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Why Iranians Take Hostages I often fear that the vast ignorance of Americans and others around the world concerning the history of Islam condemns them to be pawns in the hands of the Iranians and other Muslim leaders who reflect why Islam came to be and how it has conducted itself since the death of Muhammad. The recent "incident" in which 15 British sailors were taken hostage by the Iranians (and you can substitute any radical Islamic group such as Hamas, Hezbollah, or al Qaeda committing other similar acts) and the subsequent "diplomatic" effort totally ignores the fact that these same Iranians took American diplomats hostage in 1979. Our subsequent failure to mete out a severe military retribution has brought us to the current prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. You may have noticed that, every time the United States leaves a war unfinished, we end up having to deal with the same bad people whether they are the North Koreans, the Iranians, or, in the case of Iraq, the return in 2003 after the botched victory in 1991. The only purpose of war is to leave one’s enemies utterly without the will to repeat their bad behavior. By contrast, we have excellent relations with Japan and Germany. It should be noted, too, that the Iranians have shown absolutely no regard for the Geneva Convention, having paraded their hostages on television and forced them to make false statements under threat of death. The loudest voices about the proper adherence to the Convention have, of course, been raised against the United States. The powerful hold that Islam has on the minds and hearts of Middle Eastern Muslims is deeply rooted in its very beginnings. This "religion" that Mohammed invented had as its purpose a justification for looting other towns and tribes in the name of Allah. Thievery, banditry, the sale of slaves, the imposition of taxes and tribute, were all set in motion when in March 632 Muhammed said, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah.’" Islam, which translates "submission", is all about war, the division of the booty that results, and the subjugation of those who are conquered. This explains why, alone among the three major monotheistic religions, Islam has produced absolutely nothing that one can call progress. Centuries later, in November 2001 Osama bin Laden announced "I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammed." Not a single new idea has issued forth from Islam since its founding. Islam divides the world between itself and what it calls "the world of war" by which it means all others who are not Muslims. The entire early history of Islam under Muhammed was one of looting and pillage as, one by one, those who responded to his banner, calling him a prophet, realized that there were profits to be had in conquering those around them. On Mohammed’s death, Islam almost immediately divided into warring parties over who would inherit his mantle as caliph. The Sunnis and the Shiites are still fighting one another over that. Islam is one long history of war, treachery and deceit. In his book, "Islamic Imperialism: A History", Efraim Karsh relates a story of the struggle between the Abbasids and the declining Umayyads, two Muslim dynasties in 883 AD. The leader of the Abbasids, Abul Abbas, called himself "the bloodshedder." Karsh relates: "In an attempt to prevent any backlash from supporters of the fallen dynasty, the Abbasids embarked on a murderous spree. In Mecca and Medina scores of Umayyads were rounded up and murdered in detention. In the Iraqi garrison town of Wasit the governor laid down his weapons in return for a personal guarantee of safe conduct by the caliph, only to be treacherously murdered. In Palestine, the newly appointed governor of Syria invited a group of eighty prominent Umayyads to a banquet, slaughtered them all, then sat calmly among the corpses to finish his meal." In the aftermath of the 1991 defeat of the Iraqis who were driven from Kuwait by a coalition led by American forces, Saddam’s generals met in Safwan to accept surrender terms. What they got was a promise of U.S. withdrawal and the right to use their helicopters for "transportation." What they did was use those helicopters as gun ships to slaughter thousands of Shiites and Kurds who showed any inclination to resist the further rule of Saddam Hussein. The result of that miscalculation were "no-fly zones" over two thirds of Iraq that were maintained for twelve years until the second invasion in March 2003. Today, as the U.S. media puts the various battles between Shiites and Sunnis on the front pages, Americans wonder why are these two Muslim groups blowing up each other’s mosques? Why are they murdering each other? Why are Iraq’s neighbors, Iran and Syria, maneuvering to secure whatever they can gain from the effort to (1) rid Iraq of the American-led coalition forces and (2) pick up the spoils of a divided and easily conquered Iraqi nation? An easy reading of Islamic history and a common sense response to today’s events tell us that the Iranians will continue to probe for weakness among its enemies, the Americans, the British, the other members of the European Union, and of course, those Gulf nations who will have to confront an nuclear armed Iran if they are permitted to continue. Any failure to respond to their outrages will earn their contempt and further rumblings of war.
Want to hear the call to prayer in your neighborhood? All we have to do is Every week the Center asks for your donation for one reason only, because we must. It is through the support of visitors to this website that we are able to maintain it and our communications program that includes significant outreach via talk radio. If you can spare even a few dollars, please pause and take a moment to help the Center. If you prefer to send a check, please make it payable to The Caruba Organization, 28 W. Third St., Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ. Thank you! Why Darfur Should Be the UN’s Death Knell The many failures and widespread corruption of the United Nations should havebeen reason enough to end the farce of this international institution long ago. It has not provided a brake on rogue nations such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the current regimes in Iran and North Korea. It is toothless to the point where it is now mocked and ignored. The Food for Oil scandal has since been swept under the rug. A coalition led by the United States had to depose the former Iraqi dictator and, most recently, Great Britain sputtered helplessly when Iran took fifteen of its sailors hostage and then, in defiance of the Geneva Convention, paraded them on television. The U.S. failed to take action in 1979 when its diplomats were taken hostage. Force of arms is the only thing such nations understand.
The new U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has been unable to get Sudan to permit a peacekeeping force that would intercede to stop the slaughter that, depending on who you talk to, has killed 200,000 people or double that number. Does the world really need any nation’s permission under such dire circumstances? The humanitarian aid program in Darfur is the largest in the world, numbering some 14,000 aid workers and more than a billion dollars spent. It is deemed "fragile" by observers. Depending on who is providing the figures, anywhere between two and four million people are either living in refugee camps or in need of aid, threatened by the Sudanese government’s "janjaweed" militia. Darfur should be the claxon sounding the death knell of the United Nations. What is particularly obscene is not just the failure of the newly re-named and re-constituted U.N. Council on Human Rights, but its outright obstruction of any effort to bring relief and justice to Darfur’s victims. Despite a report by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams condemning Sudan, the nations constituting the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other member nations of the Council have successfully neutered any rational, humane response. It should be noted that the Council has not been entirely inactive. Alone among all the 192 nations in the world under its scrutiny, only Israel has merited its attention as the subject of eight resolutions condemning it for alleged human rights violations with three more in the pipeline. That Israel is still trying to secure the return of the soldiers kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah has escaped their notice, including Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon last year. Just as the former U.N. Commission on Human Rights proved itself useless, the Council now demonstrates the futility of including nations such as China, Cuba, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia as members. The time has long since passed when the United Nations could have provided a vehicle for the resolution of conflicts and a moral force against genocides such as that occurring in Darfur today. The United States provides a quarter of its budget. It should stop doing that. Other democracies should withdraw as well. Otherwise they are just a party to the killing when they could, together, create a new organization intent on dealing with the horrors inflicted by nations run by murderous gangsters. The only way the Center can continue its aggressive program of reaching out to inform people on the major issues of our time is highly dependent on your donation, so if you have a few dollars to contribute, please do. Thank you.
©
2007 Alan Caruba. |
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"We will continue to export our revolution throughout the world…until the calls ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’ are echoed all over the world." Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. 
What purpose the United Nations serves is beyond my understanding. This is now most manifest with regard to the tragedy occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. In late March, both Germany and Great Britain called for tougher action against Sudan to end four years of bloodshed. The few economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union have had little effect.