http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/alija1.htm
========================================================
A "Moderate", or a Radical Islamist?
Alija Izetbegovic Was Always a Dangerous Fascist, but
they called him a 'moderate.'
By Francisco Gil-White
[Posted on 9 March 2003]
========================================================
[ www.tenc.net ]
This is how Newsweek described Bosnian Muslim leader Alija
Izetbegovic in 1995: "The government of Bosnian President
Alija Izetbegovic... has always been committed to a multiethnic
society."[1]
A multiethnic society? And, Knight-Ridder added: "The
Bosnian [Muslims] are struggling for democracy, human
rights, and a multiethnic country."[2]
And therefore, as Warren Zimmerman, the former US
ambassador to Yugoslavia, explained in Foreign Affairs,
"Izetbegovic was... A devout Muslim but no extremist, he
consistently advocated the preservation of a multinational
Bosnia."[3]
Emperor's Clothes disagrees.
We charge that Alija Izetbegovic, who was trained, financed,
and politically supported by the US and its NATO allies, was
always an Islamic Fundamentalist whose goal was to create -
through violence - a fascist-clerical state, modeled on Iran.
We claim that it was Western support for this fanatic that
caused the Bosnian civil war. He was then misportrayed in the
media, and the war was blamed on the victims, the *Bosnian
Serbs*. (Please note that Izetbegovic was supported by a
minority of Muslims; thousands of Bosnian Muslims were
also victims of the Islamist fanatics.)
Who is right? The mainstream media and US establishment,
or Emperor's Clothes?
In this piece I will demonstrate that Izetbegovic was always a
fascist and Muslim fundamentalist. In a future article on
Bosnia, I will show the lengths to which the mainstream
media went in order to whitewash this fanatic's image in the
West. In a third piece, I will discuss our argument that
Izetbegovic's Islamic fundamentalist faction was the
aggressor, not the victim, in Bosnia.
========================================================
What is an Islamic Fundamentalist?
========================================================
Let us first clearly define this issue. An Islamic
Fundamentalist (or Islamist) is a Muslim who wants society to
be organized without any separation between Mosque and
State. A Fundamentalist advocates the complete subordination
of the legal system to Islamic religious law, or Sharia, which
includes personal behavior. A fundamentalist rejects all forms
of secular political and social organization. Islam is all;
the rest is nothing.
One prominent Islamic fundamentalist explains that "The first
and most important consequence of the study and
understanding of Islam as a total way of life" is this:
"...the most important thing that the Qur'an recommends
is: all of Islam; everything else is nothing more than a
detail and explanation of this central idea. This aspect of
Islam contains the principle of the Islamic Order, which is
to say the union of religion and politics, but it also has
other consequences of a primordial practical importance,
of which the first is the impossibility of confusing the
Islamic Order with the non-Islamic systems.
"There is no secular principle, and the State must be for
Muslims the scrupulous expression of the moral and
conceptual pillar of the religion."
Here's how he defines this "Islamic Order":
"The exhaustive definition of the Islamic Order is: the
unity of religion and law, education and force, ideals
and interests, spiritual society and State... the Muslim
does not exist at all as an independent individual."
(Who wrote these lines? I'll give you the answer in a minute.
For now, take a guess).
There are many obvious similarities between Islamic
Fundamentalism and fascism (notice above, "the unity of
education and force"). Like fascism, Islamic Fundamentalism
approves of any and all means to bring about the "Islamic
Order" because individuals don't matter ("the Muslim does
not exist at all as an independent individual"). Only the
system, the "Order", matters. Which of course means that
individuals must not be allowed to think for themselves. This
is what the same author says under the heading "Freedom of
Thought":
"The education of the population, and especially those
media which have an effect on the public such as
newspapers, radio, and television, must be entrusted
to people whose good Islamic reputation, moral
attitude, and intellectual ability are unimpeachable."
And since the Islamic Order is divinely sanctioned by Allah,
the very existence of a secular system is a violent affront. The
same writer states that:
"It is not in fact possible for there to be any peace or
coexistence between 'the Islamic Religion' and
non-Islamic social and political institutions..."
No "peace or coexistence." So: Islam is at war with all
non-Islamic cultural and political institutions, period. And
since 'institutions' do not exist apart from the people involved
with them, this translates into a war against infidels - a jihad,
or holy war.
In a section of his book entitled "The Relations Of The
Islamic Society With Other Societies," this author, rather than
make an argument about 'defense,' simply quotes the Qur'an:
"Oh Prophet, incite the believers to combat. If there can
be found among you twenty who will endure, they will
vanquish two hundred, if one hundred can be found, they
will vanquish a thousand infidels, because they are people
such as cannot understand."
Why must infidels be slaughtered? Because "they are people
such as cannot understand." That is, *for their beliefs.*
The author quotes the Qur'an again:
"And combat on Allah's path those who combat you, and
don't disobey. True, Allah does not love the disobedient!
And kill them where you will find them; chase them from
where they chased you: association is a graver sin than
murder. But don't fight them near the sacred Mosque
unless they fight you there first. And if they fight you
there, kill them then. Such is the retribution against
infidels. Should they cease, Allah is, surely, forgiving and
merciful."
"Association is a graver sin than murder"!
Think about that. What is meant here by 'murder'? The
Quranic text states that the killing of an infidel *pleases*
Allah. Indeed, Muslims are enjoined not to be 'disobedient';
but to 'kill them where you will find them.' So killing infidels
is a sacred duty; murder occurs only when a Muslim kills
another Muslim.
Thus, the statement, "association is worse than murder,"
means that for a Muslim to associate with an infidel is worse
than for a Muslim to kill another Muslim!
Under what circumstances should the Muslims in a society
move to take total control? Our writer suggests that:
"... the Islamic movement may, or rather *should*,
begin by seizing power as soon as it possesses a good
measure of moral and numerical strength, allowing it
not only to overthrow the non-Islamic power, but also
to establish the new Islamic power."
So, whom did you guess penned the above quoted lines?
Osama bin Laden? Or maybe Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the
leader of Hamas? Or perhaps you guessed it was some official
in the Wahabbi fundamentalist state of Saudi Arabia? For
example, you might have guessed someone like Prince Naif,
whose job is to send cash to the families of suicide bombers in
Palestine, and who also runs the "Commission for the
Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," which patrols
Saudi Arabian cities with long clubs, beating those who
violated rules of personal behavior laid out in the Qur'an.
These are all good guesses. But in fact the author of these
lines is Alija Izetbegovic, leader of the Bosnian Muslim faction
backed by the US and NATO during Bosnia's civil war.
========================================================
But the New York Times Said He Was a Moderate!
========================================================
The passages I quoted are from Alija Izetbegovic's book
"Islamic Manifesto," also translated as "Islamic
Declaration."[4] Izetbegovic re-released this book in 1990 to
coincide with the presidential elections in Bosnia. He was
using the book as a political manifesto. It was given to all
soldiers in the army of what the West called the Bosnian
government, headed by Izetbegovic.
Are you surprised? If so, I don't blame you. Perhaps you read
what the New York Times wrote on April 5, 1992:
"The Bosnian President, Mr. Izetbegovic, a Muslim Slav
regarded by Western diplomats as a moderate..."[5]
Were Western diplomats really fooled into believing
Izetbegovic was a moderate? Or did they just pretend to
believe? Here is what former US ambassador to Yugoslavia
Warren Zimmerman said in an interview:
[Start Quote From Zimmerman Interview]
"As for Mr. Izetbegovic, we heard that some call him a
Muslim fundamentalist. We know what fundamentalism
really does, as we were its victims in Iran. That is why we
do not believe that Izetbegovic is some sort of
fundamentalist. Actually, it seems like he is a moderate
politician who is trying to do the best in a difficult
situation."
[End Quote From Zimmerman Interview]
Notice the argument: Fundamentalism is bad; if Izetbegovic
were a fundamentalist, that would be bad; therefore,
Izetbegovic is not a Fundamentalist.
Translation: the American public would rebel if the US
government told them it was backing a fundamentalist (whose
great hero, by the way, is the Ayatollah Khomeini!), so we will
say that Izetbegovic is a *moderate*.
This Never-Never-land logic became policy across the board
in the Western mainstream media, as I will demonstrate in a
forthcoming piece on Bosnia. Almost without exception, the
media lied about the Izetbegovic regime, precisely as US
officials such as Mr. Zimmerman intended.
***
Francisco Gil-White
Deputy Editor
Emperor's Clothes
(...)
========================================================
Footnotes and Further Reading
========================================================
[1] Newsweek, December 18, 1995 , UNITED STATES EDITION,
NATIONAL AFFAIRS; Pg. 32, 1240 words, Sarajevo on the Spot, BY
RUSSELL WATSON AND ROD NORDLAND
[2] Bosnia suffers genocide as the world - and America - remains
silent.
(Originated from Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service) Jennifer
Scarlott;
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Dec 21, 1993 p1221K5689 (696
words)
[3] "The last ambassador: a memoir of the collapse of Yugoslavia."
By Warren Zimmerman; Foreign Affairs March-April 1995 v74 n2 p2(19)
(8919 words)
[4] Izetbegovic, Alija. 1999 [1980]. Le manifeste Islamique
(original title: Islamska deklaracija). Beyrouth-Liban: Éditions
Al-Bouraq. (pp. 75-76; 81-82; 105; 118; 132)
[5] The New York Times, April 5, 1992, Sunday, Late Edition - Final,
Section 1; Part 1; Page 3; Column 1; Foreign Desk, 681 words, Bosnia
Calls Up Guard and Reserve, By CHUCK SUDETIC, Special to The New
York Times, SARAJEVO, Yugoslavia, April 4
Emperor's Clothes
[ www.tenc.net ]
This Website is mirrored at http://emperor.vwh.net/
========================================================
A "Moderate", or a Radical Islamist?
Alija Izetbegovic Was Always a Dangerous Fascist, but
they called him a 'moderate.'
By Francisco Gil-White
[Posted on 9 March 2003]
========================================================
[ www.tenc.net ]
This is how Newsweek described Bosnian Muslim leader Alija
Izetbegovic in 1995: "The government of Bosnian President
Alija Izetbegovic... has always been committed to a multiethnic
society."[1]
A multiethnic society? And, Knight-Ridder added: "The
Bosnian [Muslims] are struggling for democracy, human
rights, and a multiethnic country."[2]
And therefore, as Warren Zimmerman, the former US
ambassador to Yugoslavia, explained in Foreign Affairs,
"Izetbegovic was... A devout Muslim but no extremist, he
consistently advocated the preservation of a multinational
Bosnia."[3]
Emperor's Clothes disagrees.
We charge that Alija Izetbegovic, who was trained, financed,
and politically supported by the US and its NATO allies, was
always an Islamic Fundamentalist whose goal was to create -
through violence - a fascist-clerical state, modeled on Iran.
We claim that it was Western support for this fanatic that
caused the Bosnian civil war. He was then misportrayed in the
media, and the war was blamed on the victims, the *Bosnian
Serbs*. (Please note that Izetbegovic was supported by a
minority of Muslims; thousands of Bosnian Muslims were
also victims of the Islamist fanatics.)
Who is right? The mainstream media and US establishment,
or Emperor's Clothes?
In this piece I will demonstrate that Izetbegovic was always a
fascist and Muslim fundamentalist. In a future article on
Bosnia, I will show the lengths to which the mainstream
media went in order to whitewash this fanatic's image in the
West. In a third piece, I will discuss our argument that
Izetbegovic's Islamic fundamentalist faction was the
aggressor, not the victim, in Bosnia.
========================================================
What is an Islamic Fundamentalist?
========================================================
Let us first clearly define this issue. An Islamic
Fundamentalist (or Islamist) is a Muslim who wants society to
be organized without any separation between Mosque and
State. A Fundamentalist advocates the complete subordination
of the legal system to Islamic religious law, or Sharia, which
includes personal behavior. A fundamentalist rejects all forms
of secular political and social organization. Islam is all;
the rest is nothing.
One prominent Islamic fundamentalist explains that "The first
and most important consequence of the study and
understanding of Islam as a total way of life" is this:
"...the most important thing that the Qur'an recommends
is: all of Islam; everything else is nothing more than a
detail and explanation of this central idea. This aspect of
Islam contains the principle of the Islamic Order, which is
to say the union of religion and politics, but it also has
other consequences of a primordial practical importance,
of which the first is the impossibility of confusing the
Islamic Order with the non-Islamic systems.
"There is no secular principle, and the State must be for
Muslims the scrupulous expression of the moral and
conceptual pillar of the religion."
Here's how he defines this "Islamic Order":
"The exhaustive definition of the Islamic Order is: the
unity of religion and law, education and force, ideals
and interests, spiritual society and State... the Muslim
does not exist at all as an independent individual."
(Who wrote these lines? I'll give you the answer in a minute.
For now, take a guess).
There are many obvious similarities between Islamic
Fundamentalism and fascism (notice above, "the unity of
education and force"). Like fascism, Islamic Fundamentalism
approves of any and all means to bring about the "Islamic
Order" because individuals don't matter ("the Muslim does
not exist at all as an independent individual"). Only the
system, the "Order", matters. Which of course means that
individuals must not be allowed to think for themselves. This
is what the same author says under the heading "Freedom of
Thought":
"The education of the population, and especially those
media which have an effect on the public such as
newspapers, radio, and television, must be entrusted
to people whose good Islamic reputation, moral
attitude, and intellectual ability are unimpeachable."
And since the Islamic Order is divinely sanctioned by Allah,
the very existence of a secular system is a violent affront. The
same writer states that:
"It is not in fact possible for there to be any peace or
coexistence between 'the Islamic Religion' and
non-Islamic social and political institutions..."
No "peace or coexistence." So: Islam is at war with all
non-Islamic cultural and political institutions, period. And
since 'institutions' do not exist apart from the people involved
with them, this translates into a war against infidels - a jihad,
or holy war.
In a section of his book entitled "The Relations Of The
Islamic Society With Other Societies," this author, rather than
make an argument about 'defense,' simply quotes the Qur'an:
"Oh Prophet, incite the believers to combat. If there can
be found among you twenty who will endure, they will
vanquish two hundred, if one hundred can be found, they
will vanquish a thousand infidels, because they are people
such as cannot understand."
Why must infidels be slaughtered? Because "they are people
such as cannot understand." That is, *for their beliefs.*
The author quotes the Qur'an again:
"And combat on Allah's path those who combat you, and
don't disobey. True, Allah does not love the disobedient!
And kill them where you will find them; chase them from
where they chased you: association is a graver sin than
murder. But don't fight them near the sacred Mosque
unless they fight you there first. And if they fight you
there, kill them then. Such is the retribution against
infidels. Should they cease, Allah is, surely, forgiving and
merciful."
"Association is a graver sin than murder"!
Think about that. What is meant here by 'murder'? The
Quranic text states that the killing of an infidel *pleases*
Allah. Indeed, Muslims are enjoined not to be 'disobedient';
but to 'kill them where you will find them.' So killing infidels
is a sacred duty; murder occurs only when a Muslim kills
another Muslim.
Thus, the statement, "association is worse than murder,"
means that for a Muslim to associate with an infidel is worse
than for a Muslim to kill another Muslim!
Under what circumstances should the Muslims in a society
move to take total control? Our writer suggests that:
"... the Islamic movement may, or rather *should*,
begin by seizing power as soon as it possesses a good
measure of moral and numerical strength, allowing it
not only to overthrow the non-Islamic power, but also
to establish the new Islamic power."
So, whom did you guess penned the above quoted lines?
Osama bin Laden? Or maybe Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the
leader of Hamas? Or perhaps you guessed it was some official
in the Wahabbi fundamentalist state of Saudi Arabia? For
example, you might have guessed someone like Prince Naif,
whose job is to send cash to the families of suicide bombers in
Palestine, and who also runs the "Commission for the
Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," which patrols
Saudi Arabian cities with long clubs, beating those who
violated rules of personal behavior laid out in the Qur'an.
These are all good guesses. But in fact the author of these
lines is Alija Izetbegovic, leader of the Bosnian Muslim faction
backed by the US and NATO during Bosnia's civil war.
========================================================
But the New York Times Said He Was a Moderate!
========================================================
The passages I quoted are from Alija Izetbegovic's book
"Islamic Manifesto," also translated as "Islamic
Declaration."[4] Izetbegovic re-released this book in 1990 to
coincide with the presidential elections in Bosnia. He was
using the book as a political manifesto. It was given to all
soldiers in the army of what the West called the Bosnian
government, headed by Izetbegovic.
Are you surprised? If so, I don't blame you. Perhaps you read
what the New York Times wrote on April 5, 1992:
"The Bosnian President, Mr. Izetbegovic, a Muslim Slav
regarded by Western diplomats as a moderate..."[5]
Were Western diplomats really fooled into believing
Izetbegovic was a moderate? Or did they just pretend to
believe? Here is what former US ambassador to Yugoslavia
Warren Zimmerman said in an interview:
[Start Quote From Zimmerman Interview]
"As for Mr. Izetbegovic, we heard that some call him a
Muslim fundamentalist. We know what fundamentalism
really does, as we were its victims in Iran. That is why we
do not believe that Izetbegovic is some sort of
fundamentalist. Actually, it seems like he is a moderate
politician who is trying to do the best in a difficult
situation."
[End Quote From Zimmerman Interview]
Notice the argument: Fundamentalism is bad; if Izetbegovic
were a fundamentalist, that would be bad; therefore,
Izetbegovic is not a Fundamentalist.
Translation: the American public would rebel if the US
government told them it was backing a fundamentalist (whose
great hero, by the way, is the Ayatollah Khomeini!), so we will
say that Izetbegovic is a *moderate*.
This Never-Never-land logic became policy across the board
in the Western mainstream media, as I will demonstrate in a
forthcoming piece on Bosnia. Almost without exception, the
media lied about the Izetbegovic regime, precisely as US
officials such as Mr. Zimmerman intended.
***
Francisco Gil-White
Deputy Editor
Emperor's Clothes
(...)
========================================================
Footnotes and Further Reading
========================================================
[1] Newsweek, December 18, 1995 , UNITED STATES EDITION,
NATIONAL AFFAIRS; Pg. 32, 1240 words, Sarajevo on the Spot, BY
RUSSELL WATSON AND ROD NORDLAND
[2] Bosnia suffers genocide as the world - and America - remains
silent.
(Originated from Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service) Jennifer
Scarlott;
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Dec 21, 1993 p1221K5689 (696
words)
[3] "The last ambassador: a memoir of the collapse of Yugoslavia."
By Warren Zimmerman; Foreign Affairs March-April 1995 v74 n2 p2(19)
(8919 words)
[4] Izetbegovic, Alija. 1999 [1980]. Le manifeste Islamique
(original title: Islamska deklaracija). Beyrouth-Liban: Éditions
Al-Bouraq. (pp. 75-76; 81-82; 105; 118; 132)
[5] The New York Times, April 5, 1992, Sunday, Late Edition - Final,
Section 1; Part 1; Page 3; Column 1; Foreign Desk, 681 words, Bosnia
Calls Up Guard and Reserve, By CHUCK SUDETIC, Special to The New
York Times, SARAJEVO, Yugoslavia, April 4
Emperor's Clothes
[ www.tenc.net ]
This Website is mirrored at http://emperor.vwh.net/