The Holy Nuclear Crusades

[Jim Warren]

Let's try this here. This dropped off the page in GD like a stone, maybe too much reading despite the cliff notes synopsis.:hi:



The Holy Nuclear Crusades?
That's what we are witnessing today, right now!
Not WW III, but the next (and maybe final) installment of Holy Wars.

I point to the 9/11/06 issue of the New Yorker and the piece by Lawrence Wright titled THE MASTER PLAN. IMO an excellent piece of journalism albeit quite lengthy. If you get a chance I highly recommend it, not solely for the reporting on the more radical
elements of Muslim fundamentalism but because it is also what I think it is the essence of the intelligence that bushco Inc. has filtered through and truly believes to be the case in their inner circle. The Holy Wars have begun!

Below is a synopsis and timetable of THE MASTER PLAN distilled from the article as a quick read, inadequate as it for the whole piece is really worth the time.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060911fa_fact3

*1.The twenty-year plan began on September 11th, with a stage called “The Awakening.” The ideologues within Al Qaeda believed that “the Islamic nation was in a state of hibernation,” because of repeated catastrophes inflicted upon Muslims by the West. By striking America—“the head of the serpent”—Al Qaeda caused the United States to “lose consciousness and act chaotically against those who attacked it. This entitled the party that hit the serpent to lead the Islamic nation.” This first stage ended in 2003, when American troops entered Baghdad.
*2.The second, “Eye-Opening” stage will last until the end of 2006, Hussein writes. Iraq will become the recruiting ground for young men eager to attack America.
*3.The third stage, “Arising and Standing Up,” will last from 2007 to 2010. Al Qaeda’s focus will be on Syria and Turkey, but it will also begin to directly confront Israel, in order to gain more credibility among the Muslim population.
*4.In the fourth stage, lasting until 2013, Al Qaeda will bring about the demise of Arab governments. “The creeping loss of the regimes’ power will lead to a steady growth in strength within Al Qaeda,” Hussein predicts. Meanwhile, attacks against the Middle East petroleum industry will continue, and America’s power will deteriorate through the constant expansion of the circle of confrontation. “By then, Al Qaeda will have completed its electronic capabilities, and it will be time to use them to launch electronic attacks to undermine the U.S. economy.” Islamists will promote the idea of using gold as the international medium of exchange, leading to the collapse of the dollar.
*5.Then an Islamic caliphate can be declared, inaugurating the fifth stage of Al Qaeda’s grand plan, which will last until 2016. “At this stage, the Western fist in the Arab region will loosen, and Israel will not be able to carry out preëmptive or precautionary strikes,” Hussein writes. “The international balance will change.” Al Qaeda and the Islamist movement will attract powerful new economic allies, such as China, and Europe will fall into disunity.
*6.The sixth phase will be a period of “total confrontation.” The now established caliphate will form an Islamic Army and will instigate a worldwide fight between the “believers” and the “non-believers.” Hussein proclaims, “The world will realize the meaning of real terrorism.” By 2020, “definitive victory” will have been achieved. Victory, according to the Al Qaeda ideologues, means that “falsehood will come to an end. . . . The Islamic state will lead the human race once again to the shore of safety and the oasis of happiness.”

[CJCRANE]

1. If you think al-Qaeda is that powerful

I've got a port to sell you.

[Jim Warren]

3. How powerful is "that powerful"

Like the power of idea?

To characterize this solely in terms of al-Qaeda is to miss the point.

A friend and colleague of mine who is from the ME, a practicing muslim and frequent traveler to the region, quips to me that across the world of Islam a common sentiment expressed is:

The night the USA invaded Iraq in March 2003, a thousand Osamas were born.

[CJCRANE]

4. I don't doubt that

but this seems more like the projection of a neocon masterplan.

And even if a 1000 Osamas were born, I doubt any of them are billionaires with handy links to the global elite.

[Jim Warren]

5. Precisely

Perhaps awkward in making the point but I'd hoped "the projection of a neocon masterplan" came through loud and clear in the OP by saying "the essence of the intelligence that bushco Inc. has filtered through and truly believes to be the case in their inner circle".

I have been overwhelmed recently by the sentiment, and this from supposedly intelligent people I acquaint and work with, at least some who maintain a fairly high degree of respect for critical thinking in academia and related fields, that hint at primal elements in the present world-over christian/islam conflict that are of epic proportions.

[CJCRANE]

6. I know what you mean.

Several months ago I had a drunken conversation with a friend who in his youth went to born-again christian camps (and is still a believer). He was convinced that the "new crusades" were coming and the way he talked about muslims was very similar to the way Nazis talked about the jews.

However, I then asked him if he was prepared to sign up to fight in these new crusades. That shut him up.

[shergald]

24. asdf

Al Qaeda may be the gift the Christian Zionists were waiting for.

[StClone]

2. TZAR BOMBA...The state killer...50 mega-tons

If you watched Jesus Camp it seems a lady in North Dakota is bent on producing our own child suicide bombers.

And for the best of the thermonuclear shows for your reading pleasure TZAR BOMBA!!!! YEAH!
http://www.plus613.net/image/8084

[bemildred]

7. This seems like imaginative drivel to me.

Does this fellow get weekly reports from Al Qaeda on their doings? We can't find the son-of-a-b**hes, but we know all about their "master plan"? This is like a Neocon dope-induced wet-dream.

And we get treated like loons for wondering WTF really happened on 9/11/2001?

[Jim Warren]

8. As Democritus said,

"There is nothing but atoms and space, everything else is only an opinion"

Thanks for reading the piece though. You did read it, right?

[bemildred]

9. No, of course not, I didn't read a word. nt

[bemildred]

21. OK, I've now read it through with attention.

I want to thank you for pointing it out and goading me into reading it, it has some interesting things in it. You are right, it's quite long.

I am still however struck in the same way by it, overall. It reads too much like a good novel, and I find myself shaking my head continually as I read it, wondering how does he know that? How does he justify such sweeping generalizations? It seems more like good propaganda than an historical account. That is sort of what led me astray in the first place, an antipathy to his rhetorical style.

[Lithos]

10. I think people are reading it a bit incorrectly.

Fouad Hussein's work which he sites is more an impression of intent, not a revealing of a real plan complete with Gantt and Pert charts. As such, it's interesting from a sociological perspective. I think some of the nuances of Arabic rhetoric and forensics was lost on Mr. Wright as sometimes it's not the facts which are important, but how it is said.

L-

[bemildred]

11. Well, again, I would ask whose intent?

I understand that Islamic fundies want to restore the Caliphate, but there is a difference between wanting to rule the world and having coherent plans to carry that out, and then again with having a feasible coherent plan and the means to carry it out. Plans, whether explicit or implicit, are a dime a dozen. Good plans are rare. It is as likely that the Muslim world as a whole will flock to the Salafist banner as that the Iraqis would welcome the COW to come and stay.

This fellow is projecting things out until 2020 or so, like it was all going according to this hypothetical plan.

If the USA cannot rule the world, I don't see why I need to spend a lot of time over OBLs intentions. The question is what can he do about it? The answer seems to me to be not much. He lacks the means, political and military, that's why he has to resort to terrorism.

In reading this through again, I have to ask, how does he know all this? He makes some good points about the willful ignorance of the foreign policy "elites", but I'm asking why should I take OBL & companies grandiose ambitions more seriously than Jerry Fallwell's? It smacks of alarmism to me.

[Lithos]

13. You are right

The goal is to restore the Caliphate and return Islam to some proper course.

To answer your specific questions, the facts portion is pure fantasy. It's made up. It's nothing more than a rhetorical vehicle to convey sociological intent.

Here, I've highlighted a few pertinant sections.

http://academic2.american.edu/~zaharna/rhetoric.htm

Arabic: Creating a Social Experience
The socio-historical forces that influenced the role of Arabic for the Arabs include the Arabic language''s role as an art form, as religious phenomenon, and as tool of Arab nationalism. These forces appear to have shaped a view of language that is entirely different from the Western view. Rather than viewing language as a means for transferring information with a stress on factual accuracy, language appears to be a social conduit in which emotional resonance is stressed.

First is the role of the Arabic language itself as an artistic form. As an early scholar noted, the "magical sounds of the words" combined with the images, have a powerful effect on the psychology of the Arab.(42) Hitti perhaps summed it up best when he stated,

Hardly any language seems capable of exercising over the minds of its users such irresistible influence as Arabic . . The rhythm, the rhyme, the music produce on them the effect of what they call 'lawful magic' (sihr halal).(43)

The melodious sounds of the phonetic combinations and plays on words in the recitation of Arabic prose and poetry has been likened to music.(44) Indeed, as one Arab colleague once remarked, recitation of the Koran may be the Western equivalent of classical music. Because of their talent with words, poets throughout Arab history have been held in high esteem. As Chenje noted, "there had been hardly any scholar of consequence in Arab-Muslim society who did not try his hand at poetry."(45) With the stress always on style in Arabic, eloquence and effectiveness were equated.(46)

The power of the Arabic language for Arabs is also derived from its religious association through the Prophet Mohammed and the Koran. For the believer, the majesty of the language of the Koran is considered a miracle from God for the Moslem prophet was illiterate and unschooled. "It was the Koran -- the Revealed Book -- that was conceived to represent the highest linguistic achievement of the Arabic language.(47) The Koran was not only revealed in Arabic, but Arabic is the language used in prayer by Moslems throughout the world.

Finally, Arabic is associated with contemporary nationalism. Many throughout the Arab world have defined "an Arab" as anyone who speaks Arabic.(48) Language not only served to define, but to distinguish as well. Chejne explained the complementary role between Arabic and the growth of Arab nationalism: ". . . the language became the driving force behind Arab aspirations toward national and cultural ascendancy. As such, both Arabic and the nationalist movement have complemented each other to such a degree that they could hardly be separated."(49)

When looking at the three major socio-historical forces associated with the Arabic language -- art, religion, and nationalism -- one can see that symbolism is embedded in the very essence of the language use. Each are also participatory, subjective social experiences; the communicator cannot be truly disengaged from either the message or the audience. This contrasts dramatically with the very function of the written word -- to record, preserve and transmit -- which presupposes that the speaker may be physically separated from his audience. Similarly, whereas oratory or public speaking, by nature, is a group experience, reading and writing tend to be a singular experience. In fact, many have claimed that creativity in writing is best achieved in solitude.(50)

Thus, for the Arab culture, language appears to serve as a social conduit. As Cohen observed, "(Arabic) language is a social instrument -- a device for promoting social ends as much as a means for transmitting information."(51) In many Arabic expressions, the social function is stressed to the exclusion of any informational function. Further, language appears to be primarily used to affect people's feelings.

The contrast between language as a means of information transfer versus social conduit is reflected in the following chart.

On Edit:

I wish to state that I'm not implying Arabic can't be used to state facts in the same way as English or there is a cultural inability to do so, but that in a forensic sense, particularly when dealing with nationalism/religion/culturalism, it's fairly common for the social aspects to be the message, not the facts.

[bemildred]

17. Well, OK, take this:

Rather than viewing language as a means for transferring information with a stress on factual accuracy, language appears to be a social conduit in which emotional resonance is stressed.

Now, that is exactly how English is used, in my experience, most of the time, and it is what I would expect anywhere in any language, that only occasionally would it be used to transmit "objective" facts.

[Lithos]

18. There's a bit of emphasis difference

And it is indeed cultural. Bush's use of "terror" and "9/11" while emotional has nothing on what gets invoked in Arabic writings. Nothing right or wrong in it, but for instance, Arabic speeches and expository writings tend to rely quite heavily on word play which is not seen in English today. The closest example I can give would be Shakespeare's use of double entendre's and homophones.



L-

[bemildred]

19. I know there are quite real differences.

I would disagree that they are differences in kind. Modern English is unusual in it's habitual brevity and directness, for example, to generalize a bit. More "traditional" cultures rely on stereotype and repetition a good deal more. To read Homer, you have to get used to the endless repetition of "rosy fingered Dawn" and the like. I'm just saying that the purpose is no more the conveyance of fact, most of the time, in English than in any other case.

Reading over the OP again, you know what it reminds me of? The sectarian bickering that used to be so ubiquitious in the communist left, going back to the days of Marx and Engels, the endless theorizing ( Edit: ) over the future revolution, how to achieve it, who should lead it, etc.

[bemildred]

20. This piece, on rhetorical style, BTW, is quite interestig.

I'll have to study it and perhaps respond a bit more later. The thing that interests me out of hand is that all sets of language users, generally, are not cognizant that their habitual rhetorical style is not universal, is somewhat arbitrary. It's the cultural chauvinism that gets one in trouble.

[bemildred]

22. OK, I read it through with some care.

I must confess I don't find it congenial. I can think of half a dozen ways to attack it, but don't think I will go beyond the example I mentioned before, and that I was constantly thinking of "Orientalism" when I read it. It probably holds up better if you keep to his definitions of "American culture", the 50s and 60s, which I am old enough to remember.

I think it would be tedious, I know it would be for me, to go through it bit by bit.

The differences he points to in linguistic and cultural style are not spurious, they are real, and yet I think he inflates them to far more importance than I would. And I find his rationalist view of US culture in that period alternately annoying and amusing. America is/was as ridden with taboos and hidden rules as any culture, always has been, and we are as good at emotion-laden purple prose as anyone too.

I remember reading a good deal in the 60s and 70s about how difficult English was to learn because it was such an "atomic" language with few of the grammatical clues in more inflected languages, and was so highly idiomatic. I contrast that with this claim that Arabic puts more of a burden on the listener to figure out what is really "meant". The truth is all languages are highly idiomatic, in one way or another, and pose difficulties for non-native speakers because so many of the rules are unwritten, or exceptions, or unwritten exceptions. The meaning of words in English is very context dependent, and it is often the connotations rather than what is denoted that is most important. Indirection in speech is as American as cherry pie, to paraphrase H. Rap Brown. And yet native speakers of whatever language nevertheless find all transparent and intuitive.

[bemildred]

12. To be clear, I agree with what you say.

I tend to think the misreading is not entirely fortuitous.

[Lithos]

14. In what way?

I don't follow as to why it's not fortuitous? (Not in opposition, just don't understand).

L-

[bemildred]

15. I think he has an axe to grind, so to speak.

And he reads Mr. Hussein's text to suit his purpose.

[Lithos]

16. To that I fully agree

And he completely misses the point in doing so.

L-

[shergald]

23. Israel is the focus of this nuclear crusade.

This most interesting article by Jeff Halper, Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University in Israel, and founder of Israel Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), which has a branch in Chapel Hill, NC, is relevant to what is essentially described in this thread, the Christian Zionist movement. It has its roots in the nineteenth century, which Halper covers in this recommended article,

"Israel as an Extension of American Empire"

Posted Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

http://www.icahdusa.org/2005/09/28/israel-as-an-extension-of-american-empire/

Highly recommended.