Harry’s Place

Credit to Demos for posting their POV on this matter.

Absolutely

However, I’m unimpressed by this explanation.

First, Demos did not “take the values we, and so many Muslims and non-Muslims, share as liberals and wage a battle against those values that make us deeply uncomfortable”. That could have been done by organising a public meeting, in which the panel actually did contain one or two Muslim liberals.

Instead, Demos co-organised not only a debate, but also a conference, with a clerical fascist group. It gave them credibility. It made them mainstream. It gave IslamExpo - organised entirely by Muslim Brotherhood front organisations disguising their nature - a wholly false veneer of political and religious pluralism.

This is the first time we’ve heard this explanation from Demos. Demos have not stated, publicly, that they are opposed to the politics of the organisers of IslamExpo until now. In fact, I’m not sure Demos IS even opposed to their politics. Perhaps they think that the likes of Sawalha and Tamami ARE the moderate Islamists who they ought to be working with …

As for the choice of guests. Leiken is a man who has already decided that you can use the Muslim Brotherhood, domestically, to stave of Al Qaeda. Esposito may have a high profile: but respect for him declined rapidly after he devoted his energies to sanitising Ahmedinijad’s threat to “wipe Israel from the map/page of time”. Ghannoushi is simply a Muslim Brotherhood activist. So that meant that the “opposition” was Martin Bright. The panel was stacked against him. And, significantly, no Muslim liberal was invited to put the counter-argument from that perspective.

And look at the other event: the Seminar you sponsored. Every panel was dominated by Muslim Brotherhood members, supporters, or academics who are broadly sympathetic to them. The event was organised by the BMI, which was founded by a fugitive Hamas commander, and was co-sponsored by the Cordoba Foundation, another Muslim Brotherhood front organisation, and the Conflicts Forum, whose mission is to soft peddle extremist Islamist terrorist organisations to clueless left wingers.

Well, they appear to have succeeded!

You’re right about the parallel with the BNP. It isn’t a perfect one. The BNP is a vicious fascist group, but when its members are convicted of terrorism offences, they’re not acting on the orders of BNP central command: unlike Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood. And make no mistake: Demos didn’t co-organise two events with “some Islamists”. It organised the events with the British franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood, run by a man who the Muslim Brotherhood itself describes as the leader of its “Political Committee” in Britain.

There are various strains of fascism, just as there are various varieties of Islamism. What’s the point? You still wouldn’t organise a conference with the BNP, simply because they weren’t Combat 18. You did, however, organise a conference with Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood.

Oh, and one last thing.

You think you can have a “dialogue” with Islamists?

We’re being threatened with a libel suit by the BMI. That’s what you get if you try to argue with them.

Good luck with that “dialogue”!

Wow. You’ve been threatened with defamation. Poor you. Poor baby. Poor little sod.

I’ve been threatened with defamation by journalists working for Rupert Murdoch. But if a Murdoch paper invites me to contribute something, I do. Why?

Because I’m interested in debate. It seems others are only interested in another word, one that sounds like “mass-debate”.

You think that it is possible to debate, when the person who you are arguing against resorts to legal action whenever they don’t like what you’re saying?

Bullshit.

Irf
-I would suggest that Sawalha is not interested in debate as he has threatened legal action rather than discussion of the matter at hand. Perhaps he is interested in the other word too?

“There were also positive reasons for attendance. Given our research into this area, our legitimate role here is to convene a particular debate about the threat posed by Islamism. For example how useful is Islamism to try and combat violent extremism? Is it legitimate, dangerous or worthwhile using it in that way? And how do we tell these strands apart unless we force the conversation? Establishing whether or not there are versions of Islamism that we can legitimately engage with is a useful objective, which requires enquiry and debate.”

What about, “Return Gilad Shalit to his family, you terrorists?”

Even TheIrie doesn’t support Sawalha’s position on this matter. Gold.

I disagree with Demos and with DavidT that BNP is unambiguous in a way that the Islamists who organized Islam Expo aren’t . What’s telling is that Peter Harrington’s post offers no evidence whatsoever for this view.

These days, the BNP tries to present itself as a respectable political party, working within the system and renouncing all forms of violence; it does not even endorse other white racist groups worldwide who use violence to pursue their ends, as the Muslim Association of Britain does in relation to Hamas, Hezbollah and the so-called “resistance” in Iraq.

And it certainly hasn’t been “the main argument” of HP as far as I can say that withdrawing from Islam Expo on those grounds should be in relation to its sponsors being analogous to the BNP.

The reasons for withdrawing are the resort to the use of the threat of a libel case (with all the potential costs to HP) in relation to HP’s publication of clear evidence about the real views of one of the main organizers, including his identification by the US and UK authorities as a key funding operative for groups they identify as terrorists.

It’s only with a degree of willful Nelsonian blindness that one can regard the position of MAB and those behind Islam Expo as “ambiguous”.

So the agenda of the BNP is unambiguous, while that of the MB is nuanced. So the BNP have worked to disguise their once naked anti-semitism, while the MB have not - well at least, not in English. The BNP has (few, admittedly) racial minorities in it, the MB has no kuffars in it. Make no mistake, I have no illusions about the BNP - I think dropping their racist stance is merely a ploy, but they are no worse than the MB, and are essentially a [nasty] fringe group of Brits, while the MB is no fringe. A BNP government would be unpleasant chaos, but would collapse through incompetence. A MB government would move swiftly to consolidate its power (as did Khomeini), and that would mean the rapid elimination of useful idiots like Demos.

Peter speaks of “open debate”, but one thing that would be firmly off the table would be the brutal, aquisitive and intololerant nature of their founder, who is to be treated as the perfect role model. Another would be the veracity of the texts on which this most divisive, supremacist and intolerant polity is founded. Tiptoe around these, as Demos does, and you have already conceded 90% of the battlefield, leaving only a few insipid dregs to discuss.

Demos: In contrast, the broad terms of Islamism and ‘political Islam’ are complex, often confused with other movements, and contested by both outsiders and the various groups themselves.

The complexity that your puny brains happen to be in awe of is nothing but smoke and mirror obfuscations. If you take the time and effort to understand Islam and the message of its assassin, pedophile, megalomaniac founder Prophet Mohammed (oh, PBUH, BTW), and his present day followers - the message is only complex to idiots who don’t have the intellect to understand the ethos and to see through the obfuscation.

But for those of us who have studied Islamism and/or have lived it (e.g. myself the apostate), it is quite a primitive ideology devoid of modern complexity that you normally see in high-level discourses.

The charge of simplification does not stick, Mr. Harrington - the joke is on you and your pathetic band who suck up to terror, misogyny and fascism.

Demos: For example how useful is Islamism to try and combat violent extremism?

About as useful to get into bed with fascism in order to combat Nazism.

Establishing whether or not there are versions of Islamism that we can legitimately engage with is a useful objective, which requires enquiry and debate.

Cut the crap Harrington. Go live in Gaza/South Beirut/Diyala/Qom for a few years and keep this claptrap to your fellow philoIslamists on the discredited left.

Shame on this Leftist outfit that wants to talk to fascists simply because “their message is complex and diverse” - as if diversity and complexity of a latrine makes shit smell any better. No better reason was provided. And that is the sorry state of the formerly “historic” left that has now been reduced to sniffing toilets.

Thanks for that pseudo-intelligent contribution, Hamid. I guess we can all take your view as completely unbiased. Should I also agree with what Margaret Marcus/Maryam Jameelah says about Judaism? After all, she was once a Jew.

http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/07/25/unreliable-narrator

David, face it. You look silly. You were invited to engage in a debate. You had the opportunity to put your viewpoint across. You refused. You missed out, and now you are just making excuses for a failed opportunity.

In contrast, the broad terms of nationalism and ‘political nationalism’ are complex, often confused with other movements, and contested by both outsiders and the various groups themselves.

Your serve?

Peter,

Could you please reply to the following two points.

1.Do you draw a distinction between a Hamas event, and one organised by individuals from Hamas.
2.Did you make any enquiries as to what the destination of funds raised by this event would be.

Who is irf?

or rather who on irf is irf? (sorry about that…)

“David, face it. You look silly. You were invited to engage in a debate. You had the opportunity to put your viewpoint across. You refused. You missed out, and now you are just making excuses for a failed opportunity.”

I haven’t missed out on anything. I wasn’t invited to participate in a public debate with Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood at an event organised by them. I’m just the subject of a threatened libel action: that’s all.

I will continue to write about the Muslim Brotherhood and its various front organisations, about the alliances which the extreme and the Hay on Wye tendency Left makes with them, and about other clerical fascist Islamist parties. Why shouldn’t I?

It is annoying to be the subject of a potentially very expensive libel action, brought by a person who the BBC reported was a Hamas activist. I do wonder, in fact, whether they will try to murder me: which is what usually happens to Hamas’ political opponents.

However, I’m not letting up. Why should I?

Did you make any enquiries as to what the destination of funds raised by this event would be.

Cheques for IslamExpo were, I understand, made out to the British Muslim Initiative.

In other words, to attend this Demos event, you had to pay money to a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front organisation.

If you wanted to be uncharitable, you could fairly say that Demos helped to fundraise for this organisation.

Hopefully, David, you will also write on the various alliances between MB/wahhabi/Islamist individuals & groups and (allegedly) conservative politicians in the UK and Australia. Or is that a topic you find somewhat uncomfortable?

While you’re at it, why not also investigate the relations between Islamsits and conservative politicians and thinktanks during the 1980’s. Write about how Usama bin Ladin was once Usama bn Reagan, and how jihad was synonymous with war against the Soviet Union.

Irf - Hamid has seen Islam from the inside, as have Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, and others. The Bishop of Rochester, Brigitte Gabriel, Phyllis Chesler and others have seen what it is like to live under Islam. Judaism has flaws, but you are always free to leave it, and it does not form dictatorships.

You have only seen Islam from a place where its writ does not run, and appear to see it as an exotic curiosity. And who said there is anything intellectual about invasion. If Hitler had not had the stupidity to think he could beat both the Soviets and the Anglosphere, he might have survived to be revered as a “prophet”.

For example how useful is Islamism to try and combat violent extremism?

This does it for me. If you think the question is even worth asking, then you have problems. Just like you would have if you tried to stave off a bout of toxoplasmosis by eaiting cat shit.

The analogy with BNP is flawed. A more correct analogy is with Le Pen’s Front Nationale or with German neo-Nazis. For the simple reason that BNP is perpetrating its nastiness within, the others without, shores of UK.

What Demos is saying between the lines was the official (yet unwritten) British policy 15 years ago: allow fundamentalist Islamist terrorists a safe base of operations in UK as long as, in a quid pro quo, they promise not to explode bombs on the British public transport and, who knows, maybe even dissuade others from doing so.

Muslim Brotherhood is an international network supportive of terrorism in its ugliest manifestation (indiscriminate murder of non-combatants) whenever it suits them. They also support discrimination against women, harsh measures against gays and pure nastiness toward religious minorities. Essentially, what Peter Harrington is saying is “as long as they promise not to do it to us, we are happy to engage with them”. Except that he is not saying this openly.

I believe that morally this is an indefensible position. There might be reasons to talk with MB, while keeping the eyes wide open, not least an attempt to wean them from their positions. Perhaps, perhaps not. But the position that “as long as they do it to women, Jews, Copts, gays, Egyptian intellectuals, Algerian shopkeepers, Palestinian trade unionists, …, that’s fine because I am safe” is not a good reason.

Irf

Yeah, listen mate. I know that you’re here to peddle the unconvincing line that you “forced to consume” Islamism in Australia because of something that the nasty West did do you. But it won’t wash.

Bin Laden was most certainly not a client of the USA at any stage. He, and the other Afghan Arabs got to Afghanistan in the closing days of the struggle against the USSR’s colonialism, and were significantly marginalised by the Taliban, who thought they were a liability. They were involved in very little fighting at all, and only came into their own after the Taliban rose to power.

I do indeed write on the connections between Conservative politicians and Islamists. They are few and far between: as they are with prominent Labour or LibDem politicians. In each party, there are a small number of loons, on the fringes, who have decided to promote these groups.

The highest profile Tory MP I can think of who has had some involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood of late, is the shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve who participated in a BMI organised conference supposedly about religious freedom. I’ll assume that he got involved because he is clueless.

I do wonder, in fact, whether they will try to murder me: which is what usually happens to Hamas’ political opponents.

This is the third time (at least) you have said this. We all know you are a Front Line Warrior in the Greatest Intellectual Struggle Of Our Time. However, I suspect that Hamas will not be targeting you for assassination quite yet. You are only a blogger after all. Unless it’s true when they say this site is a Mossad black-op…

“Hay on Wye tendency Left” - has decentipedia picked this one up yet? I need a translation.

To be absolutely frank, I do think that if people with a military background in terrorist organisations are prevented from achieving what they want to achieve without violence, they will revert to violence.

Unless it’s true when they say this site is a Mossad black-op…

It’s the most poorly-funded Mosaad black-op in the history of Mossad if it is.

TheIrie

Nick Cohen’s “What’s Left” argued that there was a tendency within the Left, generally, to grant the sort of indugence to Islamist clerical fascists that it would never give to White Supremacists.

The most common criticism of that thesis was that Nick’s argument might apply to the SWP and other parts of the extreme Left: but that it didn’t apply to the mainstream centre Left at all.

Yet, here we are: with Demos wittingly or naiively co-organising a conference with the Political Committee of the International Muslim Brotherhood.

Demos aren’t far Left. They’re centrists. And they prove Nick Cohen’s thesis.

Here is another example of this in action from Hay on Wye:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/may/27/itsonlywhenyouhear

David, my argument is very simple. Young Muslims of my generation living in Western countries during the 1980’s were fed Islamist propaganda thanks to a host of factors, one of which was the strong support for the Afghan jihad by conservative western leaders, columnists, media outlets and thinktanks.

It’s true that other forces within Muslim religious circles were also involved. But the fact remains that the alliances between the Muslim Right and the Western Right were strong at the time, especially since the Muslim Right were seen as a safer bet to the revolutionary Shi’ism of Iran.

If alleged conservatives like you choose to live in denial over this, go for it. But the fact is that conservative politicians, including Maggie Thatcher and our former PM John Howard, had strong links to groups that were supporting jihad against the Soviets.

Jihadism was made to look respectable. Conservatives played a major part in that process, just as Muslim religious bodies governed by first generation migrants (some of whom had strong links with far-Right fundamentalist parties such as the Jamaat-i-Islami of Pakistan). Now these same conservatives are expecting their fellow citizens who happen to tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms to clean up the mess on their own.

The fact is that this is our collective mess. We have to figure out a way to clean it up without alienating each other. Stupid anti-Muslim rants are about as helpful as the rants of Usama bin Reag … woops … Ladin.

Would you like to be part of the solution? Or just another problem? The choice is yours.

It’s the most poorly-funded Mosaad black-op in the history of Mossad if it is.

And all the more authentic for being so :)

“If alleged conservatives like you”

Hang on, have i missed something? I know i’ve been busy lately but i was under the impression that HP thought of itsself (no matter what others think of it) as a (centre)Left blog.

Have you gone all tory while i wasn’t looking?

“Young Muslims of my generation living in Western countries during the 1980’s were fed Islamist propaganda thanks to a host of factors, one of which was the strong support for the Afghan jihad by conservative western leaders, columnists, media outlets and thinktanks.”

The “Afghan Jihad” was not conducted exclusively by the Taliban, and consisted of a large number of different forces, with a broad range of political and confessional allegiances. It is simply untrue to suggest - as you do - that Howard, or Thatcher, or Regan adopted the Taliban as their clients. The Taliban came onto the scene very late in the day. You need to brush up on your history.

The Islamist propaganda you were exposed to in Australian mosques in the 1980s was not written by “western leaders, columnists, media outlets and thinktanks”. It would have been produced and funded by a section (not all) of the religious establishment in Saudia Arabia. If you want to, you can blame “the West” for not blocking that.

I’m very suspicious of a politics, such as yours, which always looks to blame somebody else for failings which are close to home. In the 1990s, in Britain, THE major issue on which the Islamists traded, was the failure of “the West” to defend Bosnian Muslims from genocide at the hands of the Serbs.

Action, inaction, alliances, failure to make alliances. If you’re determined to blame “the West”, you’ll always find a way to do so, I guess.

The fact is that this is our collective mess. We have to figure out a way to clean it up without alienating each other. Stupid anti-Muslim rants are about as helpful as the rants ….

I agree. I don’t think it is the sole responsibility of Muslims to take on and defeat the Islamists. I think that attacks on Muslims in generally, are bigotted and disgraceful. They amount to blaming people who bear the brunt of Islamist violence and oppression for failing to defeat it.

However, I’m not an “alleged conservative”. I’m politicially left of centre. And that’s why I focus my attacks on other supposedly left of centre groups, who promote, treat with, and ally with Islamist groups: instead of supporting Muslim liberals (and indeed, liberals generally) and thinking of ways that they can be assisted.

Brownie: This does it for me. If you think the question is even worth asking, then you have problems. Just like you would have if you tried to stave off a bout of toxoplasmosis by eaiting cat shit.

Me too. The comparison is apt. Demos are being useful idiots.

Irf: If alleged conservatives like you choose to live in denial over this, go for it.

There are two problems with your memes here. Firstly, this ain’t a conservative site. Secondly, not fixating obsessively on something isn’t the same as denial.

“Young Muslims of my generation living in Western countries during the 1980’s were fed Islamist propaganda thanks to a host of factors, one of which was the strong support for the Afghan jihad by conservative western leaders, columnists, media outlets and thinktanks.”

… and the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, carved out of India to serve as a “homeland” for South Asian Muslims.

In the 1990s, in Britain, THE major issue on which the Islamists traded, was the failure of “the West” to defend Bosnian Muslims from genocide at the hands of the Serbs.

Indeed. And this failure was driven by the same conservatives that Irf is claiming cosied up to Jihadists (Hurd the Turd’s utterly disgraceful “level killing field” comments was perhaps a nadir in conservatism in the 1990s. Mind you, Hurd the Turd wasn’t much of a conservative in the first place).

And yes, Western interaction in Afghanistan in the 1980s was pretty much limited exlusively to what we now call the Northern Alliance, i.e. Afghan nationalists. The CIA wouldn’t touch Jihadists with a bargepole. The Taliban, which arose in the 1990s was pretty much a Pakistani creation, and continues to be staffed, supplied and reinforced from and by Pakistan.

All this of course goes against the Stopper meme propagated by TheIrie et al where everything is our (i.e. the West’s) fault, even things that aren’t our fault.

“Unless it’s true when they say this site is a Mossad black-op…”

Gah! Rumbled! I may as well come clean now - I was never in Syria, all that stuff I wrote about it, I wrote it all the time in a basement flat in Greenford, Middlesex, Capricorn One style, cadging photos from Google images.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One

Damn it Donna, you are good, you are good! A true successor to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. I was this close to getting away with it, this close!

It would have been produced and funded by a section (not all) of the religious establishment in Saudia Arabia. If you want to, you can blame “the West” for not blocking that.

Yes, and lets not forget that shoring up the tyrannous regime of the house of Saud was one of the proximate causes of teh invasion of Iraq, a war for dictatorship…

Mrs Ben

“or rather who on irf is irf?”

err, the latest in a long line of idiots (sonic, benj, theiriot) who come here and shout their sixth form politics as loudly as they can; only to be continuously made to look stupid by people far smarter than they are.

Good fodder though….for a few days, then they are very, very dull.

Irf - I didn’t realise who exactly you were until I checked out your website.

Why don’t you tell everyone here about al-Hilaly’s comments about uncovered meat and women in Australia?

“And yes, Western interaction in Afghanistan in the 1980s was pretty much limited exlusively to what we now call the Northern Alliance, i.e. Afghan nationalists. The CIA wouldn’t touch Jihadists with a bargepole.”

Absolute bollocks. Ever heard of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar?

David T

Irf is being dishonest about Australia - we had a Labour Govt. from 83-96 which could hardly be considered “conservative”.

I really don’t know what to make of this post.

For Peter Harrington to frame Leiken and Esposito as the opposite side to the Brotherhood just shows the bankrupt nature of the ‘debate’ he organised. Let’s be charitable and say it is ignorant.

By using only non-Muslim critics of Islamism, Demos lost the debate from the start. It is irrelevant what your panellists say when you allow the organisers to frame Islamist vs non-Islamist as synonymous with Muslim vs non-Muslim. There are many genuine Arab and Muslim anti-Islamist voices who could provide a real debate. I saw Walid Phares speak recently and he was fantastic. Taj Hargey is a British Muslim who consistently opposes Islamists. In return he was falsely smeared in the Muslim press as an Ahmadi. That’s the kind of ‘debate’ that Islamists prefer.

Then there is the arrogance of this question:

For example how useful is Islamism to try and combat violent extremism? Is it legitimate, dangerous or worthwhile using it in that way?

I’m glad you think you can just ‘use’ Islamism, and then put it back in its box when it has done its job. People have been trying that since the 1920s, and - surprise surprise - Islamists also have their own agenda, and normally end up being the ones who benefit more from the relationship.

This comment is fine:

Establishing whether or not there are versions of Islamism that we can legitimately engage with is a useful objective, which requires enquiry and debate.

But then the post concludes with this call to arms:

We need to take the values we, and so many Muslims and non-Muslims, share as liberals and wage a battle against those values that make us deeply uncomfortable.

So are we engaging with Islamists, or waging a battle against them? Or is Harrington implying that there are Islamist values that are congruent with liberal values? Because I look at the values of Sheikh Qaradawi and I don’t see much that match mine. Qaradawi is the leading theologian of the Brotherhood. He shapes, clarifies and broadcasts their values, ideas and methods more than anyone else. That includes encouraging at least one branch of the Brotherhood to persuade people to strap explosives to themselves, go to the most crowded part of a bus, train, restaurant or some other public place and set off their bomb, in the belief that by doing so they will gain entry to Paradise. This does not make me “deeply uncomfortable”. It makes me sick. If “deeply uncomfortable” is the best that Harrington can come up with, you wonder how much he really believes in the values he claims we should be defending.

Ever heard of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar?

Its not bollocks.

Hekmatyar was funded by the ISI. In fact, a quick google reveals this quote from General Zia-ul-Haq:

“It was Pakistan that made him an Afghan leader and it is Pakistan who can equally destroy him if he continues to misbehave”.

But then Mike S is apparently living in bizarro-world where the West is to blame for things that aren’t our fault.

Dave Rich: Thank you for articulating so comprehensively what is so “problematic” (to use another weasel word from the stable of “uncomfortable”) with Harrington’s apologia. If you have any contact with Jcore, I wonder if you could explain to them what is so misguided about their participation in IslamExpo, as I was unable to impress participant Edie Friedman in the rushed conversation I had with her.

“our former PM John Howard, had strong links to groups that were supporting jihad against the Soviets.”

-lol - Howard was opposition leader during the 80’s and hardly in a position to be supporting jihad against the Soviets.

I think the problem with the debate (or any fundamental debate with Islamists) as a left wing or liberal type is that you should believe that problems that muslims (as individuals or as groups) have are related to a lack of economic or social opportunities, same as the problems that any other groups or individuals (such as any white underclass) have.

Islamists do not believe this. They believe that the problem with muslims is that they are not muslim enough, and the problem with non-muslims is that they are not muslims.

This is where the comparison with the BNP comes in. They believe that the fundamental problem is non-white British people.

What is there to talk with them about?

Morgoth, I’d like to let this go, but I really can’t.
“Hekmatyar was funded by the ISI.”
Where do you imagine the ISI were getting these funds from? Read some stuff by Peter Bergen, or George Crile’s “Charlie Wilson’s War”. These guys are not rabid left-wingers, and that make it pretty clear that US, and probably British, money was bankrolling some truly awful people.

Mike S: Absolute bollocks. Ever heard of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar?

Hekmatyar was an Iranian stooge and even though an Islamic-nationalist, was far from being a Wahhabi jihadist with international terrorist connections. He spent more time fighting to grab power as a warlord than he spent fighting the Soviets.

It was only after the fall of the Talibans in 2001 that he returned back to Afghanistan and cooperated with al Qaeda and the Talibans.

At one point, Hekmatyar joined the leftist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

That reads like the worst Wikipedia page I’ve ever seen.

“Hekmatyar was an Iranian stooge.” I’m curious to know how you work that one out.

“He spent more time fighting to grab power as a warlord than he spent fighting the Soviets.” So not only did the CIA bankroll a jihadist, they didn’t get value for money.

“At one point, Hekmatyar joined the leftist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.” In 1970 or something! I fail to see how that’s relevant to anything.

ami

I’m afraid I’m not in contact with them, but I wasn’t surprised by your account.

What is the point in explaining anything to liberals who have decided that the Muslim Brotherhood is their new bestest friend?

If you advance any of the arguments being made here, you’ll be told that you’re seeking to silence them for bravely criticising Israel, that they’re not supporting Hamas/MB, that the MB isn’t Hamas, that they’re engaging with the liberal wing of Hamas, and so on.

Can I big-up Dave Rich’s comment too? Succinctly addresses all the argument against Demos’ participation. It would be interesting if Peter would address those points.

P.

This article and thread is unfortunately a bit pointless if Mr Harrington isn’t going to reply to the arguments against him.

Or are think tank pundits above such things ?

Good to see Nick Cohen isn’t like that.

Damn it Donna, you are good, you are good! A true successor to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. I was this close to getting away with it, this close! - Davem

Didn’t she tell you? Best temp in Chiswick!

that the MB isn’t Hamas: She was dismissive of any claims regarding the Jewish lobby statements on the basis that this wouldn’t be the first time fake allegations have been made, and cited as authority for this, “that Newsnight” which “showed” that those allegations regarding the books in the mosque were false.

The fact that Newsnight found many of the books to still be on sale seems to have passed most people by.

Harrington isn’t going to reply to the arguments against him; Yes, it would be nice if he applied his principles of engaging with other views to his interlocuters here.

“-lol - Howard was opposition leader during the 80’s and hardly in a position to be supporting jihad against the Soviets.”

Gees, Oniad, you are a boofhead. Howard was Treasurer until 1983. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

Further, perhaps you might do some research on links between Liberal Party heavies and a notorious Saudi financier. You might start here …

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/revealed-the-saudis-paymaster-in-australia/2005/09/09/1125772698477.html

“John Esposito has been on the Saudi payroll for years, you clueless dipshit.”

I guess that means he must be a Saudi stooge. Funny, that. Because in so much of his work, Esposito is critical of Saudi royalty, the Wahhabi religious establishment and Saudi foreign policy.

I guess that makes Esposito unfit to hold a Conservative Party seat.

“Hekmatyar was an Iranian stooge and even though an Islamic-nationalist, was far from being a Wahhabi jihadist with international terrorist connections.”

Hamid, you must have left your brains behind when you abandoned your ancestral faith (presuming your story is correct, which I have some doubts of).

Hekmatyar’s party was one of the few Afghan parties openly promoting Wahhabism. He received direct funding from the West, and many of his Western spokespeople were virulently anti-Shia and anti-Khomeini. He also ruthlessly slaughtered Hazara tribesman who were largely Shia.

As is the case with so many things in the Middle East and Central Asia, his seeking asylum in Iran is just a case of mutual convenience. Alliances are slippery in this region.

funding? where is the evidence?

Here’s Bunty’s latest inane witterings:

There are a handful of people I have met - albeit briefly - of whom I would unhesitatingly use the word holy. Two of them met a few weeks ago: the Dalai Lama and the Rt Rev Rowan Williams. An aide commented of the meeting that such was the mutual recognition and warmth that the two men sat hand in hand, as they laughed and smiled throughout their 50-minute meeting.

So being “holy” seems to be based on the ability to laugh while holding the hand of a man in a dress. Wonder did Bunty ask the Dalai Lama about his persecution of certain Buddhists?

http://digg.com/world_news/Dalai_Lama_Dorje_Shugden_and_Religious_Persecution

P.

From that Bunting article -

Global communications are disrupting all religious traditions, traumatising identity and fuelling a literalist fundamentalism; the result is a gross simplifying of the complexity and paradox that is part of human experience

What?!?

Global communications are disrupting all religious traditions

Even if you break her article down line by line, it’s tripe on a per-line basis. I mean, the major religions of the world survived because of their very success at global communication; the ones that didn’t communicate well died out or remaining isolated beliefs. I mean, what does Bunting think the New Testament epistles were?

If it’s global communications in the modern era, then which does she mean - radio? TV? Internet? Does she have any examples or data?

What does she mean by disrupting? Is that in the sense of “impeding progress”? Well, yes, in a way, global communications and the widespread dissemination of scientific knowledge has led to a decrease in religious belief. Is she claiming this is a bad thing?

It’s just bollocks.

I don’t think people are stupid merely because I disagree with them, but Bunting strikes me as someone of mediocre ability who has gotten where she is through chutzpah and using flowery language to hide the banality of her ideas.

P.

Well, come to think of it, my identity has become increasing traumatised by global communication.

Maybe she’s on to something.

Well, come to think of it, my identity has become increasing traumatised by global communication.

Its that Vietnamese Porn, innit?

Because in so much of his work, Esposito is critical of Saudi royalty, the Wahhabi religious establishment and Saudi foreign policy.

Yeah, the juxt of his criticisms, like those of Bin Laden, revolve around the complaint that SOME Saudi elites aren’t islamic enough.

The insititue Esposito chairs is funded by Saudi princes to the tune of millions.

Everything the guy says about Islam is a lie tailored to please his islamist masters who write the paycheques.

I’d even say that Esposito is Wahabbism’s main pointman in western ‘academic’ circles.

Tariq Ramadan praises him, and in return Esposito praises Tariq, in what is nothing less than a mutual suck-off.

The CIA wouldn’t touch Jihadists with a bargepole. The Taliban, which arose in the 1990s was pretty much a Pakistani creation, and continues to be staffed, supplied and reinforced from and by Pakistan

Really?

Why then, when the Taliban took power in 1997, did the Clinton administration issue a formal statement referring to the power-grab as “a positive developement”.

In the 1990s, in Britain, THE major issue on which the Islamists traded, was the failure of “the West” to defend Bosnian Muslims from genocide at the hands of the Serbs.

The demonisation of the Serbs, a demonisation swallowed by just about everyone, was a very crafty move on the part of radical Muslims.

Our stupidity and naievté, coupled with the interventions of utterly retarded leftists like Susan Sontag, has really served to install and reinforce radical islam in The Balkans.

The presence of a significant number of *retired* Pakistani and Arab jihadists in Bosnia attests to that.

And we should remember that for a Jihadist anything’s allowed in the service of the cause.

Exaggerated massacres and even faked massacres are standard operating procedures for these fellas.

Only our pride and arrogance prevent us from admitting we were had, and big time at that.

One thing which is obvious, reading between the lines of Harrington’s statement is that he and Demos agree with the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood. And people like Esposito are the traitors in our midst.
What shall we have a dialogue about? As Nick Cohen puts it: The Jews? The Homosexuals? The Free Thinkers? The Other Religions? Civil Rights? Feminism?
There is NO ground to give in a debate and if you think that the Islamists will GIVE any ground, you obviously have not been reading what they say.

Is it because the clerical fascists of this event were non white that Demos chose to support it? David T is wrong on one point, I don’t think the liberal left are coherent enough to sell out their supposed principles, they have very few to begin with anyway. I believe we have a much simpler answer, intolerance and hatred arising from ethnic Europeans is too be despised and opposed, the same from non Europeans is too be understood and engaged with. It’s as pathetically lame as that. The western left has no agenda or ideology, they’re a footnote of history about too be swept away by events they neither understand or even recognise as occurring.

Bunting: the result is a gross simplifying of the complexity and paradox that is part of human experience

BTW Irf - Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) assassinated his opponents and dissidents to his regime. He raped a 9 lunar year girl and also his women slaves that he owned. His rise to power was as a bandit attacking the trade routes and he specialised in shakedown and protection racketeering. Happy to criticize your idiotic faith and we all know your Qur’an deserves to be flushed down the toilet.

Bunting: the result is a gross simplifying of the complexity and paradox that is part of human experience

Again the pseudo-mysterious trope “complexity” wielded by the mediocre set has reared its ugly head. If Bunting had any brains, she would have majored in science, and she could find REAL and beautiful complexity in for example the 3-body collision problem - or if she was a bit of the paradoxical, she would find REAL mind boggling complexity in the Schroedinger wavefunction.

But no - being a litcrit or worse a cultural nobody, she laments how communication destroys long held crappy belief and value systems which are falling by their own crappy weight. Shine the light and the roaches scamper away. Bunting is mourning the encroach of enlightenment, in her bout of reaction, preferring the complexity of a roach infested tenament.

BTW Irf - Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) assassinated his opponents and dissidents to his regime. He raped a 9 lunar year girl and also his women slaves that he owned. His rise to power was as a bandit attacking the trade routes and he specialised in shakedown and protection racketeering. Happy to criticize your idiotic faith and we all know your Qur’an deserves to be flushed down the toilet.

“-lol - Howard was opposition leader during the 80’s and hardly in a position to be supporting jihad against the Soviets.”

Gees, Oniad, you are a boofhead. Howard was Treasurer until 1983. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

Further, perhaps you might do some research on links between Liberal Party heavies and a notorious Saudi financier. You might start here …

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/revealed-the-saudis-paymaster-in-australia/2005/09/09/1125772698477.html

-Irfan - nice reply. Are you seriously suggesting that the Fraser Govt., John Howard as Treasurer specifically, was funding anti-Soviet Jihad prior to 1983? Can you provide some material proof of your assertion/claim on this.

By the way, why don’t you tell us all which was your local mosque back in the 80’s? Lakemba? Who was the mufti? Al-Hilaly?

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