Realities and the Muslim Revival, Installment 7

                
                                    Life today the Real Story written by James m. Joiner 2005
                                              awesome insight,  Never  published, be the one



We have opened a Pandora’s Box of new problems especially in Africa. First, Why we can’t say that we did not expect the problems that followed after attacking Iraq because we did.

We for some irresponsible reason chose to ignore them. At this point someone must sit down and look at the myriad of potential problems getting ready to erupt. We must ensure that we have the ability to handle them.

We must also now figure out how we will prioritize resources in order to do so. We had proven ourselves grossly inadequate as an Administration of accountability and responsibility. We are now unnecessarily fighting on an additional front while the Afghan situation is only going to get worse.

 The Afghan warlords are being left to carry on their tribal wars as they have done for centuries. The problem now is that we do not have the forces and resources available to keep potential insurgents from crossing into Afghanistan.

 Nor do we now have the ability to keep the warlords in line as we must. We are finding our ability to change their economy from one operating on opium income to something agriculturally productive and legal less than stellar.

We have still not been able to do enough to teach them and give them the tools and equipment to make a legal living. We must get in gear quick. we are killing valuable time we will never get back.

Okay, let’s talk about Africa for a bit. There is not a continent on earth more torn apart with mindless bloodshed and ruthless murder than Africa. Military dictators readily steal money and goods intended to help the starving people.

Their callous, senseless greed combined with famine and poverty was a recipe for disaster. This is especially true when talking of the Horn of Africa. Except for Libya, who has its oil reserves to thank, they are all having serious problems. The other countries in the region, especially Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, have been dealing with corruption, poverty, and war.

Ethiopia was governed for years under Haile Selassie. Despite financial aid from the U.S. Ethiopia has remained an underdeveloped undemocratic country. By 1974 the frenzy for an end to oppression, poverty, and corruption, had peaked.

The army was able to seize more and more control from Selassie. Selassie was eventually stripped of his powers and imprisoned. It was in prison where he was murdered by coup leaders in 1975. After bad came worse, he was replaced by Haile Mengistu who crushed thousands of political opponents, and began a reign of terror.

 Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets. The process of elimination was well organized. However, even as he was murdering his own people Mengistu had two other problems. He had a border dispute with Somalia, and a long standing dispute with Eritrea to contend with.

With Eritrean’s attacking from the North, Somalis in the South, and counter-revolutionaries to fight in the middle, all assets were diverted to fight the enemies. Because of all this, Ethiopia had one of the lowest standards of living in the world. Then things only got worse in 1984 when famine struck.

 Other countries were hesitant to help because they feared Mengistu would just steal the food for his men and this is what did happen. In 1995 they got a new government under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The new government inherited 6 million people, starving, both physically and financially.

Eritrea who is right next door to Ethiopia has worse problems. Britain saw fit around 1943 to divide the country between its neighbors; they gave the coast and highland areas to next door neighbor, Ethiopia. Then they gave the Muslim northern and western lowlands to Sudan.

In 1962 a civil war ensued that lasted for 30 years. Finally with the overthrow of Mengistu, Eritrea was given its independence. Eritrea and Ethiopia ended up in a brutal, vicious, war. During the war were there were 100,000 killed, one million displaced.

There were also hundreds of millions of dollars that went from much needed financial help in the form of food and rebuilding the countries infrastructure and redevelopment to war. In December 2000 the two countries ended hostilities by signing an internationally brokered peace agreement; we’ll see how it goes.

Most of us know of Somalia because of Blackhawk down and their still on going war with terrorists. However, well before that Somalia too had been victimized by colonization. The British controlled the northern part while the southern part was controlled by Italy.

Italy had gained its foothold in an 1888 agreement with the Sultan of Hoya in exchange for protection. Of course Italy lost their share during WW2. For some reason Britain ended up making it one country. Italian and British rule had of course made these two distinctly different countries so it too was disastrous.

Major General Muhammad Siad Barre assumed leadership eventually. He reigned supreme, and ultimately became a tyrant. Like all dictators he eventually ended up unleashing his private armies on his enemies, things got even worse.

 His forces began terrorizing the citizens, treasuries were looted, and clans were systematically targeted and murdered. Somalia’s Roman Catholic priest was gunned down. People were being tortured and murdered.

Soon after that 450 who were demonstrating against the murders of their leaders and they too were killed.
Things were beginning to get very desperate so in steps America. Over the next two years 50,000 Somalis would be killed in factional fighting and another 200,000 died of starvation.

 Then on October 3, 1993 a Ranger helicopter trying to feed starving Somalis, went down. The next day there were two helicopters down and 18 dead Americans. The Ethiopian war has killed or displaced millions. Relief efforts have been thwarted, and Somalia is ruined.

Enter Sierra Leone, according to Amnesty International, civilians continued to be arbitrarily killed, mutilated, raped, and abducted. The perplexing thing is that this was a year after the agreement between the government of Sierra Leone and the United Front was signed.

This situation seems to be particularly sinister and underhanded. Against President Sankoh the rebels knew they didn’t stand a chance. So they formed an alliance with Liberian leader Charles Taylor. Together they launched a war against the Sierra Leone government.

As the rebellion got underway a group of soldiers arrived in the Capital of Freetown in 1992. Supposedly this was to demand better pay and conditions. However, it was found that their mission was to overthrow the government. Due to rapidly deteriorating social conditions, the coup was extremely popular. The RUF, (revolutionary United Front), overran titanium and Bauxite mines, that were the major source of state income.

Unlike most wars where civilian casualties are an unfortunate by product of war, the RUF deliberately targeted civilians for murder and mutilation.

They indiscriminately did machete lacerations to the head, neck, arms legs, and torso. We also can’t overlook the gouging out of one or both eyes, rape, gunshot wounds, acid injections, genital mutilations, and any other kind of torture or mutilation they could think of.

They also liked to use amputations as their favorite tool of terror. They used the shirt sleeve method where the arm is amputated close to the shoulder, and the long sleeve method, where the arm is amputated at the wrist.

 Human Rights Watch found civilians with hands, arms, feet, legs, ears, buttocks, any number of fingers, all amputated by machete. This was all pointless, horrible, nightmarish torture.

They also used children to do their killing. One teenager recited how he would cut out the heart and lungs of his victims to eat. The children too were abused by the rebels, and were a favorite to use because they were particularly ruthless.

 Practically half of the countries 4.5 million inhabitants were displaced by the war. Another 500,000 were refugees in neighboring countries. While at least 50,000 died in the fighting this is still not the end of it. This while there is also an estimated 100,000 mutilation victims. The economy is in ruins.

The national infrastructure needed to run the country had collapsed. It is just one more casualty of colonization.
Okay, Liberia, founded in 1822 by freed African American slaves became a Republic in 1847; you might think this country at least must be okay. After a military coup in 1980 Samuel Doe became President in 1986.

 In 1989 violence erupted, and he was dragged into the street and shot. Guerillas killed 250,000 people, and more than one million were displaced, and yet another colony heard from.

In Angola, a long established colony of the Portuguese they clamped down on resisting colonies by killing, capturing, and exporting even more slaves.

Portugal would not cooperate with a peaceful decolonization so rebel groups emerged. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), The National Liberation Front (FNLA), and Dr. Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for Independence (UNITA) were formed.

 The US and Zaire Supported the FNLA, South Africa backed UNITA, and the communist Nations helped the MPLA. So once again the table has been set for mass mayhem and murder.

So, even after the Portuguese were tossed out and as a result of outside meddling, the killing still continued. There was upward of one million dead. In 1994 the United Nations sent in peace keeping forces. Under the agreement, Savimbi was made the Vice President and his forces were allowed to join the Angolan army.

 Despite the concessions Made, Savimbi refused any future participation and negotiations stopped. At this point in time, Angola’s civil war has the distinction of being the longest in history, thank you Portuguese colonizers.

Talk about slaughter and mayhem for the world to deal with as a result of colonization. Let’s talk about Rwanda for a minute.

 The Hutu’s and Tutsi’s had lived together, and gotten along well with each other for years. However, as a result of the way in which Belgium had run the colony, contention had been built in and exploited.

 The name Tutsi refers to a group of people rich in cattle. When Belgium needed help running the colony it used the better educated wealthier Tutsi’s. As a result the Tutsi ended up having a monopoly on public life.

They were confronted with economic problems and the ever increasing corruption on the part of the government. As a result country leaders started demanding reforms. They especially wanted the return of the more than 600,000 refugees who happened to be mostly Tutsi’s.

 In response the Hutu authorities in charge declared that the country was too overpopulated to permit their return. The stage had been set once again for horror. Rwandan Tutsi opposition forces crossed the border from Uganda on October1, 1999.

 The President and his closest colleagues began portraying all Tutsi’s as the enemy in order to turn the Hutu against them. They managed to do this even though they had been living together in peace for years. The result of this was slaughter.

 The organizers of genocide planned for the Tutsi’s had gained control of the state political apparatus, and so the genocide began. This was genocide in its truest form a true systematic premeditated murder of a distinct group of people.

The Rwandan genocide was unique in that rather than hiding the fact of what they were doing, they were quite open in their goal of Tutsi extinction. When all was said and done there were up to one million Rwandans murdered by their fellow citizens. Answers to on going investigations are due in 2008.

The instability to Burundi’s future lies in the fact of colonialism. One of the missteps in forming new countries was in dividing the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s between two distinctly different countries, Burundi and Rwanda.

 Sadly this was not the first or last time the western countries would be totally insensitive to the plight of the lands and people of their colonized countries.

They were eventually given their independence and of course chaos ensued. Following was a coup where 100,000 were killed in ethnic fighting. They were mostly Hutu’s, who in turn killed Tutsi’s.

 This was the beginning of a cycle of retaliatory violence killing tribesmen of both tribes, civil war was on. A ceasefire was brokered in 2000 by Nelson Mandela. This resulted with South African peacekeepers being sent in 2001. But Africa being Africa, what’s next is anyone’s guess.

The Democratic Republic of Congo was another victim of colonialism. Here the British once again saw it fit to change borders. They displaced local populations, in order to create the countries as they thought they should be.

 The British left in 1960, elections were held and Patrice Lumumba was elected as Prime Minister. With the help of the CIA, the army chief of staff carried out a successful coup.

 He was removed and they got Mobutu who began his 30 year reign as one of the most autocratic and corrupt dictators in the world. He was well also a crook, stealing billions from the national treasury.

Despite his corrupt regime he continued to get U.S. support as well as from the World Bank. In 1991, Mobutu adopted a new constitution, and scheduled multiparty elections.

Well, as usually happens during elections in Africa, opposing parties emerged. Chaos ensued and Mobutu ended up killing 100 student demonstrators.

This event provoked International outrage but elections went on anyway. Mobutu, who lost decided to fire the new Prime Minister. Mobutu had dominated the country for thirty years by pitting rival army factions against each other. He thought he would do it once again but he was wrong, it didn’t work this time. Events beyond his control will bring him down soon.

Then tiny Rwanda felt compelled to invade its huge neighbor. They did this in order to flush out the Hutu extremists who carried out their genocide.

 The Zaire army fled, and the Rwandan army along with anti Mobutu forces then pushed to the Capitol of Kinshasa. Mobutu was removed from office and at the time of his death, was one of the richest men in the world.

 Soon after, the Lawrence Kabila era began. He changed the countries name from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He banned opposition parties, arrested the former elected Prime Minister, and, angered and alienated their allies. Of course, war erupted, a massive seven country war.

Then in January 2001, Kabila was assassinated. Then in February that year the U.N. Security Council approved a plan to have all fighting factions withdraw and be replaced with U.N. peace keeping forces throughout the country.
 They are still embroiled in turmoil and to my knowledge, we are still watching. These, like all the other problems we have been talking about are ours. They are all of ours, and it’s up to us to figure out how to fix them and I believe we have. Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival, Installment 6

                                    Life today the Real Story written by James m. Joiner 2005
                                              awesome insight,  Never  published, be the one 

 
Western people are often bewildered by the hostility and rage that many Muslims feel for their culture. This was because of their very different experiences.

 They found this to be both liberating and empowering. The Muslim response should not have been unexpected. Because the Muslim world was so widespread and strategically placed that it was the first to be subjected in a concerted, systematic, manner to the colonization process in the Middle East.

 This was also the problem for India, Arabia, Malaya, and a significant part of Africa.

 Muslims in all these places very quickly felt the brunt of the modernizing assault; they would not and will not come into the modern world easily or willingly.

 Lets look at the results to all this and see what we are dealing with as a direct result of colonization, and modernization. It appears to be single handedly the main culprit to our problems with Islam.

Let us start by talking of Afghanistan. There are so many places to start this conversation of what we are up against world stability wise it really is a shame.

 As far as getting the point across I think this is a good visual start. We know why the United States was compelled to attack Afghanistan and were aided by much of the civilized world.

 We knew what we were up against having observed the Russians in their unsuccessful bid to defeat Afghanistan. This was only partially due to the ferocity of the Afghan people. We watched for years as the Russians battled futilely with what seemed as an endless amount of combatants.

This in fact was a never ending supply of Muslim combatants. We knew that Afghanistan was constantly being resupplied with fighters primarily over the wild mountainous region along the Afghan Pakistan border.

We knew that these fighters were indeed coming from virtually every Muslim country on the planet. This as we know is the nature of Muslims. As a result of this we knew in fact what to expect when we made the decision to go in.

Our mistake was trusting and relying too much in the Afghan tribesmen.

With this in mind, why I ask, do we even make believe we believed the ridiculous excuses from President Bush? He says that he was justified in going after Iraq. He also says that it was better to draw out potential fighters and fight them in Iraq than to have to fight them on American soil.

 If you didn’t know it before, I hope you know it now, we already did that. We already drew them out by going after Afghanistan. There was positively no justifiable thing to do with Iraq beyond monitoring activities within the country and on its borders. This would simply have been in order to monitor proliferation of weapons or knowledge.

If simply removing Saddam was the goal we know for a fact that we should have been exploring other alternatives towards that goal as we can be sure there was.

 All we have succeeded in doing is increasing the difficulties ahead by going into Iraq, more than two fold. The main reason for this is now not only did we give Islamists a new place to fight and render their services. We now have another front still draining our much needed efforts.

 We knowingly did this with the knowledge that we would get additional problems from inside the country. We also knew that it most certainly could come from across any one if not more of their borders.

We have opened a Pandora’s Box of new problems we saw take shape as the so called Arab spring turned middle east breakdown we in fact started. Life Today The Real Story "2005"
 

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival Installment 4

                                     Life today the Real Story written by James m. Joiner 2005
                                              awesome insight,  Never  published, be the one

In 1884 at the request of Portugal, German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck held a world meeting. He called together the major western powers of the world to negotiate questions and confusion over the control of Africa.

 Bismarck appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany’s sphere of influence over Africa. This was because he desired to force Germany’s rivals to struggle with one another for territory.

 At the time of the conference, 80% of Africa remained under traditional and local control.

What happened was the same thing that had been happening to all colonized Muslim lands. It resulted in a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into fifty irregular countries.

 This new map was superimposed over the one thousand indigenous cultures and regions of Africa. The new countries as had been the case in the past, lacked any rhyme or reason whatsoever.

Thus giving no consideration at all to how all these people would deal with the new situation that was forced on them. It divided coherent groups of people. Worse was the fact that it merged together disparate groups who did not have anything in common and did not get along.

14 countries were represented, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, Turkey, and the United States. Of these fourteen Nations, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were the major players in the conference.

 They were controlling most of colonial Africa at the time. At the time of the conference only the coastal areas were colonized by the Europeans.

Following the conference the give and take continued never once taking the inhabitants into consideration. By 1914 the conference participants had divided Africa among themselves into 50 countries.

Great Britain took Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana; they also controlled Nigeria, and Ghana. France took much of western Africa, from Mauritania to Chad plus the Republic of Congo.

 Belgium took the Democratic Republic of Congo; Portugal got Mozambique in the east and Angola in the west. Italy took Somalia and a portion of Ethiopia. Germany took Namibia and Tanzania, while Spain got the smallest territory, Equatorial Guinea.

Then in 1920 Britain and France carved up the Middle East between them. They divided it into protectorates and mandates. What a mess we have created.

 It really is unbelievable the way this all came about. Our level of ignorance as to what we did and our responsibility for it can not be denied.

These colonization projects only made a more silent process of westernization official. This had been happening since Europeans had been establishing a cultural and political dominance.

This was of course, during the nineteenth century in the name of modernization.

Technicalized Europe had become the leading power and was taking over the world. Religious differences and spiritual ideals must not be allowed to impede the progress of society.

 Scientists, Monarchs, and government officials insisted that they be free of ecclesiastical control. Thus the ideals of Democracy, toleration, human rights and secularism were not simply beautiful ideals dreamed up by political scientists.

 They were, at least in part dictated by the needs of the modern state.

 It was found that in order to be efficient and productive, a modern Nation had to be organized on a secular, democratic basis.

It was also found that if a society organized all their institutions according to the new rational and scientific norms, they became indomitable. Thus the conventional agrarian states were no match for them.
Life Today The Real Story "2005"
 

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 
 

Realities and the Muslim Revival Installment 3

                                    Life today the Real Story written by James m. Joiner 2005
                                              awesome insight,  Never  published, be the one


Just like the life of every civilization in History is cyclical so too is the life of every religion in History.

 As far as Islam goes, yes we are fighting the so called extremists for now. Make no mistake about it, in the end, they are all family.

 When it comes right down to it, they will come together. We will reluctantly as we might be, find it necessary to take on Islam as a whole.

Let us remember World War 2 and the lessons it should have taught us. Sure, we were fighting the Germans. There were still a few German citizens willing to risk their own lives, and go against their own people. They did this in order to help as many Jews and allies as possible.

 They did this because they had a conscience, knew right from wrong, and ultimately did the right thing. This is exactly what is going to happen with the Muslims.

Let’s talk about Islam a little bit. This is just to give us a little background on why we are having some of the problems we are having with some of the Muslims.

 I think it will give a lot of you a new understanding of the situation. I know a lot of this surprised me. You really can understand why some of them feel the way the do.

However this by no means justifies their actions. They can get themselves on the right track as a country first. Then they can go about settling their difference hopefully under direction, and civilly.

Throughout recent history the west, primarily European Nations have been consolidating their countries. They have been putting an end to colonialism.

I’m just realizing something, with what we are about to discuss. I’m going to say what should have been a good thing for Muslims appears to have been the beginning of the end for them.

In the early nineteenth century when colonization was at its peak there was a general malaise and disquiet in the Muslim world. The French had colonized Algiers in 1830 and in 1839 the British colonized Aden, (now part of Yemen).

 Then between the two of them they took over Tunisia (1881), Egypt in 1882, the Sudan in 1898, and Libya and Morocco in 1912. To me what is worse is what the Europeans did to Africa.

The Berlin Conference was held in 1884 -1885 to discuss how they were going to divide Africa between them. This factual blunder really amazed me. The Berlin Conference was Africa’s undoing in many ways.

The colonial powers superimposed their domains on the African Continent. In no time the entire African continent acquired a legacy of Political fragmentation. One that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily.

In 1884 at the request of Portugal, German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck held a world meeting.

 He called together the major western powers of the world to negotiate questions and confusion over the control of Africa. Bismarck appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany’s sphere of influence over Africa.

 This was because he desired to force Germany’s rivals to struggle with one another for territory. At the time of the conference, 80% of Africa remained under traditional and local control.

What happened was the same thing that had been happening to all colonized Muslim lands. It resulted in a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into fifty irregular countries.

 This new map was superimposed over the one thousand indigenous cultures and regions of Africa. The new countries as had been the case in the past, lacked any rhyme or reason whatsoever.

 Thus giving no consideration at all to how all these people would deal with the new situation that was forced on them. It divided coherent groups of people. Worse was the fact that it merged together disparate groups who did not have anything in common and did not get along. Life Today The Real Story "2005"


James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival Installment 2

 
                                      Life today the Real Story written by James m. Joiner 2005
                                              awesome insight,  Never  published, be the one
                        

Let us for a minute stop and discuss Islam. Something I am right now, reading about Muslims is very disturbing. More pointedly this is something Muhammad said.

 This is in the Koran too, that is why it really worries me. I am sure it’ll concern you too. Its interpretation or misinterpretation is a direct reason for many of our problems with the Islamists today.

It reads as follows, “I do not worship that which you worship, and neither do you worship that which I worship”. Wait a minute, what happened to the one God, and, “Unto you your moral law and unto me mine”. Just that one statement gives credence and justification to anything and whatever a Muslim feels is right, by him or her. This is exactly what is going on today.

This has always concerned and scared me about Religious Zealots in any Religion. That is the reason we have people, supposedly in the name of Christianity, blowing up abortion clinics and killing the Doctors who perform abortions.

 The Muslims and Jews aren’t the only ones with the problem; we all have to deal with it.

Muslims also believe that Divine Unity also requires them as Muslims to recognize the Religious beliefs and aspirations of others. This is precisely because there is only the one God. The one God is believed in and followed by all 3 of the great Religions.

Having this in mind, how can it be that the Islamists feel that they have God exclusively for their own misuse? Muhammad believed that all rightly guided Religions must come from the one God alone. He also believed that he is the God of all 3 Religions.

Muslims believe, and rightly so, that a persons Religious practices are culturally conditioned. They would thus be expressed by different societies in different ways. If this is true, and it is, then how does one explain away the feelings and beliefs, of many Muslims?

 They think that everyone that does not worship as they do, is inferior, and should be killed? This all, as most of us know, goes dead against the man they supposedly revere, Muhammad.

 All self respecting Muslims all over the world, should rise up and revolt. They should revolt against what these Islamist Jihadists are doing to their God and their Prophet.

I hate to hit you in the face with this one, but no one else is being honest with you. I finally heard, albeit understated still, the somewhat right take on what we are really facing in the war against Islamists.

Of course it did not come from any of our so called leaders or experts. Many of us know that they just don’t
get it. This came from a Muslim American leader. He estimated that he wouldn’t be surprised if the number of anti American leaning Muslims was as high as 50%.

 He obviously, is very pro American, and is way out of the anti American loop. I will personally guarantee you that the number is much closer to 90%. We will remember a little history shortly that will illustrate for us poignantly what we are really facing.

We, as a people and a country, especially our leaders, are very slow. Not too slow I hope, to realize just exactly what we are up against.

 You must remember we as Christians have done the very thing the Muslims are doing right now. The difference is that now the shoe is on the other foot, and two wrongs don’t make a right. As we said, the world is a lot smaller now, and the weapons, a lot deadlier.

When the west went through this religious evolution we like to fondly call, and remember it, as the crusades. Our combatants were known as Christian crusaders. This, as we also have discussed, has been done to a worse degree, by the Jews, more than once.

 I don’t believe they ever had to lift a finger. You will see soon, by a time line of events that what is happening in the world today is entirely normal. Life Today The Real Story "2005"


James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
 http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

During the nineteenth century in the name of modernization Europe was taking over the world Installment 5

                                    Life today the Real Story written by James m. Joiner 2005
                                                 awesome insight,  Never  published, be the one
 
 
During the nineteenth century in the name of modernization Technicalized Europe had become the leading power and was taking over the world.

Religious differences and spiritual ideals must not be allowed to impede the progress of society. Scientists, Monarchs, and government officials insisted that they be free of ecclesiastical control.

Thus the ideals of Democracy, toleration, human rights and secularism were not simply beautiful ideals dreamed up by political scientists. They were, at least in part dictated by the needs of the modern state.

 It was found that in order to be efficient and productive, a modern Nation had to be organized on a secular, democratic basis.

 It was also found that if a society organized all their institutions according to the new rational and scientific norms, they became indomitable.

Thus the conventional agrarian states were no match for them.

This all had fateful consequences to the Islamic world. Trading posts and consular missions had been established in Turkey and the Middle East. This had undermined the traditional structure of these societies long before there was actual Western rule.

 This was an entirely different kind of colonization. The new colonial order transformed the lives of the citizens of these colonized countries permanently.

 It was directly responsible for establishing a polity of dependence. It was impossible for the colonized lands to catch up with the institutionalized west.

 Old institutions had been fatally undermined and Muslim society itself was divided between those that had become westernized, and everyone else.

*What had been a living civilization with its own integrity and identity was gradually being transformed into a group of dependent states.

As a result they were inadequately prepared to deal with the situations put before them. Europeans had come to believe that their culture was not only superior at the present time but had always been at the forefront of progress.

 They often displayed a superb ignorance of world history. Indians, Egyptians, Syrians, all suffered greatly because of the arrogance of at least the British.

They felt that they had to be westernized for their own good. This was because they thought of their society as being far superior.

The British thought of themselves in every way superior to the Muslims. They also believed at the time that one of the problems that they had to deal with was overcoming Islam itself.

During the crusades a very negative feeling for Muslims arose. Muslims themselves had little time or energy to develop an understanding of God in the traditional way.

The year 610 saw Muhammad receive his first revelations for his new religion. By the year 622 Muhammad had many converts to his new religion.

With these converts he made the first trek from Mecca to Medina. This march is what is traditionally thought of as the beginning of Islam. When Muhammad died just 10 years later he had the satisfaction of knowing his new religion of Islam would survive.

 The new religion finally gave the Arabs a sense of belonging and equality to Judaism and Christianity. They believed that along with the other great religions of the world, or so they thought and hoped for.

The Islamic world had been convulsed by the modernization process. Instead of being one of the world leaders, Islam was quickly and effectively placed as secondary to European civilization.

 Muslims were exposed to the contempt of the colonialists who were enamored with the modern way of things. They were so impressed by themselves that they were often appalled by what they could only see as backwardness, inefficiency, fatalism, and corruption of Muslim society.

They assumed the European culture had always been progressive. As a result they failed to realize that they were just seeing a premodern agrarian society.

They themselves were just a short time ago, also an agrarian society. They often took it for granted that westerners were inherently and racially superior and they expressed their contempt in many ways.

Western people are often bewildered by the hostility and rage that many Muslims feel for their culture. This was because of their very different experiences. They found this to be both liberating and empowering.

 The Muslim response should not have been unexpected. Because the Muslim world was so widespread and strategically placed that it was the first to be subjected in a concerted, systematic, manner to the colonization process in the Middle East.

This was also the problem for India, Arabia, Malaya, and a significant part of Africa.

 Muslims in all these places very quickly felt the brunt of the modernizing assault; they would not and will not come into the modern world easily or willingly.

 Lets look at the results to all this and see what we are dealing with as a direct result of colonization, and modernization. It appears to be single handedly the main culprit to our problems with Islam.
 Life Today The Real Story "2005"
 

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com  

Realities and the Muslim Revival, Installment 7

We have opened a Pandora’s Box of new problems especially in Africa. First, Why we can’t say that we did not expect the problems that followed after attacking Iraq because we did.

We for some irresponsible reason chose to ignore them. At this point someone must sit down and look at the myriad of potential problems getting ready to erupt. We must ensure that we have the ability to handle them.

We must also now figure out how we will prioritize resources in order to do so. We had proven ourselves grossly inadequate as an Administration of accountability and responsibility. We are now unnecessarily fighting on an additional front while the Afghan situation is only going to get worse.

 The Afghan warlords are being left to carry on their tribal wars as they have done for centuries. The problem now is that we do not have the forces and resources available to keep potential insurgents from crossing into Afghanistan.

 Nor do we now have the ability to keep the warlords in line as we must. We are finding our ability to change their economy from one operating on opium income to something agriculturally productive and legal less than stellar.

We have still not been able to do enough to teach them and give them the tools and equipment to make a legal living. We must get in gear quick. we are killing valuable time we will never get back.

Okay, let’s talk about Africa for a bit. There is not a continent on earth more torn apart with mindless bloodshed and ruthless murder than Africa. Military dictators readily steal money and goods intended to help the starving people.

Their callous, senseless greed combined with famine and poverty was a recipe for disaster. This is especially true when talking of the Horn of Africa. Except for Libya, who has its oil reserves to thank, they are all having serious problems. The other countries in the region, especially Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, have been dealing with corruption, poverty, and war.

Ethiopia was governed for years under Haile Selassie. Despite financial aid from the U.S. Ethiopia has remained an underdeveloped undemocratic country. By 1974 the frenzy for an end to oppression, poverty, and corruption, had peaked.

The army was able to seize more and more control from Selassie. Selassie was eventually stripped of his powers and imprisoned. It was in prison where he was murdered by coup leaders in 1975. After bad came worse, he was replaced by Haile Mengistu who crushed thousands of political opponents, and began a reign of terror.

 Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in the streets. The process of elimination was well organized. However, even as he was murdering his own people Mengistu had two other problems. He had a border dispute with Somalia, and a long standing dispute with Eritrea to contend with.

With Eritrean’s attacking from the North, Somalis in the South, and counter-revolutionaries to fight in the middle, all assets were diverted to fight the enemies. Because of all this, Ethiopia had one of the lowest standards of living in the world. Then things only got worse in 1984 when famine struck.

 Other countries were hesitant to help because they feared Mengistu would just steal the food for his men and this is what did happen. In 1995 they got a new government under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The new government inherited 6 million people, starving, both physically and financially.

Eritrea who is right next door to Ethiopia has worse problems. Britain saw fit around 1943 to divide the country between its neighbors; they gave the coast and highland areas to next door neighbor, Ethiopia. Then they gave the Muslim northern and western lowlands to Sudan.

In 1962 a civil war ensued that lasted for 30 years. Finally with the overthrow of Mengistu, Eritrea was given its independence. Eritrea and Ethiopia ended up in a brutal, vicious, war. During the war were there were 100,000 killed, one million displaced.

There were also hundreds of millions of dollars that went from much needed financial help in the form of food and rebuilding the countries infrastructure and redevelopment to war. In December 2000 the two countries ended hostilities by signing an internationally brokered peace agreement; we’ll see how it goes.

Most of us know of Somalia because of Blackhawk down and their still on going war with terrorists. However, well before that Somalia too had been victimized by colonization. The British controlled the northern part while the southern part was controlled by Italy.

Italy had gained its foothold in an 1888 agreement with the Sultan of Hoya in exchange for protection. Of course Italy lost their share during WW2. For some reason Britain ended up making it one country. Italian and British rule had of course made these two distinctly different countries so it too was disastrous.

Major General Muhammad Siad Barre assumed leadership eventually. He reigned supreme, and ultimately became a tyrant. Like all dictators he eventually ended up unleashing his private armies on his enemies, things got even worse.

 His forces began terrorizing the citizens, treasuries were looted, and clans were systematically targeted and murdered. Somalia’s Roman Catholic priest was gunned down. People were being tortured and murdered.

Soon after that 450 who were demonstrating against the murders of their leaders and they too were killed.
Things were beginning to get very desperate so in steps America. Over the next two years 50,000 Somalis would be killed in factional fighting and another 200,000 died of starvation.

 Then on October 3, 1993 a Ranger helicopter trying to feed starving Somalis, went down. The next day there were two helicopters down and 18 dead Americans. The Ethiopian war has killed or displaced millions. Relief efforts have been thwarted, and Somalia is ruined.

Enter Sierra Leone, according to Amnesty International, civilians continued to be arbitrarily killed, mutilated, raped, and abducted. The perplexing thing is that this was a year after the agreement between the government of Sierra Leone and the United Front was signed.

This situation seems to be particularly sinister and underhanded. Against President Sankoh the rebels knew they didn’t stand a chance. So they formed an alliance with Liberian leader Charles Taylor. Together they launched a war against the Sierra Leone government.

As the rebellion got underway a group of soldiers arrived in the Capital of Freetown in 1992. Supposedly this was to demand better pay and conditions. However, it was found that their mission was to overthrow the government. Due to rapidly deteriorating social conditions, the coup was extremely popular. The RUF, (revolutionary United Front), overran titanium and Bauxite mines, that were the major source of state income.

Unlike most wars where civilian casualties are an unfortunate by product of war, the RUF deliberately targeted civilians for murder and mutilation.

They indiscriminately did machete lacerations to the head, neck, arms legs, and torso. We also can’t overlook the gouging out of one or both eyes, rape, gunshot wounds, acid injections, genital mutilations, and any other kind of torture or mutilation they could think of.

They also liked to use amputations as their favorite tool of terror. They used the shirt sleeve method where the arm is amputated close to the shoulder, and the long sleeve method, where the arm is amputated at the wrist.

 Human Rights Watch found civilians with hands, arms, feet, legs, ears, buttocks, any number of fingers, all amputated by machete. This was all pointless, horrible, nightmarish torture.

They also used children to do their killing. One teenager recited how he would cut out the heart and lungs of his victims to eat. The children too were abused by the rebels, and were a favorite to use because they were particularly ruthless.

 Practically half of the countries 4.5 million inhabitants were displaced by the war. Another 500,000 were refugees in neighboring countries. While at least 50,000 died in the fighting this is still not the end of it. This while there is also an estimated 100,000 mutilation victims. The economy is in ruins.

The national infrastructure needed to run the country had collapsed. It is just one more casualty of colonization.
Okay, Liberia, founded in 1822 by freed African American slaves became a Republic in 1847; you might think this country at least must be okay. After a military coup in 1980 Samuel Doe became President in 1986.

 In 1989 violence erupted, and he was dragged into the street and shot. Guerillas killed 250,000 people, and more than one million were displaced, and yet another colony heard from.

In Angola, a long established colony of the Portuguese they clamped down on resisting colonies by killing, capturing, and exporting even more slaves.

Portugal would not cooperate with a peaceful decolonization so rebel groups emerged. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), The National Liberation Front (FNLA), and Dr. Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for Independence (UNITA) were formed.

 The US and Zaire Supported the FNLA, South Africa backed UNITA, and the communist Nations helped the MPLA. So once again the table has been set for mass mayhem and murder.

So, even after the Portuguese were tossed out and as a result of outside meddling, the killing still continued. There was upward of one million dead. In 1994 the United Nations sent in peace keeping forces. Under the agreement, Savimbi was made the Vice President and his forces were allowed to join the Angolan army.

 Despite the concessions Made, Savimbi refused any future participation and negotiations stopped. At this point in time, Angola’s civil war has the distinction of being the longest in history, thank you Portuguese colonizers.

Talk about slaughter and mayhem for the world to deal with as a result of colonization. Let’s talk about Rwanda for a minute.

 The Hutu’s and Tutsi’s had lived together, and gotten along well with each other for years. However, as a result of the way in which Belgium had run the colony, contention had been built in and exploited.

 The name Tutsi refers to a group of people rich in cattle. When Belgium needed help running the colony it used the better educated wealthier Tutsi’s. As a result the Tutsi ended up having a monopoly on public life.

They were confronted with economic problems and the ever increasing corruption on the part of the government. As a result country leaders started demanding reforms. They especially wanted the return of the more than 600,000 refugees who happened to be mostly Tutsi’s.

 In response the Hutu authorities in charge declared that the country was too overpopulated to permit their return. The stage had been set once again for horror. Rwandan Tutsi opposition forces crossed the border from Uganda on October1, 1999.

 The President and his closest colleagues began portraying all Tutsi’s as the enemy in order to turn the Hutu against them. They managed to do this even though they had been living together in peace for years. The result of this was slaughter.

 The organizers of genocide planned for the Tutsi’s had gained control of the state political apparatus, and so the genocide began. This was genocide in its truest form a true systematic premeditated murder of a distinct group of people.

The Rwandan genocide was unique in that rather than hiding the fact of what they were doing, they were quite open in their goal of Tutsi extinction. When all was said and done there were up to one million Rwandans murdered by their fellow citizens. Answers to on going investigations are due in 2008.

The instability to Burundi’s future lies in the fact of colonialism. One of the missteps in forming new countries was in dividing the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s between two distinctly different countries, Burundi and Rwanda.

 Sadly this was not the first or last time the western countries would be totally insensitive to the plight of the lands and people of their colonized countries.

They were eventually given their independence and of course chaos ensued. Following was a coup where 100,000 were killed in ethnic fighting. They were mostly Hutu’s, who in turn killed Tutsi’s.

 This was the beginning of a cycle of retaliatory violence killing tribesmen of both tribes, civil war was on. A ceasefire was brokered in 2000 by Nelson Mandela. This resulted with South African peacekeepers being sent in 2001. But Africa being Africa, what’s next is anyone’s guess.

The Democratic Republic of Congo was another victim of colonialism. Here the British once again saw it fit to change borders. They displaced local populations, in order to create the countries as they thought they should be.

 The British left in 1960, elections were held and Patrice Lumumba was elected as Prime Minister. With the help of the CIA, the army chief of staff carried out a successful coup.

 He was removed and they got Mobutu who began his 30 year reign as one of the most autocratic and corrupt dictators in the world. He was well also a crook, stealing billions from the national treasury.

Despite his corrupt regime he continued to get U.S. support as well as from the World Bank. In 1991, Mobutu adopted a new constitution, and scheduled multiparty elections.

Well, as usually happens during elections in Africa, opposing parties emerged. Chaos ensued and Mobutu ended up killing 100 student demonstrators.

This event provoked International outrage but elections went on anyway. Mobutu, who lost decided to fire the new Prime Minister. Mobutu had dominated the country for thirty years by pitting rival army factions against each other. He thought he would do it once again but he was wrong, it didn’t work this time. Events beyond his control will bring him down soon.

Then tiny Rwanda felt compelled to invade its huge neighbor. They did this in order to flush out the Hutu extremists who carried out their genocide.

 The Zaire army fled, and the Rwandan army along with anti Mobutu forces then pushed to the Capitol of Kinshasa. Mobutu was removed from office and at the time of his death, was one of the richest men in the world.

 Soon after, the Lawrence Kabila era began. He changed the countries name from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He banned opposition parties, arrested the former elected Prime Minister, and, angered and alienated their allies. Of course, war erupted, a massive seven country war.

Then in January 2001, Kabila was assassinated. Then in February that year the U.N. Security Council approved a plan to have all fighting factions withdraw and be replaced with U.N. peace keeping forces throughout the country.
 They are still embroiled in turmoil and to my knowledge, we are still watching. These, like all the other problems we have been talking about are ours. They are all of ours, and it’s up to us to figure out how to fix them and I believe we have. Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival, Installment 6

Western people are often bewildered by the hostility and rage that many Muslims feel for their culture. This was because of their very different experiences.

 They found this to be both liberating and empowering. The Muslim response should not have been unexpected. Because the Muslim world was so widespread and strategically placed that it was the first to be subjected in a concerted, systematic, manner to the colonization process in the Middle East.

 This was also the problem for India, Arabia, Malaya, and a significant part of Africa.

 Muslims in all these places very quickly felt the brunt of the modernizing assault; they would not and will not come into the modern world easily or willingly.

 Lets look at the results to all this and see what we are dealing with as a direct result of colonization, and modernization. It appears to be single handedly the main culprit to our problems with Islam.

Let us start by talking of Afghanistan. There are so many places to start this conversation of what we are up against world stability wise it really is a shame.

 As far as getting the point across I think this is a good visual start. We know why the United States was compelled to attack Afghanistan and were aided by much of the civilized world.

 We knew what we were up against having observed the Russians in their unsuccessful bid to defeat Afghanistan. This was only partially due to the ferocity of the Afghan people. We watched for years as the Russians battled futilely with what seemed as an endless amount of combatants. 

This in fact was a never ending supply of Muslim combatants. We knew that Afghanistan was constantly being resupplied with fighters primarily over the wild mountainous region along the Afghan Pakistan border. 

We knew that these fighters were indeed coming from virtually every Muslim country on the planet. This as we know is the nature of Muslims. As a result of this we knew in fact what to expect when we made the decision to go in. 

Our mistake was trusting and relying too much in the Afghan tribesmen.

With this in mind, why I ask, do we even make believe we believed the ridiculous excuses from President Bush? He says that he was justified in going after Iraq. He also says that it was better to draw out potential fighters and fight them in Iraq than to have to fight them on American soil.

 If you didn’t know it before, I hope you know it now, we already did that. We already drew them out by going after Afghanistan. There was positively no justifiable thing to do with Iraq beyond monitoring activities within the country and on its borders. This would simply have been in order to monitor proliferation of weapons or knowledge.

If simply removing Saddam was the goal we know for a fact that we should have been exploring other alternatives towards that goal as we can be sure there was.

 All we have succeeded in doing is increasing the difficulties ahead by going into Iraq, more than two fold. The main reason for this is now not only did we give Islamists a new place to fight and render their services. We now have another front still draining our much needed efforts.

 We knowingly did this with the knowledge that we would get additional problems from inside the country. We also knew that it most certainly could come from across any one if not more of their borders.

We have opened a Pandora’s Box of new problems we saw take shape as the so called Arab spring turned middle east breakdown we in fact started. Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

During the nineteenth century in the name of modernization Europe was taking over the world

During the nineteenth century in the name of modernization Technicalized Europe had become the leading power and was taking over the world. 

Religious differences and spiritual ideals must not be allowed to impede the progress of society. Scientists, Monarchs, and government officials insisted that they be free of ecclesiastical control. 

Thus the ideals of Democracy, toleration, human rights and secularism were not simply beautiful ideals dreamed up by political scientists. They were, at least in part dictated by the needs of the modern state.

 It was found that in order to be efficient and productive, a modern Nation had to be organized on a secular, democratic basis.

 It was also found that if a society organized all their institutions according to the new rational and scientific norms, they became indomitable. 

Thus the conventional agrarian states were no match for them.

This all had fateful consequences to the Islamic world. Trading posts and consular missions had been established in Turkey and the Middle East. This had undermined the traditional structure of these societies long before there was actual Western rule.

 This was an entirely different kind of colonization. The new colonial order transformed the lives of the citizens of these colonized countries permanently.

 It was directly responsible for establishing a polity of dependence. It was impossible for the colonized lands to catch up with the institutionalized west.

 Old institutions had been fatally undermined and Muslim society itself was divided between those that had become westernized, and everyone else. 

*What had been a living civilization with its own integrity and identity was gradually being transformed into a group of dependent states. 

As a result they were inadequately prepared to deal with the situations put before them. Europeans had come to believe that their culture was not only superior at the present time but had always been at the forefront of progress.

 They often displayed a superb ignorance of world history. Indians, Egyptians, Syrians, all suffered greatly because of the arrogance of at least the British. 

They felt that they had to be westernized for their own good. This was because they thought of their society as being far superior.

The British thought of themselves in every way superior to the Muslims. They also believed at the time that one of the problems that they had to deal with was overcoming Islam itself. 

During the crusades a very negative feeling for Muslims arose. Muslims themselves had little time or energy to develop an understanding of God in the traditional way.

The year 610 saw Muhammad receive his first revelations for his new religion. By the year 622 Muhammad had many converts to his new religion. 

With these converts he made the first trek from Mecca to Medina. This march is what is traditionally thought of as the beginning of Islam. When Muhammad died just 10 years later he had the satisfaction of knowing his new religion of Islam would survive.

 The new religion finally gave the Arabs a sense of belonging and equality to Judaism and Christianity. They believed that along with the other great religions of the world, or so they thought and hoped for. 

The Islamic world had been convulsed by the modernization process. Instead of being one of the world leaders, Islam was quickly and effectively placed as secondary to European civilization.

 Muslims were exposed to the contempt of the colonialists who were enamored with the modern way of things. They were so impressed by themselves that they were often appalled by what they could only see as backwardness, inefficiency, fatalism, and corruption of Muslim society. 

They assumed the European culture had always been progressive. As a result they failed to realize that they were just seeing a premodern agrarian society. 

They themselves were just a short time ago, also an agrarian society. They often took it for granted that westerners were inherently and racially superior and they expressed their contempt in many ways. 

Western people are often bewildered by the hostility and rage that many Muslims feel for their culture. This was because of their very different experiences. They found this to be both liberating and empowering.

 The Muslim response should not have been unexpected. Because the Muslim world was so widespread and strategically placed that it was the first to be subjected in a concerted, systematic, manner to the colonization process in the Middle East. 

This was also the problem for India, Arabia, Malaya, and a significant part of Africa.

 Muslims in all these places very quickly felt the brunt of the modernizing assault; they would not and will not come into the modern world easily or willingly.

 Lets look at the results to all this and see what we are dealing with as a direct result of colonization, and modernization. It appears to be single handedly the main culprit to our problems with Islam.
 Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival Installment 4

In 1884 at the request of Portugal, German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck held a world meeting. He called together the major western powers of the world to negotiate questions and confusion over the control of Africa.

 Bismarck appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany’s sphere of influence over Africa. This was because he desired to force Germany’s rivals to struggle with one another for territory.

 At the time of the conference, 80% of Africa remained under traditional and local control.

What happened was the same thing that had been happening to all colonized Muslim lands. It resulted in a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into fifty irregular countries.

 This new map was superimposed over the one thousand indigenous cultures and regions of Africa. The new countries as had been the case in the past, lacked any rhyme or reason whatsoever. 

Thus giving no consideration at all to how all these people would deal with the new situation that was forced on them. It divided coherent groups of people. Worse was the fact that it merged together disparate groups who did not have anything in common and did not get along.

14 countries were represented, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, Turkey, and the United States. Of these fourteen Nations, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were the major players in the conference.

 They were controlling most of colonial Africa at the time. At the time of the conference only the coastal areas were colonized by the Europeans.

Following the conference the give and take continued never once taking the inhabitants into consideration. By 1914 the conference participants had divided Africa among themselves into 50 countries. 

Great Britain took Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana; they also controlled Nigeria, and Ghana. France took much of western Africa, from Mauritania to Chad plus the Republic of Congo.

 Belgium took the Democratic Republic of Congo; Portugal got Mozambique in the east and Angola in the west. Italy took Somalia and a portion of Ethiopia. Germany took Namibia and Tanzania, while Spain got the smallest territory, Equatorial Guinea.

Then in 1920 Britain and France carved up the Middle East between them. They divided it into protectorates and mandates. What a mess we have created.

 It really is unbelievable the way this all came about. Our level of ignorance as to what we did and our responsibility for it can not be denied. 

These colonization projects only made a more silent process of westernization official. This had been happening since Europeans had been establishing a cultural and political dominance. 

This was of course, during the nineteenth century in the name of modernization.

Technicalized Europe had become the leading power and was taking over the world. Religious differences and spiritual ideals must not be allowed to impede the progress of society.

 Scientists, Monarchs, and government officials insisted that they be free of ecclesiastical control. Thus the ideals of Democracy, toleration, human rights and secularism were not simply beautiful ideals dreamed up by political scientists.

 They were, at least in part dictated by the needs of the modern state.

 It was found that in order to be efficient and productive, a modern Nation had to be organized on a secular, democratic basis. 

It was also found that if a society organized all their institutions according to the new rational and scientific norms, they became indomitable. Thus the conventional agrarian states were no match for them.
Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival Installment 3

Just like the life of every civilization in History is cyclical so too is the life of every religion in History.

 As far as Islam goes, yes we are fighting the so called extremists for now. Make no mistake about it, in the end, they are all family.

 When it comes right down to it, they will come together. We will reluctantly as we might be, find it necessary to take on Islam as a whole.

Let us remember World War 2 and the lessons it should have taught us. Sure, we were fighting the Germans. There were still a few German citizens willing to risk their own lives, and go against their own people. They did this in order to help as many Jews and allies as possible.

 They did this because they had a conscience, knew right from wrong, and ultimately did the right thing. This is exactly what is going to happen with the Muslims. 

Let’s talk about Islam a little bit. This is just to give us a little background on why we are having some of the problems we are having with some of the Muslims.

 I think it will give a lot of you a new understanding of the situation. I know a lot of this surprised me. You really can understand why some of them feel the way the do. 

However this by no means justifies their actions. They can get themselves on the right track as a country first. Then they can go about settling their difference hopefully under direction, and civilly. 

Throughout recent history the west, primarily European Nations have been consolidating their countries. They have been putting an end to colonialism. 

I’m just realizing something, with what we are about to discuss. I’m going to say what should have been a good thing for Muslims appears to have been the beginning of the end for them.

In the early nineteenth century when colonization was at its peak there was a general malaise and disquiet in the Muslim world. The French had colonized Algiers in 1830 and in 1839 the British colonized Aden, (now part of Yemen).

 Then between the two of them they took over Tunisia (1881), Egypt in 1882, the Sudan in 1898, and Libya and Morocco in 1912. To me what is worse is what the Europeans did to Africa. 

The Berlin Conference was held in 1884 -1885 to discuss how they were going to divide Africa between them. This factual blunder really amazed me. The Berlin Conference was Africa’s undoing in many ways. 

The colonial powers superimposed their domains on the African Continent. In no time the entire African continent acquired a legacy of Political fragmentation. One that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily. 

In 1884 at the request of Portugal, German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck held a world meeting.

 He called together the major western powers of the world to negotiate questions and confusion over the control of Africa. Bismarck appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany’s sphere of influence over Africa.

 This was because he desired to force Germany’s rivals to struggle with one another for territory. At the time of the conference, 80% of Africa remained under traditional and local control.

What happened was the same thing that had been happening to all colonized Muslim lands. It resulted in a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into fifty irregular countries.

 This new map was superimposed over the one thousand indigenous cultures and regions of Africa. The new countries as had been the case in the past, lacked any rhyme or reason whatsoever.

 Thus giving no consideration at all to how all these people would deal with the new situation that was forced on them. It divided coherent groups of people. Worse was the fact that it merged together disparate groups who did not have anything in common and did not get along. Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com 

Realities and the Muslim Revival Installment 2

 
Let us for a minute stop and discuss Islam. Something I am right now, reading about Muslims is very disturbing. More pointedly this is something Muhammad said.

 This is in the Koran too, that is why it really worries me. I am sure it’ll concern you too. Its interpretation or misinterpretation is a direct reason for many of our problems with the Islamists today. 

It reads as follows, “I do not worship that which you worship, and neither do you worship that which I worship”. Wait a minute, what happened to the one God, and, “Unto you your moral law and unto me mine”. Just that one statement gives credence and justification to anything and whatever a Muslim feels is right, by him or her. This is exactly what is going on today. 

This has always concerned and scared me about Religious Zealots in any Religion. That is the reason we have people, supposedly in the name of Christianity, blowing up abortion clinics and killing the Doctors who perform abortions.

 The Muslims and Jews aren’t the only ones with the problem; we all have to deal with it.

Muslims also believe that Divine Unity also requires them as Muslims to recognize the Religious beliefs and aspirations of others. This is precisely because there is only the one God. The one God is believed in and followed by all 3 of the great Religions. 

Having this in mind, how can it be that the Islamists feel that they have God exclusively for their own misuse? Muhammad believed that all rightly guided Religions must come from the one God alone. He also believed that he is the God of all 3 Religions.

Muslims believe, and rightly so, that a persons Religious practices are culturally conditioned. They would thus be expressed by different societies in different ways. If this is true, and it is, then how does one explain away the feelings and beliefs, of many Muslims?

 They think that everyone that does not worship as they do, is inferior, and should be killed? This all, as most of us know, goes dead against the man they supposedly revere, Muhammad.

 All self respecting Muslims all over the world, should rise up and revolt. They should revolt against what these Islamist Jihadists are doing to their God and their Prophet.

I hate to hit you in the face with this one, but no one else is being honest with you. I finally heard, albeit understated still, the somewhat right take on what we are really facing in the war against Islamists. 

Of course it did not come from any of our so called leaders or experts. Many of us know that they just don’t
get it. This came from a Muslim American leader. He estimated that he wouldn’t be surprised if the number of anti American leaning Muslims was as high as 50%.

 He obviously, is very pro American, and is way out of the anti American loop. I will personally guarantee you that the number is much closer to 90%. We will remember a little history shortly that will illustrate for us poignantly what we are really facing. 

We, as a people and a country, especially our leaders, are very slow. Not too slow I hope, to realize just exactly what we are up against.

 You must remember we as Christians have done the very thing the Muslims are doing right now. The difference is that now the shoe is on the other foot, and two wrongs don’t make a right. As we said, the world is a lot smaller now, and the weapons, a lot deadlier.

When the west went through this religious evolution we like to fondly call, and remember it, as the crusades. Our combatants were known as Christian crusaders. This, as we also have discussed, has been done to a worse degree, by the Jews, more than once.

 I don’t believe they ever had to lift a finger. You will see soon, by a time line of events that what is happening in the world today is entirely normal. Life Today The Real Story "2005"
  

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
 http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com