ORTHODOX CHURCH BACKS PROPOSAL TO REINSTATE MILITARY CHAPLAINS
RIA Novosti, Russia
April 11 2006
MOSCOW, April 11 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Orthodox Church passed
a resolution Tuesday in support of a move to re-introduce chaplains
into Russia’s armed forces in a bid to curb hazing and other crimes
in military ranks, and to improve morale.
“The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church is calling on the state,
society, and all traditional religions in Russia to join efforts to
revive the institution of military chaplains,” the supreme canonical
authority said following its first session this year.
The military chaplains bill was drafted by the Chief Military
Prosecutor’s Office and reportedly sent to the Defense Ministry for
approval. Prosecutors hope chaplains will help improve morale in the
army, recently plagued by corruption and hazing reports that have
provoked public criticism in Russia and abroad. The Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Europe’s largest security
body, has said it would raise the issue at one of its sessions.
Advocates of the bill say the 2,000 priests who now preach at military
units have reduced violence in barracks, although critics question
the claim.
The bill, which proposes that chaplains serve on the same terms as
professional servicemen, earlier stirred up debate among religious
leaders.
Shafig Pshikhachev, spokesman for the North Caucasus Muslim
Coordination Center, said at a recent roundtable on cooperation between
the military and religious organizations that the armed forces could
use priests, but that priests should not be part of the chain of
command. He said their proposed inclusion in the official ranks would
be a violation of the Constitution, which stipulates the separation
of church and state.
Orthodox Church leader Alexy II said that priests focus on spiritual
matters rather than discipline, and warned against expecting chaplains
to do what in other armies is done by military police.
Today, however, Orthodox hierarchs pointed out that chaplains had
been part of Russia’s pre-Bolshevik military tradition. They also
said chaplains or their equivalents worked in the armies of many
countries, including the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Israel, India,
and Pakistan. The Baltic States and Armenia were the first among the
post-Soviet states to bring chaplains back into their armies. Ukraine
and Georgia plan to follow suit.
“Positive domestic and world experience shows that the revived
institution of military clergy can be useful for the state and
society,” they said, adding that members of all traditional religions
should contribute to spiritual, moral, and patriotic education of
servicemen.
At the same time, the Orthodox Church, which is wary of other churches’
attempts to convert its members, said that religious organizations
whose members served in the armed forces should only be allowed to
work in military units.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CUT & PASTE: DON’T FORGET THAT JAPAN IS OUR BEST FRIEND IN ASIA
The Australian, Australia
April 11 2006
Former West Australian premier Geoff Gallop, in an address at
Murdoch University in Perth last week OUR growing links to China
and India [should be] put into the context of our long-term and
still developing partnerships with Japan. In all of our thinking
about Asian engagement we cannot ignore the strength of our links
to Japan. We share democratic values, face similar demographic and
social challenges, and have many interests in common in respect of
regional and international issues.
Let me take you back to the 1990s when Japan was in a protracted slump
and many questioned its ability to reform and revive. All through that
period Japan remained our major export market, with exports growing
by 44 per cent, and we worked together to ensure that the Asia-Pacific
[Economic] Co-operation [forum] was given a good start.
It has not just been a case of co-operation between the national
governments of Australia and Japan.
Each state of Australia has an active sister-state relationship
with a Japanese prefecture. There are 99 sister-city links and 369
partnerships involving higher education institutions. About 300,000
young Australians are learning Japanese today.
Add to that the 44 Japan-Australia societies in Japan and 15
counterpart associations in Australia, and you can begin to comprehend
the strength of the people-to-people links.
Deep beneath the surface of the high-level political relationships, a
level of trust and understanding has been built up and new directions
for the Australia-Japan partnership explored. This is an invaluable
asset and it is not surprising, then, that there has been an important
deepening and broadening of the trade and investment relationship…
All too often we hear Australia’s leaders using the distinction between
history (European) and geography (Asian) to describe our position in
the world. It is as if we are on the outside looking in, interested
but not really committed. This has led to mixed signals being sent
about our belief in regional participation and co-operation, and has
fed the assumptions of those who want to exclude Australia on the
basis of Asian values.
Japan is a country that supports Australian participation. In his
visionary speech delivered in Singapore in 2002, Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi outlined his conception of East Asia. He spoke
of an East Asian community, including Australia and New Zealand,
that sought harmony despite the diversity of historical, cultural
and ethnic traditions, and one that would not be exclusive but open
to those outside the region, most notably the US and India.
Australia was initially lukewarm about the idea but eventually came
to the party and the first East Asian summit was held in Kuala Lumpur
last December. Although incremental, this is a first move towards
consolidation within the Asian community … To be cynical and
half-hearted about genuine Asian engagement would be to let down our
people and take a risk with the future that we simply cannot afford.
William Pfaff, in the International Herald Tribune, on a welcome and
long-overdue debate about the Israel lobby:
THE note of panic in some of the attacks on distinguished US academics
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt [who discuss the Israeli lobby’s
effect on US foreign policy] contrasts with the fact that what they
say is no secret in American foreign policy circles. People have for
years taken for granted the informal censorship, or self-censorship,
exercised in the government and the press on this issue. It is a
fact of democratic life in the US that determined interest groups
annex their own spheres of federal policy. Energy policy is run by
the oil companies, and trade policy by manufacturers, exporters and
importers, with an input from Wall Street. US Cuba policy is decided
by the Cuban lobby in Florida and policy on Armenia by Americans
of Armenian descent. The Middle East, or at least its part of it,
belongs to Israel.
However, in the Israeli case, the lobbying effort is linked to a
foreign government, even if the lobbyists sometimes take a policy line
not that of the government. Moreover, the lobbying involves issues of
war and peace. US President George W. Bush said a few days ago that,
in connection with the supposed threat of Iran, his concern is to
protect Israel. Critics ask why Israel should not protect itself. The
same has been asked about Iraq.
In this respect, the controversy over the Israeli lobby is potentially
explosive. This is why denials, secrecy and efforts at intimidation
are dangerous. David Levy, a former adviser to [former Israeli prime
minister] Ehud Barak, is right when he says that Israel itself would
be served “if the open and critical debate that takes place over here
[in Israel] were exported over there”, meaning the US.

ARMENIAN MILITARY SAYS HUNDREDS STILL KEPT IN AZERI CAPTIVITY
By Ruzanna Stepanian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 11 2006
Hundreds of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians remain in
Azerbaijani captivity nearly twelve years after the end of large-scale
fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, a senior Armenian Defense Ministry
official claimed on Tuesday.
“We have information that they are used as slave labor in Azerbaijan,”
Colonel Ashot Balian, a member of a ministry commission dealing
missing Armenian soldiers and civilian hostages, told RFE/RL.
“The Azerbaijani authorities keep moving them around and leaving no
traces of them.”
“I therefore can’t name any specific locations, but we are convinced
that they are in Azerbaijan. Some are even said to have been relocated
to Turkey,” he said. “We still hope that our missing sons will return
to their families one day.”
The Azerbaijani authorities have denied holding any Armenian prisoners
in the past and allege, for their part, that thousands of missing
Azerbaijani soldiers and civilians are being held in Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian dismissed such claims as “unfounded”
during a meeting on Friday with the visiting chairman of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jacob Kellenberger.
Sarkisian said he hopes ICRC will certify “the absence of hostages
in Armenia” in its future reports.
The Red Cross, which has offices in both Baku and Yerevan, is the main
international institution that arranges Armenian-Azerbaijani prisoner
exchanges and repatriations. Both conflicting armies continue to turn
to it for assistance after reporting soldier disappearances.

IRAQI WOMEN WANT PEACE
Kamala Sarup
Los Angeles Chronicle
April 11 2006
“Many Iraqi Women and Children want to be able to go to the market
without being afraid.” These words spoken by 21 years old my own
brother Jitendra who is in Iraq, working with American Army.
Political instability and the Maoist insurgency have droves leaving
him our old town home Nepal so left the country and reached to Iraq
for employment. As it is difficult to survive the deteriorating
conditions in Nepali villages, large number of young people tend to
leave their villages looking for better opportunities even going to
Iraq or Afghanistan.
“I came to Iraq because people including women were being killed in
Nepal. We were very scared. All of us fled. Many other people in our
town have had similar experiences. But when I came to Iraq I see, with
the escalation of murders, bombings, and other forms of violence and
disruptions, thousands of Iraqi women and children have problems of
depression. The indirect effect is much larger.” He sent me an email.
War Times, December 2003 reported “The situation for women is worse
now than before the war,” said Eman Ahmed Khammas, director of the
Occupation Watch Center in Baghdad. Yanar Mohammed, co-founder of a
new Iraqi group called the Organization of Women’s Freedom, agrees:
“Organized gangs are kidnapping women, to be exploited and sometimes
to be sold. This has created fear and horror for women.”
State Press, 3/2/04 said “Things are a lot worse now. There’s no
security. Women cannot go out, cannot express themselves. The veil
has become compulsory for Muslims and Christians. This situation has
forced many Iraqi women to re-order their lives, wearing the hijab
for the first time and only traveling with male relatives”.
Yesterday A Swiss institute reported “Nearly 40,000 Iraqis have been
killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led
invasion. A study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal,
last October that said there had been 100,000 “excess deaths” in
Iraq from all causes since March 2003. Military deaths in the US-led
coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1937.
The Swiss institute said it arrived at its estimate of Iraqi deaths
resulting solely from combat or armed violence by re examining the
data gathered for the Lancet study and classifying, when it could,
the cause of death.
Report also says “Despite billions of dollars of improvements,
thousands of jammers and tonnes of armour plate, the so-called
improvised explosive devices in Iraq killed more Americans in May and
June than in any previous months, US military figures show. Attacks
in May alone reached 700, and the roadside bombs, car bombs and other
devices are now the cause of more than half of US casualties in Iraq”.
“Iraqi women unemployment in the cities is twice as high as male
unemployment. Iraq war has produced poverty, unemployment, internal
migration. As refugee women are especially most vulnerable. Because
of the war, many women are separated from their families”. Jitendra
my brother is one of hundreds of thousands of Nepali boys directly
affected by the Maoists war who went to Iraq for employment said.
“Kamala, cities and towns are the battlefield and women and children
the victims in Iraq. With the destruction the women and children are
badly affected in Iraq. Thousands of women and children have lost
their husbands, and parents”. He said yesterday.
“People can’t expect girls and children to grow up normally amid guns
and explosives. We can see that thousands of women and children have
been killed in Iraq. This figure will go up”. Jitendra further said.
“On the other side, the exploitation of women and children in the
ranks of the Iraqi rebels must end. In order to solve the issue of
the war and guarantee human rights to the Iraqi women, all have to
arrive at a conclusion on how this challenge to the security of the
women can be met. Innocent people and women have been victims.
Attacks occur in different parts of the country, so the situation is
very tense,” Jitendra said.
Even today Mr. Khalilzad, said the United States is willing to talk to
some elements of the Iraqi insurgency. ” Iraqis who have an interest
in a successful Iraq, who would like to live in a situation where
minority rights are protected, where Iraq can work for Iraqis.
So, yeah, we’re willing, in cooperation with the Iraqi government
and others, to talk to them,” he said.
My brother Jitendra said. “The Iraq war ruined dozens of lives. On the
other hand Iraqi people have also a particular dread of terrorism. The
atmosphere of terror ruined the Iraqi national economy also. A
humanitarian crisis is taking place in Iraq. Terrorist activities
cannot and should not be tolerated but Iraq war is also not good for
the people here. Iraqi people do not want war. They want peace”.
It is true, the wars being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq are the
immediate objectives of this war against terrorists. Even we Nepali
speaking world energetically condemns terrorism, but we do not like
any war including Iraq war to Maoists war.
In the past several years, the war has continued not only in Iraq
or in Nepal but in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Angola, Nigeria, Liberia,
Guinea, Zimbabwe, Congo. Several years after mass killings in Bosnia,
Somalia, and Rwanda, there are at least six major cases of genocide.
The mass killings of Armenians by Turks, Jews by Hitler, Cambodians
by the Khamer Rouge, Kurds of the northern Iraq by Saddam Hussein,
Tutsi of Rwanda by the Hutu and of Croats, Muslims the Albanians of
Kosovo by the Serbs.
There have been nearly thirteen thousands six hundred wars since
thirty six B.C. The toll of human misery measures around thirty
millions direct battle deaths since Waterloo and one hundred million
since three thousands six B.C. Then there are uncountable deaths,
broken bodies and lives from the ravages and effects of these wars.
About ninety five million of people have been killed in communist
countries only.
Suffering of civilians in war is increases substantially during any
kind of war. In the first World War, five percent of the casualties
were civilians, and in the second World War, the figure was fifty
five percent. Since then civilians have accounted for ninety percent
of the casualties.
Peace is an essential aspect of the safer world from Iraq to Nepal.
s/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7966
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKISH FM: ARMENIANS CREATED 450,000 SITES ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Regnum, Russia
April 11 2006
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has taken measures “to fully inform
the international community” via internet “about the historic truth
that denies statements on the alleged Armenian Genocide.” In these
words, reports the Azerbaijani State Television, Turkish Deputy Prime
Minister, head of the foreign ministry Abdullah Gul has started his
answer to an inquiry by members of the Turkish National Assembly.
Gul announced that Armenians created more than 450,000 sites on the
issue. These sites, mostly in English, French, German, Italian and
Spanish, according to him, propagate “far-fetched genocide.” The
Turkish foreign ministry has prepared, from its part, an appropriate
action plan.
According to the minister, parliaments of 18 countries adopted
resolutions in support of the Armenian statements, and ambassadors
of those countries in Ankara were invited to the ministry and handed
over protest notes. The Turkish government has taken other measures
as well. Bilateral ties with those states are subjected to revision,
some visits of top officials postponed, joint projects frozen,
concluded the Turkish minister.

UNLESS OSCE MG PRESSURES ON ARMENIA, ITS ACTIVITIES WILL BE SENSELESS – AZERI STATE OFFICIAL
Author: S.Ilhamgizi
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
Azerbaijan expects the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to make an impact
on Armenia. If the United States, France and Russia close eyes on the
occupation of areas, we should search justice not at the OSCE Minsk
Group, but somewhere else,Trend quotes Ali Hasanov, the head of the
Public-Political Department of the Azerbaijani President’s Apparat,
as stating on 11 April.
Hasanov said that Minsk Group should affect on Armenian for
rehabilitation of peace and stability in the South Caucasus. In the
opposite, the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group will be senseless.
Meetings of the Azerbaijani and Armenian Armed Forces in Ramboillet,
as well as talks held earlier with the participation of Minsk Group
co-chairs on the intensification of the hint at the intensification
of peaceable resolution this year. These talks add positive chances
for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “We want the
major principles of the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to be
outlined this year and putting of pressures on the sides to achieve
solution to the problem. The occupation of the Azerbaijani lands and
demand for the observation of the international rule of law are on
focus on the international community. However, Azerbaijan will never
step back from its positions and principles in the resolution of the
conflict. We will return our lands if we could resolve the conflict
in a peaceable way. In the opposite Azerbaijan will retain a right
for rehabilitation of territorial integrity,” he underlined.
He noted that Baku understands the concerns of foreign countries
unwilling the rehabilitation of war. No foreign country, in particular
the world powers participating in the global projects together with
Azerbaijan does not want Azerbaijan to liberate its occupied lands
in an armed way, or rehabilitation of the conflicts in the South
Caucasus. “It will probably have negative impact on the regional
cooperation, implementation of international projects in the region. We
try to prevent the armed resolution of the conflict and hope to resolve
the conflict through talks, as we well understand the calamities of
the war and do want it. We don’t want to spend all capacities and
incomes from dynamic development of Azerbaijani economy on war. We are
keen on directing the oil revenues on the development and expansion
of infrastructure, the road laying, construction of airports,
rehabilitation of sea ports, and prosperity of the region. We are
not thinking of war, but progress. The same time we can’t reconcile
with the occupation of our lands. So, in case of necessity we will
spend all wealth on the liberation of the occupied territory. Our
patience is limited,” Hasanov underlined.

I DON’T THINK THAT CE CAN REPLACE THE OSCE MINSK GROUP- LORD RUSSELL JOHNSTON
Author: Z. Ibrahimli
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 11 2006
The head of the temporary PACE committee on Nagorno-Karabakh, Lord
Russell Johnston said in his interview to the MediaMax that he thinks
about the resumption of hostilities in the region “with the great
displeasure.”
He stated that “creation of the PACE committee on Nagorno-Karabakh
doesn’t mean that we try to become full-fledged mediator in the talks.”
“The OSCE Minsk group is professionally occupied in that problem for
more than 10 years and I don’t think that the Council of Europe can
replace it. Our goal is -to render all necessary assistance to the
OSCE Minsk group co-chairmen,” Lord Johnston said.
Speaking about the committee plans he did not exclude the possibility
that its members will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan this year.
“We are also thinking about arranging the meeting of Armenian and
Azerbaijani MPs, though it is too early to speak about the exact
plans,” he concluded.

EVERYTHING CAN BECOME PRIVATE “IN THIS COUNTRY”
Anna Israelian
Aravot.am
11 April 06
The issues of energy and privatization were essential for the NA yesterday,
which was discussed as drafts only in the evening.
GAS PROBLEM
The Parliament was trying to adopt the agenda till 15:30 breaking
the works for three times trying to solve the problem of quorum.
The secretary of ”Justice” bloc Victor Dallakian was the first who
asked for break who proposed to form “NA temporary commission for the
issue of gas price”. It should examine the ground of levels of gas
price and the correspondence of selling the 5th power energy station
of Hrazdan to the law.
Perhaps he expected that he would gather necessary signatures during
20 minutes. But only 19 deputies signed it, members from “Justice” and
“National Unity” blocs and independent deputies Hmayak Hovhannisian,
Emma Khudabashian and Manouk Gasparian. To our question whether they
are going to join to this initiation the ULP leader Gourgen Arsenian
answered; “We still read the decision of the Government to see whether
the process is understandable for us. We’ ll join to the signatures if
there are dark points for us”. RPA, ARF and Orinats Erkir Party won’t
join to this initiation. The NA chairman Arthur Baghdasarian said;
“There is no need to form the commission. If there are problems it can
be discussed during parliamentary hearings inviting the Minister of
Energy for learning all details. Everything is obvious for us. What
should we discuss?”
THE PROBLEM OF ATOMIC STATION
The change in the law “About Energy” is in the agenda, too. According
to it the state monopoly in the nuclear power is being moved, the
shareholders of new constructing Atomic station can also be juridical
persons. At the beginning the Orinats Erkir Party was against that
initiation. But yesterday Arthur Bahghadasrian declared that their
proposals had been included in the changed project of the government;
”It is mentioned in the current text that the Atomic Station of
Metsamor is the RA state property and can’t be privatized”.
The second proposal is that they should adopt a special law about new
constructing Atomic station. “I consider this a serious political
agreement”, – the NA chairman said. The deputies of “Justice” bloc
Aram G. Sargsian and Arshak Sadoyan noticed that the Atomic Station
of Metsamor wouldn’t be privatized, it should be closed. Arthur
Baghdasarian answered that he had such an apprehension as everything
has been privatized “in this country”.
PROBLEMS OF PRIVATIZATION
The NA chairman said that the sale of the 5th bloc of the energy power
station of Hrazdan should be observed economically, politically and
socially; ” Yes, it is dangerous politically that energy powers are
accumulated at the hands of Russia. This means that our state must
realize a proper control”.
According to Arthur Baghdasarian it is profitable economically to
invest 600$mln in the economy of Armenia by Russia. You know that
Armenia has 1 $milliard outside debt. Taking another 150$ million to
re-operating the 5th energy power bloc of Hrazdan is a luxury for the
country. Besides it is important socially that we’ll have predictable
gas prices till 2009 and the electric power won’t rise in price”.
–Boundary_(ID_LRYtMZVrxTdEHZHsUJv/iA)–

INVALID VERSIONS
Aram Abrahamian
Aravot.am
11 April 06
The progress report of the US State Department about Armenia was rather
strong, serious infringements during the elections and referendum,
obedient Parliament to the President, corruption of law keepers,
limitation of the freedom of the press etc. There is no doubt that
the strong tone of the report depends on the circumstance that
Armenia made another step to yield its sovereignty to Russia. When
establishments of various spheres are sold to different countries,
it’s a business. But when the establishments of vital importance are
sold to a country it is a policy, of course. The report of the State
Department was the answer of that policy.
There are two cures for improving the current situation; a/to get
out under Russia’s patronage, b/ to take real steps to democracy
and legality for the US State Department not have any reason to
reproach. But the simple analyze shows that our authority can use
neither of above-mentioned cures. The first is difficult both for
objective and subjective reasons. The general reason among the
objective reasons is that our country solves the problems of its
security with the help of Russia. The main subjective reasons are
that Russia assists all type of our elections and referendums as well
as the circumstance that the part of our officials of high rank have
a joint business with the RF authority officials and that business
isn’t transparent.
The reasons of not taking steps to democracy and legality tare very
obvious; our ruling clique tries to keep its post that’s why they are
afraid of any demonstration of free will. And if they don’t draw 80%
of votes for their pro-authority party in the coming elections the
life will stop for it.
Naturally the disuse of a cure depends on another. Russia is interested
in acting such a half-authoritarian regime in its “outpost” as it is
at it; it is impossible for the vassal to be more progressive that
the suzerain is.

GOEBBELS AND THE JIHADIST YOUTH
American Thinker, AZ
April 11 2006
The Big Lie as propaganda device has a long and dishonorable
history, gulling onto complacency those who prefer to avoid
unpleasant worries. The Nazi propagandist Goebbels was its most
notable practitioner, but for sheer numbers and historical roots,
no other group can match the efforts of jihadist Muslims, with their
religiously-sanctioned practice of deceiving infidels to protect
the faith.
Al-Jazeera aired on March 24, 2006, a rather chilling, one-sided
“dialogue” between representatives of Arab and Danish student
organizations who met in Damascus, ostensibly to discuss the violent
worldwide Muslim reactions following publication of the Muhammad
cartoons by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten. Video clips and a written
transcript of this event are available through the Middle East Media
Research Institute (MEMRI).
Ahmad Al-Shater, Chairman of the Arab Students Union, and his Sudanese
Student Union colleague “Muhammad,” were unremittingly truculent
in their presentations, which melded classic taquiyya (sanctioned
dissimulation of Islamic doctrine to “protect” the faithful), or
sheer ignorance, Muslim Jew-hatred, and a Goebbels-like distortion of
contemporary events, including the requisite conspiratorial Judenhass
(Jew-hatred).
Al-Shater began by stating that it was the nefarious “Zionists” and
“imperialists” who had deliberately misrepresented Islam by wrongfully
associating the religion with terrorism. He asserted categorically:
According to the Islamic religion, even in times of war, it is
forbidden to uproot a tree, it is forbidden to kill a woman, it is
forbidden to kill a child, it is forbidden to destroy wells… It is
forbidden to fill wells with earth… Water wells… It is forbidden to
harm human life, it is forbidden to destroy a church, it is forbidden
to attack a religious belief…
Classical Islamic doctrines on jihad war, and more importantly the
actual practice of jihad campaigns in accord with this theory, put
the lie to Al-Shater’s uninformed or deliberately taquiyya-laden
assertions. Al-Shater’s basic contention that “it is forbidden
to attack a religious belief” is patently absurd-the archetypal
proto-jihad campaigns of Muhammad himself imposed Islam and Islamic
suzerainty upon the pagans, Jews, and Christians of ancient Arabia,
and continue to provide the rationale for aggressive jihad imperialism
to this day.
For example, Muhammad, according to a summary of sacralized Muslim
sources,
..waited for some act of aggression on the part of the Jews of Khaybar,
whose fertile lands and villages he had destined for his followers…to
furnish an excuse for an attack. But, no such opportunity offering,
he resolved in the autumn of this year [i.e., 628], on a sudden and
unprovoked invasion of their territory.
Ali (later, the fourth “Rightly Guided Caliph”, and especially revered
by Shi’ite Muslims) asked Muhammad why the Jews of Khaybar were being
attacked, since they were peaceful farmers, tending their oasis, and
was told by Muhammad he must compel them to submit to Islamic Law. The
renowned early 20th century scholar of Islam, David Margoliouth,
observed aptly:
Now the fact that a community was idolatrous, or Jewish, or anything
but Mohammedan, warranted a murderous attack upon it.
Moreover, this canonical hadith (from Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number
4324), which further incorporates a Koranic verse (K 59:5), states
clearly that Muhammad also sanctioned the destruction of the trees
(i.e., date palms) of infidel foes:
It is narrated on the authority of ‘Abdullah that the Messenger of
Allah (may peace be upon him) ordered the date-palms of Banu Nadir to
be burnt and cut. These palms were at Buwaira. Qutaibah and Ibn Rumh
in their versions of the tradition have added: So Allah, the Glorious
and Exalted, revealed the verse (K59:5): “Whatever palm-tree you
cut down or leave standing upon its roots, It is by Allah’s command,
and that He may abase the transgressors”
And with only minor points of internal disagreement, the consensus
amongst all four major schools of classical Sunni Islamic jurisprudence
contradicts each claim made by Al-Shater. The Hanafi jurists Abu
Yusuf (d. 798), Shaybani (d. 803/805), and Shaikh Burhanuddin Ali of
Marghinan (d. 1196), state:
[Abu Yusuf]-It seems that the most satisfactory suggestion we have
heard in this connection is that there is no objection to the use of
any kind of arms against the polytheists, smothering and burning their
homes, cutting down their trees and date groves, and using catapults.
[Shaybani]-The army may launch the attack [on the enemy] by night or
by day and it is permissible to burn [the enemy] fortifications with
fire or to inundate them with water.
[Shaikh Burhanuddin Ali of Marghinan]-in the Traditions…the Prophet
plundered and despoiled the tribe of al-Mustaliq by surprise, and
he also agreed with Asamah to make a predatory attack upon Qubna
at an early hour, and to set it on fire, and such attacks are not
preceded by a call…If the infidels, upon receiving the call [to
Islam], neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax, it
is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance,
and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those
who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and
it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet,
moreover, commands us so to do. And having so done, the Muslims must
then with God’s assistance attack the infidels with all manner of
warlike engines (as the Prophet did by the people of Ta’if), and must
also set fire to their habitations (in the same manner as the Prophet
fired Baweera), and must inundate them with water and tear up their
plantations and tread down their grain because by these means they
will become weakened, and their resolution will fail and their force
be broken; these means are, therefore, all sanctified by the law.
The Hanbali jurist, Ibn Qudama (d. 1223) concurs, and both he and
Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), also a Hanbali, elaborate on the issue of
when killing women and children may in fact be allowed:
[Ibn Qudama]-It is permitted to surprise the infidels under cover of
night, to bombard them with mangonels [an engine that hurls missiles]
and to attack them without declaring battle (du’a’). The Prophet
attacked the Banu Mustaliq unexpectedly, while their animals were
still at the watering-place; he killed the men who had fought against
him and carried off the children into captivity. It is forbidden to
kill children, madmen, women, priests, impotent old men, the infirm,
the blind, the weak-minded, unless they have taken part in the combat.
[Ibn Taymiyya]-As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot
fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind,
handicapped, and their likes, they shall not be killed, unless they
actually fight with words [e.g. by propaganda] and acts [e.g. by
spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare]. Some [ jurists] are
of the opinion that all of them may be killed, on the mere ground
that they are unbelievers, but they make an exception for women and
children since they constitute property for Muslims.
Averroes (d. 1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the
natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist, outlines
some of the (rather trivial) points of controversy:
Opinions vary as to the damage that may be inflicted on their property,
such as buildings, cattle, and crops. Mâlik allowed the felling of
trees, the picking of fruits and the demolishing of buildings, but
not the slaughter of cattle and the burning of date-palms…According
to Shâfiî, dwellings and trees may be burnt as long as the enemy have
the disposal of fortresses.
The Shafi’i jurist Al-Mawardi’s (d. 1058) opinion confirms the
prevailing consensus views:
The amir [leader] of the army may use ballistas and catapults when
besieging the enemy, for the Messenger of Allah…set up a catapult
against the inhabitants of Ta’if. He may also destroy their homes,
make night raids against them and cause fire. If, moreover, he reckons
that by cutting their date-palms and their trees down it will serve to
weaken them, such that they are overcome by force or are compelled to
make a peace agreement, then he should do so; he should not, however,
act in this way if he does not see any such benefit in it…. It is
also permitted to block off the supply of water to them, or to prevent
them from using it, even if there are women and children amongst them,
as it is one of he most potent means of weakening them and gaining
victory over the, either by forcer or through a treaty. If a thirsty
person amongst them requests a drink, the amir may either give him
to drink or refuse him, just as he has the option of killing him or
letting him live.
Even the writings of the much lionized paragon of mystical Sufism
and Shafi’i jurist al-Ghazali (d. 1111)-who, as noted by the esteemed
scholar W.M. Watt, has been “…acclaimed in both the East and West as
the greatest Muslim after Muhammad…”-underscore how these practices
were normative:
one must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a
year…one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are
in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set
fire to them and/or drown them…One may cut down their trees…One
must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever
they decide..
Ibn Hudayl, a 14th century Granadan author of an important treatise on
jihad, explained how these allowable methods facilitated the violent,
chaotic jihad conquest of the Iberian peninsula, and other parts
of Europe:
It is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores
of grain, his beasts of burden – if it is not possible for the Muslims
to take possession of them – as well as to cut down his trees, to raze
his cities, in a word, to do everything that might ruin and discourage
him…[being] suited to hastening the Islamization of that enemy or
to weakening him. Indeed, all this contributes to a military triumph
over him or to forcing him to capitulate.
And these repeated attacks, indistinguishable in motivation from
modern acts of jihad terrorism, like the horrific 9/11/01 attacks in
New York and Washington, DC, and the Madrid bombings on 3/11/04, or
those in London on 7/7/05, were in fact designed to sow terror. The
17th century Muslim historian al-Maqqari, explained that the panic
created by the Arab horsemen and sailors, at the time of the Muslim
expansion in the regions subjected to those raids and landings,
facilitated their later conquest:
Allah thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not
dare to go and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as
suppliants, to beg for peace.
The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the classical
Muslim historian al-Tabari’ s recording of the recommendation given
by Umar b. al-Khattab (the second “Rightly Guided Caliph”) to the
commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636 C.E.), during the
conquest of Iraq. Umar reportedly said:
Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept
it from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of
humiliation and lowliness. (Koran 9:29) If they refuse this, it is
the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have
been entrusted.
By the time of al-Tabari’s death in 923, jihad wars had expanded the
Muslim empire from Portugal to the Indian subcontinent. Subsequent
Muslim conquests continued in Asia, as well as Eastern Europe. Under
the banner of jihad, the Christian kingdoms of Armenia, Byzantium,
Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Albania, in
addition to parts of Poland and Hungary, were also conquered and
Islamized by waves of Seljuk, or later Ottoman Turks, as well as
Tatars. Arab Muslim invaders engaged, additionally, in continuous
jihad raids that ravaged and enslaved Sub-Saharan African animist
populations, extending to the southern Sudan. When the Ottoman Muslim
armies were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683, over a millennium
of jihad had transpired.
These tremendous military successes spawned a triumphalist jihad
literature. Muslim historians recorded in detail the number of
infidels slaughtered, or enslaved and deported, the cities, villages,
and infidel religious sites which were sacked and pillaged, and the
lands, treasure, and movable goods seized.
And once again, despite Mr. Al-Shater’s ignorance or disingenuous
denial, this sanctioned but wanton destruction, resulted in: the
merciless slaughter of non-combatants, including women and children;
massive destruction of non-Muslim houses of worship and religious
shrines-Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, and Zoroastrian,
Hindu, and Buddhist temples and idols; and the burning of harvest
crops and massive uprooting of agricultural production systems,
leading to famine. Christian (Coptic, Armenian, Jacobite, Greek, Slav,
etc.), as well as Hebrew sources, and even the scant Zoroastrian,
Hindu and Buddhist writings which survived the ravages of the Muslim
conquests, independently validate this narrative, and complement the
Muslim perspective by providing testimonies of the suffering of the
non-Muslim victims of jihad wars.
Al-Shater also spewed forth this lying invective-180 degrees divorced
from reality-which included a frank “burning of the Reichstag”
reference to mosque destruction considering the recent bombing of the
revered Shi’ite “Golden Mosque” in Samarra-a striking contemporary
event, but also just another manifestation of over a millennium of
Muslim sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’a:
Those who try to pin the blame for terrorism on the Muslims, headed
by the leader of international terrorism, America, and by Zionism
and imperialism, are killing our children in Palestine and Iraq on a
daily basis, as you can see. They are destroying schools. They are
destroying churches and mosques. They violate our honor. They rape
women and slit open the stomachs of pregnant women.
The bitter irony is that in stark contrast to Al-Shater’s mendacious
slurs against American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Israeli
forces in Gaza, Judea or Samaria, it is modern jihad campaigns which
have been fraught with the atrocities he enumerates. A few prominent
examples include: the Ottoman massacres of the Bulgarians in 1876
and larger genocidal slaughters of the Armenians at the close of
the 19th century, through the end of World War I; the Moplah jihad
against the hapless Hindus of South India in 1921; the massacres of
Assyrian Christians by Arab and Kurdish Muslims near Mosul in 1933;
and the recent genocidal jihad waged against Southern Sudanese
Christians and Animists by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government,
primarily during the last decade of the 20th century.
American correspondent Januarius A. MacGahan recorded these
observations from Batak, July-August, 1876 during his investigation
of the Bulgarian massacres:
The number of children killed in these massacres is something
enormous. They were often spitted on bayonets, and we have several
stories from eye-witnesses who saw little babes carried about the
streets, both here and at Otluk-kui, on the point of bayonets. The
reason is simple. When a Mahometan has killed a certain number of
infidels, he is sure of Paradise, no matter what his sins may be…the
ordinary Mussulman takes the precept in broader acceptation, and
counts women and children as well. Here in Batak the Bashi-Bazouks,
in order to swell the count, ripped open pregnant women, and killed
the unborn infants. As we approached the middle of the town, bones,
skeletons, and skulls became more numerous. There was not a house
beneath the ruins of which we did not perceive human remains, and
the street besides were strewn with them.
Lord Kinross described the slaughter of the Armenian community of Urfa
in December, 1895, one of a series of brutal massacres committed by
the Ottoman Turks between 1894 and 1896, as follows:
Cruelest and most ruinous of all were the massacres at Urfa, where
the Armenian Christians numbered a third of the total population.
Here in December 1895, after a two-months siege of their quarter,
the leading Armenians assembled in their cathedral, where they drew
up a statement requesting Turkish official protection. Promising this,
the Turkish officer in charge surrounded the cathedral with troops.
Then a large body of them, with a mob in their wake, rushed through the
Armenian quarter, where they plundered all houses and slaughtered all
adult males above a certain age. When a large group of young Armenians
were brought before a sheikh, he had them thrown down on their backs
and held by their hands and feet. Then, in the words of an observer,
he recited verses of the Koran and “cut their throats after the Mecca
rite of sacrificing sheep.”
When the bugle blast ended the day’s operations some three thousand
refugees poured into the cathedral, hoping for sanctuary. But the
next morning – a Sunday – a fanatical mob swarmed into the church in
an orgy of slaughter, rifling its shrines will cries of “Call upon
Christ to prove Himself a greater prophet than Mohammed.” Then they
amassed a large pile of straw matting, which they spread over the
litter of the corpses and set alight with thirty cans of petroleum.
The woodwork of the gallery where a crowd of women and children
crouched, wailing in terror, caught fire, and all perished in
the flames. Punctiliously, at three-thirty in the afternoon the
bugle blew once more, and the Moslem officials proceeded around the
Armenian quarter to proclaim that the massacres were over. They had
wiped out 126 complete families, without a woman or a baby surviving,
and the total casualties in the town, including those slaughtered in
the cathedral, amounted to eight thousand dead.
Vahakn Dadrian recounted the harrowing details of the slaughter of 6400
Armenian children, young girls, and women from Yozgad, described in
Reverend K. Balakian’s eyewitness narrative of the World War I period
(1914-1920), Hai Koghota (The Armenian Golgotha). The victims were
left by their Turkish captors at a promontory some distance from the
city. Then,
To save shell and powder, the gendarmerie commander in charge of this
large convoy had gathered 10,000-12,000 Turkish peasants and other
villagers, and armed with “hatchets, meat cleavers, saddler’s knives,
cudgels, axes, pickaxes, shovels”, the latter attacked and for some
4-5 hours mercilessly butchered the victims while crying “Oh God,
Oh God” (Allah, Allah). In a moment of rare candor, this gendarmerie
commander confided to the priest-author, whom he did not expect to
survive the mass murder, that after each massacre episode, he spread
his little prayer rug and performed the namaz, the ritual of worship,
centered on prayer, with a great sense of redemption in the service
of Almighty God.
J. J. Banninga, an American graduate of the Western Theological
Seminary, spent forty-two years in India, serving for 25 years as
head of the Union Theological Seminary at Pasumalai in South India.
His analysis of the 1921 Moplah (i.e., Muslims of Arabic and Hindu
descent living in the Malabar district of South India) jihad-one of
many periodic outbreaks of Moplah fanaticism-included these harrowing
descriptions:
…the Hindu population fell easy prey to their (i.,e., the Moplah)
rage and the atrocities committed defy description…The tale of
atrocities committed makes sad reading indeed. A memorial submitted by
women of Malabar to Her Excellency the Countess of Reading mentions
such crimes as wells filled with mutilated bodies, pregnant women
cut to pieces, children torn from mother’s arms and killed, husbands
and fathers tortured, flayed, and burned alive before the eyes of
their wives and daughters; women forcibly carried off and outraged;
homes destroyed; temples desecrated…not less than 100 Hindu temples
were destroyed or desecrated; cattle slaughtered in temples and their
entrails placed around the necks of the idols in place of garlands
of flowers; and wholesale looting. No fiendish act seems to have been
too vile for them to perpetrate.
…There were, during the rebellion, many cases of forced conversion
from Hinduism to Mohammedanism. There was a double difficulty about
restoring these people to their old faith. In the first place there
is a severe penalty resting on any Mohammedan that perverts…and in
the second place there is really no door save birth into Hinduism.
On August 11, 1933, less than a year after British withdrawal from the
region, the “new” Iraqi armed forces, aided by local Arab and Kurdish
tribesmen, began the wholesale massacre of Assyrians in the Mosul
area (Simel, Dohuk). Before the end of August, 1933, 3000 Assyrians
were murdered, and thousands more displaced. An example typical of
the carnage was described in a contemporary chronicle believed to
have been written by Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, a Cambridge University
graduate and Patriarch of the Church of the East:
The inoffensive population was indiscriminately massacred, men, women
and children alike, with rifle, revolver and machine gun fire. In one
room alone, eighty-one men from the Baz tribe, who had taken shelter…
were barbarously massacred. Priests were tortured and their bodies
mutilated. Those who showed their Iraqi nationality papers were the
first to be shot. Girls were raped and women violated and made to
march naked before the Arab army commander. Holy books were used as
fuel for burning girls. Children were run over by military cars.
Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were flung in the air and
pierced on to the points of bayonets. Those who survived in the other
villages were now exposed day and night to constant raids and acts
of violence. Forced conversion to Islam of men and women was the
next process. Refusal was met with death. Sixty five out of ninety
five Assyrian villages and settlements were either sacked, destroyed
or burnt to the ground. Even the settlements which existed from the
year 1921 and who had no connection in any way with the trouble were
wrecked and all property looted by Iraq army and tribesmen.
The intrepid Dr. John Eibner made 20 visits to the Sudan during decade
of the 1990s, reporting on the recrudescence of jihad slavery. The
Arab Muslim dominated Khartoum government established an overtly
jihadist Popular Defense Force, which further incorporated local Arab
militias. Their jihad depredations targeting the Christian and Animist
tribes (principally the Dinkas of northern Bahr al-Ghazal, together
with the black African Nuba tribes of southern Kordofan) slaughtered,
displaced, and enslaved tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands at
a time. During the spring of 1998 alone, more than 300,000 persons
were displaced, while the total number killed and enslaved remained
unknown. These Dinka victims-women and children-shared the fate of
the Nuba, as described by Eibner:
Some Nuba captives end up as chattel slaves but the overwhelming
majority are deported to concentration camps elsewhere in Sudan, where
they serve in slave-like conditions. The children are sent to militant
Qur’anic schools, while the women are sent out to work without pay
as day laborers on farms and in private homes. Sexual abuse is rife.
Al-Shater’s conspiracy mongering (the publication of the Danish
cartoons was yet another act of the “cabal”), and gross distortions
of Islamic doctrines and history were complemented by his lionization
of Holocaust deniers Roger Garaudy and David Irving (whose name he
could not recall-“He relies on documents. I cannot recall his name,
but he is a great English intellectual, a university professor, who
refuted the Holocaust.”), as well as the viscerally anti-American
and Antisemitic British politicians George Galloway and Ken Livingston.
The briefer presentation of Al-Shater’s colleague, Sudanese Student
Union Chairman “Muhammad” included raw Muslim Judenhass, threats to
Danish soldiers, and equally mendacious assertions of U.S.
murderousness in Iraq-compared, with earnestness, to the putatively
“light casualties” inflicted on the Iraqis during Saddam’s 30-year
reign of domestic terror.
I’d like to tell you that harming the Prophet is not a new thing. One
thousand four hundred years ago, the Jews tried to kill him in
Al-Madina. In our religion, harming the Prophet is where we draw
the line. We are prepared to die to prevent this……As you know,
Bush killed 110,000 people in Iraq, while Saddam did not kill even
one third of this figure. Saddam did not kill even 30,000 people
throughout his rule. I would like to welcome you on this visit,
because the image of Denmark and the Danish people has become very
negative in the Arab and Islamic world. In conclusion, I would like
to say that tomorrow America will pass a resolution in the U.N.
Security Council calling for international military intervention in
Sudan. Among these forces, obviously, there will be Danish forces. I
would like to inform you that because the Sudanese people are so
angry over this affront, they will kill the Danish soldiers before
they kill the others.
He may be invoking an oral tradition, preserved in the hadith,
for this uniquely Islamic motif of Jew hatred (Bukhari- Volume 3,
Book 47, Number 786), which maintains that the perfidious Jews caused
Muhammad’s protracted, excruciating death from poisoning.
Narrated Anas b. Malik: A Jewess brought a poisoned (cooked) sheep
for the Prophet who ate from it. I continued to see the effect of
the poison on the palate of the mouth of Allah’s Apostle
The rest of Sudanese Student Union Chairman “Muhammad” statements
speak for themselves.
And what were the responses of the Danish Student Delegation Head
to his Muslim interlocutors, the Chairmen of the Arab Students and
Sudanese Student Unions?
…as a representative of the Danish youth and not a representative
of the government, I cannot explain to you why the Danish government
has not apologized…And another important question, in your last
very concrete questions about… could a Danish newspaper have made
drawings of the Holocaust or denying the Holocaust. And the answer to
that question is yes. There’s no law in Denmark preventing a Danish
newspaper from making drawings of the Holocaust.
These muted, largely non-sequitur responses by the Head of the Danish
Student Delegation are a tangible product of the “Eurabian ethos”,
which Bat Ye’or warned, pervades Western European academic and
political institutions. The very “cartoon dialogue” itself was but a
microcosm of the larger Euro-Arab Dialogue process and a distressing
illustration of the most craven dhimmitude that parent institution
has engendered, threatening, as Bat Ye’or notes, the very foundations
of Western society:
This Eurabian ethos operates at all levels of European society. Its
countless functionaries, like the Christian janissary slave-soldiers of
past Islamic regimes, advance a jihadist world strategy. Eurabia cannot
change direction; it can only use deception to mask its emergence,
its bias and its inevitable trajectory. Eurabia’s destiny was sealed
when it decided, willingly, to become a covert partner with the Arab
global jihad against America and Israel. Americans must discuss the
tragic development of Eurabia, and its profound implications for the
United States, particularly in terms of its resultant foreign policy
realities. Americans should consider the despair and confusion of
many Europeans, prisoners of a Eurabian totalitarianism that foments
a culture of deadly lies about Western civilization. Americans should
know that this self-destructive calamity did not just happen, rather
it was the result of deliberate policies, executed and monitored by
ostensibly responsible people.
Finally, Americans should understand that Eurabia’s contemporary
anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism are the spiritual heirs of 1930s
Nazism and anti-Semitism, triumphally resurgent.
Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad.
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