After the re-election of George Bush the Canadian office was flooded with asylum appeals from thousands of US soldiers attempting to avoid the war in Iraq. The trend has been snowballing ever since Private Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey [2] deserted the army back in January 2004, and they are claiming refugee status in Canada. The election results left many Americans in a state of shock and embarrassed. The nation elected a man who “cannot think properly” in the words of Nelson Mandela [3]; apparently he also talks to God; who has put him in charge and set him on a divine mission to ‘liberate’ Iraq: sounds like the traits of a religious fanatic!
This is indeed very embarrassing and more so, when one considers that the US has been busy employing the pejorative term (religious fanatic) against the Islamic world. Europe also reacted with disappointment but had to concede to the reality that the highly commercialized US-elections are determined by the weight of money not the quantity of votes or the quality of ideas. Until the influence of corporate-money and elections are decoupled, real democracy will remain illusionary.
Many of the analysts concluded that Bush’s victory was contributed by the strategy of the Republicans focusing largely on the existing conservative states rather than the swing states. States encompass the Bible belt where many of the bible-thumpers like Bush also talks to God that even surpasses the claims of the ‘infallible’ Pope! One of these bible-thumpers said on TV, that this war is a crusade and Bush was going to show the Iraqis Christianity, i.e. ‘love’ of Christ and Bush certainly did that with cluster bombs as Eid gifts for the children of Fallujah and other similar goodies.
General William Boykin who thought anyone opposing the US army was a Satan expressed similar religious fanaticism. Now Lt. Colonel Brandl, marine battalion commander also regards the people of Fallujah as Satan [4]. Hence, ‘Satan’ was fought by cutting off basic food and water supplies, demolishing hospitals, killing medics, forbidding independent media coverage, massacring hundreds of civilians through indiscriminate bombings and now preventing basic aid from getting into town. To date no independent media have shown pictures of even handful of dead Iraqis that can be identified as freedom fighters in combat perhaps clutching to their weapons.
So, it seems ‘Satan’ was fought using satanic ways. According to the Bible (Matt 7:16) did not Jesus (PBUH) say, “By their fruits you shall recognize them”? Of course, that also implies that the observers has integrity and mentally stable to judge fairly the quality of the fruits.
Barbra Stock who operates her own website, a devout Catholic and a fanatical rightwing Republican that is typical of those who voted for Bush. She wrote an article [1] largely directed to me, as usual, only the handful of rightwing websites [5] published it as that seems to be her only outlet! The websites refused to publish my previous response [6] to her, not interested in the opposing and an elaborated view. These types of organizations lectures about ‘freedom’ in reality they fear such notions, prefer to keep the Americans in the dark. Her writings may amuse many however a brief examination of the arguments presented will give us a glimpse into the typical mindset that has helped to re-elect George Bush; answer in part those American folks who have emailed me, confused and shock as to how Bush won.
The Rebuttal
The title [1] of her article is comical, as a simple count of the dead bodies would easily reveal who has lost and spilt most of the blood. Any impartial observer would regard the implication of the title with its content as: idiotic! As it infers the US as the innocent victim whilst the Iraqis the aggressor. The casualty figures of the dead Iraqis, most of them women and children resulted from the US bombings has been estimated by the independent and UK based organization of the Lancet Medical Journal [7] to be around 100,000, published by the Guardian Newspaper in London, whilst the figures released by the Pentagon is around 1200 dead US soldiers. But for the typical obese Americans like Barbara she is not even satisfied with that kind of advantage. A gluttonous nation consuming disproportionate amount of the world’s resources will always want more wealth and more blood.
She gets desperate and in order to prove her case she inflates the US casualty figures by adding to it the victims of Saddam Hussein! Why? Saddam ruled Iraq by the western-secular-socialist ideology of the Bath party; killed and persecuted the Islamic movements yet for some reason Barbra seems to think Saddam was driven by Islam and his killings are the blood on Muslims hands! This already gives us a glimpse of her basic ‘knowledge’ of the facts never mind analysis and there is more to come! So sit tight enjoy the rest of the show.
First of all the victims of Saddam were exaggerated as part of the war propaganda. Saddam’s mass graves of millions have so far turned out to be around 5,000 [8] and most of them may well be the victims of the war with Iran. Even the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja in 1988 is disputed by the CIA [9] as the Iranians were largely blamed for the gasses; the residents in Halabja were caught in the crossfire.
Secondly, those crimes were committed in the 1980s not post 9/11 or post 1991, where was Barbra or the US at that time? Yes, in bed with Saddam. She is denial over the complicity of the US with Saddam in these crimes as his chief supplier. I even showed her a picture of Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein shaking hands back in 1982 but it did not register in her brain cells.
In any case, how is that Muslims have the blood in their hands are they author of: two world wars, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Nazi Gas Chambers, Fascism of Benito Mussolini, barbaric Spanish Inquisitions blessed by the Pope, medieval crusades, the genocide of 500,000 Philippines in the Spanish-American war, burning of Vietnamese villages using Napalm, slavery of Africans, Conquistadores massacre of the Aztecs and Incas, the extermination of the Aboriginals in Australia, so on and on, a very long list. If she examined her history she would have realized the US was born through the genocide of 70 million peaceful Native Americans.
Now, the obvious ‘error’ in her article which she must have missed in her latest frenzied outburst. She says I am the author of the article “The Satanic Christians of the USA” [7] which is not the case. The author is in fact a Christian by the name of Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey. As a fair-minded person I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she has made a genuine error. However, when you take the other outbursts it illustrates the point that her emotional rage has led her to miss this simple fact. Now let us examine some of the points she raises.
a) Beheadings or Incineration?
Barbra seems to exhibit a twisted ‘moral’ outrage at the beheadings done in ‘retaliation’ but she has no regrets with the high-tech methods employed by the US soldiers in F16s or the low-tech methods in Abu-Ghraib in the first place! She states in her article:
“But is Islam a ‘peaceful’ religion? Certainly the vast majority of Muslims would have a problem with actually beheading another human being or slitting a toddler’s throat but there are many Muslims who find nothing wrong with this behavior. They read their Quran and agree that it is all justified.”
Without any supporting evidences she claims as if Muslims advocate wanton killing like the serial killers in the US or the US soldiers seen in video clips shooting unarmed civilians for fun or like the dropping of nuclear and chemical bombs on civilians! Tonight we see further clips and reports of ‘brave’ US soldiers shooting injured Iraqis in Fallujah’s homes and Mosques, blatant violation of international laws –” but that won’t rattle Barb’s conscience.
Iraqi resistance did not get up suddenly decided to use such methods as beheading; this was a ‘response’ to the US atrocities. Why is the burning [8] the Iraqis to death using Napalm bombs and Phosphorus bombs any more civilized than beheadings? Of course the reason is one is done by the US soldiers the other by the Iraqis! That is the essence of her ‘analysis’ and ‘logic’. There is no context to these events, just pick and chose. Hardly analytical! No wonder her writings are confined to the local US-based rabid rightwing press.
If you were attacked by a burning Phosphorus or Napalm bombs you would be begging Musab Al-Zarqawi to behead you to relive the pain. Even the father of Nick Berg courageously made this point that at least his son was not tortured to death like the Iraqis suffered in the horror chambers of Abu-Ghraib and Camp-X-Ray!
I am mystified as to where the slitting of toddler’s throats was advocated and by whom. No elaboration or hard facts are provided. Once, laughably she cited ‘news’ from the extreme anti-Islamic Hindu Unity organization, which is like asking the Nazis for a reference about the Jews. Acquisition of objective reports is alien to Barbra.
b) Evil Islam
She then proceeds like those brainwashed bible-thumpers and makes hate-filled slur against Islam rather than forming scholarly criticism based on research. She rants by citing certain verses without any reference to Islamic jurists or exegesis or scholars as to what they mean and its context and she goes on to write:
“Indeed, if one reads the Quran, just about everything from slavery to pedophilia to rape is justified. The only thing that matters is who is doing what to whom. If it is a Muslim beheading an infidel then it has Allah’s blessing and thus is perfectly legal and is encouraged.”
In the Quran rape, pedophilia and slavery (as understood in the Western sense) is not mentioned anywhere and not surprisingly she is again short on genuine references supported by the works of Islamic scholars.
Islam categorically prohibits sex even through consent (adultery or fornication) outside marriage then surely by greater reasoning you cannot force someone to have sex through rape! It is double the aggression. Rapist are punished severely under the Islamic penal codes, unlike the West, rapists are not rewarded with a cozy cell and then released after a sort period of time in the name of being liberal. This is because Islam places a much higher value on the honor of a woman, reflected in the severe punishment given to rapists.
As for pedophilia, marriage in Islam takes place only after puberty. Of course the age-old and hate-filled reference to Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) marriage to Aisha (RA) is there. This was line with Judeo-Christian tradition of marriage after puberty and the age of Aisha is disputed. In fact, in Jewish laws Rabbis are permitted to marry girls before the age of puberty and have non-penetrative sex but not in Islam. Some people may be shocked but unlike Islam there is not a concerted campaign against Judaism. Bible claims Prophet Lot committed incest, Prophet David committed adultery but yet no Muslims ever claimed that Christianity advocates incest or adultery even though the Muslims have the stronger grounds to make such smears!
If one cares to do a Google search on this subject of pedophilia the reality of this issue will be displayed in front of her eyes. Where are those vast numbers of pedophiliac sites hosted and by whom? Who indulges in it? Barbra should investigate NAMBLA, a US-based organization advocating such things and worse. Bestiality is another fad that has huge following in the US and other Western liberated countries, again a Google search will expose this. In any case, if Islam is so evil then why is Barbra so worried? It will surely be rejected by the masses in this era of information.
c) Violence and Forced Conversion
She rants on about my views on violence and it seems ‘only’ Barbra has trouble understanding that I advocate the right of the victim seeking retribution or acting in self-defense. In contrast her ‘logic’ is retaliation is a crime but not the unprovoked attack in the first place as she selectively highlights incidents like Madrid and Bali as if nothing else happened prior or after or in between those events. As for 9/11 she thinks Adam and Eve were born on that day! She states:
“What he wishes to do is be a cheerleader for the killing, the slaughter, the executions and beheadings because he doesn’t have to do any of it. No one will come and ask him to send his son out to be a suicide bomber or ask him to prove his loyalty by executing a three-year-old Jewish toddler. Yamin posts his hate-filled words on an Islamic blog and Islamic web sites and he is regarded as insightful and brilliant by the followers of Islam that read them.”
My position is far better than those hypocrites who say, “turn your other cheeks”, “love your enemy” then commit genocide against peaceful nations. History is littered with such examples. If she ever read her own history, she would have realized that by her criteria her forefathers would be classified as terrorist and violent, when they fought against British imperialism to gain independence. They fought just like the Iraqis not in uniform as they were at a disadvantage against the well-equipped and trained British army!
The reference to the ‘execution’ of a Jewish toddler is a mystery without any reference but like a hypocrite she ignores the much larger number of Palestinian toddlers being killed and executed in Sabra-Shatila, Qana, Dar Yassin, Beirut and it continues toady. In her mind they are probably not human beings so she never refers to obtain the actual statistics of the number of Palestinians killed even though this is readily available on the Internet. But those are swept under the carpet for Barbra’s world of twisted-morality. If you read some of her materials you might think it is the Palestinians came from Eastern Europe to Palestine in the 1920s, after building the Gas chambers and then occupied West Bank and Gaza!
Furthermore, Muslims had always protected the Jews in history; they were given protection by the Ottoman whilst being butchered in Catholic Spain with the blessing of the Pope. Pogroms, ritual slaughter of Jews in Easter and Gas chambers were the creation of Christian Europe not the tolerant Islamic world.
If my articles were hate-filled, lacking in substance than surely it would be ignored, so why is she so obsessed? A Google search will show my articles are published in Muslim, non-Muslim, Islamic and secular websites. My most recent article about the US elections [10] was in fact supported by a lot of non-Muslims vast number of them Americans. She then alleges somehow that I have said that the world should be converted by force, she says:
“His logic is this: If the world would just accept Islam, his’ boys’ wouldn’t have to kill everyone.”
No one has ever said to me the above was my ‘logic’ and I have failed to see when I had deployed such ‘logic’. Forced conversion, witch burning, inquisition was practiced by the Catholic Church and there is no instance of this in Islamic history.
d) Saddam Hussein and other made-in-US dictators
It was the CIA agent Geoffrey Kemp that said, “Saddam was a son of a bitch but he was our son of a bitch”. Barbra rants about the crimes of Saddam Hussein and his sons forgetting the US complicity and the US forces are repeating the crimes in Iraq. The Islamic movements have always opposed Saddam long before Saddam became inconvenient to the US.
Raving in this manner she only makes a bigger fool of herself. The US has always entertained brutal dictators like Pol Pot, Pinochet and at present the government of Uzbekistan, a close US ally. The government boils prisoners to death for expressing their Islamic opinions and has been condemned by international human rights organizations. However, Barbra sees no contradiction or a tiny element of hypocrisy! For sure when the US wants to invade Uzbekistan in the future Barbra will spring into action and cite all these things as it gets churned out by Fox-TV.
e) Barbra Exposes Her Fascist Nature
In the previous article [6] she exposed her racist nature, which is natural given her rightwing xenophobic fascist way of thinking, she goes on to say:
“However, discussed at great length is the fact that some Muslim men had underwear put on their heads. Yamin insists that the Geneva Convention was ignored but the Geneva Convention apparently does not apply to the terrorists.”
A lot more happened in Abu-Ghraib, Umm Qasr and other US-run prisons. Seymour Hirsh saw the video clips of young teen and pre-teen boys screeching whilst being sodomised by US soldiers. Yes, the real Pedophiles not the imaginary ones claimed by Barbra. Daughters abused in front of their parents and relatives yet this nation rants about women’s rights. What did the US senator say after seeing the pictures and videos, “it was like descending into hell but unfortunately it was our creation” There are accounts of necrophilia and many disappearing in that horror chamber. Like a Fascist she just believes Fox-TV ‘news’ propaganda not even other US-based sources let alone the actual Iraqi victims from Iraq.
Later she points out that the offending soldiers of Abu-Ghraib have been given sentences as if that amounts to justice. If the soldiers have committed crimes in Iraq they should be subjected to the Iraqi laws tried by the Iraqi judges and victims. That is real justice, and this is what US would have demanded had the situation been reversed.
She talks about ‘terrorists’, well Barbra; someone does not become a terrorist just because the US says so! It has to be proven. Independent organizations like Red Cross have said vast majority were innocents picked up from checkpoints not from combat. Like the so-called ‘terrorists’ that has been released by the US from Camp-X-Ray. What right does an illegal invader like the US has the right to call anyone a terrorist?
But this exposes her Fascist and hate-fill nature. She advocates non-application of Geneva Convention but no alternatives are provided. This means she is saying that the US can do what ever it likes with those prisoners. That’s what the depraved US soldiers did, giving them a taste of US culture of freedom. No wonder the US refuses to sign up to the International Court of Justice unlike the rest of the civilized world. And the world demonstrated against the US not in her favor.
Conclusion
Barbra reminds me of those obese American kids clutching to their burgers fries and shakes whilst demanding that the starving African or Hispanic children reduce intake and calling them greedy! So, let’s remind Barbra that it is the US that is in Iraq not the reverse! Iraq never attacked the US or the UK. There were no WMDs and despite capturing Saddam, the US is still there and intends to be there until installing a favorable US dictator under the charade of free election colonizes the country.
The problem for the Americans is very clear; the above exposition of a mindset that is typical of a Bush-fundamentalist shows that the US is gripped with ignorance, moral-perversion, religious fanaticism and bigotry. The US is a superpower it must have people of integrity and caliber. But they are nowhere to be seen unless they sleep with the decadent US corporates put their interest before the interest of its masses. Genocide, carnage and colonization will continue in the name of democracy! The propaganda factory will continue to produce more and more of these ignorant rightwing zealots like Barbra and humanity is at peril.
Notes:
[1]. http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay .asp?aid=11116
[2]. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
82045E8A-05AD-42FF-929A-A58740173248.htm
[3]. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/
story.jsp?story=374183
[4]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread.
php?s=113618062ba8cf7370b2ee4d
52809009&threadid=884
[5] http://www.chronwatch.com , http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_5785.shtml
[6]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread
.php?s=&threadid=765
[7]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread
.php?s=&threadid=863
[8]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread.
php?s=&threadid=798
[7]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=875
[8]. http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/11281/
[9]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread.
php?s=07a856221cf6973af2e9caf8
bed80f09&threadid=19
[10]. http://www.cdlr.net/English/cdlrboard/showthread.
php?s=c01adb1c083c72f8e324e80
ea52d7a6f&threadid=871
