30 March 2008

Fitna - Clear and Simple

When we hear that we must understand that the 'moderate Muslim' is not for the radicalist ways of jihad, then we, as a society collected of individuals, come to the point where all the excuses given for wanton murder and Private War waged across the globe in the name of Islam and jihad must come down to one very clear and basic view.

Part of why that view is necessary is given a first and strongest view in Geert Wilders' short film Fitna. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Fitna, we see the following:

Fitna is an Arabic word, generally regarded as very difficult to translate but at the same time is considered to be an all-encompassing word referring to schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy at once. It is often used to refer to civil war, disagreement and division within Islam and specifically alludes to a time involving trials of faith, similar to the Tribulation in Christian eschatology. The term originally referred to the refining of metal to remove dross [1], but became common in apocalyptic writings and is often used to refer to the First Islamic civil war, in 656–661 CE, a prolonged struggle for the caliphate after the 656 assassination of the caliph Uthman ibn Affan. The Second Fitna, or Second Islamic civil war, is usually identified as the 683–685 CE conflict among the Umayyads for control of the caliphate. The third one refers to the taifas in the end of the Caliph of Córdoba's rule.
This is a meaning beyond simple trial or test, and hits straight to the heart of the problem in trying to apologize or veer off from confronting a religion that puts violent ideas and ideals into action. Within Islam, then, those that utilize violent ways and means are practicing something beyond jihad: they are practicing Fitna upon their fellow Muslims.

They do so by radicalizing their views and holding ahistoric views of their religious past in order to glorify it beyond all bounds of reason. When brought to an unreasoning and unreasonable height, one that cannot be touched by reason but only by passion, those seeking to cleans Islam of those who are considered 'moderates' is done by instilling fear and hatred of all of Islam. Their aim is global domination, but to get the foot soldiers to accomplish this they need to go beyond simple disdain or verbal neutrality of their fellow believers. To do that they attack those outside the religion and proclaim them all as the enemy of Islam if they will not come to it.

Every time we hear an excuse to act in a barbaric fashion and it is put into terms of someone else's fault, be it Israel, Arab Nations hosting Western groups, or even some ancient grievance against the Crusades we see Fitna at work. By not denouncing these things as unreasonable, by giving cover to acts of inhuman carnage Islam is not only speaking to those outside of it but is holding up a mirror to itself and letting those who do NOT actively support the violence and destruction: "This is your fate if you do not join us."

Those threats are made clear time and time again in a Nation called Iraq. Today, and for years, the radicals of Islam have not been solely targeting those from the west, from Nations with liberal and democratic views, from Nations that have thrown off the shackles of tyranny and point to a better and brighter future through peace and cooperation of Nation with Nation. No these seeking to help OTHERS rebuild their Nation and society from the outside are not the only target. Those radical elements now target the common man and woman and child in Iraq, be they Sunni or Shia, Arab or Kurd or Yezidi, they are all targets now and open to the vile hatred and disgust of those siding with radical and totalitarian views about Islam.

These radicals not only strike in New York City, Madrid, London, Israel, India, Australia and even into China. No, these radicals kill their own in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, and Morocco. The gun they turn on others and the bombs they detonate, the havoc they cultivate is against all of those that will not see the world in their way and the goal of these bloody butchers is anyone who does not agree with them. Their hatred, their disgust and their cruelty knows no bounds of religion or culture or ethnicity: they have declared themselves the enemy of ANY who will not agree with them.

The short film of Fitna, while localized to the Netherlands, is global in its voice: those practicing these evil ways hold to a singular belief that is their OWN and they use Islam as the cover for it. Many sects of Islam have different views of those exact, same pages that are read, and have shifted from the external struggle to the internal and seeking to show that such struggles are universal. Those quiet voices are drowned out by the bomb blasts, the screams, the rain of blood from shockwaves visited upon everyday men and women of all beliefs, all classes and all ethnicities if they do not bow down to those seeking pure and absolute power over everyone.

Hearing of this film and its release on the 'net I utilized tools I had found for downloading such things as I knew it would not be up long and if others could not keep it and protect it, I would have my copy for the coming times of cowardice.

One tool is Orbit downloader, which has the ability via its Grab function to analyze a web page as it is loaded and identify the sources of rich media and allow you to download them for yourself straight from that source.

Another tool available for taking many different formats of video and audio and quickly compiling them to something that can be played on a stand-alone video player is DVD Flick. While it does not have the rich media editing capability of some other tools, it offers the 'quick down and dirty just get it to something easy to use' concept for those things you want to share with others via physical media.

A good alternative video/audio player for one's computer is VLC media player by the folks at Video LAN. It also has some functionality on sharing media across a network.

Another good tool for sharing rich media over a network is TVersity, which is relatively simple and straightforward.

These all have the benefit of being absolutely FREE for download.

To protect speech that others wish to stop, that those willing to use violence and destroy not only civility but civilization are willing to kill to end, to ensure the basic freedom to express yourself and have it heard and remembered these are simple and yet vital tools for capturing and distributing media that is in danger because it not about conspiracies... it is about truths others are willing to kill to suppress. Somehow the conspiracy theorists get plenty of airtime and very few assassinations visited upon them, while those wishing to say 'this is wrong and here is why' get targeted by those who can and will kill them if they do not recant the 'evil' of speaking their mind.

When corporations and cowards in the media will not even support their OWN, then you know that they are willing to submit to any power able to threaten them.

They are half-way to surrender already, and no longer having freedom.

For temporary security, like 'moderate Muslims', they live in silence.

And if they will not believe in what the radicals want, they, too, will end up like the common men, women and children around them who have been slaughtered.

Dead.

6 comments:

Coach Mark said...

Hey bud,
I was wondering what you thought of the new Pentagon report on Saddam/terrorism. Did you get a chance to read it yet?

Mark of http://regimeofterror.com

A Jacksonian said...

I have looked through the Abstract and Summary, but this really needs to be combed through on the full meat in volumes 2-4, (the entire thing is at FAS and will be a lenghty read).

After looking at the work of Auchi and the other surrounding OFF and Clearstream scandals, plus the linking with the banking infrastructure of al Qaeda, HAMAS and Iran (via Marc Rich), I can say that whoever thinks that Saddam *wasn't* supporting terrorism has to explain those connections and in detail (especially the al-Taqwa banking structure). Plus the entire BoNY structure to launder funds for goods in the US and elsewhere, surely plays a part in this due to OFF and the connections via the Russian on the board and his connections to Menatep bank in Russia. Going through the source material promises to be a nasty proposition...

Coach Mark said...

Ya, I've only read 1 and 5. The details of how many jihadists he was helping is staggering, even to me.

I look forward to your take on it when you get time.

A Jacksonian said...

Integrating that knowledge with the following I've posted will not be a great fun job:
Follow the money... where? which becomes a major question due to the lower level commercial contacts Saddam used from BNL onwards.
Red Mafia connections up to BoNY.
Four Degrees of al-Kassar problem which begins to look more critical as his ties in the white and black world would be vital to Saddam if he could work out a private deal with him.
Dmitri Firtash and his mentor, Mogilevich who would play some part in the funneling of funds for OFF via Menatep. Firtash's recent movements seem to indicate connections made during Saddam's time, but nothing to pin directly there. Also Abromovich and such in that also.
Huawei and 'Tiger Song' technolog transfers from China.
Oleg Depripaska due to his London contacts and co-locating with others and his ability to pick up the Chernoy Transworld Commodities does bring up: where did he get the cash?
And the orchestrator behind this was Nadhmi Auchi friends to Presidents, dictators and Saddam's cousin who appears to have escaped nearly scot-free.

Saddam had to do banking at it is the Al-Mahdi group through Auchi and his connections via BNP/BNP-Paribas that connects him to the rest of this web: Saddam had a ready funds transfer system for illicit OFF cash and my guess is that nearly every high level terrorist (bin Laden, Nasrallah, Mugniyah) and all the black arms dealers (Kassar, Keshoggi, Bout, Lasnaud) also had entree into the BoNY/Clearstream/Al-Mahdi/Al-Taqwa/HAMAS/IRAN schema. Also in that will be Cyprus, Grand Caymans, Bahamas, Switzerland, Dubai/Abu Dhabi, and Indonesia as financial/transaction centers.

It is already clear that this system dwarfed BCCI and the indications are, due to lack of progress in bringing charges, that the sheer complexity is wiping out any chances to bring charges against the higher level organizers of it. Investigators have had over 7 years to do that, and still nothing is done. TotalFinaElf was a *sidelight* in this system... and even with Saddam dead, Auchi is still alive and active at BNP-Paribas.

Coach Mark said...

Wow, thats a lot of financial links.

I don't know that they really included any financial documents in this report but it's worth taking a look at the dates on these things and seeing how they match up with the financial stuff.

A Jacksonian said...

Those are the connections I've found from the *other end*: Auchi, of course for a lot of it, but Menatep played a role in arms deals and that includes its cast of characters... there have been past links between Kassar and Cukarova group in Turkey for tech transfers... Huawei and 'Tiger Song' plus their Taliban dealings... Mogilevich has been cited multiple times in radioactive materials deals on the black market in Europe, Africa and Asia via his energy company connections in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan...

I have no idea if these are in the report, but the other connections via the banking world are yielding up a high number of financial problems on their own... Lucy Kommisar spent a good amount of time in 2003 going through Saddam's banking system and its an eye opener. If you have the knowledge of the Kassar arms deals during the 1990's using Audi bank and others, plus his ties to Imperial Consolidated, then those ties via the Auchi set-up and Paribas make sense (he may have gone through other means, of course as CitiBank has had lots of problems, too). Mogilevich had a web of companies outside the BoNY scandal, including Highrock Holdings which seems to have been dealing with Gazprom as part of the OFF deals with the Russian State owned company there: he is the man to go to in that era for *anything* from tanks, missiles, aircraft to heroin, cocaine, prostitution to refined nuclear material. He co-located with Kassar in Spain and Mogilevich was involved with Auchi which makes a ready point of money transfers for arms deals very easy for Kassar (explaining the Republica Bank problems in Argentina).

Saddam helped grow that system and Auchi helped integrate it... the papers released *must* fit in with the known arms, oil, food, equipment and other transfers via OFF to Saddam. The pieces are there, but there are still *lots* of names to place in this system. This is how oil shipped illegally in OFF gets skimmed at Paribas, those funds laundered through BoNY/Clearstream (via the Russians) goes into Menatep to provide arms and equipment for Saddam.

Did I mention this is a nasty situation that still has not been thoroughly investigated?