Could this Shirin Ebadi be the ROSA PARKS of Islam?
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February 7, 2007
Editorial Observer
Challenging the Mullahs, One Signature at a Time

By MAURA J. CASEY
“Well-behaved women rarely make history,” my favorite bumper sticker says. It surely applies to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner whose relentless campaign against discrimination has enraged the mullahs for more than 25 years.

In a country where the law values a woman’s life at only half the price of a man’s, Ms. Ebadi will not be quiet, and she is urging other women to find their voices. Her newest effort is to help collect the signatures of one million Iranian women on a petition protesting their lack of legal rights.

The concept is simple and revolutionary, melding education, consciousness-raising and peaceful protest. Starting last year, women armed with petitions began to go to wherever other women gathered: schools, hair salons, doctors’ offices and private homes.

Every woman is asked to sign. But whatever a woman decides, she receives a leaflet explaining how Iran’s interpretation of Islamic law denies women full rights.

The material explains how Iran’s divorce law makes it easy for men, and incredibly difficult for women, to leave a marriage, and how custody laws give divorced fathers sole rights to children above the age of 7.

Ms. Ebadi says the petition drive has already trained “400 young women to educate others” about these injustices. The movement, made up of a network of women’s organizations and publications, has no formal leadership, in part to lessen the chances of retaliation. That didn’t help three female journalists who were arrested late last month after they wrote articles for feminist publications backing the drive. They have since been released but will face a hearing in two months. Ms. Ebadi will defend them.

It’s only natural to wonder how many more women will be arrested as they rebel, one signature at a time. And only natural to marvel about the courage of the 30,000 women who have already signed.

The movement is doing on a grand scale what Ms. Ebadi has done for her entire adult life. When I last spoke with her, eight years ago in her Tehran home, she had emerged as a tenacious human rights campaigner after being forced to step down as a judge by the Islamic revolution. She was blunt about the lack of freedom in Iran and well aware of the price for such outspokenness.

She’s been arrested and imprisoned and the target of death threats. In New York in January for meetings at the United Nations, she was just as defiant and just as unafraid as I remembered. Winning the Nobel Prize has not given her immunity.

There’s a lot to speak out about. When Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not propagating lies about the Holocaust or cheering on Iran’s nuclear program, he’s having independent journalists arrested. But he is not the only problem. Above him is the hard-line Council of Guardians and above it the supreme religious leader. The Council of Guardians vetoed legislation increasing civil liberties and banned most moderates from running for Parliament in 2004.

Given the breadth of the institutional opposition arrayed against them, the Change for Equality Petition Drive is especially clever. Rather than directly confronting the system, it goes around it. Even women who don’t sign the petition will be better informed about their second-class status. The hope is that they will then be less likely to accept injustice indefinitely. And if Iran’s women start questioning their lack of rights, perhaps Iran’s men will have the courage to speak out, too.

The government certainly understands the implications. Just a few weeks ago, it blocked access to the campaign’s Web site. But within hours the women had another Web site up and running.

Ms. Ebadi, the lifelong agitator, does not mask her pride or her belief that women’s voices will someday make all the difference. “By getting one million signatures, the world will know we object to these conditions,” she said. And I can’t help but think that instead of one courageous woman for the government to contend with, it will have reaped a million.

The War within Islam
Why Are Sunnis and Shiites Slaughtering Each Other in Iraq?
By David Frum
Posted: Friday, February 9, 2007

ARTICLES
National Post (Canada)
Publication Date: January 13, 2007


Resident Fellow David Frum

As the news of Saddam Hussein's execution was broadcast on Dec. 30, hundreds of Iraqi-Americans took to the streets of Detroit's heavily Arab west side to dance and celebrate. Days later, vandals attacked Detroit-area Shiite religious centres and stores with Shiite names, smashing windows and leaving Arabic-language death threats on voicemail systems.

For months, Jordan's King Abdullah has warned that the Shiite-Sunni conflict in Iraq could infect the whole Middle East. Might it reach out into Europe and North America as well?

If it does, many in the West will wonder: What is this conflict about anyway? If that question baffles you, do not be embarrassed: A reporter recently put the question to the new Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, and he could not answer either.

According to Muslim tradition, the Shiite-Sunni divide originates in a disagreement over the inheritance of the Prophet Muhammad's spiritual authority and political power. Should it go to Muhammad's chosen subordinates and generals? Or to Muhammad's descendants: his son-in-law and nephew, Ali, and his grandson Hussayn? (The term "Shi'ite" is derived from "Shiat Ali," the party of Ali.)

The question was settled violently. Ali was assassinated, Hussayn killed in a battle fought on the site of the city of Karbala, Iraq, in 680.

Again, many in the West will wonder: Is it really possible that people are detonating car bombs in 2007 because of a succession dispute 1,300 years ago? There has to be more to it than that! And so of course there is.

Islam, as the great Islamicist Bernard Lewis has worked hard to explain, has no concept of the separation of church and state. Islamic teaching envisions a community united by shared beliefs, led by a just leader with the duty to "command right and forbid wrong." Shi'a Islam teaches that this ideal was betrayed almost from the very earliest beginnings of Islam: that the rightful leader was excluded and then murdered and his place seized by usurpers and tyrants.

The Ali/Hussayn story may or may not be literally true. (The oldest sources on the early days of Islam were composed 200 years and more after the events they chronicle). But you can see how the story would speak powerfully to individuals or communities that felt themselves maltreated by the holders of power. At the same time, you can see how the mainstream of a religion that propounded the absolute impersonality of God--and rejected any whiff of deification of its most revered prophet -- would condemn as heretical or worse any cult of the prophet's family.

So was launched a cycle over many centuries of rebellion and reprisal, heresy and martyrdom. The cycle continues to this day. If George W. Bush's surge plan for Iraq fails, the cycle will accelerate.

Can an exit be found? The outlook is not promising. On Friday, one of Saudi Arabia's leading clerics, Abdul Rahman al-Barak, issued a fatwa condemning Shiites as infidels upon whom jihad can legitimately be waged. Shiites, al-Barak said, "are the most evil sect of the [Islamic] nation and they have all the ingredients of the infidels. The general ruling is that they are infidels, apostates and hypocrites."

Al-Barak has close ties to the supposedly moderate Saudi royal family. Yet his language is more violent than that of the al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in his declaration of war against Iraq's Shiites on Sept. 14, 2005.

We in the Western world did not reason our way to religious freedom. We accepted it (often very reluctantly) because we got tired of fighting religious wars. In his Letter on Toleration in 1689, the philosopher John Locke did not talk about the right of free inquiry or the beauty of diversity. He founded his argument for toleration on one promise: social peace.

"[It is] the common disposition of all mankind, who when they groan under any heavy burthen endeavour naturally to shake off the yoke that galls their necks. . . . There is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotions, and that is oppression."

The Western world learned its lesson the hard way, but we learned. Over the years, many had hoped that the Islamic world and the Middle East could profit from the ghastly example of the West: that peace and justice are achieved not by "commanding right and forbidding wrong," but by establishing equal laws and respecting all who live by them.

But Western liberalism and democracy have found few takers in the Middle East. Instead, the people of the region have chased totalitarian fantasies: fascism, communism, Arab socialism and now sectarian Islamism. All have ended in blood and grief for their adherents and their victims. And one sees only more blood and grief for the region ahead.

David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.

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Casey Reflects on Last Day as Multinational Force Commander
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2007 – A day before leaving his command in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. today expressed gratitude for the 30 months he served in the country and optimism for the Iraq's future.

"I want to say thank you to the Iraqi people and tell them that it has been my honor and my privilege to serve Iraq over the last two and a half years," the outgoing commanding general of Multinational Force Iraq told reporters at a news conference in Baghdad.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will succeed Casey tomorrow as the top coalition military leader in Iraq.

Casey is leaving an Iraqi force that has greater autonomy than when his command began, he said.

"What's interesting is tomorrow at the change of command, General Petraeus will be my successor," Casey said, "but it will be Prime Minister (Nouri al-) Maliki and Iraqi generals who will be my successor in leading the Iraqi armed forces."

Casey outlined other Iraqi accomplishments that occurred during his command.

"Two and a half years ago, Iraq was almost entirely dependent on coalition forces for their security," he said. "But today, the Iraqi security forces are poised to assume security responsibility by the end of 2007."

The general said there are four reasons for his optimistic outlook on Iraq.

"One, I believe in the inherent desire of people to live and prosper in freedom," he said. "I know the Iraqi people suffered terribly under 35 years of tyranny. And I know the Iraqi people don't want to go back to that."

Casey acknowledged that "things in Baghdad aren't where we want them," but he said progress is evident every day outside the Iraqi capital.

"I travel all around the country," Casey said. "All across Iraq, Iraqis are going forward in small steps every day."

In the past, when Iraqis have applied their common will toward progress they have accomplished "big things," Casey said.

"The January 2005 elections, the constitution, the referendum on the constitution, the elections, and the peaceful transfer of two governments," he said, "those were all huge historic events and they happened because the Iraqi people wanted something better."

The "absolute competence and professionalism" of coalition and Iraqi security forces makes Casey confident that Iraqi security forces will soon emerge as the dominant security force in the country, he said.

When asked if he is satisfied with his performance in Iraq, Casey replied, "I'm not happy with where we are in Baghdad right now."

Casey blamed the February 2006 bombing of Samarra's Golden Mosque for much of Baghdad's violence.

"The sectarian situation is something that we can help resolve, but it is something that ultimately Iraqis have to resolve themselves," Casey said.

"I am proud of what we have accomplished with the Iraqis here in the last two and a half years, but there's a lot more work to do," he added.

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Gen. George W. Casey Jr., USA

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THE SKELETON IN ISLAM’S CLOSET
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Friday, 09 February 2007

I very much appreciated the responses and comments regarding The Fragility of Islamofascism posted in the TTP User Forum. I also received requests to explain the Koran's "Satanic Verses" more fully.

The saga of the Satanic Verses starts with the earliest accounts of Mohammed's life written by accepted Islamic scholars such as Ibn Ishaq (died 767 AD) and al-Tabari (d. 923).

"Accepted" means by Islamic tradition. Mohammed supposedly died in 632 and Ishaq wrote about him over 100 years later - so could not have interviewed anyone who knew him. Yet we only know of Ishaq through quotes of him by Tabari, who lived 300 years after Mohammed.

Thus the earliest source of Mohammed's life and the alleged founding of Islam was written three centuries later. The saga of Mohammed is a myth for which there is no genuine historical evidence whatever.

I discussed this in The Myth of Mecca, written a few days after the Moslem attack on America of September 11, 2001.

So we are talking "sacred history" here, not actual history. Ishaq and Tabari, whose accounts form the official biography of Mohammed, tell a story regarding a chapter or sura in the Koran known as An-Najm, The Star, numbered 53.

Remember that the word Koran means Recitation in Arabic, Mohammed reciting Allah via the voice of Angel Gabriel heard in his head. Every word of the Koran, Moslems believe, is the actual unalterable perfect Word of God. So God Himself, in verses 19-20 of Sura 53, says:
Have you thought about al-Lat and al-Uzza and Manat the third, the other?
These are the "Daughters of Allah," goddesses worshipped by the Arabs to whom Mohammed was preaching, trying to convert them to his new religion.

Ishaq and Tabari then say the next verses, 21-22, were:
These are the exalted females whose intercession is to be hoped for.
Thus Allah acknowledges that he has three daughters who are gods like him.

Ibn Ishaq and al Tabari (and other recognized early biographers, Ibn S'ad, d. 845, and al-Wakidi, d. 823) then explain Mohammed has made a mistake, that he was listening to Satan instead of Allah - for there is only One God and has no daughter gods.

Oops. Polytheism is The Big Islamic No-No. Gabriel gets upset at Mohammed for being tricked by Satan. Mohammed has to ask his scribes (as he was illiterate and couldn't write) to cross out these "Satanic Verses" of Sura 53:21-22 and replace them with:
Are men's children to be boys and Allah's to be girls? That is an unfair division!
Men only want sons, you see, so it is an insult to Allah to claim he has daughters. How ridiculous. So there can only be One God. The final proof of Allah's solitary existence is that's he's sexist.

How satanic. The alteration of Sura 53:21-22 is the great Skeleton in Islam's Closet. Moslems are terrified of it being exposed. Satan tricked Mohammed, the supposed unalterable Word of God was wrong and had to be changed. It puts the entire Koran in doubt.

And doubt is the one thing most terrifying of all to Moslems. They try to terrify us with bombs and bloodshed and bullying. All we need to do is terrify them with doubt. The mental virus of doubt will destroy their minds - it is the true weapon of Mass Moslem Destruction.

Internal struggle in U.S. intelligence community delays report on Iran's role in Iraq

The Bush administration will roll out its evidence for Iranian interference in Iraq, including details on intelligence operations and weapons and explosives support to Shi'ite insurgents and foreign terrorists.
The report was held up until after the release of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s future, which paints a dire picture of the situation in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates. AFP/File/Shah Marai
The evidence to be presented included details of the most deadly Iranian support for the insurgents: The use of shaped-charged directed explosives in improvised explosive devices. These IEDs increase the lethality of bombs used to kill both Iraqi and U.S. forces by directing the energy of the explosives so that it can more easily penetrate armored vehicles or other transports.
The intelligence also includes documents revealing Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) ties to the insurgents. In December, U.S. forces raided a compound in Baghdad and found two Iranian leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ al Quds Brigades, Teheran’s foreign terrorist support cadre. Documents captured at the time outline the support by Iran for terrorists and insurgents, including attacks against U.S. forces.

The problem for the Bush administration is that the evidence uncovered so far includes links between current Iraqi government officials and the Iranians, and there are fears that exposing the connections will further weaken the Iraqi government.

Some U.S. officials claim liberals within the intelligence community also are trying to block the release of the intelligence, fearing it would be used as a basis for taking military action against Iran.

They point to the liberals’ influence in a section of the NIE on the influence of Iraq’s neighbors. The document states: “The involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian dynamics.”

The officials said the comment is misleading and intended to avoid giving policymakers a justification for using military force against Iran. There is solid information indicating Iran is involved in destabilizing Iraq and attacking both U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The report then states: “Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq.”

Under the Bush doctrine, any state that is involved in supporting terrorism is considered a legitimate target of attack as part of the global war on terrorism.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that the main concern about Iranian involvement is in providing “very powerful IEDs … either or both the technology and the weapons themselves that have been killing American soldiers.”

Gates said the U.S. effort is “aimed at uprooting the networks” behind the support. “We're also trying to uproot the networks that provide the IEDs as well that are being provided or being used by Al Qaida and others,” he said, noting that the bombs are causing up to 70 percent of the casualties.

“There's a huge effort underway to try and uproot these networks and try and stop this. So that's the principal area,” he said.

The briefing has been delayed so that officials can make sure the information is “absolutely accurate and is dominated by facts — serial numbers, technology and so on,” Gates said.