Another I told you so update. It is very much within the realm of possibility that the U.S. has toppled Saddam Hussein and stayed in Iraq for all this time only to see the creation of another Sharia state there. This would not and could not have happened if the Administration and the State Department had properly identified the source of Islamic terrorism in the Qur'an and the Islamic doctrine of jihad, and in the impulse to impose Sharia that comes from and works through those sources. But because they persist in illusions about Islam, and persist in listening to the wrong people, they may well end up creating a problem greater than the one they solved.
One would think that the example of Saudi Arabia and Iran would be enough to show them that above all they don't want another Sharia state. But of course, Jaafari assures us that Iraq won't be like that; it will presumably be Sharia with a human face. It will be interesting to see where he will draw the lines that will have to be drawn to create and maintain this humane form of Sharia, and how long they will last in the face of inevitable pressure from hardliners.
From AFP, with thanks to Nicolei:
IRAQ'S frontrunning Shiite candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, said in an interview he aimed to introduce sharia Islamic law and federalism and confirmed Saddam Hussein would be judged by the end of the year."It's understandable in a country where the majority of people are Muslim," Mr Jaafari said of the Sharia law, in an interview conducted in Baghdad due to appear in Tuesday's edition of German magazine Der Spiegel.
"Iraq should become a Muslim country but without falling under the influence of Iran or Saudi Arabia," he said.
"Everyone will have the same rights, even members of the many minor religious communities," he said, explaining there would be multiple forms of jurisprudence.
This probably refers to the Sharia provision that dhimmi communities govern their own internal affairs, and are not subject to Sharia courts. But the idea that "everyone will have the same rights" is going to collide with numerous Sharia precepts. How he succeed in creating and maintaining this smiley-face version of Sharia?
He also said women would be under no legal obligation to wear a veil."They will make their own decisions," the Shiite candidate said.
Same problem again: his statement conflicts with Sharia. Maybe it's because, as noted below, he doesn't want "a strict application of sharia law," but, as I said above, it remains to be seen how he will draw this line and preserve it.
According to results of a poll released yesterday, most Iraqis are deeply attached to their Islamic identity but do not want a strict application of sharia law, as in neighbouring Saudi Arabia or Iran.About 48 per cent of those interviewed agreed that "religion has a special role to play in the government", while 46 per cent supported a separation of state and mosque.
I'm no starry-eyed optimist, but 46% supporting a separation of mosque and state has to a positive, doesn't it?
Wow, what a time i've had to get back here with a new computer, what a pain in the arse.
TESTING 1,2,3
my hopes are that we build a huge base somewhere in the middle east to ensure safety in that part of the world. i fear that those in middle east have contrived a coalition in secret to destroy us when the time is right.
Rock on spencer.
Like Robert and Hugh, I opposed the Iraqi intervention because "it's all a waste of men and materiel." But one thing is certain, whatever becomes of Iraq the Iraqis have chosen it.
So no more bitching from arab muslim pundits on how there is a lack of democracy and human rights in the Middle East because the "U.S. supports autocratic and corrupt dictatorships" and no more "given the chance, muslims will choose freedom." Right.
Although Jimmy Carter failed to stand up for the Shah of Iran, in the end, the Iranians are responsible for their islamic revolution and the hell they live in. As we all know, the biggest problem is that the Iranians and their muslims brothers make life hell for the rest of us.
Forget about building a base of any kind in Iraq. Get the hell out of Dodge. Our soldiers have fought to give them a chance at freedom and human rights. The Iraqis will squander it. What a waste of free will.
"Jaafari aims for sharia"
That is a great idea. Then next they can adopt the code of Hammarabi and ban the wheel. That would be the logical next step. Then next they can elect a dinosaur for prime minister.
But then things might move forward in time again in Iraq when that happens because dinoasaurs don't think much about sharia.
“Sharia with a human face”
That phrase reminds me of “communism with a human face” – a slogan from the 1980 used by the Leftist critics of Reagan. If you remember, these critics chided Reagan for demonizing communism. “Communism in the USSR is hear to stay; let’s try to reform it,” went the reframe from our friends on the left. Phil Donohue used to hold town meetings with that Russian stooge (Posner?) to show a moral equivalence between the two antithetical values systems. But the people living under communism rejected it the first chance they got.
Now we hear from our conservative colleagues that Islam is here to stay and it can be reformed. As I pointed out in my blog (http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/2005/03/islam-and-its-denial-part-ii.html ), some conservatives are not always upset about a marriage between religion and state – even in Iraq. Just like the left at times in the past saw communism as a kindred humanitarian impulse “hijacked” by an evil one (Stalin), some conservatives see a long lost "Abrahamic" cousin in need of some help to get back on track.
The problem this time is that both left and right can’t face the nature of the enemy’s ideology. There’s no Reagan calling Islam for what it is. It’s going to be a long, long, learning process. There are good people who need to be awaken.
"Like Robert and Hugh, I opposed the Iraqi intervention..."
I don't think the Iraqi intervention -- i.e., the first 18 months or so of the war, was a mistake. It was reasonable to believe that Saddam Hussein had certain kinds of weapons. It was important to make sure those weapons were seized or destroyed (as it would be to seize or destroy any similar weapons obtained by any Muslim state or group, or where they have managed through devious means to acquire them, to do everything to cause them to un-acquire them), and weapons projects disrupted.
I think, however, that staying around after the disruption of the regime, and the weapons-search and weapons-seizure and weapons-disruption, and after the elections, and now when the National Guard and Reserves are crumbling, and their morale, and that of the regular army, must not be damaged further -- not because there is no real problem with Islam, but because there is a real problem, and a much harder policy than that of the idealist Wolfowitz (who is in the main an analyst of weapons systems, and learned all about Islam as the American ambassador in Jakarta, where everyone he met, of course, knew he was also Jewish, and were quite eager to please (I can just imagine the view of Islam some of his "informants" offered him) by saying whatever they thought he wanted to hear, and furthermore learned via pillow talk with an Arab divorcee whom he had been seeing, or from his Meretz-leaning sister in Israel, who again would hardly be the one to supply him, lacking it herself, with a realistic view of Islam.
The trouble with the people at the top is that when something entirely new comes along -- that is, Islam, they just do not have the time, in the often hectic vacancy of the exhausting day to day, to sit down, read, think, read some more, think about what they have read, study again and again -- and to learn all about Islam, and winnow the apologists from the scholars, is difficult. And it takes time. Wolfowitz and company lack that time, so they rely on "studies" and "position papers" and everything reduced in size, and complexity. And at this point it would be too upsetting to sit down and analyze the main question: why is "democracy" in a Muslim country either necessary, or sufficient, for what Infidels want to see -- which is, Kemalist limits put on the practice of Islam, as the theory -- despite what we are assured by Bright Young Muslim Things parading around, and getting foundation grants, and selling their books, cannot be changed.
The sums of money spent on Iraq have been enormous. What if that money, or what if the last $100 billion, had been spent on subsidizes for the nuclear industry, or solar energy? Whenever money is being spent, one has to do that old-fashioned cost-benefit analysis. At this point, the costs are simply too great. It is insane to commit $590 million to an embassy in Baghdad -- and symptomatic of the fear everyone apparently has to simply stand up and say so. Why should we have a gigantic embassy? Do planners think that Americnas will continue to be tolerated? Why should American soldiers now, once we have achieved our aims, stick around to keep various factions from being at one another's throats? Given that the American soldiers will never be allowed to operate with the kind of methods that are routine in Iraq, why should not the Shi'a, once the Americans leave, be left to settle the hash of the Sunni opposition, and no doubt will do so using methods that the Americans would never dream of using. What's wrong with a Sunni-Shi'a fissure?
Meanwhile, back at the Iranian ranch, they are building and building and building, and stalling. And the money is spent in and on Iraq (a country that can pay for all of its own Reconstruction, by borrowing against future oil earnings -- we have done quite enough, thank you), and the materiel is used up (79 American planes and helicopters destroyed, hundreds of tanks, and so on, and those not destoyed have been prematurely aged in the desert conditions and on their last motorized legs), and men (and the soldiers cannot be fooled about the "wonderfulness" of the Iraqis, and they feel keenly, many of them, the sheer hatefulness of the people they are supposed to fight and die for at this point -- it is cruel to force them to obey, blindly, in such circumstances. As for the effect on morale, look only at what is happening to the National Guard and Reserves -- they cannot be used, or re-used, in such fashion, or rather, if you do that, you cause permanent damage.) Who will say openly that the law of diminishing returns set in many months ago, and we can use that money better in the anti-Jihad campaign, and those men should be brought home, so that the army and the citizen-army can both heal themselves, and so that they can concentrate on more important matters, like disarming Iran from afar, and from above.
Much more attention has to be paid to Islam. It is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. And right now it is swaggering down the streets, wherever it feels like, all over Western Europe. That is a lot more important than the nature of the Iraqi political situation --- not to the Iraqis, of course, nor even to the would-be "reformers" hoping to manipulate us for their own advantage (see Ahmed Chalabi). We have no interest in "democratic reform" except insofar as that "democratic reform" may help in constraining Islam. That's it. And there is no reason to think, and no one has bothered even to make a detailed argument about it, that "democracy" brings limits on Islam in Muslim countries. All the evidence suggests that enlightened despots (the word "enlightened" being used most relatively in the Muslim world) -- the Shah, Mohammed V, Habib Bourguiba, and Ataturk -- have been the only ones to limit Islam. If Turkey (now backsliding) and Tunisia are places where Infidels at least need not worry about being killed on the streets, and women are not mistreated to quite the same extent as in Pakistan, or Sudan, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, that only reflects Ataturk and Bourguiba, and their one-party rule for a long time -- not "democracy."
While I believe that Islam is firmly entrenched in Europe and crawling like a snake in the U S waiting to strike, I have another element to the equation. I think the planners know that we haven't enough oil to accomodate the population xplosion (immigration) for the next 40 or so years no less 60 years and are willing to roll the dice in regard to slowing or quasi-controlling militant islam. Yes I do agree with the previous opinion, but this economic factor needs to be inserted in the equation.
Sharia with a human face.
That one is easy. Just look up pictures of stonings, honor killings, women wrapped up like mummies (Hijab)... no wait, you can't see their faces.
Pictures of people's faces, suffering due to sharia law. That's all that's needed.
There are a few threads of hope:
a) They need the cooperation of the Kurds, who mostly oppose Sharia law.
b) The U.S. can threaten to withdraw all support if the new constitution does not respect individual rights.
c) Jaafari may be saying this mainly to please his fundamentalist constituency.
d) This statment was published by one of the most anti-Bush, anti-Israel mainstream Western news sources in the world.
Accepting Hugh's position on the continuing American presence in Iraq might be difficult other reasons; abandoning Iraq will almost certainly cause a civil war and enormous suffering for millions of decent people, who were born into Saddam's rule and a society influenced by Islam, through no fault of their own, people who do not aspire for a Sharia state or for much of anything except perhaps a life without violence, oppression and hopelessness. Arguably the US has a moral obligation to try to prevent that kind of strife, given that US action has a lot to do with bringing this civil conflict closer to reality than it would have been otherwise.
But, on the other hand, Hugh is right, and has been all along on what the illusion of demoncracy in Iraq will amount to in the end: resurgent Islam and a state just as hostile to the US (or more so) than Saddam. It is pointless to waste resources and American lives on this project that cannot forestall inevitable Islamic domination and oppression; facing the truth that the US or any power or people cannot resist the inhumane forces of Sharia and Islam on societies, where Islam already has a strong foothold, without overwhelming, enduring constraints and force, is not easy for those who want to see the best in people, who want to look for hope, or for those who cannot come to terms with the disfunction of a marketplace that makes oil-rich Islam and the terror that comes with it stronger and stronger; a real effort to rid ourselves of the possibility of 'terror' (i.e. Islam and the da'wa and jihad it will naturally bring in its wake) destroying our lives will require transforming our economies, limiting our dependence on fossil fuels, inevitable hardship, and, perhaps, at times, the uncomfortable bending of our political principles.
"SHARIA WITH A HUMAN FACE"
This must be the screams,blood and gore which accompany amputations,beheadings and stonings. So after a great sacrifice of soldiers, civilians killed, billions spent every day, Iraq will gradually return to the Stone Age of bloody Islam!!
The creation of a Hizballah corridor from Teheran to Jerusalem has always been in the cards, since the Coalition Provisional Authority outlawed (CPA Order #1) Secularism in the name of Baathism. Islamofascist clerics, emboldened by Bush's short-sighted "Abrahamism" (stupid belief in communal familiarity among Jews-Christians-Muslims), used American projection of weakness, as an opportunity to enter the power vacuum. Jaafari and Sistani (Iranian born) are doctrinally of the same cloth as the 9-11 genocidists.
Bush can be leveraged into backing out of the alliances and ordering the type of disproportionate retaliation - re IED/RPG/sniper terror in Iraq, that is essential to liquidate Iraqi terror. Southern Baptists - one of the President's power bases - have always taken an anti-Islam position. Doctrinally, the self-appointed "prophet" of Muslim fanatics, is labeled a "demon possessed pedophile" by SBs. (That position is consistent with Muslim Koran/Hadith admissions, and the Christian worldview).
Remember: Hitler put 2,000,000 fanatics into the streets in the 2nd Nuremburg rally. He would have won any democratic election at the time. Those of you who spew the Bill O'Reilly vomit, about "respecting the choice of the Iraq voters," need to ask yourselves if you are sanctioning an exercise of freedom of conscience. Are Nazism and Islamofascism unconscionable. If they are not, then assist in pressuring total war against Islamofascism, including detention of American proponents of same. The Middle East democraticization campaign, in context of a public temper that is subject to mosque indoctrination, favoring more-Islam as the solution to social problems - Islam is the cause of Arab/Persian, etc social idiocy - will achieve nothing less than the legitimation of Islamofascism. If the Saudi terrorist entity was overthrown, and an al-Qaeda government was established, Bush's initiative would recognize that government if electors choose same (and the probably would under the current indulgence of political Islam).
We cannot win the War on Terror, until we start killing Muslim terrorists in numbers disproportionate to terror casualties. The media is covering up Iraq street celebrations, after IED/RPG successes. Iraqis understand two things: weakness and napalm. We should be afraid to use the former.
smokem, that's not the whole story. The key question is what Rumsfeld stated quite a while back:
"Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas, the schools and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"
Just how do you propose to use napalm in such a way in Iraq as to not increase terrorist recruitment elsewhere? (There is always the option of simultaneously saturation nuking all Muslim countries in the world, I don't think the situation calls for that yet though. Or I suppose 1000,000 to 1 reprisals, that is going to be effective too.)
I wouldn't give up hope on Iraq just yet. Women are still enfranchised and remain so. Here you have a situation where at least 50% of the population are effectively in slavery, and they also have a vote. Expecting them to vote to stay slaves is a little naive.
In the near term future, I would expect more women friendly but still very pro-regional candidates to emerge.
At the moment we are using just as much deception and subterfuge as Islam directs. We invaded ostensibly on the basis of UN resolutions. Meanwhile we attempt to totally disembowel Islam by means of creating a democracy domino effect.
We say that we will leave as soon as Iraq can defend itself... the answer to which is "never", because why would they waste money on their own security when we subsidize it?
And meanwhile, we stick to our guns wrt enfranchisement of women etc, a move very likely to gut the main drawcard of Islam for males - enslaved women.
"...This would not and could not have happened if the Administration and the State Department had properly identified the source of Islamic terrorism in the Qur'an and the Islamic doctrine of jihad, and in the impulse to impose Sharia that comes from and works through those sources..."
Posted by Robert at March 20, 2005 06:34 AM
Maybe it's not too late... Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day.
"Everyone will have the same rights, even members of the many minor religious communities," he said, explaining there would be multiple forms of jurisprudence."
Posted by Robert at March 20, 2005 06:34 AM
Oh, goodie. "...multiple forms of jurisprudence." That'll work about as well as it works in Malaysia, where (for example) in the case of a recently divorced couple, the civil court has given custody of their two tiny children to the Hindu mother, while the Sharia court has granted custody to the newly-converted (formerly Hindu) Muslim father. Oh, and by the way, the children (ages two and four) were "converted" by pop. How's that for conversion being "willing, heartfelt, and with understanding"?
Back and forth, back and forth, civil, sharia, civil, sharia.
"...This would not and could not have happened if the Administration and the State Department had properly identified the source of Islamic terrorism in the Qur'an and the Islamic doctrine of jihad, and in the impulse to impose Sharia that comes from and works through those sources...
Just what would you have done? A US or UN installed strongman would have had no chance in Hell of standing up to the terrorists, and forbidding Islamists from participating in the elections would have had similar results. Let them make their mistakes. The best we can do is pressure them to respect the rights of minorities. After all, Malaysia has some degree of Sharia law that applies only to Muslims, and Malaysia for all its faults and abuses, can hardly be considered a significant threat to the US.
At least with the illusion of a thriving democracy in Iraq, the real thing might happen in other parts of the Arab world.
Only by the U.S. and coalition members (and the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"-loving U.N.) insisting that the Iraqi Constitituion, yet to be drawn up, includes basic human rights (freedom of thought; freedom of and from religion; a free press; etc.) can the blood-thirsty juggernaut of Shariah Law be avoided.
Algeria's 'democratic' election, a while back, that brought Muslim fundamentalists into power, and was which was quickly invalidated- in order to preserve the country from the 'freely elected' anti-democratic maniacs- is one example of what can go wrong when countries rush their illiterate people into voting.
We need to patiently guide the Iraqis away from an Iranian style mullah-ocracy.
Shariah Law is incompatible with human rights, and cannot be accepted in Iraq after all of the sacrificies that free men and women have made to liberate the slaves of Saddam.
We aren't going to let a gang of little dictators replace one big one.
Rule of secular law is the only guarantee of preserving the values of a free humanity.
Religious codes inevitably lead to schism and slaughter and chaos and 'holy' carnage.
Or don't they teach ANY history (of religious intolerance) anywhere any more?
Cathars, dead. Gnostics, dead. Arians, dead, Pelagians, dead. Manichaens, dead. Monophysites, dead. Marcionites, dead. Cataphrygians, dead. Origensians, dead.
And that's just a few of the 'christian' heretics exterminated by the early followers of the 'Prince of Peace'.
Muslim extremists have taken up this vicious 'kill-the-heretics' banner in the present world, and Shariah is their scourging scimitar.
It must be kept out of government.
Or we will all suffer its consequences.
The imposition of Sharia law anywhere in the world is an abomination. Democracy brings the franchise, but not necessarily freedom.
Dunno about this guy
March 17, 2005
By M. Zuhdi Jasser
American Islamic Forum for Democracy
President Bush's appointment of Karen Hughes to the post of undersecretary of state for public diplomacy could not have come at a better time.
As we see nothing short of revolution beginning to sweep the Muslim and Arab world, it still defies logic that America, which has been an unequaled advocate of liberation, moderation and reform in the Middle East is tagged with such negative opinion polls in the Arab street.
If we are to see in the Middle East what we saw in Eastern Europe, we need a galvanized media campaign to stimulate the moderates. We need to promote a better understanding of the truth regarding American ideals and intentions in spreading freedom and independence for the people of the Middle East.
As a proud American Muslim working feverishly for Muslim reform and against the theocrats, I have always wondered how it is that our nation, which has the world's most skilled campaigners and communicators could not mount a more concerted and effective effort to counter the radical propaganda of freedom-hating Islamist militants.
>From the secular Arab despots to the militant Islamists who lead with hate, America has allowed the Islamic world to swallow the Jihadist propaganda of Al Jazeera and its ilk with hardly a concerted rebuttal.
This is not a new effort. We have tried our Arabic, Al Hurra in Iraq. And our program of public diplomacy is already well underway with the grand efforts of those at USAID and those within the State Department. But this has been but a drop in the sea of Islamist and Arab state-run media hate well publicized by IMRA
, Bringing in a high-powered, respected campaigner and close presidential confidant like Karen Hughes demonstrates a significant elevation of priority for public diplomacy. This will finally begin to bring us into the right ballpark in the primary front of this war on terror from which we have been relatively absent.
The media and brainwashing engine of Middle Eastern despots and political Islam has had a 50-year- and two-generation head start.
Its about time we took off the gloves and began fighting on the international airwaves and in the diplomatic ground against the autocrats, monarchs, and Islamists against their conspiracy theories, their intolerance, their hate, and their anti-Americanism. Additionally, hopefully with the aid of moderate secular American Muslims and with the leadership of the new undersecretary we can also begin to systematically derail the Islamists efforts at hijacking Islam for political and religious oppression.
We cannot afford to stimulate change and allow the fall of dictatorships to give way to the failed ideology of theocracy. In the end, as we are seeing in Lebanon, the majority in the Middle East need at least a fair shake at choosing liberty and freedom over theocracy.
Without the energies of skilled campaigners like Karen Hughes we will lose the war of ideas and leave the Muslim world starving for open societies with nothing but the trough of theocracy from which to feed. For those of us who enjoy and cherish the freedoms of America as Muslims, we know that there is nothing more Islamic than American democracy. It's about time to turn up the heat on the war of ideas in this war on terror.
Shiva-
Islamists have their "idea".
(Global and total Rule of their deity Allah through his dogma as interpreted in Sharia Law.)
We can recite the encyclopaedia britannica at them and it won't change their "idea".
Nothing we SAY will change their thinking. It is carved in the "eternal and perfect" Koran.
BUT, by standing up for our own "idea"- that of: human rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of- and from- religion, and a free press, we can demonstrate to them our will.
This is not a clash of "ideas". It is a contest of utterly opposed visions of the Cosmos, and of what humanity needs to live in it.
Backed up by the stronger will.
We believe in: a free mind, growing into an infinite and always-unfolding Universe.
They believe in: a mind enslaved to a 7th century dogma and masked with a permanent male face.
There is NO reconciling these views.
And no convincing someone, who "believes" in a "faith", that their "creed" is mistaken when its "God" says otherwise.
Karen Hughes -or whomever- need not waste their breath with P.R. campaigns.
Just demonstrate, by their very being - as a modern women from a free society- the virtues of our system.
(Britney Spears and Beyonce Knowles would be more convincing ambassadors than Karen Hughes when it comes to the real problem: young, hate-filled Muslim men. What Muslim women can compare to these lovely and free incarnations of the Eternal Feminine that the West has nurtured to health and wealth?)
Muslim women, I'm sure, need less convincing. Who would want to be wrapped in a trash bag of a dress, told you are only worth half a man, and forbidden to preach the very faith that turns you into a serf? Not to mention honor killings when you're raped, or acid thrown in your face when you turn down an ugly suitor?
Let them see:
While the West explores the solar system, Islam is cutting off heads.
Let Hughes show those contrasting pictures:
A) The work of the West: The Mars Rover
v.s.
B) The work of Islam: a beheaded truck driver.
Less polemics, more inspiration.
Fewer arguments, more art.
Thanks for the philosophical hat tip, BigSleep. Again - if I get the time, I shalt pursue.
Regarding displaying the advances of the West in response to islamicist fanaticism, are you sure that would work? Historically, the response from that quarter has been hatred and envy; disgust with the West's 'decadent' technologies and morals. Even a caveman might justify his cave, so long as he's living there.
"Seriously, it roomy, no clutter, a real 'fixer-upper'! Heating a little hard in wintertime, but lots of open wall space and very airy!"
Geoff
BigSleep
there is only one point I disgree with in your comment above
Islamists have their "idea",I would rather say virus that has been passed down from generation to generation for the last fourteen hundred years
Hugh, your a good guy, but live in a world of belief.
We did not invade Iraq because of WMD (they had none and Bush and the neo cons knew it), because of links with al Qaeda (they had none and Bush and the neo cons knew it, in fact the no fly zone in the north provided shelter to Ansar al Islam, which was waging it's own war on Saddam).
Instead of fighting Islamic terrorists, Bush and Co have merely provided a recruiting and training ground for Islamic Terrorism, much like, but even better than Bosnia. Read Evan Kohlmann's Al Qaida's Jihad in Europe. And read ALL of this
article and comments Al Qaeda in Bosnia An Affair in which BOTH George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton were heavily involved.
When are you going to stop and take a realistic look at your vaunted leader, George W. Bush?
Here is a clue, the law firm of Baker Botts (James Baker III) represents the Bush Family, The Saudis and Exxon.
If you have been paying attention it is the Saudi Royals who are the chief financiers and exporters of not only Islamic Terrorism, but Islamic Jihad ideology .,
More to consider
Here is what the International Institute for Strategic Studies[says in Strategic Survey 2003/4
Conservatives, especially conservative Christians, who persist in rationalizing and defending betrayal by their putative "leaders" are no different that the sap Muslims, who rush up to
"martydom" in Jihad.
Both are motivated by blind belief, an irrational state of mind, which results in people acting contrary to their best interests ..and contrary to rational vs. irrational reality that is a consequence of belief.
E.G. Irrational reality is the "Paradise" of Shahids, where all of the houris and virginous boys with skins like pearl, and fountains of milk and honey await these idiots. Irrational reality because a rational person knows that such does not exist (nor does any irrational notion of an afterlife - but that doesn't stop the irrational mind from believing that said exists, and it doesn't stop the irrational mind from believing in their chosen idols, icons and leaders despite the overwhelming evidence of lies, betrayal and other agenda's.
Ranting more than usual, I see, giaour. Having a bad day?