A Muslim Says Islam Causes World Destruction

Associated Press

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi made his remarks during a speech celebrating the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad—which was ironically held on January 1, 2015 (a day not acknowledged or celebrated in the Muslim world as it is based on a Christian calendar)—and he was addressing the nation’s top Islamic authorities from among the Awqaf Ministry (religious endowments) and Al Azhar University.

Although el-Sissi’s words were directed to Islam’s guardians and articulators, they indirectly lead to several important lessons for Western observers. However, those observers looking for the "Muslim Martin Luther" bringing a radical Reformation of Islam may be overreaching, so be wary until reading my whole blog here. El-Sissi will not disappoint anyone, but he has his limits too--which still means the sky is the limit.

This is the same person, by the way, who Obama was mad at that toppled Mohamed Morsi,  the radical, leftist Muslim Brotherhood President in Cairo and threw them out of power. Whereas, Obama withdrew aid in retaliation in hopes of toppling him; it didn't work. Now Obama just stands by clueless while sucking his thumb watching el-Sissi transform the region instead...Boo-hoo, Obama, Boo-hoo!

First, in just a few words, el-Sissi delivered a dose of truth and hard-hitting reality concerning the Islamic world’s relationship to the rest of the world—a dose of reality very few Western leaders dare think let alone proclaim:

“It’s inconceivable,” he said, “that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!”

What a refreshingly honest statement to come from not only a political leader but a Muslim political leader who has much to lose, not least his life! --Contrast his very true words with the habitual reassurances of the Western establishment [U.S., France, Germany, England, et. al.] that Islamic world violence and intolerance is a product of anything and everything but Islam.

Even after the appearance of the head-chopping, infidel-crucifying Islamic State, politicians like U.S. President Obama and U.K. Prime Minister Cameron insisted that the “caliphate” is not Islamic, despite all the evidence otherwise. Yet here is el-Sissi, the pious Muslim, saying that the majority of the terrorism plaguing the world today is related to the holy texts of Islam themselves:

That thinking [that is responsible for producing “anxiety, danger, killing and destruction” around the world]—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Obama, Take Notes:  As a Muslim, el-Sissi will not say that Islam, theObama is clueless about Islam. “religion,” is responsible for “antagonizing the entire world,” but he certainly goes much further than his Western counterparts when el-Sissi says that this “thinking” is rooted in an Islamic “corpus of texts and ideas” which have become so “sacralized.” 

• Recall that here in the West, Islamic terrorists are seen as mere “criminals” and their terrorism as “crimes” without mention of any Islamic text or ideology driving them. 

• The Egyptian president further invoked the classical Islamic teaching—the “thinking”—that divides the world into two warring halves: the Muslim world (or in Islamic/Arabic parlance,Dar al-Islam) which must forever be in a struggle with the rest of the world (or Dar al-Harb, the “abode of war”) till, in the Koran’s words, “all religion belongs to Allah” (Koran 8:39).

• “Is it possible,” asked el-Sissi, “that 1.6 billion people should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live?”

• el-Sissi made another important point that Western leaders and media habitually lie about: after affirming that Islamic “thinking” is “antagonizing the entire world,” he said that “this ummais being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.” 

In other words, Islamic terrorism and chaos is not a product of grievance, territorial disputes, colonialism, Israel, offensive cartoons, or anything else the West points to. It’s a product of their “own hands.”

Again, one must appreciate how refreshing it is for a top political leader in the heart of the Islamic world to make such candid admissions that his Western counterparts dare not even think let alone speak. And bear in mind, el-Sissi has much to lose as opposed to Western politicians. Calls by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists that he is an apostate are sure to grow more aggressive now.

NOTE: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi gets it!...It is to purge the religion of Islam from "extremist ideas" or "Islamism." 

To balance your understanding of who, what and how the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi views and plans will change the Islamic terrorist threats, you must know he is a dictator, a ruler with a standing army offering massive armed support. In this region with an uneducated, illiterate population they're schooled only in the Queran in Madrassas, religious schools, that teach theocratic rule and Sharia laws rather than a democratic form of government. Secular Education with religious tolerance is the key to freedom from tyranny that leads all people to a democratic self-governance; every country needs this national unity if they are to survive.  

Please read the Huffington Post's informative article below. 

Egypt's President Calls For A 'Revolution' In Islam

The Huffington Post - 01/09/2015

By SARAH EL DEEB and LEE KEATH5

Egypt's president opened the new year with a dramatic call for a "revolution" in Islam to reform interpretations of the faith entrenched for hundreds of years, which he said have made the Muslim world a source of "destruction" and pitted it against the rest of the world.

The speech was Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's boldest effort yet to position himself as a modernizer of Islam. His professed goal is to purge the religion of extremist ideas of intolerance and violence that fuel groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State — and that appear to have motivated Wednesday's attack in Paris on a French satirical newspaper that killed 12 people.

But those looking for the "Muslim Martin Luther" bringing a radical Reformation of Islam may be overreaching — and making a false comparison to begin with, El-Sissi is clearly seeking to impose change through the state using government religious institutions like the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar, one of the most eminent centers of Sunni Muslim thought and teaching.

Al-Azhar's vision for change, however, is piecemeal, and conservative, focusing on messaging and outreach but wary of addressing deeper and more controversial issues.

Al-Azhar officials tout a YouTube channel just launched to reach out to the young, mimicking radicals' successful social media outreach to disenfranchised youth. They proudly point out that clerics in the videos wear suits, not al-Azhar's traditional robes and turbans, to be more accessible.

Young people "have a negative image toward this garb," said Mohie Eddin Affifi, an al-Azhar official. "As soon as they see it they don't listen."

In a more ambitious effort, religious school textbooks are under review. Affifi said texts outlining rules for slavery, for instance, have been removed.

It's a problem across the Muslim world: State religious institutions are burdened by stagnation and heavy control by authorities.

For decades, al-Azhar has lost credibility in the eyes of many Muslim youth who see it as mouthpiece of the state rather than an honest interpreter of religion. More appealing to some young men and women searching for identity in a rapidly changing world are calls for a return to the roots of the faith, including from the extremists of al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

In his Jan. 1 speech at al-Azhar addressing Muslim clerics — held to mark the Prophet Muhammad's birthday — el-Sissi called on them to promote a reading of Islamic texts in a "truly enlightened" manner to reconsider concepts "that have been made sacred over hundreds of years."

By such thinking, the Islamic world is "making enemies of the whole world. So 1.6 billion people (in the Muslim world) will kill the entire world of 7 billion? That's impossible ... We need a religious revolution."

Radicals — and el-Sissi's Islamist political opponents who have wide religious followings — angrily denounced el-Sissi, saying he was trying to corrupt the religion. Even secularists, who would normally promote a more modern interpretation of Islam, frowned at el-Sissi's statist approach to such a complicated issue. "A state-approved revolution," questioned Amina Khairi, a columnist in the generally pro-state newspaper al-Watan.

And even state religious officials pushed back against the use of the word "revolution" or the idea of dramatic change.

Affifi, from al-Azhar, told the AP that el-Sissi didn't mean changing texts -- something even el-Sissi quickly made clear in his speech.

"What the president meant is that we need a contemporary reading for religious texts to deal with our contemporary reality," said Affifi, who is secretary general of the Islamic Research Center. The center is an Al-Azhar body responsible for studying Islamic issues and for providing preachers to explain religious affairs to the police, military, schools, government and private companies. It is also responsible for censorship.

He said al-Azhar has already been working for months on such a campaign, following calls for modernizing the faith that el-Sissi has been making since his May presidential election campaign.

Key Point: Committees have been examining textbooks used in the large network of grade schools and universities that al-Azhar runs across Egypt to remove things that have "no place in modern life." Texts on slavery and on refusing to greet Christians and Jews, for example, have been removed.

Key Point: Affifi said positions on issues like slavery, jihad and dealings with non-Muslims were adopted by scholars five centuries ago in a particular historical context. "These were opinions of scholars, these interpretations are not sacred."

Key Point: There is also a push to encourage a nationalism that officials see as moderating religious sentiment. El-Sissi this week attended Christmas services for Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Christians and declared that Egyptians should not view each other as Christians or Muslims but as Egyptians.

The sheik of al-Azhar has launched a campaign in schools and universities promoting the message that "love of nation is part of faith," said Affifi. Al-Azhar also plans to introduce a new Islamic culture course in all of Egypt's universities, Affifi said.

For el-Sissi, the impetus for his modernization campaign is not only the violence wreaked by extremist groups around the Mideast and the world. It's also rooted in his political rivalry with the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sissi, then head of the military, led the overthrow in July 2013 of an elected president from the Brotherhood, and since then Egypt has cracked down hard on Islamists, with hundreds killed in street clashes and thousands jailed.

To counter Islamists' claims of religiosity, el-Sissi has presented himself throughout his rise as a pious proponent of a moderate, mainstream Islam.

At the same time, his government has shown little tolerance for dissent of any kind. That raises a key problem with the "religion revolution" — state control over religious reform could just stifle it. Al-Azhar has always claimed to be the bastion of "moderate" Islam, but it has moved to silence progressive and liberal re-interpretations just as often as radical ones.

"Any religious modernization will ultimately be against al-Azhar, since it is the conservative fortress in the system," said Amr Ezzat, religion researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The "authority of religion over modern life and law is what needs to be reviewed. What we need is freedom to have more than one religious discourse to enrich discussion, because as it is pluralism is outlawed."

State control of al-Azhar makes those most vulnerable to militancy least likely to listen.

If the sheik of al-Azhar speaks out against radicalism — as he often does — "no one who is remotely inclined to a violent interpretation will be impressed by that," said H.A. Hellyer, a fellow at the Centre for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "They will say: You are just an ally of the state, instead of a genuinely independent figure."

Like Ezzat, he says only independent voices can present a counter-narrative to militant thought. But el-Sissi shows no sign of allowing that, Hellyer said.

His idea for the faith "is something rather docile to the needs of the state rather than independent," Hellyer said.

Obama's Lame Excuse for Leadership

The Republicans are majority party as Obama has become a "Lame Duck" President. 

The press has hyped this headline as if it were something new, a unique and epic level of partisan animus. Members of the Obama administration also promote it as something new since it assumes no deals with Republicans will be possible. It gives Obama a handy excuse they will now use: "It's not us, they vowed from the beginning they wouldn't work with us!"

But none of this was new. The other side always vows to crush you. Anyone who's been around for a while in Washington knows the opposition always are trying to sound tough, using hyperbole to buck up the troops. It's how they talk when the other guys are on the ropes. The president and his staffers have been around for a while and they understand what they were hearing was par for the course. Sadly the majority of the voting public is too young, preoccupied, uneducated and ill-informed to know these facts; so, they are gullible to easily swallow the idea for executive orders without any objections.

Obama had really put down a red line in the 2014 Midterm elections boasting his policies were on the ballot with the Democrats who would be elected. Instead, the Republicans victoriously crossed over it while the electorate rejected his policies. So is it time for Obama to pull out the pen and sign Presidential Executive Orders for actions to pass more laws and regulations?--Where is the Constitutional Law defining the balance of powers now?

Obama believes that in order to gain any public support in the waning days of his disastrous legacy of a lame duck presidency he must pull out his pen. After all, there is no bipartisan cooperation now. So, he is attempting to write into the history books his Stimulus Programs, Immigration Reforms, War Powers Acts, Monetary Policies and Tax Reforms as laws. Obama's writings are akin to scribbling graffiti on the walls of the bathroom stall for everyone to see but no one really cares to read anyway.  

Bill Clinton's foes made fierce vows about him, the enemies of both Bushes did the same. The opposing party always gets on the phone or gathers in what used to be Georgetown dens to President Reagan & Speaker Tip O'Neill - 1985 at White House denigrate the President and vow to fight him to the end. That's how blowhards blow. When Reagan came in they vowed to take him down, and it was personal. Speaker Tip O'Neill called him "ignorant" and a "disgrace" and said it was "sinful" that he was president. He called Reagan "a man who has no care and no concern for thePolitical Pundit Chris Matthews  working class of America" and said: "He's cold. He's mean. He's got ice water for blood." An O'Neill staffer, now a cable news pundit, Chris Matthews once greeted Reagan in the Capitol with the words: "Mr. President, welcome to the room where we plot against you." They did. President Reagan knew it. Yet he had no problem dealing successfully with O'Neill. He didn't moan, "Oh they hate me, it's no use!" 

In the movie 'Casablanca', as the Nazi's Prefect of Police, Captain Renault raids Rick's Cafe Americain as he shouts, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" - Note to the Obama White House: There's always gambling at Rick's Cafe Americain. It's never a shock and not an excuse. It's business as usual. And if you're a leader you can lead right past it.--Sound like Washington, DC?

"People do what they know how to do," meaning politicians use whatever talent they have, and when it no longer works they continue using it.  Obama, however, has now resorted to "pulling a Bogart" by adopting Bogie's film persona, Rick's attitude of a world-weary resignation at how bad things are and what little he can do about it - "After all, it's the Republican's fault." - Obama is now a Lame Duck! 

*******

CASABLANCA, the 1942 Best Picture Oscar winner - Paul Henreid, Ingrid Bergman& Humphrey Bogart.

In case you are not familiar with Casablanca, the 1942 Best Picture film classic: 

Casablanca - In French-occupied Morocco. American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs a dive bar called Rick’s and makes money gambling. When his former lover Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) comes into his bar, all the old feelings of their past relationship in Paris come back to him. Unfortunately, Ilsa and her revolutionary husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) are trying to get out of the country and are meeting resistance from the Germans and the Prefect of Police Captain Renault (Claude Rains) in his service as a figure of authority of the Nazis. As Rick and Ilsa start to fall back in love, the two are torn at what to do in order to survive.

ISIL - YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

The Real Threat from ISIL

By Ronald Kessler

The current debate over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant misses the real threat: a weapons of mass destruction attack that would cause massive casualties.

In interviews for my book "The Secrets of the FBI," Robert S. Mueller III told me when he was FBI director [September 4, 2001 - September 4, 2013] that what keeps him awake at night is the possibility of a terrorist attack using radiological biological, or chemical weapons that would wipe out millions of Americans in cities like New York and Washington.

Given that ISIL has more than $1 billion in cash and additional millions coming in from oil revenue every week, it would be easy for the terrorist group to buy off an expert who could unleash such an attack within the next month or two. Since ISIL members include Americans with U.S. passports, bringing such weapons into this country would be no problem at all. 

"The biggest threat comes from individuals who have had some association with the United States, understand the United States, can move either individually or with others relatively freely into the United States and within the United States," Mueller has told me. 

Thus, those who say ISIL poses no immediate threat to the homeland because no credible plot has yet been detected or would only shoot up some people in a shopping mall or knock down a building are as wrong as those who thought before 9/11 that al Qaeda consisted of a bunch of cavemen who could never launch a major attack on the U.S. 

• Moreover, because of laxness and corner cutting by Secret Service management exposed in my book The First Family Detail, the agency has not kept up to date with the latest technology for detecting WMD or preventing an attack on the White House. Having ignored the ISIL threat for nearly a year as it obviously gained momentum, President Obama could tragically wind up being its victims. 

Even a WMD attack that does not kill a great number of people would have a crushing psychological impact.

"A singular lone wolf individual can do things in the dark of the night with access to a laboratory with low quantities of material and could hurt a few people but create a devastating effect on the American psyche," according to Dr. Vahid Majidi, who was the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. 

Another "huge" potential threat, says Arthur M. "Art" Cummings II, who headed FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations, is the explosion by terrorists of a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere to unleash an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast would fry all electronics in North America. Because almost everything we need to survive relies on microchips—computers, financial records, furnaces, refrigerators, police dispatchers, hospitals, telephones, cars, trains, trucks, and planes—such a blast would send America back to the 1300s. 

In the event of an EMP attack, the electrical power grid would be destroyed because its computers would be inoperative. Transformers critical to it would take years to replace. The vast majority of Americans would die from starvation or disease or would freeze to death, according to Dr. William Graham, who was chairman of the bipartisan congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack. And those exposed to biological, radiological, or chemical weapons would die horrible deaths. 

The Obama administration has said it will take three years to wipe out ISIL In the meantime, we could all become its victims. As long as ISIL exists, the question is not whether but when cataclysmic attacks by the barbaric group on the U.S. homeland will occur. 

BIO: Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, is the author of "The Secrets of the FBI" and "The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents".

http://www.mainjustice.com//2014/09/18/the-real-threat-from-isil/  

Burt & Barack Sings Duet of Obama Swan Song

I had to laugh again when I reread a Wall Street Journal editorial page about 'What the Songwriting World Needs Now', an opinion article, January 2014, by songwriter Burt Bacharach. Apparently, Burt was really incensed that the antiquated 1941 federal licensing laws governing vinyl records still prevail over the current world of ubiquitous headphones that can access 30 million tracks through any mobile device. Under federal consent decree only two groups, Ascap and BMI, can negotiate and collect fees for songwriters from businesses.  If the parties disagree,  the Federal Judges are the arbiters that set the value of songwriters' work--instead of the open free marketplace. Hmmn... sounds like Burt is a little too greedy here? Those big Hollywood liberals sure scream when government regulations affect their pocketbooks. How do liberals think that is any different with private insurance companies setting their values through government regulations with Obamacare? 

At an annual Grammy Awards Show Burt Bacharach said, "I've never seen times like we've got right now. I'm really upset. This is the future I'm leaving behind for these [my] kids, and I'm concerned. I think we've really made a mess of it. If the president had just gotten up and said, 'I made a mistake. I take full blame for it. There are no weapons of mass destruction; our information was wrong. Bear with me and we'll get through this together.' But to be stonewalled--" Bacharach shook his head, "I never like to be lied to by a girlfriend or an agent. And certainly not the president of the United States." 

The Liberal Daily Kos blog then commented: "More importantly, I think Burt gave us a nice sound byte/meme to spread: "We don't like it when they are lied to by friends and family. And we certainly don't like it when we're lied to by the President."--Lather, rinse and repeat as necessary." [It deserves saying over and over again]

Disclaimer: Those comments, by the way, were spoken at the 2006 Grammy Awards Show during the Bush presidency--I wonder why six years later Burt, or the Daily Kos at the least, hasn't attacked our current President Obama about his multitude of lies when Burt met President Obama at his Gershwin awards dinner at the White House on May 9, 2012. Burt had sung a medley of favorite songs.

Burt's medley should have sounded like:       

• Barack always says "Promises, Promises" are "Any day now" while...
• Barack is "Always something there to Remind me" of empty words that...
• Burt swears "I'll never fall in love again" after this last 2012 election when...
• Barack finally "Knows when to leave" as "The house is empty now" while... 
• Burt sings "I'll say a little prayer" for America because...
• It's "What the world needs now" is a new President in the White House.  

Now those are songs everyone can sing after the 2016 Elections! 

 

Looking For The Enemy? ...Did You Vote?

POGO - Earth Day 1971 - "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

Just as Pogo clearly states in a famous vintage 1971 poster, "...the enemy is us," it was a cautionary warning about ecology over 43 years ago which said that we all must take personal responsibility for our own earth. It's still true today, but forgotten by many only two generations removed in 2014.

Nearsightedness or myopia is a vision condition in which close objects are seen clearly, but objects farther away appear blurred. As a community organizer, Obama has only laser focused on campaign fundraising for the upcoming midterm elections. Obama can't see any further because national and world affairs have politically overwhelmed him. He barely understands Domestic policy day-to-day issues due to his very limited practical experience in business and government.

Even Obamacare, his ‘touchstone’ achievement is disintegrating before his eyes. As a testimony to his self-aggrandizement for a Presidential legacy was by shoving his shoddy program down people’s throats which only proved an uber-ego disconnect—and with no ‘across-the-aisle’ votes. Obama said it was all 'partisan politics as usual' forgetting to mention the electorate was not informed and the Democrats did not read the bill before the vote.

Admittedly, the mainstream media and press corps have shielded this President during his tenure as President. The cover copy shouts media bias and attacks anyone who dares criticize Obama as dumb. How clear can that be to everyone?

Doesn't everyone now see what is the big problem?--it is us. If we first shoot ourselves in the foot, then would we do it again? ...and so we actually did it again in the last Presidential election cycle. Are we going to do it over again when the world is now spinning out of control under this President's party leadership? It's time to stop the blame, stop beating ourselves up and stop unlimited government spending--let's vote to change Washington in 2014!