Posted on 09/04/2004 10:04:39 AM PDT by Exton1
Images of dead, wounded and traumatized Russian children being carried from the scene of a rebel school siege horrified Middle Eastern Muslims, prompting forthright self-criticism Saturday and fresh concern about an international backlash against Islam and its followers. Arab leaders, Muslim clerics and ordinary parents across the Middle East denounced the school siege that left more than 340 people dead, many of them children, as unjustifiable. Some warned such actions damage Islam's image more than all its enemies could hope. Even some supporters of Islamic militancy condemned it, though at least one insisted Muslims were not behind it.
"Holy warriors" from the Middle East long have supported fellow Muslims fighting in Chechnya, and Russian officials said nine or 10 Arabs were among militants killed when commandos stormed the Beslan school in southern Russia on Friday to end a siege that began Wednesday by rebels demanding Chechen independence.
Middle East security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was too early to know the nationalities of the Arabs among the dead militants. However, a prominent Arab journalist wrote that Muslims must acknowledge the painful fact that Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism.
"Our terrorist sons are an end product of our corrupted culture," Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, wrote in his daily column published in the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under the headline, "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!"
Al Rashed ran through a list of recent attacks by Islamic extremist groups -- in Russia, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen -- many of which are influenced by the ideology of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi born leader of the al-Qaida terror network.
"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," he wrote. Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless "we admit the scandalous facts," rather than offer condemnations or justifications.
"The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."
Arab TV stations repeatedly aired footage of terrified young survivors being carried from the school siege scene, while pictures of dead and wounded children ran on front pages of Saturday's Arab newspapers.
Ahmed Bahgat, an Egyptian Islamist and columnist for Egypt's leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, wrote that the images "showed Muslims as monsters who are fed by the blood of children and the pain of their families."
"If all the enemies of Islam united together and decided to harm it ... they wouldn't have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have done by their stupidity, miscalculations, and misunderstanding of the nature of this age," Bahgat wrote.
Other Islamists were more cautious in their criticism.
Mohammed Mahdi Akef, leader of Egypt's largest Islamic group, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, said the siege did not fit the Islamic concept of "jihad," or holy war, but took care not to characterize it as terrorism.
"What happened ... is not jihad because our Islam obligates us to respect the souls of human beings," Akef said. "Real jihad should target occupiers of our lands only like the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance."
Ali Abdullah, an Islamic scholar in Bahrain who follows the ultraconservative Salafi stream of Islam, condemned the school attack as "un-Islamic," but insisted Muslims weren't behind it.
"I have no doubt in my mind that this is the work of the Israelis who want to tarnish the image of Muslims and are working alongside Russians who have their own agenda against the Muslims in Chechnya," said Abdullah, reviving an old conspiracy theory altered to fit any situation.
Salafism and its similarly conservative kin, Wahhabism, which is widely observed in Saudi Arabia, are accused by critics of fostering extremism.
Some contributors to Islamic Web sites known for their extremist content praised the separatists and predicted the Islamic fighters across Egypt would avenge the killings of Muslims elsewhere.
Heads of state from around the region condemned the attack. It struck a chord with parents, including Jordan's King Abdullah II, who denounced it on state-run television.
"As a father, I can tell you that all the fathers and mothers in Jordan pray humbly to God to stand by their counterparts in Russia in their grief," said Abdullah, whose wife is expecting their fourth child.
Mona Khalil, a 48-year-old Amman, Jordan, secretary, said her heart ached at the sight of the frightened children and their weeping relatives.
"What on earth were the kidnappers thinking about when they took the children hostage?" she asked. "These criminals don't fear God? They have no mercy in their hearts? They don't have children?"
Mohammed Saleh Ebrahim, a 31-year-old Bahraini who was back-to-school shopping in the Gulf island nation with his two daughters, described the hostage-takers as "worse than animals."
"It's because of these people Muslims and Arabs are getting a bad name around the world," he said.
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Hero for the 21st century: Charles Martel
Yes, they are getting a bad name and it will stick for a long time. This is nothing new for them. It might be different if Moslims and Arabs were aghast at the atrocities being committed in their name and by their cousins and brothers. But it doesn't appear they are aghast. They think time is on their side, but time is running out.
If they are from India, there is a possiblility they are Hindu. If they are from Iran, Iraq, or Pakistan as the overwhelming majority of them are from one of these three nations, then the chances are 99 to 1 they are Muslim. You have to be able to distinguish the difference; like differentiating the difference in some Asian races. If there is any doubt, drive a few blocks to an American owned business.
BTW, you tagline speaks volumes.
Sympathy and sensitivity are concepts that islamoterrorists do not understand.
Why didn't Kerry go to Russia and negotiate with the terrorists, I see AP still calls them militants?, he was good at negotiating with the North Vietnamese
"That's why I don't shop at any convenience stores, gas stations, dry cleaners or anything that is owned by mussies. I don't want to take a chance on my money going back to their homeland to support terrorists. Besides, they do not hire our kids or our neighbors to work in their businesses; they only hire family".
Ditto.
"Why didn't Kerry go to Russia and negotiate with the terrorists, I see AP still calls them militants?, he was good at negotiating with the North Vietnamese"
All Kerry has to do to win the election is go to the Middle East on his own and persuade everyone to make nice for a while.
Opposing evil factions often co-operate for the sake of the general advancement of evil.
Case in point:
NOW gave Clinton a pass for multiple rape accusations and sexual exploitation of subordinates.
The Islamofacists and Kerry are on he same team ultimately.
Dear RightWhale:
That is exactly what Dennis Prager, Niel Bortz, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity were saying during the Repub Convention this week. Too much of the Muslim world looks upon these people as "heroes" and not the butchering pigs that they are. I'd say 2/3 of the Muslim world sees these Nazis in turbans as "freedom fighters" avenging real and imagined past wrongs. Especially Arab Muslims think of themselves as victims of the Crusades, European imperialism, Zionist plots, etc. Just like a lot of minority groups in this country they see conspiracies and cabals being hatched against them and engage in one big collective pity party. Instead of trying to better themsevles and looking at their own shortcomings to see what the problem is, they lash out at their imagined oppressors. It really is pathological, just like the Nazis in the 1920s and 30s. That is why they are so dangerous and why we need Dubya in power for Four More Years.
The US, guiding the military might of the coalition of the willing, is the Mighty Hammer in the Divine Fist of Allah, smiting the apostates and false mullahs, and all their followers, who have chosen to pervert and profane the sacred writings of the Koran, by giving definition to words and phrases that completely reverse the meanings of grace and forgiveness.
This conflict with the Muslims is nothing new. Review the words of the Marine Corps Hymn:
"From the halls of Montezuma To the shores of Tripoli,
We fight our countrys battles In the air', on land, and sea.
First to fight for right and freedom , And to keep our honor clean,
We are proud to claim the title Of United States Marine.
Our flags unfurl'd to every breeze From dawn to setting sun';
We have fought in every clime and place Where we could take a gun.
In the snow of far-off northern lands And in sunny tropic scenes,
You will find us always on the job - The United States Marines.
Here's health to you and to our Corps Which we are proud to serve;
In many a strife we've fought for life And never lost our nerve.
If the Army and the Navy Ever look on Heaven's scenes,
They will find the streets are guarded By United States Marines"
Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and other's like him
I hope they post it 100 times!!!!! Does that bother you?
"Here's health to you and to our Corps Which we are proud to serve;
In many a strife we've fought for life And never lost our nerve.
If the Army and the Navy Ever look on Heaven's scenes,
They will find the streets are guarded By United States Marines"
I spoke these words at my dad's funeral last year. (He was with the First Marine Div., Gualdalcanal). And I said he was on his way to his final duty station, where the streets are guarded by United States Marines.
Semper Fi
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