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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > From mass murder to ritual murder - 9/11 -Theo van Gogh - and the bloody trail of Islamic Facism in the West

From mass murder to ritual murder - 9/11 -Theo van Gogh - and the bloody trail of Islamic Facism in the West

September 11, 2006

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=sept112006%2Ehtm

Thoughts On the Fifth Anniversary Of 9/11

Part I: Allah Knows Best - Starry Night

"...they will always judge me or talk about me from different points of view, and you will always hear the most divergent opinions about me. And I blame no one for it, because relatively few people know why an artist acts as he does. But in general, he who searches all kinds of places to find picturesque spots or figures - holes and corners which another passes by - is accused of many bad intentions and villainies which have never entered his head." - Vincent van Gogh, Brussels, 2 April 1881

September 11, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - To his neighbors it was a familiar but still mildly comedic sight, the fleshy Theo van Gogh, cigarette jutting petulantly from his lips, leaving his home in Watergraafesmeer and peddling off on an "old man's bicycle" - straw basket attached - towards his office at Column Productions.

Judged from outward appearances van Gogh's life was chaotic, he pitched and swayed, swirling from project to project - actor, director, polemicist, bon-vivant...a libertine. The only constant being a whet-honed sense of outrage that both served and encumbered him.

This period in his life was no different.

The air was cold, as early November mornings in Holland can be and Theo was rushing off to the studio to finish work on what would be his twenty-fifth film, "6/5" which chronicled the assassination of Dutch MP Pim Fortuyn two years earlier, on May 6.

But Van Gogh was not the only one in transit that morning; the Netherlands and in a larger sense all of Europe were trailing behind him, drawn along in his wake - a retinue.

The United States was in motion too, it was election day, the contest having already been derisively and superficially prejudged by Holland's Telegraaf as "a modern-day crusade, with democracy as its sacred mission...with divine providence on America's side," and then darkly intoning "The growing role and influence of faith in the election campaign has been a source of concern."

Concern by whom and of what sort?

Concern can assume many forms. It can be the substance of nurture whereby the young are guided, or be mocking and dismissive, a mentality in which America looms as Jesusland.

In this diminutive rendering, Jesusland was now engaged in a monumental electoral struggle, the combatants caricatured to varrying degrees.

John Kerry; the erudite, French speaking, continental looking candidate, preaching a secular message that America must become more like Europe.

According to Germany's Financial Times.

"His first cousin is a French mayor. His father was a diplomat. He spent school years in Switzerland, among other countries, and now and then vacationed in Brittany. His wife grew up in a Portuguese-controlled part of Africa. He thinks the death-penalty is bad and thinks the Kyoto Protocol, intended to protect the global climate, is good. If the Europeans were allowed to vote for the US President this coming November, a triumph for the Democratic challenger John Kerry would be assured..."

Pitted against him George Bush; an antagonistic cowboy, Bible thumping and barely literate, controlled by his handlers.

Britain's Guardian portrayed him as a Christian fanatic.

"God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq."

Though van Gogh was dismissive of religion, he could not have been similarly disposed towards faith. Faith drove him - absolute assuredness of purpose is what sped him along every morning or forced him to speak out as he had been doing regarding the cultural upheaval that had accompanied the Muslim influx into Holland.

"The Amsterdam police have no interest in coming to the defense of the native Dutch who are being attacked by an increasingly aggressive minority. And [mayor] Cohen couldn't care less. I suspect that our mayor is an incorrigible cynic and a mercenary opportunist to boot, and ask myself for how long native Dutch will be welcome in Amsterdam." - "Our Mayor," Theo van Gogh

The wave of migration into Holland started during the 60s. This was a time of brisk economic expansion in which guest workers - gastarbeiders - were invited in, drawn by the need for unskilled labor and the country's extremely liberal social safety net.

Initially, the bargain seemed mutually beneficial, in the long-run however the small print in that agreement has been found less so.

Almost a million of Holland's 16 million population are Muslims - the majority coming from Africa [predominantly Morocco and Somalia] and Turkey. Over 50% of the residents of Amsterdam are non-native Dutch and some areas of the city are 70% foreign born.

Van Gogh had observed - loudly - that the immigrants have shown little interest in integrating into society.

The Muslims live a sort of parallel existence; some like the Turks choose an insular existence, living and doing business among themselves.

Even less acculturated and more sociopathic, those from Morocco and Somalia have a high incidence of what could charitably be called disregard for Dutch norms. This is probably best represented by an extremely high crime rate - nearly half of the middle teens in the city of Amersfoort are assumed by the police to be involved in some sort of criminal activity. Approximately 25% of both Moroccan and Somali males in this age bracket already have criminal rap sheets.

Officials believe these figures represent the norm nation-wide.

Disregard for Western ways also manifests itself in an aggressive intolerance.

"I hear outrageous things from my students," said Gideon Simon, a young Jewish teacher at an Amsterdam high school. "This morning I was told that there were never six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. This Moroccan student told me that 'to the extent that Jews were killed, they wanted it themselves, because they had struck a deal about it with the Germans, so that the Jews could steal our country Palestine." - Rachel Levy, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 23, 2003

Intolerance had been on the rise all over Europe in the period leading up to that Fall. Traditionally reluctant to act officially on such matters, even the French government was now admitting that anti-Semitism was omnipresent on its soil. Of the 1,305 reported instances of what are considered to be serious acts of bigotry 1,044 were committed against Jews and Jewish institutions. These included assaults against Rabbis and the burning of schools and synagogues.

"the quantity of attacks aimed at the Jewish community has truly exploded" - CNCDH, French National Consultive Commission on Human Rights

In the Netherlands the Muslim/non-Muslim dichotomy does not circumscribe the dimensions of the social rift nearly as completely as one might imagine.

Though comparatively small in numbers Muslims are now roughly equal in numbers [approximately 5%] to the country's Calvinist population [approximately 6%].

Historically Roman Catholic until the Reformation, the society turned towards Calvinism - especially the high value it places on industriousness and hard work - at the end of the 16th century. By the early 1700s with Spain's political influence waning, William of Orange formed a theocratic government based upon Calvinist principles.

Today the turning away from faith is so dramatic that the religion that is responsible for forging the Dutch spirit has relatively few adherents. That its believers are now at rough numerical parity with the Muslims should have been seen as a warning sign decades ago, if only to note that it demarked an important sociological development.

This state of affairs is not attributable only to an influx of people from countries which have been Muslim for a millennium, because Holland like all of Europe has had its spiritual community sapped by the rise of atheism and agnosticism.

This yields a society of uncertain purpose, one deprived of the certitude that traditionally comes from faith. Non-Muslims are finding the Islamic minority amazingly resilient and determined.

This is reflected in the fact that the birthrate in much of secular Europe is far less than required for simple population stability while in the Muslim community it is far above the level required for stasis.

European spiritualism has been wrought asunder by an over-reliance on the twin forces of the enlightenment and materialism.

You hard-shelled materialists were all balanced on the very edge of belief - of belief in almost anything. - "The Miracle of Moon Crescent," G.K. Chesterton, 1924

The multi-cultural Tower of Babel that the Dutch have erected - and to a large part still defend - has directly led to a loss of hope which leaves them emotionally and philosophically defenseless against the actions of an entrenched, vocal minority.

They have a word for their laissez faire lifestyle - gedoogcultuur - which roughly translated means, "a culture of permissiveness."

This has produced a society where mores seem to no longer exist; hard-core pornography is openly hawked in supermarkets alongside dairy products and community standards have become so studiously non-judgmental [one might argue, non-existent] as to allow the age of sexual consent to be set at 12 - the Dutch, ever practical and tidy, insisting that such must be "consensual."

For most Americans, looking at their pre-teen children, this is an unthinkable development, as it undoubtedly is among European Muslims.

Saying that the Dutch believe in "almost anything" does not really capture the full meaning of their mindset. The more correct reading is that their existential dalliances have led them to a state of faithlessness which now plunges all of Europe into the void, finding themselves atomized culturally, societally confused and lost in a state of anomie.

It might be suggested that in a war of cultures, belief can not be overcome with simple unbelief - that fanaticism can't be defeated by simply believing in nothing.

Such analytical thoughts were probably far removed from Van-Gogh's contemplations that chilly morning, as a different dynamic was in play.

Mohammed Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan immigrants slipping from the shadows, stabbing...then in a rage-driven frenzy, nearly decapitating Van Gogh. With finality Bouyeri triumphantly pinned an Islamic manifesto to the still warm but now lifeless body - impaled there with a kitchen knife.

Part II: Mussolini's Antecedents Become His Heirs

Nearly two years later, on August 10, 2006 President Bush - referring to the thwarted UK based terror plot aimed at bringing down as many as a dozen transatlantic flights - stated:

"[the terror plots] are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to - to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

Immediately the Saudi financed Islamic cultural jihad sprang into action.

  • Council on American Islamic Relations - CAIR [an organization which has had at least three of its members convicted on terror related charges] board chairman Parvez Ahmed, chastised the president in an open letter which claimed in part:

    "The use of ill-defined hot-button terms such as 'Islamic fascists,' 'militant jihadism,' 'Islamic radicalism' or 'totalitarian Islamic empire' harms our nation's image and interests worldwide, particularly in the Islamic world."

  • CAIR Executive Direction Nihad Awad stated, "We believe that this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counterproductive to associate Islamic Muslims with fascism."
  • The Saudi Shoura Council Chief Dr. Saleh Bin-Humaid demanded a public apology by Mr. Bush because of his linking Islam with fascism, calling the President's speech part of a smear campaign and threatening such language would have "dangerous consequences," adding, "we demand a public apology for this falsification as it came from an influential political figure and received wide publicity."
  • On August 18 Sheikh Saud Al-Shuraim - an Imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah [Mecca] delivered a very combative sermon, stating that the West was confusing terrorism with "defending" Muslim's "occupied territories" - "The allegation that Muslims are terrorists is a big lie."

    "I would like to tell you all that the loss of identity and the lack of unity and responsibility were the major failures that hit us most than our enemies' military victories...This situation has made us subservient to others, voluntarily or forcefully... subsequently it increased our pains, expanded our wounds, our honors violated and created fear and a sense of weakness in our minds."

  • The official Saudi response was also rapid and negative, "Fascism is a product of Western culture," said a member of the Cabinet.

    Another Imam at the Grand Mosque Sheikh Saleh ibn Muhammad Al-Taleb not only attacked Mr. Bush's characterization of the philosophy of the terrorists but also strongly criticized the West for what he euphemistically called their support of Israeli occupation of Arab lands as well as anti-Muslim voting patterns in the UN.

  • In LA, Edina Lekovic, spokesman for MPAC the Muslim Public Affairs Council said that the President's remarks, "attaches the religion of Islam to tyranny and fascism, rather than isolating the threat to a specific group of individuals."
  • Ms. Lekovic was silent as to why all of the terrorists have seemingly rejected her criticism, continuing to claim they are Muslims and using Quranic passages as their source of inspiration.

    Mohamed Elibiary whom some sources list as a "Texas based Muslim human rights activist" but is in reality an Islamist who spoke at a 2004 celebration of Ayatollah Khomeini, claimed that the Bush comments were hijacking the religion in a manner similar to bin-Laden, adding, "he president's use of the language is going to ratchet up the hate meter."

    So be it brother Elibiary, let the hate begin.

    Stung by such vocal criticism, in subsequent speeches the President's vocabulary was antiseptically cleansed of any suggestion that could even vaguely link terror, the Muslim faith and fascism.

    This is one of Mr. Bush's more maddening traits, his unwillingness to define the war on terror in a manner that is consistent, understandable and more importantly, clearly enough to draw the stark contrasts necessary to delineate the real nature of the conflict.

    This is a war of concepts, being fought primarily - despite the battles in the Middle East - in the world of ideas. That world plays out in a media laden public relations environment where the moral high ground should belong to the West and especially the United States by default.

    We have a rightful claim to the ethical stratosphere in this matter because of the West's devotion to liberty, freedom and republican democracy.

    Such principles are antimatter to the nihilism of moral relativism and its cultural enforcer, multiculturalism.

    That is not happenstance.

    One of the reasons why the United States and her weak kneed brothers in Europe have not been able to seize and command the philosophical advantage in this argument is that though many within and without this administration "get it" they continue to be bound by our newly developed cultural blinders which preclude them from asserting the true nature of the conflict - that we are in the midst of a squalling religious war against a fanatical enemy comprised of Islamic bigots who - as opposed to the Soviets - are perfectly willing to sacrifice their own lives, those of their wives and children and significant portions of their nation's population, uttering the declaration that this is in accord with the "will of Allah."

    As we saw in the recent past and are reminded of nearly every day, they remain committed launching a first strike, employing whatever weapons they might be able to borrow, steal or cobble together.

    In a nuclear world it is incumbent upon us to actively engage the enemy in advance. To do less accepts the abomination of an attack and a level of casualties that could prove fatal.

    Because our leadership - despite conducting the war far more effectively and with greater fervor than we as a culture deserve at this point - is uncomfortable with engaging these ideas in a perilous intellectual arena where miscues loom as land mines, they instead play word games.

    They do this under the mistaken belief that it's possible - through the use of allegedly "intemperate" language - to drive a larger wedge between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world than already exists. Such ideas are foolish, because our enemies object to our existence and that is a matter that can neither be adjudicated nor negotiated into sublimation.

    And that is why the use of the use of the term Islamic fascism is appropriate because the root word, though formed in another era and under a different set of circumstances is perfectly descriptive of the germ that drives Islamism's while being evocative of the creeds' barbarity and ruthlessness.

    Polemics defending authoritarianism and tyranny have abounded throughout the ages and Mussolini's concept of fascism developed within that tradition but outside the principles set forth by another Italian theoretician of power politics, Machiavelli.

    Whereas Machiavelli conjectured on the dry mechanics of wielding power and influence, Mussolini evoked a world-view to justify his ideal ruthless state. He did this while he was editor of the socialist publication Avanti in the 1920s.

    The philosophy of fascism was offered as a response to Marxism because Mussolini objected to its predestinative nature and the idea of an irresistible historical process brought about by class warfare.

    At their core, the theory of fascism and that of Islamism are remarkably similar and one can merely substitute the Muslim idea of the caliphate for Mussolini's concept of the state, and assuming that state is subservient to Allah as dictated by his messenger Mohammed, then the two mesh rather seamlessly.

    Consider the following passage - as annotated - written by Mussolini in 1932 for the Italian Encyclopedia.

    "War" [read jihad] "alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy...The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State [read Caliphate] its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute...For Fascism, the growth of empire" [permanent war against the infidels] "that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality...Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude." [a near perfect description of the Islamist's critique of Western subjugation - militarily, economically and culturally]

    Actually it would be hard to construct a more accurate metaphor that would still be accessible and understandable to everyday citizens. It is therefore no great stretch to use Mussolini's secular political theory as a descriptor for the expansionism and blood rage of the Islamists, at very least for the purpose of successfully engaging the war of concepts and symbols which at an atomic level, controls the extant battle of competing realities.

    Part III - Requiem In Pace

    I am reminded that in the Old Testament and early in the book of Second Maccabees [2 Maccabees, 8] the focus falls upon the re-taking of the Temple in Jerusalem after the city had been sacked by Antiochus - successor to the throne of Seleucus - and one of Alexander the Great's generals.

    Antiochus was the local potentate representing the Seleucid Empire, which stretched all the way from Thrace to Western India.

    The sacking of Jerusalem and greater Judea was horrific even by the standards of that time, with upwards of 80,000 being slaughtered. The Temple had been defiled by the city's conquerors, Antiochus a proud and haughty king, personally carried off 1,800 talents of gold, returning to Egypt after re-dedicating the temple to the Greek god Zeus.

    Antiochus appointed Phillip as the local vizier, a man even more cruel than his master.

    Judas Maccabeus and nine compatriots escaped the carnage and formed a band of guerillas, which lived like wild animals in the mountain caves outside the cities. They eventually assembled an army - returning to crush the oppressors, taking back Jerusalem and Judea.

    Rejoicing, they celebrated for the first time in two years in the Temple after having purified it.

    They had but a few drops of oil for the Menorah, the ceremonial lamp, but what little they had miraculously burned for eight days and nights, a sure sign from God that He was pleased.

    Remembrance of this event eventually became the Festival of Lights - Chanukah - as it is more commonly known in the Christian world.

    It strikes us that on this 5th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, we in America have much to learn from this story; we know the pain suffered at the hands of would-be foreign oppressors who have sought to impose their religion and way of life upon us through violence.

    Of course the media is loathe to assert that 9/11 was an attack upon Christendom as well as Western Civilization.

    The blindingly politically incorrect nature of such an assertion accounts for it being given short-shrift by the usual suspects in the media.

    The weapons the Islamists have employed against us so far have been conventional, merely because our adversaries don't as yet have access to weapons of mass destruction greater than airliner bombs filled with jet fuel and human projectiles.

    Despite statements to the contrary by the American Saudi/Wahhabi [ISNA, CAIR, ICNA, MSA for starters] lobby, radical Islam is the sole driver of this phenomenon and those who wage jihad are every bit as brutal and merciless as the forces of Antiochus were 2150 years ago.

    The bloody enmity of fanatics remains constant over time.

    We have seen Iran's proxy thugs, Hezbollah and the Hamas bombers - formerly underwritten by Saddam - waging a cowardly campaign against Jewish women and children throughout the Holy Land. Some, with little understanding, even counsel that it is our support of that Israel that is the cause of our misfortune.

    Nothing could be further from the truth.

    This is a religious/cultural war that would be waged against us regardless of the presence or the absence of Israel and it follows that resisting Islamic terrror does not cause terror.

    The truth is that as a society, we stand accused, as unbelievers, infidels.

    Christians stand convicted - alongside the Jews, not because of them. It really serves no good purpose to argue the point.

    That not the entire Muslim world shares the murderous intentions of the Islamists grants little solace. Five years later and still none of the American self-designated spokesmen for Islam have challenged the Wahhabis.

    Instead they luxuriate in the millions of dollars showered on them by their Saudi masters. In total abrogation of their responsibility under the First Amendment, these radicals have been anointed by the press and to some degree by this administration as the de-facto spokesmen for American Islam.

    During the Second World War 33,000 loyal Japanese-American Nisei soldiers went into battle against Imperial Japan - where are the similarly disposed Muslim soldiers today?

    There are far too few to count.

    Instead the one Muslim soldier that has come to public scrutiny Sgt. Asan Akbar - distinguished himself by fragging an officer's tent during the first days of Operation Iraqi Freedom - killing one and seriously wounding fifteen - hardly an example designed to inspire belief in Islamic tolerance or redemption for that matter.

    In the world of politics, reality has been turned upside down and now resembles something out of a Lewis Carroll fable. Nonsensical rants against the Iraqi operation are the order of the day, the argument being that Iraq is not linked to al-Qaeda and really the war on terror should consist of nothing more than adminstratively dealing with bin-Laden.

    The Bushies have been challenged by these buffoons to produce a grand plan - seamless from beginning to end - wherein every contingency, every troop movement, every detail and ground of coffee must be accounted for.

    There must be a pre-entry strategy, an entry strategy and multiple exit strategies. There must be an - on the cheap - roadmap to reconstructing a 12th century society...details, details, details. Baghdad's traffic lights must click on time...oh and don't forget...the Sunnis, Sufis, Shiites and Kurds must join hands - playing bingo every Friday night - loving each other for all eternity.

    No deviation will be tolerated - to have one item go contrary to the master plan signals defeat and chaos - quagmire.

    It means - reduced to news-speak - Vietnam.

    Mostly, a whole-lot-of-Vietnam goin' on...

    Taking into account the scope of history preceding the event, September, 11 must be placed in perspective. Any remembrance should not be spent either in overly maudlin indulgence or wallowing in grief.

    That said, it is a disservice to America, what is left of the free world and the Christian and Jewish faiths not to remember and re-dedicate ourselves to the task remaining on this somber anniversary.

    To forget hastens the quagmire from which no escape exists.

    To forgive...unthinkable since such forgiveness - on this order of offense - falls upon the Almighty alone.

    Any usurpation of that responsibility mocks Him and as the ancient Hebrews learned in the second century BC - as Judea was being plundered because of its sins - the Lord will not be mocked.

    Praise the Lord...continue to honor our dead...pass the ammunition.

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