Posted on 08/26/2006 5:27:26 AM PDT by GMMAC
When Muslims kill Muslims
Toronto Sun
Saturday, August 26, 2006
By SALIM MANSUR
In the marketplace of ideas, the Arab-Muslim world is presently a relatively barren region. Thinking is a perilous venture where dictators, demagogues and mob passion rule.
But when it comes to maiming and killing, the Arab-Muslim world holds a place of prominence. In particular, the ancient land between two rivers, now Iraq, has proven to be greatly fertile as killing fields.
The most famous massacre in Muslim history by armed might of the state took place at Karbala on the banks of the Euphrates in 680. On that terribly bloody day, Husayn bin Ali -- grandson of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, by his daughter Fatima -- was brutally killed and decapitated as he was offering his mid-afternoon prayers.
Husayn's male companions were slaughtered by the army of Yazid, the caliph (Islam's supreme ruler), while women and children in the company of Husayn, including his wife and daughter, were abused and carried as war trophies to the capital of the expanding Arab-Islamic empire in Damascus.
The people of Karbala and surrounding areas passively watched as Muhammad's family and its claim to leadership of Muslims ended in tragedy. But belated grief tore the Arab-Muslim world apart, and its wounds continue to torment in countless ways a people for whom the massacre in Karbala has become the template of their history.
Karbala is a necessary reminder of Muslims being unequalled tormentors and killers of Muslims. Saddam Hussein as the ruling tyrant in Baghdad was only the most recent incarnation of an Arab Macbeth and the Mongol Genghis Khan rolled into one megalomaniacal killer.
It also illuminates the sheer hypocrisy of Arabs and Muslims who selectively and for political purposes rage against the United States and Israel (and not, for instance, against Russia or China despite the brutal suppression of their respective Muslim minorities) for Arab-Muslim casualties in conflicts that have been, almost without exception, precipitated by Arab-Muslim dictators and demagogues.
This past July was grisly, and not just because of the war in Lebanon unleashed by Hezbollah terrorists against Israel.
Iraq's health ministry reported July was the deadliest month for Iraqi casualties since March 2003. The figures provided were 3,438 Iraqis killed -- 1,855 of those as a result of sectarian violence and 1,583 from bombings and shootings carried out by insurgents. Some 3,600 were wounded during the same period.
These figures followed a UN estimate of nearly 6,000 Iraqis killed during May and June. The killings in Iraq have been indiscriminate, and the killers are mostly Arabs, belonging to Sunni or Shiite sects. It is noteworthy that Iraqi Kurds, who suffered Saddam's genocidal violence, are uninvolved in this sectarian savagery.
There has been no organized protest within the Arab-Muslim world or in the West against the daily toll of Iraqi deaths due to this hate-driven insurgency.
Nor is Iraq the only place where Muslim violence against Muslims rages unabated. There is Darfur in Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Algeria until recently, and hotspots in Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Palestine, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
How, then, might we explain why Muslim deaths seem only to matter to Arabs and Muslims -- and to apologists of Arab-Muslim politics in the West -- when they occur as a result of conflicts with the U.S. or Israel?
In witnessing worldwide protests over Lebanese deaths resulting from the recent Hezbollah-Israeli fighting, we might conclude it is politically acceptable when Muslims murder untold numbers of Muslims, but entirely unacceptable when they are collateral casualties of Israeli bombings.
This is the Orwellian reality of much of the Arab-Muslim world today, where Muslim and non-Muslim lives are too often seen as readily and contemptuously disposable -- except when they become handy tools of propaganda against Jews, Hindus and Americans.
It didn't matter that your weren't talking about the UN, you were describing it to a T. Not only that, but it is an organization funded by the "big boys", to allow the small time gangster wannabees to walk all over them.
IOW we be paying for our own destruction, and, predestruction, for our own Wimpy World Wuss status. I don't think any of the big players have the testicular status necessary to buck the UN and go off like some cowboy without world opinion firmly attached to their little donkey.
Oh forget that someone already tried and we are still paying for the indiscretion, but wait, cowboy did go through the UN adnauseam, and what good did it do? So I completely agree, but someone has to step forward and the countries other than ours are content so far to let us step forward and take the heat. Just hope we don't cave under the weight of world opinion.
The United States of America, the only great power on the face of the earth. Let's hope we continue to elect leaders with what it takes to do the right thing regardless of the consequences, because if they do the right thing we won't have to worry much about consequences.
Great Article. Thansk for posting.
He's completely spot on. Remeber all the outrage when Israel targeted a power plant for destruction, depriving the poor Lebanese of electricity?
I bet you haven't heard about THIS on the news:
"Syria cuts power supplies to Lebanon"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525944789&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
It's an AP article, but i found it on JPost.
Where are the protest by the Muslim world?
A google search of "israel hezbollah "power plant"" leads one to about 1300 results.
A google search of syria "cut power" lebanon leads one to 8 results, at least one of them an Amnesty International report on Israeli war crimes.
Unbelieveable.
This is the Orwellian reality of much of the Arab-Muslim world today, where Muslim and non-Muslim lives are too often seen as readily and contemptuously disposable -- except when they become handy tools of propaganda against Jews, Hindus and Americans.
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A great closing line.
Might be BBC propaganda.
I wouldn't take those quotes as proof of the Lebanese people's opinion.
When a Muslim kills another Muslim in a terrorist/suicide attack does the unwillingly dead Muslim get 72 virgins as well?
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