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Some right-wingers want Mekkah to be bombed with nuclear weapons.
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And
there you have it, ladies and gentleman, the proverbial cat is
out of the bag as a top US general associated with policy-making
for the Middle East region admits that the war on terrorism is
really a war on Islam.
Lieutenant-General
William G. Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for
intelligence who is currently in charge of pursuing terrorists -
chiefly Osama bin Laden and ousted Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein - calls himself a warrior who was born to do Christ’s
work in the Middle East.
“We
in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have
been raised for such a time as this,” said the self-styled
evangelical general.
In
a June speech before a church congregation, he claimed that
Islamists hate and want to destroy the US “because we’re a
Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are
Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”
Not
only is this a war on Islam, he tells church-goers on a routine
basis, but it is a war on Satan. To the ignorant masses
following the shepherd, the message is clear: Islam and Satan
are one and the same.
When
Muslim advocacy and human rights groups in the US complained of
Boykin’s remarks, the Pentagon, including US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, rallied to his support claiming he had
not overstepped any boundaries.
“There
are a lot of things that are said by people in the military, or
in civilian life, or in the Congress, or in the executive branch
that are their views. That’s the way we live. We are a free
people,” Rumsfeld said at a Thursday Pentagon news briefing.
Muslim
countries have been warning that they fear the so-called war on
terrorism is in fact a façade, a front to whitewash and
typecast all Muslims as terrorists out to kill Christians and
Jews.
In
the wake of the tragedy of 9-11 US President George W. Bush
called for a crusade to punish and bring the perpetrators to
justice. The Muslim world was shocked at the time, and White
House staff had to assure the world that Bush misspoke in a fit
of passion.
A
few weeks later, New York Times best-selling author and
political commentator, Ann Coulter, a self-described
conservative, announced, “let's invade their countries, kill
their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Other
political right-wing pundits have called on the forcible removal
of Palestinians from their ancestral lands while others have
wanted the holy city of Mekkah to be bombed with nuclear
weapons.
Nothing
New?
The
Middle East is a strange place, indeed, with old animosities
lingering for eons; old battles and ancient enemies still
reminisced. Muslims will find it easy to liken
Lieutenant-General Boykin’s comments with those of another
pious warrior who believed himself as a servant of God in the
east.
In
1176, a ruthless, if not barbaric knight emerged from a cell
where he had been placed for 15 years by the emir of Damascus
for raiding Muslim villages despite an ongoing truce with the
Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. Reginald of Chatillon-sur-Marne,
or Wolf of Kerak as he would soon be called, vowed to break
every truce ever sworn between Muslims and Christians.
“An
oath or truce sworn with an infidel is worthless,” he
proclaimed. In 1181, he attacked a caravan of Muslim pilgrim
worshippers on their way to Mecca, slaying hundreds. Muslim and
Christian scholars both agree that this attack was the lowest
point in Christendom.
Claiming
himself to be in the army of Christ and called upon by God to
rid the world of Satan - Muslims, Reginald took it upon himself
to attack Mekkah itself in 1182. His attack failed, and he
retreated, but not before sinking a ship carrying more Muslim
pilgrim worshippers.
Historians
hold that Reginald’s brazen ruthlessness and barbarism was the
single most significant factor in uniting the then disjointed
Muslim Arabs under the banner of Salahdin. Salahdin would
eventually behead Reginald and liberate Jerusalem.
The
parallels between Reginald and Boykin are remarkable and should
not be taken lightly.
A
New Crusade… Against Whom?
Former
US General and Commander of NATO Forces and candidate for the
Democratic ticket to the White House, Wesley Clark, remarked in
his latest book that the war in Iraq is only the first chapter
in a long sequence of bloody chapters that will eventually rip
the Middle East apart.
Writing
in Winning Modern Wars, he says:
As
I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the
senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were
still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was
more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign
plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries,
beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia
and Sudan… I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply
concerned.
Last
week, Israel won backing for an air strike on an alleged
militant Palestinian training camp near Damascus. A day later,
an Israeli soldier was killed in an exchange of fire with
Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. That same week US Forces announced
they were training their missiles on Iran, who they alleged
would strike at Europe.
At
the time of writing this article, Syrian troops had been put on
full alert for a possible Israeli attack.
Firas
Al-Atraqchi is
a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage. Holding an MA in
Journalism and Mass Communication, he has eleven years of
experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and
the telecom industry. You can reach him at
firascape@hotmail.com.
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