the Bible being the source of intolerance has led to some extraordinary hypotheses being posited to explain Hitler's genocide. It has been easier to blame a German character flaw, or the character of Hitler, as the causal agent, rather than admit that this act of evil was perpetrated in executing the commands of the Bible. The old testament however is a call for religious intolerance; a call to maintain racial purity; a call to maintain both religious and racial purity by genocide. According to the Bible we humans are created in the image of God: HItler made it explicitly clear that his racial beliefs were based on the idea that man was created in the image of god, and it was this divine image he maintained that was being desecrated contrary to the edicts of the Bible:"
"...there is only one holiest human right... the holiest obligation... to see to it that the blood is preserved pure... by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape..." pp. 365-366 Mein Kampf
"...the admonition to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of
racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself
Created [is the goal]." p. 369 Mein Kampf
Hitler even acknowledged that the basis of his own intolerance was Judaic:
"Christianity ... was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction
of heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form...
The objection may very well be raised that such phenomena in world
history arise from the most part from specifically Jewish modes of thought, in
fact , that this type of intolerance and fanaticism positively embodies the
Jewish nature... we may deeply regret this fact and establish with justifiable
loathing that its appearance in the history of mankind is something that was
previously alien to history..." Mein Kampf pp. 412-413
"What Hitler wrote in this passage is that although Jewish in origin, Christian intolerance is a cause that the Germans must now take up, and that intolerance is a holy duty. What he is referring to is: Ezra 9.1-2; Ezra 10; and the means by which this can be accomplished is slaughter: eg Deuteronomy 20.14-18.
However, it remains to be explained why the Christian Germans came to see themselves as replacing the Jews as the "holy race". The answer can be found in Ecclesiasticus, from the Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus purports to explain how one people might one day replace another as god's chosen "holy race":"
10:8. "A kingdom is translated from one people to another, because of injustices, and wrongs, and injuries, and deceits."
( full text can be found on-line: http://www.tldm.org/bible/Old%20Testament/eccltus.htm )
This meant for Christians that they and not the Jews were now the holy people. Hitler's was not a new idea. With Christians believing that they had replaced the Jews as the "holy race" the Old Testament edicts demanding complete intolerance of those who worship other gods could now be enforced against Jews. Persecution of Jews has been a manifestation of Christianity throughout its existence and is based on the belief that Christians were now god's chosen people. Hitler was not an aberration of European Christian sentiment, but a shameful European Christian continuation of past European Christian intolerance. Accordinly Hitler wrote in the Mein Kampf:
"...I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Mein Kampf p.60
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Heil Hitler, Heil Muhammad
by Sujit Das
02 Jun, 2008
"The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from it." -- Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
During the Third Reich (from 1933 to 1945, the prime time of the Nazis in Germany), it was a strict law to greet the Fuehrer with 'Heil Hitler'. People were put into concentration camps if they refused to use this greeting (Schirrmacher, 1992). 'Heil' is the German word for 'salvation', which is extensively used in the German Bible translations. 'Salvation Hitler' or 'Salvation through Hitler' was the message that almost every German daily preached to others. Hitler addressed to his fellowship, “Workers, you must look upon me as your guarantor.” (Hitler’s speech: December 10, 1940. Berlin). The message was clear: everybody should accept that Hitler is the salvation for Germany and for the world.
Like the Nazis, it’s the central belief of the Muslim faith that salvation is not possible without Muhammad’s intercession with Allah. On judgment day, all humankind will go from one prophet to the next to ask for intercession, but all prophets from Adam to Jesus will refuse to accept this role because of their unworthiness. Ultimately, Muhammad, the great prophet of Islam; like, Adolf Hitler, the great prophet of Nazis; will accept the role of intercessor and will successfully lead his followers into paradise. As the Urdu poet, Mir Taqi Mir (cited Geisler & Saleeb, 1993, p. 88) wrote, “Why do you worry, O Mir, thinking of your black book? The person of the seal of the prophets is a guarantee for your salvation.” Muhammad was so great that even Allah showered praises on him and saluted him (Qur’an 33: 56). If Muhammad had not been, Allah himself would not have existed.
Islam is not concerned with the relationship with God and man in this world and since salvation is not possible without Muhammad; therefore, logically the most honorable way to greet Muhammad is ‘Heil Muhammad’ like Hitler preferred during his heydays. There are so many uncanny similarities between these two tyrants that if Muhammad had been contemporary to Hitler; the present author surely would have concluded that they were twin brothers of different looks, separated at birth. Both the tyrants were cut out from the same cloth. They had identical mindset, similar motives and acted in the same manner to achieve power, as we will see in the rest of this article.
A Nazi-chief and a blind follower of Hitler had declared openly (cited Dawkins, 2006. p. 277-8),
Adolf Hitler! We are united with you alone! We want to renew our vow in this hour: on this earth we believe only in Adolf Hitler. We believe that the National Socialism is the sole saving faith for our people. We believe that there is a Lord God in the heaven, who created us, who leads us, who directs us and who blesses us visibly. And we believe that this Lord God sent Adolf Hitler to us, so that Germany might become a foundation for all eternity.
National Socialism is another name of Nazism. The Nazis never hid the religious character of their actions, as seen in the following official Nazi statement (cited Schirrmacher, 1992),
National Socialism is a religion, born out of blood and race, not a political world-view. It is the new, alone true religion, born out of a Nordic spirit and an Aric [Aryan] soul. The religions still existing must disappear as soon as possible. If they do not dissolve themselves the state has to destroy them.
Nazism and communism are thoroughly beaten, and any further upheaval is impossible but with that barbarism and brutality had not been defeated yet. We should not close our eyes to the fact that these hateful ideas achieved something like a victory in defeat and reappeared again with a new name. Let’s make some small changes; only six words are replaced by new words and the above two paragraphs look like this.
Muhammad! We are united with you alone! We want to renew our vow in this hour: on this earth we believe only in Muhammad. We believe that the Islam is the sole saving faith for our people. We believe that there is an Allah in the heaven, who created us, who leads us, who directs us and who blesses us visibly. And we believe that this Allah sent Muhammad to us, so that Arabia might become a foundation for all eternity.
And,
Islam is a religion, born out of blood and race, not a political world-view. It is the new, alone true religion, born out of a Bedouin spirit and an Arabian soul. The religions still existing must disappear as soon as possible. If they do not dissolve themselves the state has to destroy them.
Throughout the Human history only these two tyrants ever had ordered the ethnic cleansing of the Jews, “Kill every Jew” (Winn, 2004. p. 369). We can call it either Nazi mindset of Islam or Islamic mindset of Nazi; the core meaning remains same. Both of them had set out to kill people not for what they did but for who they were and had a firm belief at the cause. A million Jews children were destined to concentration camps only because they existed as Jews. This is the mindset of psychopaths. There are many strange similarities between Muhammad’s teachings, Hitler’s speeches and the two equally lethal doctrines, the Mein Kamph and the Qur’an. The Nazi Party was a ruthless murder machine, so is Islam. Few examples are as follows.
“Jews are vampires who must die sooner or later.” (Mein Kampf. P. 450)
“Witness the ‘Juda verrecke’ (Jews must be destroyed) outcry in which our youth organizations have taken up.” (Mein Kampf, p. 414)
“Just issue orders to kill every Jew in the country.” (Bukhari:1.1.6)
Terrorism was an integral part of Nazism so in Islam. Both Mein Kampf and Qur’an glorified terrorism. Both the tyrants connected butchery with their cults.
“With religious conviction…the bearers of the new doctrine must declare themselves ready and willing to fight.” (Mein Kampf, p. 127)
“I [Allah] shall cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. Strike them above the necks, smite their finger tips”. (Qur’an 8.12)
“Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills.” (Hitler’s speech: April 13, 1923. Munich).
“These [terror] tactics are based on an exact calculation of all human weaknesses. They will lead to success with mathematical certainty unless the other side learns to fight poison gas with poison gas.” (Mein Kampf. P. 58)
“Therefore, when you meet the unbelievers smite their necks…” (Qur’an, 47.4)
“The importance of physical terror against the individual and the masses also became clear to me.” (Mein Kampf. P. 58)
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror.’” (Bukhari: 4.52.220)
“I want war. To me all means will be right. My motto is 'Destroy him [enemy] by all and any means.' I am the one who will wage the war!” (cited Snyder, 1961, p. 66).
“The battle cry of Muhammad’s Companions was, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’” (Tabari VIII: 141)
Both the psychopaths preached hate. There is no reward for loving humanity as a whole. The Godly words ‘love’ and ‘brotherhood’ were unknown to them.
“If a people is to become free it needs pride and will-power, defiance, hate, hate, and once again hate....”(Hitler’s speech: April 10, 1923. Munich)
“The worst beasts in Allah's sight are the disbelievers.” (Qur’an: 8.55)
“… you [Muslims] have more right to hate them [Jews] than they have to hate you.” (Ishaq, p. 262)
“Let not the believers take unbelievers for friends or helpers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah.” (Qur’an: 3.28)
Both proclaimed their divine right to slaughter in God’s name, but at the same time pretended themselves to be peaceful in nature. Hitler, the cold-blooded murderer of six million Jews swore by God’s name that he wanted peace. Muhammad, who beheaded nine hundred Jews of Qurayza tribe in a single day and enslaved their women, children and confiscated their property, took help of Allah’s revelation to justify the massacre. Even today, Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, who harbors the dream of nuking Israel, is reported to have said "We want peace for all mankind" (Ghamidi et. al, 2007. p. 256). Khomeini ordered the massacre of more than three thousand dissident boys and girls of Iran saying that he would respond to God for the butchery (Sina, 2007). It’s a disgrace to call Allah a God and Islam a religion.
“… we have the right to murder 400,000 to 500,000 people in the Nazi Revolution!” (Hitler’s speech: January 30, 1937 Berlin, Reichstag).
“God knows that I wanted peace.” (Hitler’s speech: May 4, 1941. Berlin, Reichstag)
“The judgment whether a people is virtuous or not virtuous can hardly be passed by a human being. That should be left to God”. (Hitler’s speech: April 1, 1939; Wilhelmshaven)
“It is not ye who slew them; it is God; when thou threwest a handful of dust, it was not thy act, but God’s…..” (the killing of surrendered men of Qurayza tribe were done by the wish of Allah). (Qur’an, 8:17)
“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work”. (Hitler’s speech: 1936, Reichstag)
“I do not desire war, but when it is forced upon me I shall wage it as long as I have breath in my body.” (Hitler’s speech: December 10. 1940. Berlin)
Both of them demanded unquestionable loyalty from their followers.
“They can have no Faith, until they make you (Muhammad) judge in all disputes, and find in their souls no resistance against your decisions, accepting them with complete submission.” (Qur’an 4:65)
“No Muslim has any choice after Allah and His Apostle have decided a matter.” (Qur’an 33:36)
“If in the future you continue to stand behind me as one man, in loyalty and obedience, no power in the world will be able to destroy this Movement. It will continue its victorious course. If you preserve the same discipline, the same obedience, the same comradeship and the same unbounded loyalty in the future - then nothing will ever extinguish this Movement in Germany”. (Hitler’s speech: April 08, 1933. Berlin, Sportpalast)
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Whoever obeys me will enter Paradise, and whoever disobeys me will not enter it.’”(Bukhari: 9.92.384)
“We used to take oaths to Muhammad that we would listen to and obey his orders.” (Muslim: 22.20.4604)
“We have in our Movement developed this loyalty in following the leader, this blind obedience of which all the others know nothing and which gave to us the power to surmount everything”. (Hitler’s speech: April 08, 1933. Berlin, Sportpalast)
Both the psychopaths glorified martyrdom and were happiest when their followers were dying for them.
“And now on foreign soil National Socialism has gained its first conscious martyr - a man who did nothing save to enter the lists for Germany which is not only his sacred right but his duty in this world: a man who did nothing save remember his homeland and pledge himself to her in loyalty”. (Hitler’s speech: February 12, 1936. Schwerin, Gustloff's funeral)
“Unless you stake your life, never will life be won. The sacrifice of one’s existence is the most essential supposition for the formation and preservation of a State with the necessary feeling of homogeneity. The readiness to risk one’s life for this with all means possible, is something that will lead to the creation of heroic virtues.” (Mein Kampf, p.198)
“For those who fought and were killed in My Cause, I shall blot out their sins and admit them indeed to Paradise.” (Qur’an: 3.195)
Neither of them wanted peaceful co-existence with others.
“There are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew”. (Hitler’s speech: April 12, 1922. Munich)
“[Muhammad’s last wish] Expel disbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula.” (Bukhari: 4.52.288)
“The Messenger said, ‘Two religions cannot coexist in the Arabian Peninsula.’ Umar investigated the matter, then sent to the Jews, saying: ‘Allah has given permission for you to be expelled.” (Tabari VIII:130).
“The whole world of nature is a mighty struggle between strength and weakness - an eternal victory of the strong over the weak.”(Hitler’s speech: April 13, 1923. Munich)
Liberty, freedom of speech and democracy were not recognized in Nazism so in Islam. They were created to serve one man. As Hurgronje wrote, “Islam has never favoured Democratic tendencies”. As King Faud of Saudi Arabia quoted, “The democratic system that is predominant in the world is not a suitable system for the peoples of our region…The system of free election is not suitable to our country.” (cited Warraq, 1995. p. 172). The core message of Islam is to obey Muhammad and fight and die for his cause. Qur’an is a morally and spiritually bankrupt doctrine and Muhammad knew that his holy book would never withstand the scrutiny of a free society.
“Freedom of the press is a nuisance that allows unpunishable lies to poison the people.” (Mein Kampf, p. 335)
“Profane liberty with these words, ‘If you don’t join with us, we will crack your skull!’” (Mein Kampf, p. 65)
“The Prophet said, ‘A Muslim has to listen to and obey the order of his ruler whether he likes it or not.’” [There will never be a stable Islamic democracy.](Bukhari: 9.89.258)
“Democracy is a universal plague. It creates a monstrosity of filth and fire. Fate showed me how ridiculous a parliament is as an institution.” (Mein Kampf, p. 99)
“The invention of democracy is a crying shame…. A majority can never replace the Man.” (Mein Kampf. P. 104).
“Democracy shuns sunlight.” (Mein Kampf, p. 116)
“You of [the Islamic] Faith, say not (to the Prophet) words of ambiguous import like ‘Listen to us,’ but words of respect; and obey (him): To those who don’t submit there is a grievous punishment.” (Qur'an: 2.104).
“The mass of people are not sufficiently developed to arrive at a political opinion by themselves and thus are not suited to select the leader.” (Mein Kampf, p. 107)
Both of them were self appointed guardian of their Nations. Hitler’s idea of Arian supremacy matches well with Muhammad’s idea of Arab Supremacy.
“I know that the whole German nation is behind me. I am the guardian of its future and I act accordingly.”(Hitler’s speech: December 10, 1940. Berlin)
“O Prophet! We have sent you as a guardian of the illiterates [Arabs]” (Bukhari, 3.34.335)
“The Prophet said, ‘I will not intercede for those or love them who are not fair with the Arabs.’” (Tirmizi, Vol. 2. p. 840)
Qur’an was never meant for non-Muslims to read. Similarly Mein Kampf was not for outsiders.
“With this work I do not address myself to strangers, but to those adherents of the movement who belong to it with their hearts and whose reason now seeks a more intimate enlightenment.” (Mein Kampf: Preface)
“Allah’s Apostle forbade the people to travel to a hostile country carrying copies of the Qur’an. Unbelievers will never understand our signs and revelations.” (Bukhari: 4.52.233)
Both the tyrants viewed economical growth in the same way. The Islamic economy and domination was based upon piracy and militancy and ravaging other’s economy. Even today peaceful economic policy is discouraged. Khomeini once said (Fara et. al, 1996, p. 69) “Economics is a preoccupation of donkeys”. With this type of attitude, how Iran’s national economy is expected to come up?
“Allah made booty lawful for them.” (Tabari VII:81)
“No economic policy is possible without a sword.” (Hitler’s speech: April 10 1923. Munich)
“So enjoy what you took as booty; the spoils are lawful and good.” (Qur’an: 8.069)
“The talk of ‘peaceful economic conquest’ of the world is the greatest folly that has ever been perpetrated. It is nonsense….Weapons are required for success. Mercenaries can be used but a nation must dip into its most valuable blood and make sacrifices to bring about victory.” (Mein Kampf, p. 188).
Both Hitler and Muhammad realized that thorough brainwashing is required from the early childhood days to erode their consciences and to poison their minds. In Cologne, the children receiving meals from the Nazi state during the Second World War had to pray before the meal, “Fold your hands, bow your head and think about Adolf Hitler. He gives us our daily bread and helps us out of every misery” (Schirrmacher, 1992). Similarly, as per Sunan Abu Dawud: 2.0495, Muhammad advised, “Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately”. This is how evil dominates all aspects of Muslim society.
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) from Landsberg on the Lech prison in 1924 in two volumes of about one thousand pages in total. It was written about thirteen centuries after Qur’an was written. But the strange similarities between these two doctrines lead the present author to one obvious question – Was Hitler influenced by Muhammad and Islam? In this article only a few similarities are mentioned, but Craig Winn, in his excellent e-book ‘Prophet of doom’ had recorded hundreds such similarities (Winn, 2004). From his scholarly observation, it is very clear that apart from time and place Islam and Nazism are almost indistinguishable and are different sides of the same coin. The only difference is that Hitler had a vastly superior intellect and was a better writer than were either Muhammad or his Allah.
The translators of Mein Kampf said, “Hitler attempted to make himself the ‘prophet’ of the new German religion…. He believed that if a new ‘myth’ could be created and propagated as stubbornly, it would give Germans a new faith which the masses would cherish as tenaciously as they previously followed Christianity.” So Nazism was a replacement or substitute religion of Christianity. But Islam is also a weak imitation of Christianity and Judaism. As per Carlyle (cited Warraq, 1995, p. 23), Islam is a confused form of Christianity, a bastard kind of Christianity, shorn of its absurd details. It is logical to conclude that Hitler was highly influenced by Islamic scriptures.
All the public speeches, Mein Kampf and Islamic scriptures reveal the full flavor of the respective author’s mind and expose their motivations. None of the psychopaths ever valued human lives. Both had suffered unhappy childhoods and their murderous behavior didn’t begin until they were halfway through their careers. They had the same opinion about common people. Hitler wrote, “I saw the world in three groups: the fighters, the lukewarm, and the traitors.” (Mein Kampf. P. 16). Muhammad saw the Arabs as either good fighters in his cause, useless hypocrites, or enemy infidels. Both Nazism and Islam are rigid, intolerant, born in blood, and progressed by brutal force. Both Muhammad and Hitler succeeded in seducing a sufficient number of rebels into submission to terrorize the world. Both the psychopaths poisoned their victims with their doctrines and speeches, which turned good men bad. The followers behaved exactly like their leaders.
The last time we were ignorant of such a hateful and violent doctrine, the world paid a horrible price, as Hitler led to the holocaust and to the brutal death of fifty-five million people in Second World War. This is the devastating consequence of the world’s ignorance and tolerance of Mein Kampf which is still vivid in our memory. Today humanity is passing through another worse phase of life. Our history speaks of many wars that have been fought in the past, but the third and the final war of the era would be the most decisive and most horrible one without a parallel. Today a synthesis of Nazism and modern technology will claim billions of innocent lives.
We must shed our ignorance and tolerance, and remove the mask of religiosity from Islam so that we might defend ourselves from its racial hatred and intolerance, its desire to wipe out the non-Muslims out to the last. Islam is Nazism revisited with a new name and claimed its religious status by creating a dummy God Allah, which is a mockery of real God. Islam does not deserve the unwarranted protection it is granted vis-Ã -vis its religious status. These new Nazis have unlimited financial resources (oil-money), nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and countless number of Human bombs. This new Nazism needs to be exposed and the new Nazis need to be dealt with iron fist if we want to survive.
Probably we can take some lesson from the Israelis. Almost every Muslim overwhelmingly wants Israel annihilated, along with all the Jews. The Jews, meanwhile, only want to live with dignity. There are many examples in history where Jews lived in relative harmony over hundreds of years with others with mutual trust and respect and in total absence of any conflict. No wise man can regard Jews as an enemy, but as a blessing to the neighborhood. Living in peace and harmony is the ‘mantra’ of the Jews, but their fate is such that every war Israel has fought, since returning to her land, has only set the stage for the next war. There is a vast difference between Islam and Jewish beliefs. Islam was forced upon people but Judaism strongly opposes forced conversions. The Hebrew Bible prohibits killing in the Ten Commandments and completely rejects and deplores suicide. The Old Testament Torah delineates the Land of Israel where the Jewish people lived. Jews do not seek expansion beyond the land of Israel. Israel has withdrawn its army from territories captured after each war. But Judaism also states that "If one comes to slay you, slay him first" (from Talmudic Tractate Brachos 58, a sacred text of Judaism). We should deal with present day Nazism in the same manner.
Good citizens may reform governments but ultimately our own survival depends on us – our actions and inactions. As long as we realize this, freedom will survive and our children will live in a free world. The world is what we make it, or what we fail to make it. This is what we can learn from the tiny minority of Jews. They are the frontline fighters against Islamic evil force that threatens to throw the humanity back to the darkest days of barbaric cultures. Jews are fighting not for their own freedom but for the freedom of the whole Human race. Freedom is a continuing struggle, won one moment at a time. There are many who would take it from you, but no one who can give it to you. Today the Humankind is facing an enemy, which is more blood trusty than Nazi party. No amount of land concessions and foreign aid will appease these fanatics. No amount of revisionist history will also pacify them. Only death and destruction of all infidels will quench the beast's appetite for blood and power. How pathetic it is that a superpower like the USA, in spite of showering billions of dollars in the Muslim-world's oppressed and poverty stricken people, cannot win their gratitude. The great Ummah will always view America as ‘a great Satan’. What about Bangladeshis, Sudanese and Egyptians; whose daily bread and butter mostly come from foreign aid? Do they think twice before chanting ‘death to America’?
Probably it is too late and the signs of the Third World War are already on the horizon. Maybe the doomsday clock already began to tick. Several Muslim nations are in mad nuclear arm race while millions of their own people are dying of starvation, disease and civil war. Pakistani nuclear scientist Q. A. Khan had already had done his Islamic duty by selling nuclear secrets to Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea. During April 2006, Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, announced on national TV that his country had enriched uranium to a level required for nuclear fuel. There are reports that Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Turkey are also not far behind (Morgan, 2007). Also the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the possibility that former Soviet nuclear weapons might become available on the black market, which is a lure to the terrorists.
Nazis had put their blind trust on Hitler for salvation. History had recorded that; Hitler had given the Germans meaningless death, destruction and humiliation in return instead of salvation. After the defeat of the Nazis, the whole German nation was put to shame when they were held responsible for the actions of the Nazi regime, often using the terms "collective guilt", and "collective responsibility” (Wikipedia, 2008). Even today the Germans are often scorned by elderly people who were alive to experience the atrocities committed by Nazi Germans during Second World War.
What a tragedy, the Nazi leader who was a “guarantor” of salvation, had to commit suicide to escape capture by the opposition. Most of the fellow Nazis were haunted down and died a dog’s death. Many were put to forced manual labor for rest of their lives. But millions of people lost their lives before Germans wake up with the fact that Hitler was a narcissist, a liar, a madman and a psychopath who had fed them with lies and had driven them to devastation. A leaflet published during 1942 recorded, “Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan.” (The White Rose Society, 1942)
With Third World War, the history will repeat itself. History often repeats itself because, as Radhakrishnan (1970, p. 125) quoted, “The only lesson history teaches us is that we learn nothing from history”. Muslims had already sold their soul to Muhammad and put their blind trust on him for salvation and an entry to paradise in the same way the Germans had put their trust on Hitler. Though the infidel world will face the biggest onslaught in the history of mankind but the Muslim world will be completely destroyed and Islam will be declared a criminal organization and a banned cult like Nazism. This is not a prophecy or a wishful thinking but this is what the Nazis had faced when Second World War ended.
The third World War will be the war between Dharma (Justice) and Adharma (Injustice) and Dharma will be reestablished on a firm footing after the extinction of Adharma forever. May be this is the long awaited 'great purification’. Weapons of mass destruction will be used ruthlessly. Muslims in horror will witness many gigantic mushroom clouds rising over in many places across the Ummah (Global Muslim world) including Islam’s two holiest cities and the sky will be lit up ‘brighter than a thousand suns’. The flames of hell and society’s cruel punishment awaiting sinners right here on earth.
None shall be the winner in the end but Humanity will still survive. Muhammad, his Qur’an, and his Islam will earn the same fate what Hitler, Mein Kampf and Nazism had earned. The Ummah will be reduced to a microscopic minority without any hope of revival. Probably that will be the time when they will wake up to give way to logical thinking though like Germans, it would be too late for them.
Unless they are kept in good humour by proper attendance, it is believed that man can end up in real disaster. The gods in the Buddhist conception are merely a class of non-visible beings who have no power or influence over man or the world. Professor Marasinghe’s timely research raises many serious questions for those who have made Ritual Buddhism a mere second class Hinduism adopting any and all rites and rituals totally disregarding the clear teachings of the Buddha.
As for the politics of the Roman religion, it is still as dangerous as it was 70 years ago.
"The denial of the Bible being the source of intolerance has led to some extraordinary hypotheses being posited to explain Hitler's genocide. It has been easier to blame a German character flaw, or the character of Hitler, as the causal agent, rather than admit that this act of evil was perpetrated in executing the commands of the Bible. The old testament however is a call for religious intolerance; a call to maintain racial purity; a call to maintain both religious and racial purity by genocide. According to the Bible we humans are created in the image of God: HItler made it explicitly clear that his racial beliefs were based on the idea that man was created in the image of god, and it was this divine image he maintained that was being desecrated contrary to the edicts of the Bible:"
"...there is only one holiest human right... the holiest obligation... to see to it that the blood is preserved pure... by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape..." pp. 365-366 Mein Kampf
"...the admonition to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of
racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself
Created [is the goal]." p. 369 Mein Kampf
Hitler even acknowledged that the basis of his own intolerance was Judaic:
"Christianity ... was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction
of heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form...
The objection may very well be raised that such phenomena in world
history arise from the most part from specifically Jewish modes of thought, in
fact , that this type of intolerance and fanaticism positively embodies the
Jewish nature... we may deeply regret this fact and establish with justifiable
loathing that its appearance in the history of mankind is something that was
previously alien to history..." Mein Kampf pp. 412-413
"What Hitler wrote in this passage is that although Jewish in origin, Christian intolerance is a cause that the Germans must now take up, and that intolerance is a holy duty. What he is referring to is: Ezra 9.1-2; Ezra 10; and the means by which this can be accomplished is slaughter: eg Deuteronomy 20.14-18.
However, it remains to be explained why the Christian Germans came to see themselves as replacing the Jews as the "holy race". The answer can be found in Ecclesiasticus, from the Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus purports to explain how one people might one day replace another as god's chosen "holy race":"
10:8. "A kingdom is translated from one people to another, because of injustices, and wrongs, and injuries, and deceits."
( full text can be found on-line: http://www.tldm.org/bible/Old%20Testament/eccltus.htm )
This meant for Christians that they and not the Jews were now the holy people. Hitler's was not a new idea. With Christians believing that they had replaced the Jews as the "holy race" the Old Testament edicts demanding complete intolerance of those who worship other gods could now be enforced against Jews. Persecution of Jews has been a manifestation of Christianity throughout its existence and is based on the belief that Christians were now god's chosen people. Hitler was not an aberration of European Christian sentiment, but a shameful European Christian continuation of past European Christian intolerance. Accordinly Hitler wrote in the Mein Kampf:
"...I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Mein Kampf p.60
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Heil Hitler, Heil Muhammad
by Sujit Das
02 Jun, 2008
"The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from it." -- Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
During the Third Reich (from 1933 to 1945, the prime time of the Nazis in Germany), it was a strict law to greet the Fuehrer with 'Heil Hitler'. People were put into concentration camps if they refused to use this greeting (Schirrmacher, 1992). 'Heil' is the German word for 'salvation', which is extensively used in the German Bible translations. 'Salvation Hitler' or 'Salvation through Hitler' was the message that almost every German daily preached to others. Hitler addressed to his fellowship, “Workers, you must look upon me as your guarantor.” (Hitler’s speech: December 10, 1940. Berlin). The message was clear: everybody should accept that Hitler is the salvation for Germany and for the world.
Like the Nazis, it’s the central belief of the Muslim faith that salvation is not possible without Muhammad’s intercession with Allah. On judgment day, all humankind will go from one prophet to the next to ask for intercession, but all prophets from Adam to Jesus will refuse to accept this role because of their unworthiness. Ultimately, Muhammad, the great prophet of Islam; like, Adolf Hitler, the great prophet of Nazis; will accept the role of intercessor and will successfully lead his followers into paradise. As the Urdu poet, Mir Taqi Mir (cited Geisler & Saleeb, 1993, p. 88) wrote, “Why do you worry, O Mir, thinking of your black book? The person of the seal of the prophets is a guarantee for your salvation.” Muhammad was so great that even Allah showered praises on him and saluted him (Qur’an 33: 56). If Muhammad had not been, Allah himself would not have existed.
Islam is not concerned with the relationship with God and man in this world and since salvation is not possible without Muhammad; therefore, logically the most honorable way to greet Muhammad is ‘Heil Muhammad’ like Hitler preferred during his heydays. There are so many uncanny similarities between these two tyrants that if Muhammad had been contemporary to Hitler; the present author surely would have concluded that they were twin brothers of different looks, separated at birth. Both the tyrants were cut out from the same cloth. They had identical mindset, similar motives and acted in the same manner to achieve power, as we will see in the rest of this article.
A Nazi-chief and a blind follower of Hitler had declared openly (cited Dawkins, 2006. p. 277-8),
Adolf Hitler! We are united with you alone! We want to renew our vow in this hour: on this earth we believe only in Adolf Hitler. We believe that the National Socialism is the sole saving faith for our people. We believe that there is a Lord God in the heaven, who created us, who leads us, who directs us and who blesses us visibly. And we believe that this Lord God sent Adolf Hitler to us, so that Germany might become a foundation for all eternity.
National Socialism is another name of Nazism. The Nazis never hid the religious character of their actions, as seen in the following official Nazi statement (cited Schirrmacher, 1992),
National Socialism is a religion, born out of blood and race, not a political world-view. It is the new, alone true religion, born out of a Nordic spirit and an Aric [Aryan] soul. The religions still existing must disappear as soon as possible. If they do not dissolve themselves the state has to destroy them.
Nazism and communism are thoroughly beaten, and any further upheaval is impossible but with that barbarism and brutality had not been defeated yet. We should not close our eyes to the fact that these hateful ideas achieved something like a victory in defeat and reappeared again with a new name. Let’s make some small changes; only six words are replaced by new words and the above two paragraphs look like this.
Muhammad! We are united with you alone! We want to renew our vow in this hour: on this earth we believe only in Muhammad. We believe that the Islam is the sole saving faith for our people. We believe that there is an Allah in the heaven, who created us, who leads us, who directs us and who blesses us visibly. And we believe that this Allah sent Muhammad to us, so that Arabia might become a foundation for all eternity.
And,
Islam is a religion, born out of blood and race, not a political world-view. It is the new, alone true religion, born out of a Bedouin spirit and an Arabian soul. The religions still existing must disappear as soon as possible. If they do not dissolve themselves the state has to destroy them.
Throughout the Human history only these two tyrants ever had ordered the ethnic cleansing of the Jews, “Kill every Jew” (Winn, 2004. p. 369). We can call it either Nazi mindset of Islam or Islamic mindset of Nazi; the core meaning remains same. Both of them had set out to kill people not for what they did but for who they were and had a firm belief at the cause. A million Jews children were destined to concentration camps only because they existed as Jews. This is the mindset of psychopaths. There are many strange similarities between Muhammad’s teachings, Hitler’s speeches and the two equally lethal doctrines, the Mein Kamph and the Qur’an. The Nazi Party was a ruthless murder machine, so is Islam. Few examples are as follows.
“Jews are vampires who must die sooner or later.” (Mein Kampf. P. 450)
“Witness the ‘Juda verrecke’ (Jews must be destroyed) outcry in which our youth organizations have taken up.” (Mein Kampf, p. 414)
“Just issue orders to kill every Jew in the country.” (Bukhari:1.1.6)
Terrorism was an integral part of Nazism so in Islam. Both Mein Kampf and Qur’an glorified terrorism. Both the tyrants connected butchery with their cults.
“With religious conviction…the bearers of the new doctrine must declare themselves ready and willing to fight.” (Mein Kampf, p. 127)
“I [Allah] shall cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. Strike them above the necks, smite their finger tips”. (Qur’an 8.12)
“Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills.” (Hitler’s speech: April 13, 1923. Munich).
“These [terror] tactics are based on an exact calculation of all human weaknesses. They will lead to success with mathematical certainty unless the other side learns to fight poison gas with poison gas.” (Mein Kampf. P. 58)
“Therefore, when you meet the unbelievers smite their necks…” (Qur’an, 47.4)
“The importance of physical terror against the individual and the masses also became clear to me.” (Mein Kampf. P. 58)
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror.’” (Bukhari: 4.52.220)
“I want war. To me all means will be right. My motto is 'Destroy him [enemy] by all and any means.' I am the one who will wage the war!” (cited Snyder, 1961, p. 66).
“The battle cry of Muhammad’s Companions was, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’” (Tabari VIII: 141)
Both the psychopaths preached hate. There is no reward for loving humanity as a whole. The Godly words ‘love’ and ‘brotherhood’ were unknown to them.
“If a people is to become free it needs pride and will-power, defiance, hate, hate, and once again hate....”(Hitler’s speech: April 10, 1923. Munich)
“The worst beasts in Allah's sight are the disbelievers.” (Qur’an: 8.55)
“… you [Muslims] have more right to hate them [Jews] than they have to hate you.” (Ishaq, p. 262)
“Let not the believers take unbelievers for friends or helpers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah.” (Qur’an: 3.28)
Both proclaimed their divine right to slaughter in God’s name, but at the same time pretended themselves to be peaceful in nature. Hitler, the cold-blooded murderer of six million Jews swore by God’s name that he wanted peace. Muhammad, who beheaded nine hundred Jews of Qurayza tribe in a single day and enslaved their women, children and confiscated their property, took help of Allah’s revelation to justify the massacre. Even today, Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, who harbors the dream of nuking Israel, is reported to have said "We want peace for all mankind" (Ghamidi et. al, 2007. p. 256). Khomeini ordered the massacre of more than three thousand dissident boys and girls of Iran saying that he would respond to God for the butchery (Sina, 2007). It’s a disgrace to call Allah a God and Islam a religion.
“… we have the right to murder 400,000 to 500,000 people in the Nazi Revolution!” (Hitler’s speech: January 30, 1937 Berlin, Reichstag).
“God knows that I wanted peace.” (Hitler’s speech: May 4, 1941. Berlin, Reichstag)
“The judgment whether a people is virtuous or not virtuous can hardly be passed by a human being. That should be left to God”. (Hitler’s speech: April 1, 1939; Wilhelmshaven)
“It is not ye who slew them; it is God; when thou threwest a handful of dust, it was not thy act, but God’s…..” (the killing of surrendered men of Qurayza tribe were done by the wish of Allah). (Qur’an, 8:17)
“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work”. (Hitler’s speech: 1936, Reichstag)
“I do not desire war, but when it is forced upon me I shall wage it as long as I have breath in my body.” (Hitler’s speech: December 10. 1940. Berlin)
Both of them demanded unquestionable loyalty from their followers.
“They can have no Faith, until they make you (Muhammad) judge in all disputes, and find in their souls no resistance against your decisions, accepting them with complete submission.” (Qur’an 4:65)
“No Muslim has any choice after Allah and His Apostle have decided a matter.” (Qur’an 33:36)
“If in the future you continue to stand behind me as one man, in loyalty and obedience, no power in the world will be able to destroy this Movement. It will continue its victorious course. If you preserve the same discipline, the same obedience, the same comradeship and the same unbounded loyalty in the future - then nothing will ever extinguish this Movement in Germany”. (Hitler’s speech: April 08, 1933. Berlin, Sportpalast)
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Whoever obeys me will enter Paradise, and whoever disobeys me will not enter it.’”(Bukhari: 9.92.384)
“We used to take oaths to Muhammad that we would listen to and obey his orders.” (Muslim: 22.20.4604)
“We have in our Movement developed this loyalty in following the leader, this blind obedience of which all the others know nothing and which gave to us the power to surmount everything”. (Hitler’s speech: April 08, 1933. Berlin, Sportpalast)
Both the psychopaths glorified martyrdom and were happiest when their followers were dying for them.
“And now on foreign soil National Socialism has gained its first conscious martyr - a man who did nothing save to enter the lists for Germany which is not only his sacred right but his duty in this world: a man who did nothing save remember his homeland and pledge himself to her in loyalty”. (Hitler’s speech: February 12, 1936. Schwerin, Gustloff's funeral)
“Unless you stake your life, never will life be won. The sacrifice of one’s existence is the most essential supposition for the formation and preservation of a State with the necessary feeling of homogeneity. The readiness to risk one’s life for this with all means possible, is something that will lead to the creation of heroic virtues.” (Mein Kampf, p.198)
“For those who fought and were killed in My Cause, I shall blot out their sins and admit them indeed to Paradise.” (Qur’an: 3.195)
Neither of them wanted peaceful co-existence with others.
“There are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew”. (Hitler’s speech: April 12, 1922. Munich)
“[Muhammad’s last wish] Expel disbelievers from the Arabian Peninsula.” (Bukhari: 4.52.288)
“The Messenger said, ‘Two religions cannot coexist in the Arabian Peninsula.’ Umar investigated the matter, then sent to the Jews, saying: ‘Allah has given permission for you to be expelled.” (Tabari VIII:130).
“The whole world of nature is a mighty struggle between strength and weakness - an eternal victory of the strong over the weak.”(Hitler’s speech: April 13, 1923. Munich)
Liberty, freedom of speech and democracy were not recognized in Nazism so in Islam. They were created to serve one man. As Hurgronje wrote, “Islam has never favoured Democratic tendencies”. As King Faud of Saudi Arabia quoted, “The democratic system that is predominant in the world is not a suitable system for the peoples of our region…The system of free election is not suitable to our country.” (cited Warraq, 1995. p. 172). The core message of Islam is to obey Muhammad and fight and die for his cause. Qur’an is a morally and spiritually bankrupt doctrine and Muhammad knew that his holy book would never withstand the scrutiny of a free society.
“Freedom of the press is a nuisance that allows unpunishable lies to poison the people.” (Mein Kampf, p. 335)
“Profane liberty with these words, ‘If you don’t join with us, we will crack your skull!’” (Mein Kampf, p. 65)
“The Prophet said, ‘A Muslim has to listen to and obey the order of his ruler whether he likes it or not.’” [There will never be a stable Islamic democracy.](Bukhari: 9.89.258)
“Democracy is a universal plague. It creates a monstrosity of filth and fire. Fate showed me how ridiculous a parliament is as an institution.” (Mein Kampf, p. 99)
“The invention of democracy is a crying shame…. A majority can never replace the Man.” (Mein Kampf. P. 104).
“Democracy shuns sunlight.” (Mein Kampf, p. 116)
“You of [the Islamic] Faith, say not (to the Prophet) words of ambiguous import like ‘Listen to us,’ but words of respect; and obey (him): To those who don’t submit there is a grievous punishment.” (Qur'an: 2.104).
“The mass of people are not sufficiently developed to arrive at a political opinion by themselves and thus are not suited to select the leader.” (Mein Kampf, p. 107)
Both of them were self appointed guardian of their Nations. Hitler’s idea of Arian supremacy matches well with Muhammad’s idea of Arab Supremacy.
“I know that the whole German nation is behind me. I am the guardian of its future and I act accordingly.”(Hitler’s speech: December 10, 1940. Berlin)
“O Prophet! We have sent you as a guardian of the illiterates [Arabs]” (Bukhari, 3.34.335)
“The Prophet said, ‘I will not intercede for those or love them who are not fair with the Arabs.’” (Tirmizi, Vol. 2. p. 840)
Qur’an was never meant for non-Muslims to read. Similarly Mein Kampf was not for outsiders.
“With this work I do not address myself to strangers, but to those adherents of the movement who belong to it with their hearts and whose reason now seeks a more intimate enlightenment.” (Mein Kampf: Preface)
“Allah’s Apostle forbade the people to travel to a hostile country carrying copies of the Qur’an. Unbelievers will never understand our signs and revelations.” (Bukhari: 4.52.233)
Both the tyrants viewed economical growth in the same way. The Islamic economy and domination was based upon piracy and militancy and ravaging other’s economy. Even today peaceful economic policy is discouraged. Khomeini once said (Fara et. al, 1996, p. 69) “Economics is a preoccupation of donkeys”. With this type of attitude, how Iran’s national economy is expected to come up?
“Allah made booty lawful for them.” (Tabari VII:81)
“No economic policy is possible without a sword.” (Hitler’s speech: April 10 1923. Munich)
“So enjoy what you took as booty; the spoils are lawful and good.” (Qur’an: 8.069)
“The talk of ‘peaceful economic conquest’ of the world is the greatest folly that has ever been perpetrated. It is nonsense….Weapons are required for success. Mercenaries can be used but a nation must dip into its most valuable blood and make sacrifices to bring about victory.” (Mein Kampf, p. 188).
Both Hitler and Muhammad realized that thorough brainwashing is required from the early childhood days to erode their consciences and to poison their minds. In Cologne, the children receiving meals from the Nazi state during the Second World War had to pray before the meal, “Fold your hands, bow your head and think about Adolf Hitler. He gives us our daily bread and helps us out of every misery” (Schirrmacher, 1992). Similarly, as per Sunan Abu Dawud: 2.0495, Muhammad advised, “Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately”. This is how evil dominates all aspects of Muslim society.
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) from Landsberg on the Lech prison in 1924 in two volumes of about one thousand pages in total. It was written about thirteen centuries after Qur’an was written. But the strange similarities between these two doctrines lead the present author to one obvious question – Was Hitler influenced by Muhammad and Islam? In this article only a few similarities are mentioned, but Craig Winn, in his excellent e-book ‘Prophet of doom’ had recorded hundreds such similarities (Winn, 2004). From his scholarly observation, it is very clear that apart from time and place Islam and Nazism are almost indistinguishable and are different sides of the same coin. The only difference is that Hitler had a vastly superior intellect and was a better writer than were either Muhammad or his Allah.
The translators of Mein Kampf said, “Hitler attempted to make himself the ‘prophet’ of the new German religion…. He believed that if a new ‘myth’ could be created and propagated as stubbornly, it would give Germans a new faith which the masses would cherish as tenaciously as they previously followed Christianity.” So Nazism was a replacement or substitute religion of Christianity. But Islam is also a weak imitation of Christianity and Judaism. As per Carlyle (cited Warraq, 1995, p. 23), Islam is a confused form of Christianity, a bastard kind of Christianity, shorn of its absurd details. It is logical to conclude that Hitler was highly influenced by Islamic scriptures.
All the public speeches, Mein Kampf and Islamic scriptures reveal the full flavor of the respective author’s mind and expose their motivations. None of the psychopaths ever valued human lives. Both had suffered unhappy childhoods and their murderous behavior didn’t begin until they were halfway through their careers. They had the same opinion about common people. Hitler wrote, “I saw the world in three groups: the fighters, the lukewarm, and the traitors.” (Mein Kampf. P. 16). Muhammad saw the Arabs as either good fighters in his cause, useless hypocrites, or enemy infidels. Both Nazism and Islam are rigid, intolerant, born in blood, and progressed by brutal force. Both Muhammad and Hitler succeeded in seducing a sufficient number of rebels into submission to terrorize the world. Both the psychopaths poisoned their victims with their doctrines and speeches, which turned good men bad. The followers behaved exactly like their leaders.
The last time we were ignorant of such a hateful and violent doctrine, the world paid a horrible price, as Hitler led to the holocaust and to the brutal death of fifty-five million people in Second World War. This is the devastating consequence of the world’s ignorance and tolerance of Mein Kampf which is still vivid in our memory. Today humanity is passing through another worse phase of life. Our history speaks of many wars that have been fought in the past, but the third and the final war of the era would be the most decisive and most horrible one without a parallel. Today a synthesis of Nazism and modern technology will claim billions of innocent lives.
We must shed our ignorance and tolerance, and remove the mask of religiosity from Islam so that we might defend ourselves from its racial hatred and intolerance, its desire to wipe out the non-Muslims out to the last. Islam is Nazism revisited with a new name and claimed its religious status by creating a dummy God Allah, which is a mockery of real God. Islam does not deserve the unwarranted protection it is granted vis-Ã -vis its religious status. These new Nazis have unlimited financial resources (oil-money), nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and countless number of Human bombs. This new Nazism needs to be exposed and the new Nazis need to be dealt with iron fist if we want to survive.
Probably we can take some lesson from the Israelis. Almost every Muslim overwhelmingly wants Israel annihilated, along with all the Jews. The Jews, meanwhile, only want to live with dignity. There are many examples in history where Jews lived in relative harmony over hundreds of years with others with mutual trust and respect and in total absence of any conflict. No wise man can regard Jews as an enemy, but as a blessing to the neighborhood. Living in peace and harmony is the ‘mantra’ of the Jews, but their fate is such that every war Israel has fought, since returning to her land, has only set the stage for the next war. There is a vast difference between Islam and Jewish beliefs. Islam was forced upon people but Judaism strongly opposes forced conversions. The Hebrew Bible prohibits killing in the Ten Commandments and completely rejects and deplores suicide. The Old Testament Torah delineates the Land of Israel where the Jewish people lived. Jews do not seek expansion beyond the land of Israel. Israel has withdrawn its army from territories captured after each war. But Judaism also states that "If one comes to slay you, slay him first" (from Talmudic Tractate Brachos 58, a sacred text of Judaism). We should deal with present day Nazism in the same manner.
Good citizens may reform governments but ultimately our own survival depends on us – our actions and inactions. As long as we realize this, freedom will survive and our children will live in a free world. The world is what we make it, or what we fail to make it. This is what we can learn from the tiny minority of Jews. They are the frontline fighters against Islamic evil force that threatens to throw the humanity back to the darkest days of barbaric cultures. Jews are fighting not for their own freedom but for the freedom of the whole Human race. Freedom is a continuing struggle, won one moment at a time. There are many who would take it from you, but no one who can give it to you. Today the Humankind is facing an enemy, which is more blood trusty than Nazi party. No amount of land concessions and foreign aid will appease these fanatics. No amount of revisionist history will also pacify them. Only death and destruction of all infidels will quench the beast's appetite for blood and power. How pathetic it is that a superpower like the USA, in spite of showering billions of dollars in the Muslim-world's oppressed and poverty stricken people, cannot win their gratitude. The great Ummah will always view America as ‘a great Satan’. What about Bangladeshis, Sudanese and Egyptians; whose daily bread and butter mostly come from foreign aid? Do they think twice before chanting ‘death to America’?
Probably it is too late and the signs of the Third World War are already on the horizon. Maybe the doomsday clock already began to tick. Several Muslim nations are in mad nuclear arm race while millions of their own people are dying of starvation, disease and civil war. Pakistani nuclear scientist Q. A. Khan had already had done his Islamic duty by selling nuclear secrets to Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea. During April 2006, Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, announced on national TV that his country had enriched uranium to a level required for nuclear fuel. There are reports that Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Turkey are also not far behind (Morgan, 2007). Also the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the possibility that former Soviet nuclear weapons might become available on the black market, which is a lure to the terrorists.
Nazis had put their blind trust on Hitler for salvation. History had recorded that; Hitler had given the Germans meaningless death, destruction and humiliation in return instead of salvation. After the defeat of the Nazis, the whole German nation was put to shame when they were held responsible for the actions of the Nazi regime, often using the terms "collective guilt", and "collective responsibility” (Wikipedia, 2008). Even today the Germans are often scorned by elderly people who were alive to experience the atrocities committed by Nazi Germans during Second World War.
What a tragedy, the Nazi leader who was a “guarantor” of salvation, had to commit suicide to escape capture by the opposition. Most of the fellow Nazis were haunted down and died a dog’s death. Many were put to forced manual labor for rest of their lives. But millions of people lost their lives before Germans wake up with the fact that Hitler was a narcissist, a liar, a madman and a psychopath who had fed them with lies and had driven them to devastation. A leaflet published during 1942 recorded, “Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan.” (The White Rose Society, 1942)
With Third World War, the history will repeat itself. History often repeats itself because, as Radhakrishnan (1970, p. 125) quoted, “The only lesson history teaches us is that we learn nothing from history”. Muslims had already sold their soul to Muhammad and put their blind trust on him for salvation and an entry to paradise in the same way the Germans had put their trust on Hitler. Though the infidel world will face the biggest onslaught in the history of mankind but the Muslim world will be completely destroyed and Islam will be declared a criminal organization and a banned cult like Nazism. This is not a prophecy or a wishful thinking but this is what the Nazis had faced when Second World War ended.
The third World War will be the war between Dharma (Justice) and Adharma (Injustice) and Dharma will be reestablished on a firm footing after the extinction of Adharma forever. May be this is the long awaited 'great purification’. Weapons of mass destruction will be used ruthlessly. Muslims in horror will witness many gigantic mushroom clouds rising over in many places across the Ummah (Global Muslim world) including Islam’s two holiest cities and the sky will be lit up ‘brighter than a thousand suns’. The flames of hell and society’s cruel punishment awaiting sinners right here on earth.
None shall be the winner in the end but Humanity will still survive. Muhammad, his Qur’an, and his Islam will earn the same fate what Hitler, Mein Kampf and Nazism had earned. The Ummah will be reduced to a microscopic minority without any hope of revival. Probably that will be the time when they will wake up to give way to logical thinking though like Germans, it would be too late for them.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
More Than The Qu'ran is Burning
Theese are people, like any other people; yet they are blind victims of a darkness so strong they know not what they do.
Muslims burn more than bibles.
Malaysia churches firebombed.
Australia : Muslim Students Urinate, Spit On Then Burn Bible
Muslims Destroy Synagogues; Burn Jewish Holy Books
Muslims burn Bible in Pakistan
Muslims Burn Christian Center under Construction in Indonesia
Egypt Muslims burn Christian shops: police
Terror Unbound: 14 years old Hindu child burnt alive
Dark age in Pakistan: Muslims burn Christian man as policeman rapes his wife
Dhule riots: 1 Hindu burnt alive, 4 Hindu women gang raped!
6 killed in Pakistan as Muslims burn Christian homes
Nigeria: Muslims burn church, axe 8 Christians to death, burn xtian homes
Egyptian Muslims Burn Christian Man Alive!!
Muslims Burn down Christian-Owned Churches, shops
Muslims burn a Christian alive in Pakistan
AFGHAN MUSLIMS BURN POPE IN EFFIGY
India: Muslims attack, torture Hindus, loot and burn Hindu shops.
Punjabi Muslims burn alive Christian women, kid
West Bank Churches Burned in Light of Muslim Anger Over Papal Comments
Muslims Burn Synagogues
“There is a time for burning, and there is a time for return. The 1244 AD prophecy from the last Cathar before their group was burned at Montsegur was that in 700 years, the laurel will bloom again. The generation born just before and after 1944 have become the new writers, troubadours and neo-Cathars who are bringing the essential pure teachings of love and wisdom. And it is said that the Temple of Love (within each person’s heart-soul centre or their ‘holy of holies’) would be proclaimed in 1986. IT IS ABOUT TIME WE GOT THE WORD OUT!
It has no fabric, only understanding.
It has no membership, save those who know they belong.
It has no rivals, because it is non-competitive.
It has no ambition for it seeks only to serve.
It knows no boundaries for nationalism’s are unloving.
It is not of itself because it seeks to enrich all groups and religions.
It acknowledges all great Teachers of all the ages who have shown the truth of Love.
Those who participate, practise the Truth of Love in all their beings.
There is no walk of life or nationality that is a barrier. Those who are, know.
It seeks not to teach but to be, and by being, enrich.
It recognizes that the way we are may be the way of those around us because we are that way.
It recognizes the whole planet as a Being of which we are a part.
It recognizes that the time has come for the supreme transmutation, the ultimate alchemical act of conscious change of the ego into a voluntary return to the whole.
It does not proclaim itself with a loud voice but in the subtle realms of loving.
It salutes all those in the past who have blazoned the path but have paid the price.
It admits no hierarchy or structure, for no one is greater than another.
Its members shall know each other by their deeds and being and by their eyes and by no other outward sign save the fraternal embrace.
Each one will dedicate their life to the silent loving of their neighbour and environment and the planet, whilst carrying out their task however exalted or humble.
It recognizes the supremacy of the great idea which may only be accomplished if the human race practises the supremacy of Love.
It has no reward to offer either here or in the hereafter save that of the ineffable joy of being and loving.
Each shall seek to advance the cause of understanding, doing good by stealth and teaching only by example.
They shall heal their neighbour, their community and our Planet.
They shall know no fear and feel no shame and their witness shall prevail over all odds.
It has no secret, no arcanum, no initiation save that of true understanding of the power of Love and that, if we want it to be so, the world will change – but only if we change ourselves first
The contributors to this web site seek to recall various crucial facts, which people are led to disregard and even deny under the influence of the turmoil of the modern age. One of these basic facts is that of creation, that the universe, living things and man, are not self-existing entities, but the artifacts of God, the Supreme Creator. We are all created by Him and to Him we will all return. Love, not knowledge (intellectual), is the bond between God and man. From God's love proceeds only what is good, and punishment is also inherently good. God's omnipotence is not merely infinite in time, but also in intensity.
This web site calls everyone from every corner of the world, from whatever cultural, racial, ethnic or social background to realize this basic fact and think of his duties to his Creator. In this message lies the real redemption and happiness of mankind.
Muslims burn more than bibles.
Malaysia churches firebombed.
Australia : Muslim Students Urinate, Spit On Then Burn Bible
Muslims Destroy Synagogues; Burn Jewish Holy Books
Muslims burn Bible in Pakistan
Muslims Burn Christian Center under Construction in Indonesia
Egypt Muslims burn Christian shops: police
Terror Unbound: 14 years old Hindu child burnt alive
Dark age in Pakistan: Muslims burn Christian man as policeman rapes his wife
Dhule riots: 1 Hindu burnt alive, 4 Hindu women gang raped!
6 killed in Pakistan as Muslims burn Christian homes
Nigeria: Muslims burn church, axe 8 Christians to death, burn xtian homes
Egyptian Muslims Burn Christian Man Alive!!
Muslims Burn down Christian-Owned Churches, shops
Muslims burn a Christian alive in Pakistan
AFGHAN MUSLIMS BURN POPE IN EFFIGY
India: Muslims attack, torture Hindus, loot and burn Hindu shops.
Punjabi Muslims burn alive Christian women, kid
West Bank Churches Burned in Light of Muslim Anger Over Papal Comments
Muslims Burn Synagogues
“There is a time for burning, and there is a time for return. The 1244 AD prophecy from the last Cathar before their group was burned at Montsegur was that in 700 years, the laurel will bloom again. The generation born just before and after 1944 have become the new writers, troubadours and neo-Cathars who are bringing the essential pure teachings of love and wisdom. And it is said that the Temple of Love (within each person’s heart-soul centre or their ‘holy of holies’) would be proclaimed in 1986. IT IS ABOUT TIME WE GOT THE WORD OUT!
It has no fabric, only understanding.
It has no membership, save those who know they belong.
It has no rivals, because it is non-competitive.
It has no ambition for it seeks only to serve.
It knows no boundaries for nationalism’s are unloving.
It is not of itself because it seeks to enrich all groups and religions.
It acknowledges all great Teachers of all the ages who have shown the truth of Love.
Those who participate, practise the Truth of Love in all their beings.
There is no walk of life or nationality that is a barrier. Those who are, know.
It seeks not to teach but to be, and by being, enrich.
It recognizes that the way we are may be the way of those around us because we are that way.
It recognizes the whole planet as a Being of which we are a part.
It recognizes that the time has come for the supreme transmutation, the ultimate alchemical act of conscious change of the ego into a voluntary return to the whole.
It does not proclaim itself with a loud voice but in the subtle realms of loving.
It salutes all those in the past who have blazoned the path but have paid the price.
It admits no hierarchy or structure, for no one is greater than another.
Its members shall know each other by their deeds and being and by their eyes and by no other outward sign save the fraternal embrace.
Each one will dedicate their life to the silent loving of their neighbour and environment and the planet, whilst carrying out their task however exalted or humble.
It recognizes the supremacy of the great idea which may only be accomplished if the human race practises the supremacy of Love.
It has no reward to offer either here or in the hereafter save that of the ineffable joy of being and loving.
Each shall seek to advance the cause of understanding, doing good by stealth and teaching only by example.
They shall heal their neighbour, their community and our Planet.
They shall know no fear and feel no shame and their witness shall prevail over all odds.
It has no secret, no arcanum, no initiation save that of true understanding of the power of Love and that, if we want it to be so, the world will change – but only if we change ourselves first
The contributors to this web site seek to recall various crucial facts, which people are led to disregard and even deny under the influence of the turmoil of the modern age. One of these basic facts is that of creation, that the universe, living things and man, are not self-existing entities, but the artifacts of God, the Supreme Creator. We are all created by Him and to Him we will all return. Love, not knowledge (intellectual), is the bond between God and man. From God's love proceeds only what is good, and punishment is also inherently good. God's omnipotence is not merely infinite in time, but also in intensity.
This web site calls everyone from every corner of the world, from whatever cultural, racial, ethnic or social background to realize this basic fact and think of his duties to his Creator. In this message lies the real redemption and happiness of mankind.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Father Abraham: A Lost Lesson Not Yet Learned
There is big money to be made in religion, just as in Abraham's time, yet there would be little religion today if the world had followed this man's path as he walked away from the gods and religions of his age. To his delight he succeeded in having a personal relationship with his creator. The man we call the father of religion, had no religion, no dogma, and no holy books to go by. With only an open heart he began seeking the source of all creation, and was rewarded with a close relationship superior and far beyond that of any religion. The story of Abraham is very old and the need to know the full nature of this holy relationship is not necessary for us to understand that it was Abraham's actions that pleased the Creator. An independent walk with God is not the kind of thing those in power like to hear. For they have long used religion to gain wealth and control the will of the people. If each man and woman walked in spirit like Abraham. The very power of the religious and ruling class would diminish. The last thing they would want you to know, is that every man woman and child can walk with God free from religious and state dogma. When I was religious it was a penitence of perpetual servitude, I feared God more than loved Him. Now that I am at last free from the dark veil of religion, I feel a greater closeness with the Mother of all Creation, and without the fear, I have a greater love for all things and YOU as well!
Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being. In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared. My thought holds that there are no riches but... life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself. Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being. In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared. My thought holds that there are no riches but... life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself. Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
Thousands of Qu'rans Burned.
It has been a banner week for the publishers as book stores sell out their copies of the Qurans to be set ablaze in a fever of protest around the world. While others tremble in fear as the evil of Islam becomes unleashed to bring us hell on earth. Not all people who must suffer the Islamic faith are evil, there are many dear and good souls. For you see many are trapped in their religion with no other way out except death. I would like to say most of them do not fully believe in the Quran; and reject the licence it gives the faithful to kill and do great harm to others. Those of you in Persia are very brave who are burning the book, but I wish you would stop, for you live under a religion of cold blooded killers, and by doing such a bold act, you put your safety at great risk.
Three Things About Islam.
"Islam is NOT a religion of peace. By its nature Islam is radical, it has no shades.
Most people are simply unaware that Islam is NOT just another religion but a totalitarian political cult-like ideology, which compels its followers into blind obedience, teaches intolerance, brutality and locks all Muslims and non-Muslims in a struggle deriving directly from the 7th century nomadic, predatory, Bedouin culture."
"Islam means “submission” to the will of Allah and the teachings as depicted in the Qur’an which include jihad – the genocidal slaughter of infidels by the sword, killing by beheading, intolerance of other religions, as well as forcing submission to Islam. The ultimate goal of jihad is the domination of Islam over the entire world."
"In Islam, one is considered “moderate” if one supports the goals of jihad, if not the tactics. Those who totally reject the violent teachings of Islam are considered apostates of Islam and as such, are condemned to death. Moderate Muslims are peaceful “in spite of Islam,” not because of it. The “religion of peace” is a concept the West is eager to embrace – all in the name of political correctness – refusing to believe that a major world religion poses such a devastating threat to humanity ."
Not a Religion of Peace.
Nearly five times more American civilians have been murdered by Muslims in the United States than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in Operation Enduring Freedom, i.e., the war in Afghanistan.
The U.S.A. has experienced more than 70 incidents of Islamic terror within its borders in recent years.
Apart from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers and civilians have been attacked and killed in such diverse places as Kenya, Lebanon, Tanzania, and Yemen.
The problem with Islam is not endemic to the United States. Over 90% of the conflicts within today’s world from China to Chechnya, from Somalia to the Sudan, from Afghanistan to Argentina, from the Balkans to the Philippines, from Indonesia to India, from Iran to Iraq, from Pakistan to Denmark, from Britain to Bangladesh involve a manifestation of Islam.
Four Islamist attacks occur every day.
There is a problem with Islam – - a problem that will never be corrected until it is addressed.
Nefrin Nameh - Iran vs Islam
Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being. In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared. My thought holds that there are no riches but... life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself. Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
Three Things About Islam.
"Islam is NOT a religion of peace. By its nature Islam is radical, it has no shades.
Most people are simply unaware that Islam is NOT just another religion but a totalitarian political cult-like ideology, which compels its followers into blind obedience, teaches intolerance, brutality and locks all Muslims and non-Muslims in a struggle deriving directly from the 7th century nomadic, predatory, Bedouin culture."
"Islam means “submission” to the will of Allah and the teachings as depicted in the Qur’an which include jihad – the genocidal slaughter of infidels by the sword, killing by beheading, intolerance of other religions, as well as forcing submission to Islam. The ultimate goal of jihad is the domination of Islam over the entire world."
"In Islam, one is considered “moderate” if one supports the goals of jihad, if not the tactics. Those who totally reject the violent teachings of Islam are considered apostates of Islam and as such, are condemned to death. Moderate Muslims are peaceful “in spite of Islam,” not because of it. The “religion of peace” is a concept the West is eager to embrace – all in the name of political correctness – refusing to believe that a major world religion poses such a devastating threat to humanity ."
Not a Religion of Peace.
Nearly five times more American civilians have been murdered by Muslims in the United States than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in Operation Enduring Freedom, i.e., the war in Afghanistan.
The U.S.A. has experienced more than 70 incidents of Islamic terror within its borders in recent years.
Apart from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers and civilians have been attacked and killed in such diverse places as Kenya, Lebanon, Tanzania, and Yemen.
The problem with Islam is not endemic to the United States. Over 90% of the conflicts within today’s world from China to Chechnya, from Somalia to the Sudan, from Afghanistan to Argentina, from the Balkans to the Philippines, from Indonesia to India, from Iran to Iraq, from Pakistan to Denmark, from Britain to Bangladesh involve a manifestation of Islam.
Four Islamist attacks occur every day.
There is a problem with Islam – - a problem that will never be corrected until it is addressed.
Nefrin Nameh - Iran vs Islam
Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being. In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared. My thought holds that there are no riches but... life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself. Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
Thursday, September 09, 2010
The Bread of Life is Now in Your Gas Tank
Millions Face Starvation
by Glen Ford
Having crushed the planet's peasants and converted food into just another commodity for global manipulation, the Lord's of Capital have unleashed upon humanity the threat - no, certainty - of mass starvation. The criminal mega-enterprise is centered in the United States, the former "breadbasket of the planet" whose massive conversion to biofuels has caused staple crop prices to skyrocket beyond the reach of hundreds of millions of the world's poor. The death of millions translates into profits in the trillions for the Lords of Capital, killers on a mass scale whose only talents lie in "the production of overlapping calamities, each more lethal than the last." there can be no question as to the identity of the perpetrators of this global genocide: The Lords of Capital that formulate the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. That policy calls for 20 million acres of corn from states like Iowa to be converted from food to fuel. As should have been expected, such a massive diversion almost immediately pushed up the price of all other basic foodstuffs - a global disaster made quick and easy by the fact that, over the past several decades, planetary food production has been taken over by agribusiness - the speculative human parasites that control how food is bought and sold, and to whom, and for what purpose. These Lords of Capital are killers on a mass scale.
"Hot" money has totally distorted the "marketplace" for life-sustaining goods, causing millions of the desperately poor in scores of countries to take to the streets. "In less than a year," writes the Guardian newspaper, in Britain, "the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, soya by 87 per cent and rice by 74 per cent."
These are nothing less than crimes against humanity, and cannot help but destroy the lives of millions who are already at the very edge of the precipice.
The so-called "market" - which is actually a club of super-rich men who distort and destroy everything of value to humanity that they touch - will be the death of us all, and much quicker than through the effects of global warming, which is also greatly accelerated by the ghoulish, greedy rush to grow food for cars rather than people. In such a murderous environment -manipulated purely for the profits of the Lords of Capital - neither trees nor peasants stand a chance. The United Nations says it needs about half a billion dollars for the most critical cases of starvation, but no amount of emergency aid is sufficient to make up for the wild price rises that have already occurred - and which will put trillions in the pockets of the Lords of Capital.
Agribusiness wiped out small farmers in the U.S., and impoverished and pushed off the land untold millions of peasants, worldwide. Now the Lords of Capital have imposed a triage of death by starvation on the planet. The people who live on two dollars or less per day will have to die, and then, as prices rise, the three dollar people will follow.
The men who profit from such mass murder use terms like "structural adjustment" and "economic fundamentals" to attach a veneer of rationality to a chaotic system they have created on the fly for the sole purpose of mega-theft. In the end, the Lords of Capital have mastered only one art: the production of overlapping calamities, each more lethal than the last.
For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
by Glen Ford
Having crushed the planet's peasants and converted food into just another commodity for global manipulation, the Lord's of Capital have unleashed upon humanity the threat - no, certainty - of mass starvation. The criminal mega-enterprise is centered in the United States, the former "breadbasket of the planet" whose massive conversion to biofuels has caused staple crop prices to skyrocket beyond the reach of hundreds of millions of the world's poor. The death of millions translates into profits in the trillions for the Lords of Capital, killers on a mass scale whose only talents lie in "the production of overlapping calamities, each more lethal than the last." there can be no question as to the identity of the perpetrators of this global genocide: The Lords of Capital that formulate the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. That policy calls for 20 million acres of corn from states like Iowa to be converted from food to fuel. As should have been expected, such a massive diversion almost immediately pushed up the price of all other basic foodstuffs - a global disaster made quick and easy by the fact that, over the past several decades, planetary food production has been taken over by agribusiness - the speculative human parasites that control how food is bought and sold, and to whom, and for what purpose. These Lords of Capital are killers on a mass scale.
"Hot" money has totally distorted the "marketplace" for life-sustaining goods, causing millions of the desperately poor in scores of countries to take to the streets. "In less than a year," writes the Guardian newspaper, in Britain, "the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, soya by 87 per cent and rice by 74 per cent."
These are nothing less than crimes against humanity, and cannot help but destroy the lives of millions who are already at the very edge of the precipice.
The so-called "market" - which is actually a club of super-rich men who distort and destroy everything of value to humanity that they touch - will be the death of us all, and much quicker than through the effects of global warming, which is also greatly accelerated by the ghoulish, greedy rush to grow food for cars rather than people. In such a murderous environment -manipulated purely for the profits of the Lords of Capital - neither trees nor peasants stand a chance. The United Nations says it needs about half a billion dollars for the most critical cases of starvation, but no amount of emergency aid is sufficient to make up for the wild price rises that have already occurred - and which will put trillions in the pockets of the Lords of Capital.
Agribusiness wiped out small farmers in the U.S., and impoverished and pushed off the land untold millions of peasants, worldwide. Now the Lords of Capital have imposed a triage of death by starvation on the planet. The people who live on two dollars or less per day will have to die, and then, as prices rise, the three dollar people will follow.
The men who profit from such mass murder use terms like "structural adjustment" and "economic fundamentals" to attach a veneer of rationality to a chaotic system they have created on the fly for the sole purpose of mega-theft. In the end, the Lords of Capital have mastered only one art: the production of overlapping calamities, each more lethal than the last.
For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran
Saturday, September 04, 2010
There is No Justice Where Tyranny Prevails
The Case of Leonard Peltier
by Carl Sack / March 2009
Below is a transcript of a speech delivered at a Socialist Action forum at the University of Minnesota-Duluth in March, 2009.
When Christopher Columbus set foot on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, he began a process of genocide which would last until modern times. Since Columbus’s fateful voyage, Native American peoples have faced an onslaught of European disease, war technology, and trade that has irrevocably altered their cultures and resulted in the loss of their lands and lifeways.
In the 19th century, Euro-Americans pushed Westward in a drive to disinherit indigenous peoples of their land so that it could be put to cultivation and converted to private property to drive the expansion of capitalism. The clash of races was a cover for the clash of two profoundly different economic systems: what Marx called primitive communism, where all land and resources were held in common and managed for the good of the people, and the new system of agrarian capitalism, which needed to destroy the former to expand itself and create a willing paid workforce. The racist banner of capitalism was Manifest Destiny, an ideology which lasted into the history textbooks of the 20th century. It said that Whites were a superior race ordained by God to “civilize” all the lands of the American continent—meaning convert it to private property for purposes of White ownership and trade.
In 1890, the “frontier” was declared extinct and “allotment” became policy, which deprived indigenous people of the right to control even the resource-impoverished postage-stamp reservation lands left to them by the U.S. government. In the late 19th through mid 20th centuries, the government attempted to exterminate indigenous culture through the mass kidnapping of indigenous children, who were forced into boarding schools run by Christian churches. There they were not allowed to speak any language but English and beaten if they displayed any “Indian tendencies.”
Native Americans did not become recognized as U.S. citizens until 1924, and it is only within the last few decades that they have been successfully able to assert some of the treaty rights they were cheated out of for over a century. Indigenous activists have had to fight hard for every gain both in the courts and through mass action such as protests, civil disobedience, land occupations and even armed insurrection. Groups such as the American Indian Movement and leaders such as Leonard Peltier have played pivotal roles in the movement for Native rights. Just as in the struggle for Black civil rights, many Native activists have had to sacrifice their personal freedom or even their lives to gain more freedom for their people.
Indigenous peoples have never taken the White onslaught lying down. The Indian Wars and insurrections that took place in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in loss after loss for indigenous tribes, as they fell before the superior weapons, greater numbers and sheer brutality of the White invaders. Beaten militarily, their lands stolen through legal and extralegal treachery, treaty after treaty made then broken, most indigenous people fell into desperate poverty on reservations. Many moved off reservations and into cities to look for work.
Things began to change in the 1950s. In 1953, the U.S. Congress approved what was called “Termination Policy,” a policy ostensibly meant to improve living conditions for Native Americans on reservations, but one that turned into yet another tool for dispossessing them of what little advantages they were left with. The government’s goal was to end federal supervision of tribes and assimilate tribal members into mainstream American society, in essence to “terminate” tribal identity. Practically, this meant ending U.S. aid to tribes and selling off lands held in trust for the tribes. Two states, Wisconsin and Oregon, also attempted to use Termination to deprive Native Americans of their hunting and fishing treaty rights.
The new policy was tried on several reservations. It sparked a backlash of protests among tribal members who found themselves faced with the choice of giving up their tribal membership and moving away to cities or staying put and starving for lack of government food assistance, which they had been forced into dependence on. Lawsuits brought to the Supreme Court by tribes in Wisconsin and Oregon succeeded in re-asserting native hunting and fishing rights, even for those who had abrogated their tribal membership.
At the same time, the civil rights movement was awakening the pride of African-Americans, whose ancestors had been kidnapped and brought to the United States to work as human mules on Southern plantations, and subsequently “freed” from their masters only to be re-bonded as sharecroppers or low-paid urban workers and denied the basic rights afforded to Whites. Many indigenous people recognized themselves as a similarly oppressed nationality, with common interests with Blacks, and were inspired by the Black struggle for liberation. Calls by the most militant African-Americans for “Black Power” resounded with Native American youth, who rebranded the slogan “Red Power” to express their own drive for liberation.
Out of this cauldron of radicalization was born the American Indian Movement. The group was formed in the summer of 1968 at a meeting of some 200 Native activists in Minneapolis, brought together and subsequently led by Dennis Banks, George Mitchell and Clyde Bellancourt. These young people first focused largely on problems faced by urban Native Americans, including police brutality, slum housing, high unemployment, poverty and institutional racism—problems also faced by the Black community. But they also fought for a change in Indian policy at the federal level and to re-assert treaty rights. Embedded in the anti-colonialism of AIM were appeals to Native spirituality and cross-tribal ethnic unity—the renewal of an “American Indian” identity.
In 1969, AIM supporters from several tribes gained national attention by declaring Alcatraz Island, in the San Francisco Bay, reclaimed Indian land and occupying it for 19 months. The occupiers, hailing from many different tribes from around the country, took the name “United Indians of All Tribes,” and set up an independent government operated by consensus. Although the occupation ultimately ended with the Indians’ removal by Federal marshals, this bold action awakened the political consciousness of many Native Americans and their supporters, and played a key role in subsequent land victories.
In 1970, 71 and 72, AIM activists conducted several takeovers, including abandoned air base property in Minneapolis and a hydroelectric dam on the Lac Court Orielles Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin. They took over a Mayflower replica on Thanskgiving Day at Plymouth Rock, and briefly held Mount Rushmore. In 1972, AIM and other groups conducted the Trail of Broken Treaties, a caravan from the West Coast to Washington, D.C., which ended with the takeover of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters. Native activists presented a list of twenty demands to President Nixon, which included abolition of the BIA, ending treaty rights violations, restoration of 110 million acres of land to Indian control, and Indian self-determination.
Taking part in the Trail of Broken Treaties was a 27-year-old AIM activist named Leonard Peltier. Peltier was born in 1944 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Ojibwe and Lakota parents. He spent much of his childhood with his father’s family on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. At age 9, he was forcibly shipped off to an Indian boarding school 150 miles from home, where he stayed through ninth grade.
As a teenager, Peltier became radicalized by participating in protest actions against Termination Policy. An awakening experience for Peltier took place one harsh winter, when BIA social workers came to the Turtle Mountain reservation to investigate reports of people starving because the government had cut off aid. Peltier went around to houses before the BIA workers arrived to tell the families to hide what little food they had, only to be told at each house he went to that there was nothing there to hide.
Peltier worked for a time as a migrant farm worker. In 1965, he moved to Seattle, where he co-owned an auto body shop that employed Native Americans and served as a halfway house for Native ex-prisoners. After his company folded, he began to travel to different cities and reservations, doing construction work and community organizing among Native communities. He joined AIM in Denver, the last city he stayed in before taking part in the BIA occupation.
The actions of AIM activists including Peltier succeeded in winning some gains, most notably the reversal of Termination Policy in the 1970s. But their effectiveness earned AIM the ire of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and the group became a prime target of COINTELPRO, the FBI Counterintelligence Program that attempted to smash radical organizations by any means possible.
The most violent battleground between AIM and the FBI soon took shape on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. In February 1973, a group of AIM activists led by Russell Means arrived in the small town of Wounded Knee, near the site of an 1890 massacre of Lakota Sioux by federal troops. They came for a meeting with local “Traditional” Lakota who opposed corrupt tribal chairman Dick Wilson. Wilson was supported by mixed-blood pro-assimilation residents and the White ranching community, as well as the BIA and FBI. He was rumored to be getting kickbacks to approve contracts for uranium mining.
Within a couple hours of the AIM activists’ arrival at Wounded Knee, FBI agents and Federal Marshals surrounded the town and began to arrest anyone leaving. This led to a 71-day standoff, in which both sides traded gunfire daily. The government brought in armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers, automatic rifles, flares, and 133,000 rounds of ammunition. Two Native Americans were killed and a Federal Marshal was paralyzed.
The Wounded Knee incident began a three-year period of intense political violence against AIM activists and their supporters on Pine Ridge. FBI agents were authorized to engage in “paramilitary activity” with AIM. Tribal chairman Dick Wilson used tribal funds to deputize vigilantes self-described as “GOON squads” (GOON nominally stood for “Guardians Of the Oglala Nation”). The Goon squads conducted beatings, drive-by shootings, and executions, resulting in over 60 murders of Traditional tribal members and AIM activists. Only one of these murders was ever prosecuted (the resulting conviction of an AIM activist in 2004 should be considered highly suspect as key witnesses were paid by the FBI—more on this later). The FBI supplied the Goons with intelligence on AIM and in at least some cases, ammunition.
Peltier answered the call to assist the Traditional people of Pine Ridge in the struggle against Wilson’s goons and the FBI. He arrived with a group of AIM activists, who set up camp on a ranch owned by an elderly couple, the Jumping Bulls. While there, the AIM activists advocated sobriety and helped organize traditional religious ceremonies, self-sufficiency projects, and community activities, as well as security for tribal members endangered by the cops and Goons.
On the morning of June 26, 1975, two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, drove into the Jumping Bull compound. They were ostensibly in pursuit of a red pickup truck driven by Jimmy Eagle, a young Lakota accused of stealing a pair of cowboy boots from a White rancher. Over 40 AIM and tribal members were at the compound at the time. AIM members Bob Robideau and Norman Brown testified that the agents—who they did not know were agents at the time—fired on the camp, and they returned fire. A major shootout erupted which resulted in the deaths of Coler, Williams, and a young Lakota named Joseph Stuntz. The bullet that killed Williams was fired at close range and went through his hand before entering his head. Coler was also shot in the head at close range after being injured. Stuntz was shot in the forehead, but his death never received an investigation.
The camp was soon surrounded by 350 U.S. Marshals, FBI agents and BIA cops. They began a manhunt for Bob Robideau, Darrelle Butler, Jimmy Eagle, and Leonard Peltier, who fled the scene and were charged with aiding and abetting the agents’ murders (no witnesses came forward to identify the agents’ shooters). Butler, Robideau, and Eagle were soon apprehended. Peltier fled to Canada and was apprehended there on February 6, 1976. Bob Robideau and Darrelle Butler were tried together, and were found not guilty by reason of self-defense. The case against Jimmy Eagle was subsequently dismissed. But because the extradition of Peltier was delayed, once he was extradited to the U.S., he was tried later. By that time, the FBI was out for vengeance.
The cornerstone of the U.S. case for extraditing Peltier was a set of three affidavits from a woman named Myrtle Poor Bear, who was believed by many who knew her to be mentally unstable. The affidavits were inconsistent with one another, one claiming she had not been at the Jumping Bull compound, and two others claiming she was there with Peltier as his girlfriend. Poor Bear has since recanted the affidavits, saying she had never met Peltier and claiming FBI agents threatened to take away her daughter and to “put [her] through a meat grinder.”
Nevertheless, the affidavits were enough for Canada to extradite Peltier, and he was tried in early 1977 in Fargo, North Dakota before an all-White jury and anti-Indian Judge Paul Benson. The prosecution’s main witness, FBI agent Mike Anderson, changed his previous account and claimed that it was Peltier, not Jimmy Eagle, who agents Coler and Williams had been in pursuit of, and Peltier got out at the compound and single-handedly shot the agents to death. The jury was shown a .223 shell casing from an AR-15 rifle traced to Peltier that they said had been found in Coler’s trunk. Judge Benson repeatedly ruled against defense attempts to introduce evidence and barred key defense witnesses, including Myrtle Poor Bear, from testifying. Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Several appeals attempted to introduce evidence repressed by the FBI. The most damning piece of evidence was a ballistics test conducted soon after the shootout that concluded that Peltier’s gun had a different firing pin than any of the shell casings found at the scene and could not have been the weapon used to kill Coler or Williams. In fact, not one witness who was not an FBI agent identified Peltier as the actual shooter. Three teenage witnesses who testified against Peltier later said they were forced into testifying and recanted.
In a case connected to Peltier’s, homeless Lakota Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud was tried in 2004 for the execution-style murder of fellow AIM activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. The prosecution claimed that Aquash was executed by Looking Cloud and two other AIM members because they thought she was an FBI informant. The ex-wife of AIM leader Dennis Banks, Darlene “Kamook” Nichols, claimed during the trial that Peltier had confessed his guilt to a group of AIM activists including Aquash and her in 1975. Nichols acknowledged she was paid $42,000 by the FBI for her cooperation in the trial, and soon after the trial she married Robert Ecoffey, the Director of BIA Law Enforcement.
Aquash was a prominent AIM activist and a thorn in the FBI’s side. When Aquash’s body was discovered frozen in 1975, FBI agents who knew her well processed the case. They failed to identify the body, declared her death due to exposure, cut off her hands to send to Washington, D.C. for fingerprinting, and buried the body as “Jane Doe.” After she was identified by fingerprinting, AIM members exhumed the body and demanded a second autopsy, which discovered the gaping bullet hole in her head. Despite the FBI’s cover-up and their shady dealings at the 2004 trial, Looking Cloud was convicted of the shooting and sentenced to life in prison.
The FBI is not finished using the Aquash case to go after other AIM members. John Graham and Dick Marshall, the latter once a bodyguard for Russell Means, are both jailed and awaiting trial, charged with aiding and abetting Aquash’s murder. Unfortunately, the case has succeeded in sowing division and uncertainty in the AIM leadership, an outcome surely hoped for by the FBI.
As for Peltier, despite numerous appeals he has never been granted a new trial. Eighth Circuit Court Judge Gerald Heany admitted in 1991 that “there is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case.” The government prosecutor, Lynn Crooks, even admitted in court that year that the government had no proof that Peltier was the killer, though she defended his imprisonment by arguing that aiding and abetting the agents’ murder was just as bad as pulling the trigger.
Peltier has received the support of dozens of members of Congress, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Rev. Jesse Jackson, the National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Amnesty International, The U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, several European Parliaments, and many other individuals and groups. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and run for president. Yet he remains behind bars, thanks largely to the concerted interference of the FBI, who do not want the truth of their racist vendetta against AIM revealed to the public.
In 2000, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appealed to outgoing President Bill Clinton to grant clemency. Thousands of people made phone calls and sent letters of support. But in the face of strong FBI opposition, Clinton declined, choosing instead to pardon billionaire tax-evader and Clinton campaign financier Marc Rich. (Where were the FBI protests over the pardon of a man confirmed beyond a doubt to have cheated taxpayers out of millions of dollars?)
Subsequently, Peltier was moved from Leavenworth Penitentiary to Lewiston, Pennsylvania. This past January, he was transferred again to USP-Canaan, near Scranton, PA, where he was reportedly assaulted by other prisoners in what may have been an FBI setup. He has been kept in solitary confinement since then and placed on meal restrictions. He is not in great health, suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition. But he continues to work as an artist, earning his defense committee up to $6,000 each for his paintings. He has written poetry and books, including the memoir “Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance.” He has continued to promote scholarships for Native youth and prisoner art programs, as well as donating to battered women’s shelters and the Pine Ridge Christmas drive.
Leonard Peltier’s is a clear-cut case of a man convicted of fighting government persecution against his people. After 32 years behind bars, the FBI still seeks to make an example of Peltier for others who would stand up for the liberation of indigenous people and the return of their stolen lands and livelihoods. He deserves our support, he deserves freedom, and he deserves recognition for his heroic acts and positive influence on so many Native communities. Socialist Action stands for a world free from oppression and persecution, for reparations to indigenous peoples and their self-determination, and for freedom for political prisoners like Leonard Peltier. Thank you.
Leonard Peltier's account of that day
Human Needs, Not Profits!
I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. ~Kahlil Gibran
by Carl Sack / March 2009
Below is a transcript of a speech delivered at a Socialist Action forum at the University of Minnesota-Duluth in March, 2009.
When Christopher Columbus set foot on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, he began a process of genocide which would last until modern times. Since Columbus’s fateful voyage, Native American peoples have faced an onslaught of European disease, war technology, and trade that has irrevocably altered their cultures and resulted in the loss of their lands and lifeways.
In the 19th century, Euro-Americans pushed Westward in a drive to disinherit indigenous peoples of their land so that it could be put to cultivation and converted to private property to drive the expansion of capitalism. The clash of races was a cover for the clash of two profoundly different economic systems: what Marx called primitive communism, where all land and resources were held in common and managed for the good of the people, and the new system of agrarian capitalism, which needed to destroy the former to expand itself and create a willing paid workforce. The racist banner of capitalism was Manifest Destiny, an ideology which lasted into the history textbooks of the 20th century. It said that Whites were a superior race ordained by God to “civilize” all the lands of the American continent—meaning convert it to private property for purposes of White ownership and trade.
In 1890, the “frontier” was declared extinct and “allotment” became policy, which deprived indigenous people of the right to control even the resource-impoverished postage-stamp reservation lands left to them by the U.S. government. In the late 19th through mid 20th centuries, the government attempted to exterminate indigenous culture through the mass kidnapping of indigenous children, who were forced into boarding schools run by Christian churches. There they were not allowed to speak any language but English and beaten if they displayed any “Indian tendencies.”
Native Americans did not become recognized as U.S. citizens until 1924, and it is only within the last few decades that they have been successfully able to assert some of the treaty rights they were cheated out of for over a century. Indigenous activists have had to fight hard for every gain both in the courts and through mass action such as protests, civil disobedience, land occupations and even armed insurrection. Groups such as the American Indian Movement and leaders such as Leonard Peltier have played pivotal roles in the movement for Native rights. Just as in the struggle for Black civil rights, many Native activists have had to sacrifice their personal freedom or even their lives to gain more freedom for their people.
Indigenous peoples have never taken the White onslaught lying down. The Indian Wars and insurrections that took place in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in loss after loss for indigenous tribes, as they fell before the superior weapons, greater numbers and sheer brutality of the White invaders. Beaten militarily, their lands stolen through legal and extralegal treachery, treaty after treaty made then broken, most indigenous people fell into desperate poverty on reservations. Many moved off reservations and into cities to look for work.
Things began to change in the 1950s. In 1953, the U.S. Congress approved what was called “Termination Policy,” a policy ostensibly meant to improve living conditions for Native Americans on reservations, but one that turned into yet another tool for dispossessing them of what little advantages they were left with. The government’s goal was to end federal supervision of tribes and assimilate tribal members into mainstream American society, in essence to “terminate” tribal identity. Practically, this meant ending U.S. aid to tribes and selling off lands held in trust for the tribes. Two states, Wisconsin and Oregon, also attempted to use Termination to deprive Native Americans of their hunting and fishing treaty rights.
The new policy was tried on several reservations. It sparked a backlash of protests among tribal members who found themselves faced with the choice of giving up their tribal membership and moving away to cities or staying put and starving for lack of government food assistance, which they had been forced into dependence on. Lawsuits brought to the Supreme Court by tribes in Wisconsin and Oregon succeeded in re-asserting native hunting and fishing rights, even for those who had abrogated their tribal membership.
At the same time, the civil rights movement was awakening the pride of African-Americans, whose ancestors had been kidnapped and brought to the United States to work as human mules on Southern plantations, and subsequently “freed” from their masters only to be re-bonded as sharecroppers or low-paid urban workers and denied the basic rights afforded to Whites. Many indigenous people recognized themselves as a similarly oppressed nationality, with common interests with Blacks, and were inspired by the Black struggle for liberation. Calls by the most militant African-Americans for “Black Power” resounded with Native American youth, who rebranded the slogan “Red Power” to express their own drive for liberation.
Out of this cauldron of radicalization was born the American Indian Movement. The group was formed in the summer of 1968 at a meeting of some 200 Native activists in Minneapolis, brought together and subsequently led by Dennis Banks, George Mitchell and Clyde Bellancourt. These young people first focused largely on problems faced by urban Native Americans, including police brutality, slum housing, high unemployment, poverty and institutional racism—problems also faced by the Black community. But they also fought for a change in Indian policy at the federal level and to re-assert treaty rights. Embedded in the anti-colonialism of AIM were appeals to Native spirituality and cross-tribal ethnic unity—the renewal of an “American Indian” identity.
In 1969, AIM supporters from several tribes gained national attention by declaring Alcatraz Island, in the San Francisco Bay, reclaimed Indian land and occupying it for 19 months. The occupiers, hailing from many different tribes from around the country, took the name “United Indians of All Tribes,” and set up an independent government operated by consensus. Although the occupation ultimately ended with the Indians’ removal by Federal marshals, this bold action awakened the political consciousness of many Native Americans and their supporters, and played a key role in subsequent land victories.
In 1970, 71 and 72, AIM activists conducted several takeovers, including abandoned air base property in Minneapolis and a hydroelectric dam on the Lac Court Orielles Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin. They took over a Mayflower replica on Thanskgiving Day at Plymouth Rock, and briefly held Mount Rushmore. In 1972, AIM and other groups conducted the Trail of Broken Treaties, a caravan from the West Coast to Washington, D.C., which ended with the takeover of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters. Native activists presented a list of twenty demands to President Nixon, which included abolition of the BIA, ending treaty rights violations, restoration of 110 million acres of land to Indian control, and Indian self-determination.
Taking part in the Trail of Broken Treaties was a 27-year-old AIM activist named Leonard Peltier. Peltier was born in 1944 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Ojibwe and Lakota parents. He spent much of his childhood with his father’s family on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. At age 9, he was forcibly shipped off to an Indian boarding school 150 miles from home, where he stayed through ninth grade.
As a teenager, Peltier became radicalized by participating in protest actions against Termination Policy. An awakening experience for Peltier took place one harsh winter, when BIA social workers came to the Turtle Mountain reservation to investigate reports of people starving because the government had cut off aid. Peltier went around to houses before the BIA workers arrived to tell the families to hide what little food they had, only to be told at each house he went to that there was nothing there to hide.
Peltier worked for a time as a migrant farm worker. In 1965, he moved to Seattle, where he co-owned an auto body shop that employed Native Americans and served as a halfway house for Native ex-prisoners. After his company folded, he began to travel to different cities and reservations, doing construction work and community organizing among Native communities. He joined AIM in Denver, the last city he stayed in before taking part in the BIA occupation.
The actions of AIM activists including Peltier succeeded in winning some gains, most notably the reversal of Termination Policy in the 1970s. But their effectiveness earned AIM the ire of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and the group became a prime target of COINTELPRO, the FBI Counterintelligence Program that attempted to smash radical organizations by any means possible.
The most violent battleground between AIM and the FBI soon took shape on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. In February 1973, a group of AIM activists led by Russell Means arrived in the small town of Wounded Knee, near the site of an 1890 massacre of Lakota Sioux by federal troops. They came for a meeting with local “Traditional” Lakota who opposed corrupt tribal chairman Dick Wilson. Wilson was supported by mixed-blood pro-assimilation residents and the White ranching community, as well as the BIA and FBI. He was rumored to be getting kickbacks to approve contracts for uranium mining.
Within a couple hours of the AIM activists’ arrival at Wounded Knee, FBI agents and Federal Marshals surrounded the town and began to arrest anyone leaving. This led to a 71-day standoff, in which both sides traded gunfire daily. The government brought in armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers, automatic rifles, flares, and 133,000 rounds of ammunition. Two Native Americans were killed and a Federal Marshal was paralyzed.
The Wounded Knee incident began a three-year period of intense political violence against AIM activists and their supporters on Pine Ridge. FBI agents were authorized to engage in “paramilitary activity” with AIM. Tribal chairman Dick Wilson used tribal funds to deputize vigilantes self-described as “GOON squads” (GOON nominally stood for “Guardians Of the Oglala Nation”). The Goon squads conducted beatings, drive-by shootings, and executions, resulting in over 60 murders of Traditional tribal members and AIM activists. Only one of these murders was ever prosecuted (the resulting conviction of an AIM activist in 2004 should be considered highly suspect as key witnesses were paid by the FBI—more on this later). The FBI supplied the Goons with intelligence on AIM and in at least some cases, ammunition.
Peltier answered the call to assist the Traditional people of Pine Ridge in the struggle against Wilson’s goons and the FBI. He arrived with a group of AIM activists, who set up camp on a ranch owned by an elderly couple, the Jumping Bulls. While there, the AIM activists advocated sobriety and helped organize traditional religious ceremonies, self-sufficiency projects, and community activities, as well as security for tribal members endangered by the cops and Goons.
On the morning of June 26, 1975, two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, drove into the Jumping Bull compound. They were ostensibly in pursuit of a red pickup truck driven by Jimmy Eagle, a young Lakota accused of stealing a pair of cowboy boots from a White rancher. Over 40 AIM and tribal members were at the compound at the time. AIM members Bob Robideau and Norman Brown testified that the agents—who they did not know were agents at the time—fired on the camp, and they returned fire. A major shootout erupted which resulted in the deaths of Coler, Williams, and a young Lakota named Joseph Stuntz. The bullet that killed Williams was fired at close range and went through his hand before entering his head. Coler was also shot in the head at close range after being injured. Stuntz was shot in the forehead, but his death never received an investigation.
The camp was soon surrounded by 350 U.S. Marshals, FBI agents and BIA cops. They began a manhunt for Bob Robideau, Darrelle Butler, Jimmy Eagle, and Leonard Peltier, who fled the scene and were charged with aiding and abetting the agents’ murders (no witnesses came forward to identify the agents’ shooters). Butler, Robideau, and Eagle were soon apprehended. Peltier fled to Canada and was apprehended there on February 6, 1976. Bob Robideau and Darrelle Butler were tried together, and were found not guilty by reason of self-defense. The case against Jimmy Eagle was subsequently dismissed. But because the extradition of Peltier was delayed, once he was extradited to the U.S., he was tried later. By that time, the FBI was out for vengeance.
The cornerstone of the U.S. case for extraditing Peltier was a set of three affidavits from a woman named Myrtle Poor Bear, who was believed by many who knew her to be mentally unstable. The affidavits were inconsistent with one another, one claiming she had not been at the Jumping Bull compound, and two others claiming she was there with Peltier as his girlfriend. Poor Bear has since recanted the affidavits, saying she had never met Peltier and claiming FBI agents threatened to take away her daughter and to “put [her] through a meat grinder.”
Nevertheless, the affidavits were enough for Canada to extradite Peltier, and he was tried in early 1977 in Fargo, North Dakota before an all-White jury and anti-Indian Judge Paul Benson. The prosecution’s main witness, FBI agent Mike Anderson, changed his previous account and claimed that it was Peltier, not Jimmy Eagle, who agents Coler and Williams had been in pursuit of, and Peltier got out at the compound and single-handedly shot the agents to death. The jury was shown a .223 shell casing from an AR-15 rifle traced to Peltier that they said had been found in Coler’s trunk. Judge Benson repeatedly ruled against defense attempts to introduce evidence and barred key defense witnesses, including Myrtle Poor Bear, from testifying. Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Several appeals attempted to introduce evidence repressed by the FBI. The most damning piece of evidence was a ballistics test conducted soon after the shootout that concluded that Peltier’s gun had a different firing pin than any of the shell casings found at the scene and could not have been the weapon used to kill Coler or Williams. In fact, not one witness who was not an FBI agent identified Peltier as the actual shooter. Three teenage witnesses who testified against Peltier later said they were forced into testifying and recanted.
In a case connected to Peltier’s, homeless Lakota Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud was tried in 2004 for the execution-style murder of fellow AIM activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. The prosecution claimed that Aquash was executed by Looking Cloud and two other AIM members because they thought she was an FBI informant. The ex-wife of AIM leader Dennis Banks, Darlene “Kamook” Nichols, claimed during the trial that Peltier had confessed his guilt to a group of AIM activists including Aquash and her in 1975. Nichols acknowledged she was paid $42,000 by the FBI for her cooperation in the trial, and soon after the trial she married Robert Ecoffey, the Director of BIA Law Enforcement.
Aquash was a prominent AIM activist and a thorn in the FBI’s side. When Aquash’s body was discovered frozen in 1975, FBI agents who knew her well processed the case. They failed to identify the body, declared her death due to exposure, cut off her hands to send to Washington, D.C. for fingerprinting, and buried the body as “Jane Doe.” After she was identified by fingerprinting, AIM members exhumed the body and demanded a second autopsy, which discovered the gaping bullet hole in her head. Despite the FBI’s cover-up and their shady dealings at the 2004 trial, Looking Cloud was convicted of the shooting and sentenced to life in prison.
The FBI is not finished using the Aquash case to go after other AIM members. John Graham and Dick Marshall, the latter once a bodyguard for Russell Means, are both jailed and awaiting trial, charged with aiding and abetting Aquash’s murder. Unfortunately, the case has succeeded in sowing division and uncertainty in the AIM leadership, an outcome surely hoped for by the FBI.
As for Peltier, despite numerous appeals he has never been granted a new trial. Eighth Circuit Court Judge Gerald Heany admitted in 1991 that “there is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case.” The government prosecutor, Lynn Crooks, even admitted in court that year that the government had no proof that Peltier was the killer, though she defended his imprisonment by arguing that aiding and abetting the agents’ murder was just as bad as pulling the trigger.
Peltier has received the support of dozens of members of Congress, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Rev. Jesse Jackson, the National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Amnesty International, The U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, several European Parliaments, and many other individuals and groups. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and run for president. Yet he remains behind bars, thanks largely to the concerted interference of the FBI, who do not want the truth of their racist vendetta against AIM revealed to the public.
In 2000, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appealed to outgoing President Bill Clinton to grant clemency. Thousands of people made phone calls and sent letters of support. But in the face of strong FBI opposition, Clinton declined, choosing instead to pardon billionaire tax-evader and Clinton campaign financier Marc Rich. (Where were the FBI protests over the pardon of a man confirmed beyond a doubt to have cheated taxpayers out of millions of dollars?)
Subsequently, Peltier was moved from Leavenworth Penitentiary to Lewiston, Pennsylvania. This past January, he was transferred again to USP-Canaan, near Scranton, PA, where he was reportedly assaulted by other prisoners in what may have been an FBI setup. He has been kept in solitary confinement since then and placed on meal restrictions. He is not in great health, suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition. But he continues to work as an artist, earning his defense committee up to $6,000 each for his paintings. He has written poetry and books, including the memoir “Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance.” He has continued to promote scholarships for Native youth and prisoner art programs, as well as donating to battered women’s shelters and the Pine Ridge Christmas drive.
Leonard Peltier’s is a clear-cut case of a man convicted of fighting government persecution against his people. After 32 years behind bars, the FBI still seeks to make an example of Peltier for others who would stand up for the liberation of indigenous people and the return of their stolen lands and livelihoods. He deserves our support, he deserves freedom, and he deserves recognition for his heroic acts and positive influence on so many Native communities. Socialist Action stands for a world free from oppression and persecution, for reparations to indigenous peoples and their self-determination, and for freedom for political prisoners like Leonard Peltier. Thank you.
Leonard Peltier's account of that day
Human Needs, Not Profits!
I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. ~Kahlil Gibran
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