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Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Unpredictability, 9/11

The Muslim Viewpoints, 10-part compilation of videos from MemriTV presenting views of Muslims on issues distorted by the mainstream media:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Muslim Viewpoints, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, Israel, Egypt, Palestine, Zionism, Iran does not want nuclear weapons, Iran does not want to dominate the world, Iran does not want to exterminate the Jews, Israel = Nazi Germany, Fox news is more harmful than cyanide, Noam Chomsky

I remember on the 7th of July 2005 I was still training to be a combat medic in the Army. Without any connection to the outside world, I heard news of the so-called terror attacks from one of my medic instructors. While I felt bad that all these attacks kept on coming and killing innocent civilians, I had this tiny notion that it could be an inside job like 9/11. Yes, I am one of “those people” who absolutely believe 9/11 was just the beginning of this decade’s series of Reichstag events to sustain justification for the “War on Terror”.

In light of these facts (and other overwhelming evidence), I am utterly sick of so-called moderate Muslims who are actually just apologists for this entire Islamic terrorism farce, who go about declaring, “We condemn the terrorist actions of the marginal few amongst us. We condemn the extremists”. Blah. Blah. Blah. Since when do people have to apologise for actions not their own? It’s like 21st century Germans having to apologise for the Holocaust under Nazi regime.

I know condemnation is not apology but the way these ’statements of condemnation’ are declared, and the way certain ‘moderate’ Muslims suddenly want to go all-out and ‘reach out’ to the non-Muslim communities (e.g. in America, Singapore, etc), just seems to me to be the kowtowing of Muslims to the propaganda agenda of Bush & Co in their lust for oil, power and blood.

This “Oh, we’re moderates and we have nothing to do with these extreme factions and we feel sorry for the victims too and we condemn these cowardly terrorists” message is sickening. Muslims are humiliated, terrorised, looked at condescendingly (consciously or subconsciously). Even the “Oh, we know you guys are moderates. We support and respect your beliefs, moderate Muslims” message is subliminally a form of insult. As if sane and rational Muslims (i.e. the majority non-terrorists amongst us) crave approval and respect.

Respect, rights, freedom - nobody can give these things to us. We have to take it. But in the first place, we by right should already have it; so if we have to ‘take it’, then we must have done something stupid to have ‘lost it’ or allowed others to ‘take it from us’ in the first place.

The fact is, while all these ‘reach-out’ actions are good, the intention behind them have to be clear. It should be genuine. It should come from a basis of common humanity. Not propaganda. Not advertising the message that “Islam is a peaceful religion”. That’s like wasting billions of dollars advertising, “1 + 1 = 2″ or “Do you know that the sky is blue?”. DUH!!! We know that! Move on! It is insulting to the intelligences of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

And why is it that we see mostly non-Muslims at the forefront of these conspiracy propagation campaigns and justice movements? Since when do we have to surrender the defence of our dignity to non-Muslims while we sycophantically throw ourselves at the banner of the “Islam is a religion of peace” propaganda agenda fueled by Bush & Co while our brothers and sisters are routinely subject to holocaust-like actions (close to 1 Million Iraqi civilians killed since Gulf 1.0 and Madeleine Albright saying, “It was worth it” - not including Palestinians, Bosnians, etc) from the Zionist and Revelationist regimes?

There were Muslims among the victims of 9/11 and 7/7 and other ‘Reichstag’ terrorist attacks. Imagine the sorrow of the families of these Muslim victims compounded by the stupid apologetics of other so-called moderate Muslims who were not victims plus the harassment by the State and ignorant Islamophobes.

Here’s a suggestion. The next time, God forbid, another terror attack occurs, and Fox news (or other propaganda agencies) mentions the “believedtobelinkedtoalqaeda” word, Muslim leaders should come forward and, instead of saying the usual “We feel sorry for the victims and condemn the extremists”, should first say, “We question the legitimacy of allegations by government agents that these terror attacks were perpetrated by Islamists. We demand incontrovertible empirical evidence assessed by an overwhelming number of government-independent parties and a thorough investigation of the sources of such evidences as well as free access for the general public to the sites of these terror attacks. For the meantime, we express our heartfelt sorrow to the families of these victims and condemn all forms of terrorism - be it government-sponsored (as is usually the case) or religiously-inspired”.

7th of July 2005, 9/11, Reichstag, War on Terror, moderate Muslims, Madeleine Albright

The Shock Doctrine yells out to me shockingly when I first saw it a couple of weeks ago on the newcomers’ section of book stores. This is the first book I bought in months. I usually prefer to borrow them from the library (or from friends and forget to read - let alone return - them). It’s written by a Naomi Klein who also wrote No Logo, a maiden book that criticised Nike so much that it prompted a response from the company.

People say you can’t change City Hall. No one person can effect any kind of change - be it for the better or worse - without being challenged usually by narrower-minded peers, ridicule, bureaucracy or other factors which can be summed up as ‘the tyranny of the status quo bred by an addiction to (sometimes harmful) comfort zones’.

When I said that the book yelled out to me shockingly, I meant visually and aesthetically, referring to its cover, which is yellow with the title in bold, black text. In comparison, The God Delusion was uglier (white title against crimson background with what appeared to be emanating lines supposedly suggesting ‘revelation’ or ‘epiphany’) and more expensive.

And the reason I had been talking about anything but the actual content of the book in the last 3 paragraphs is that I am not an instantaneous speed reader (although I can read and absorb fast if necessary), hence, having only bought it today, I have yet to complete all 500+ pages of it. Rest assured, upon completion, there will be ample ammunition for future blog posts.

Anyway, just to give you an idea of what the book is about, I present you (yet another) video - a short movie, actually, made by Alfonso Cuaron (who made the beautiful Children of Men), who made it as his ‘blurb’ for the book. Enjoy:-

To end this post, I’d like to insert what Naomi quoted from the words of Gandhi in “Non-Violence - The Greatest Force” (1926): “An armed conflict between nations horrifies us. But the economic war is no better than an armed conflict. This is like a surgical operation. An economic war is prolonged torture. And its ravages are no less terrible than those depicted in the literature on war properly so called. We think nothing of the other because we are used to its deadly effects… The movement against war is sound. I pray for its success. But I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil - human greed”.

The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein, No Logo, Nike, The God Delusion, Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men, Gandhi, Non-Violence - The Greatest Force, root of all evil, human greed

Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler?

That’s like saying 1 + 1 = 3!

That’s like saying Mohandas aka Mahatma Gandhi, fighter for Indian independence from British colonial rule, wants to wipe out the British people off the face of the Earth!

Now, before you think I’m going to go and say something tit-for-tat like Bush is the one who is the new Hitler, stop. Because Bush is worse than Hitler. Hitler made his evil intentions clear. Bush is a liar, a fascist hiding in a democracy-evangelist costume (which is probably white in colour like that of the KKK), and his antics are bordering on Anti-Christ-like characteristics.

FALSE: Ahmadinejad said, “Israel should be wiped off the map”

TRUE: Ahmadinejad said, “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”. In another instance, he said, “I think that the Israeli government is a fabricated government and I have talked about the solution. The solution is democracy. We have said allow Palestinian people to participate in a free and fair referendum to express their views. What we are saying only serves the cause of durable peace. We want durable peace in that part of the world. A durable peace will only come about once the views of the people are met”.

My Opinion: Of course, I don’t believe Ahmadinejad is the most perfect leader of our time who truly champions the cause of democracy. He has his own problems to solve internally, in his country, and perhaps he is not the best, most exemplary person to tell others how the Palestinian-Israeli problem should be resolved. But do you judge the message or the messenger? Granted, sometimes, most of the time, the quality of the message is intrinsically tied up with the character of the messenger, but in this case, what he said is clear-cut and outright sensible that, even if it were to come from the mouth of the Devil himself, it’d be worth paying heed to!

The reality now is that any ideas for a solution to that decades-long problem would be more in favour of the expansionist policies of Israel and the Judeophiliac zeal of the biblicalist Revelationist fundamentalists in America.

Now, while that problem is still worsening in that part of the world, take a look at the reckless actions of a few elites who think they are gods on Earth:

Ahmadinejad, Gandhi, Bush, Hitler, Bush is a liar, Anti-Christ

Expand and free your mind (decide for yourself) by watching free documentaries online.

documentaries

I don’t know what I should be more angry about - the tyranny of the Neo-Nazi-Con (Neo-Con + Nazi) Bush Regime or the indifference of much of the informed world and the addiction of our youths to hedonistic tree-hugging or explosive angst-inspired art that borders on the suicidal and all its variations thereof.

September 11th was Bush’s reichstag incident. Yes, good people of America, your Nimrod-Pharaoh-Hitler of a President murdered your brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and children and blamed it on foreign enemies (or paid foreign enemies to do it for him).

Killing, enslaving and lying are wrongful, evil deeds. You don’t need religion to tell you that. But saying that good is evil and evil is good; or proclaiming to the world that a good (or innocent) person is demonic while you yourself are a murderous, lying incarnate of the Devil yet you portray yourself as God’s arm of Justice is outright, downright, absolute evil on the level that even Satan would be humbled.

Bush lied about WMD’s in Iraq - every sane, educated and informed person in the world admits to that. Now he is lying about Iran and Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad never said - in Farsi - that Israel should be wiped off the map. Like I said before in an earlier blog post, he said that the Zionist regime occupying Palestine should be removed from the face of history.

Lies, lies, all lies. For example, in this article, 6 Lies You Shouldn’t Believe About Iran, one of the lies mentioned was that Iran is bent on wiping out the Jews. Wrong. Iran is bent on removing the legion of Zionist monsters that terrorise not only Palestine, but the Middle East (including the non-Zionist non-militant Jews wherever they are - even in Iran), the United States and the rest of the world as well. But unlike a certain democracy-installing so-called democracy, Iran has never employed the policy of intervention or offence as the best form of defence. Never. Iranians are some of the most anti-anti-semitic (2 anti’s - would that make a pro-?) people in the Middle East unlike many of their misguided Arab brethren.

In a brief but engaging conversation I had with a newly-acquired friend (he’s from the Baha’i faith, interestingly, you didn’t expect that from a Shi’ah Muslim, did you?) yesterday, there seems to be people who do not understand Iran, Islam or Shi’ah Islam for that matter (not this friend of mine, but someone he knew) to the point that certain potentially harmful misunderstandings might be perpetuated, so let me clarify it here.

With all this attention being paid to Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he seems to be portrayed on the one side as the reincarnation of Hitler while on the other as a noble, charismatic and courageous leader who is not afraid to stand up for justice and is apparently a humble, religious and pious Shi’ah Muslim, but I am not one who likes to resort to hero worship, especially of people who are still alive (if a person 10 times more benevolent than Gandhi and Mother Theresa combined were to live in my time, I’d still only respect him / her, not worship or defend him / her at all costs from criticism zealously).

Despite whatever it is being said about him or whatever it is that he chooses to show to the public eye, Mr Ahmadinejad would never, ever declare himself to be the ‘Hidden Imam’ that he has been mentioning in the opening prayers that usually precede his speeches or allude to be some messianic figure. That would be a grave mistake akin to apostacy and deserving of excommunication (in the Muslim sense). Unless he is extremely bold beyond limits, or mad, or both, he would never do such a thing, let alone use such a claim as a rallying cry towards the Shi’ah Islamic Annexation of the entire world (a ridiculous notion).

For all of Hitler’s evils, and I can imagine how his Nazi minions worshipped him, from what I know of history, Hitler had never declared himself nor alluded to be the promised Messiah of Judeo-Christian traditions. Ironically, the history of the birth of modern democracy in France has seen its fair share of bloodshed and madmen who, after ridding the country of the ‘evil’ of monarchy, claim themselves to be some atheistic yet godlike figure greater than Christ.

With all this talk about the lies of Bush and his malevolent plans to control the world’s fuel sources and install mind-control microchips into every man, woman and child on the face of the planet, it is easy to get over-emotional (on either side) and demonise innocent people on the other side or on the fence. Place matters in their proper contexts and treat all aspects of all issues with justice (in Arabic, the word ‘justice’ or ‘adl’ means ‘putting things in their proper places’). While I am strongly against letting that criminal Bush go scot-free (either by election or natural death), I am equally strongly against any transgressive or over-the-limits actions, policies, tactics or plans in seeking justice.

Bush and his neo-Nazi-con cronies should be given a better taste of his own medicine. A better taste. He successfully did it to Saddam. Of course, a death sentence would be over the board. That is why I said a ‘better’ taste - a more human and just taste - for dual purposes - (1) to show him how human people can still be in punishing evil and (2) to show the world how human the people he had demonised actually are even in seeking justice against him who had tremendously wronged them. Exile and ostracism would suffice.

Nazi, Bush, September 11th, Bush lied, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Israel should be wiped off the map

This is hilarious:-

“What is Ramadhan? Is it a bomb?”

Now here’s the original version:-

A parody should be made of the Singaporean version as well - you know, those played on MRT stations.

national security, terrorism, patriot act, paranoia, hitler, reichstag

It seems the whole world save for Ahmadinejad has lost all sense. Why? Fear. Paranoia. Vested interests. Aggressive ideological assaults on all fronts.

Charlie Rose interviews Ahmadinejad.

Okay, perhaps my opening paragraph is a little exaggerating. But I beg you to view the above-linked video of an interview with the President of Iran. I appreciate Charlie Rose’s etiquette in interviewing Ahmadinejad.

Like a lot of people say, he might answer questions with questions and avoiding sensitive topics by his rhetorical wit. But so far I have seen he is most open here with Charlie Rose than with anyone else who’s ever interviewed him (or treated him like the Columbia University President did). Why? Social reciprocity. You can ask me any question you like, as long as you treat me with respect and ask relevant questions that do not have any ulterior motive or agenda except for seeking out the truth.

But then, listen closely to the words he say. Pay intent attention to his answers. They actually make sense. I know words come cheap and actions speak louder than words, but consider these facts:-

1. Remove the US from the Iranian Nuclear issue. You have the IAEA, a trusted world body, that affirms Iran’s nuclear programme is peaceful. Several other inspections were carried out to confirm this. No inspectors were suddenly taken away, tortured or bribed to say what Iran wants them to say. Then suddenly, you have a known liar for a President, Mr George W Bush, renowned for his billion-dollar farcical fabrications about Iraq circa 2002 - 2003, saying - as if he is his ancestor, Abraham Lincoln (or was it George Washington?), who legend reported had never lied before - that Iran’s nuclear programmes are not peaceful and that the ‘Moolahs’ (Mullah’s he meant - but then Iran’s clerics are known as Ayatollah’s or Hujjatul Islam’s - not Mullah’s) have ‘nuculear’ ambitions. And (many, not all) Americans are eating it all up!

2. Ahmadinejad affirms the affinity Iran has with Iraq (the war between them in the 80’s was a Saddam thing, not an intrinsically inspired hatred between the 2 nations; not like Israel and Palestine now). Iranian and Iraqi people intermarry, the Shi’ah Muslim religious scholars come harmoniously from both Iraq and Iran. Say what you will about Iran’s evil intentions to spread its Revolutionary Ideology to Iraq, but claims of Iranian weapons entering Iraq to kill Sunni brethren or the American occupiers are baseless (the only known sources of such claims are American officials - why didn’t the ‘democratically’-installed Iraqi government first sound the alarm or raise the red flag if it is true that Iran supplied weapons to Iraqi insurgents to destabilise the work of the new post-Saddam Iraqi government?).

Possible reasons Iran might want to sponsor Iraqi insurgents with weapons?

i. Shi’ite supremacy. Come on. Shi’ite Muslims would willingly give their lives to defend their Sunni brothers and sisters from the attacks of any external or internal rift-creating aggressors.

ii. American withdrawal. There are better ways to push for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq than supplying weapons to insurgents. Who are these insurgents anyway? Every day, these rascals bomb some Shi’ite sacred place in Iraq, then they bomb a portion of the Sunni population the next day, then on another day, they bomb some American troops. Who are they against? Who are they looking to eliminate? Why are their targets inconsistent? Are they different parties or are they all one and the same?

iii. Revolutionary ideology export. It’s been more than 2 decades since the Revolution, and no Shi’ite Islamic Revolution has ever occurred outside of Iran as a direct result of ‘79. Shi’ite Islamic ideology (the belief system, not the political revolutionary system) has spread (benignly) largely due to the ‘79 Revolution, yes, but the Revolutionary Ideology is not a product meant to be exported like ‘Democracy Made in the USA’.

Ahmadinejad, Charlie Rose, Iran