Amil Imani

I repeat: Is democracy the killer of liberty? The dictionary defines democracy as the rule of the people. Even at its best, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest,” according to Winston Churchill.

Is democracy a very bad form of government? Does it hold the threat of destroying humanity’s most precious right – liberty? Here are some things to think about.

In the so-called democratic societies, a semblance of democracy hobbles along with fits and starts, always on the verge of complete subversion and collapse. For instance, the Western democracies are representative democracies where the ordinary citizens do not rule. A representative democracy is, in effect, a plutocracy where moneyed people and powerful interest groups rule.

The society’s rulers form a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, we have the closest thing to democracy. The individual citizen has some sway on the locally elected officials such as the sheriff, the mayor, the city councilman, and the like. As we go up the pyramid, the voice of the individual citizen diminishes while the influence of money and power groups expands.

It is a fact that, without funds, one cannot even run for the city’s dogcatcher. At the very least, the aspiring candidate needs money for posters or some handbills to make himself known to the electorate and argue why they should elect him and not his opponent.

Never mind the post of the city’s dogcatcher. How about seeking to be the mayor of New York City? Michael Bloomberg is presently running for election to his third term as the mayor of the city. This man is reportedly the 17th wealthiest person in the world. He spent $73 million of his own money on his first term campaign ad and apparently he is spending at least $18.5 million of his own funds again for a third mayoral term in 2009 campaign.

Is Bloomberg, one of the greatest mavens of business, a fool to spend that kind of money for a post that doesn’t pay even a fraction of what he is spending? No. He is not a fool. In fact, he is probably one of the best people running for a public office. That’s beside the point. The point is that it takes huge amounts of money to become a part of the pyramid. And not everyone is a Michael Bloomberg with a very deep pocket and the willingness to tap it.

Read more

by Amil Imani

Never mind the mythical angels of religion and poetry. Meet a living angel in flesh, Nazanin Afshin-Jam. Many of you may not know that we have a hero in our midst. Many of you may not know that this individual, singlehandedly, has done more for her compatriots, as well as for other people of our planet, than most of us together. This dazzling beauty, both inside and outside, has dedicated her life to the good of humanity.

We are honoring Nazanin Afshin-Jam for her tireless efforts to shed light into the shadowy corners of conflict, to expose and end the abuses that ruin the lives of so many children in Iran. Her work exemplifies the ideals of the human rights movement: “courage, an unswerving commitment to justice and a genuine concern for the rights of all victims.”

Unquestionably, this young talented Iranian born Canadian citizen has been a role model and has earned our respect, not only among most Iranians around the world, but in many other countries where she has visited and spoken about Human rights issues. She has the determination of unquestionable integrity, sensitivity to the needs of others and willingness to help wherever the help is needed. She is a courageous human rights activist, who is exposing horrific crimes about child executions in the Islamic Republic of Iran. She has also helped several key cases of Iranian refugees who were going to be deported back to Iran and likely face severe persecution.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, this dazzling gem of Iran, has a huge mission in life. As good a human being as she is and almost unnervingly nice, she is relentlessly positive, a one-person cheering section of smiles. She has elevated what it means to be an Iranian and what it means to be a child of Cyrus the Great.

Nazanin is an international human rights activist, singer/songwriter, actor, model and former Miss World Canada. After being crowned "Miss Canada.” Nazanin went on to become the First Runner-Up for "Miss World 2003." She was runner-up to Miss Ireland, Rosanna Davison. She is also co-founder of the “Stop Child Executions” organization whose aim it is to try and put a permanent end to executions of minors in Iran and abroad who are currently on death row. She has produced short documentaries, connected lawyers working pro-bono to children on death row who do not have access to proper attorneys. She is constantly informing the UN, individual governments and NGOs including Amnesty International on urgent cases of children facing execution.

“Prosperity and progress can only flourish when our human rights are a priority, where democracy and freedom of choice take precedence,” says Nazanin

Nazanin learned at an early age of the threat people face when their human rights are ignored and abused. This Persian star was born in Tehran in 1979 at the height of the so called Islamic revolution and a year later her family was forced to flee after her non-political father was arrested and tortured at the hands of the fundamentalists. Growing up in Canada after escaping an uncertain future in Iran, Nazanin knew not to take her freedom and good fortune for granted. Her conscience would not allow her to forget those who live in fear every day, in any country where people’s basic human rights are violated.

Read more

An Appeal to Cultural Muslims

There are some 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the overwhelming majority of which are Cultural Muslims who are generally called moderate Muslims. Muslims are born into Islam, where a great many never go through the process of deciding for themselves if they want to be Muslims. It is not a religion that they choose, it is a belief they inherit. For whatever reason, this great majority of Cultural Muslims are Muslims of sort without fully toeing the line of Islam. The real Muslims are the jihadists, a small minority who lives and dies by the dictates of the Quran and the Sunna, the life examples of Muhammad.

The free world, rightfully alarmed by ever-varied and escalating assaults of the jihadists, myopically has directed its tentative and haphazard effort at countering them, believing that by so doing it can eliminate their threat and at the same time remain on good terms of live-and-let-live multiculturalism with the Cultural Muslims. This is a dangerous assumption that, if not abandoned, will likely culminate in an Armageddon-kind of conflagration.

There is virtually no chance of reasoning with the brain-dead jihadists whose eyes are fixed on the promised lush paradise of Allah. It isn’t that they love death, just for the sake of death itself as Muslim leaders such as Hasan Nasrullah, the head of Lebanon’s Hizbollah proclaimed. They love death and happily embrace it because of what they have been brainwashed to believe is awaiting them as a reward.

Death in carrying out the work of Islam earns them entry into Allah’s eternal sensuous male paradise, so they believe. It is in keeping with propagating this fraud of afterlife paradise that portraits and names of Muslim killers, glorified as martyrs, festoon the length and breadth of Muslim cradles of Islamism such as Iran and Palestine. To the wild-eyed robot jihadist even a day on this “heap of dirt” earth is simply another day of unbearable delay from winging to the lasting abode of lust. Why else would tens of thousands of Iranian Shi’a fools, for instance, sign up to be martyred?

For as long as there are millions of fanatical fools, the Islamic handlers will have an endless supply of foot-soldiers to spread and impose the savage doctrine of Islam and its Sharia on the people of the world. Just this week, for instance, under the Sharia law, a Saudi Arabian court sentenced a 75-year old widow to prison and lashes for having “mingled” with two men who were not related to her. The two men reportedly brought the woman some bread. This is the kind of Sharia law that awaits us all down the road if we fail to reach out to the Cultural Muslims and help them leave the real Islam altogether, since they are already partly there.

But is the real Islam indeed a peaceful religion?

Read more

A Salute to Champions of Liberty

by Amil Imani

Geert Wilders, an outspoken politician and chairman of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands who produced a 16 minute-long movie “FITNA,” has been accused of Islamophobia and refused entry to the UK by immigration authorities after arriving at Heathrow airport in London. UK Independence party peer, Lord Pearson, had invited him to show his controversial film “Fitna,” which links Quran to terrorism, at the House of Lords.

The 16-minute documentary which juxtaposes passages of the Quran with the mass murder of 9/11 and other acts by radical Muslims was released to the Internet on March 27, 2008. It immediately sparked Muslims’ condemnation. They argued he is twisting selected passages from the Quran to suit his argument in the same way that extremists do to promote terrorism. In his short film, he presented the following passages from the Quran. You be the judge:

Al-Anfal 8.60 “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.”

An-Nisa 4.56  "Those who have disbelieved our signs, we shall roast them in fire. Whenever their skins are cooked to a turn, we shall substitute new skins for them, that they may feel the punishment; Verily Allah is sublime and wise."

Muhammad 47.4 “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah’s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah, – He will never let their deeds be lost.”

An-Nisa 4.89 “They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.”

Al-Anfal 8.39 “Fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do.”

Regrettably, a court in his hometown, Amsterdam, ruled that he should be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred, though Wilders has appealed against the decision since he was exercising his free speech. The film’s title comes from the Arabic word ‘Fitna’, which can simultaneously mean: a schism, secession, upheaval and anarchy.

The Dutch politician arrived in the U.S. last Thursday to show his controversial film “Fitna” and meet with lawmakers in Washington. He also appeared last Friday at a  banquet in the Omni-Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. The event was organized by the lovely, fearless, true American patriot, Pamela Geller, from the well-known blog Atlas Shrugs. Other honorable and distinguished individuals who assisted Pamela with financing the event were Dr. Andrew Bostom, Robert Spencer and David Horowitz.

Wilders gave a phenomenal speech about freedom of speech at the grand ballroom. Wilder is correct in his assertion about Islam in Europe. The Muslims’ killing campaign did not end with their defeat at the gates of Vienna. Their eviction from Spain was a temporary forced retreat. But now the Muslims have, in huge numbers, penetrated the gates of every city and town of Europe without yet having to use their swords.

Read more

Turning Universities into Graveyards

by Amil Imani

The cult of death, Islam, is marching forward under its battle cry: “We love death, the infidels love life,” says Hassan Nasrullah, leader of Lebanon Hizbollah. There is no limit to the Shi’a mullahs’ obsession with all matters dealing with death.

On one front, the mullahs are working overtime to obtain the ultimate death weapon—the nuclear bomb—the most efficient and economical way of inflicting death on the masses of the infidels. A perfect example is this week’s test firing at the Bushehr nuclear plant. The duplicitous Russians are just too pleased to help them out in exchange for petrodollars.

On another front, the ever-conniving mullahs are gradually transforming Iran’s universities, cradles of knowledge about life, to mausoleums. Instead of adorning the landscape with statues of great scientists and scholars to inspire the young to life achievement, the mullahs bring corpses of their victims and bury them there, victims who had been hoodwinked by the fascist Islamists and had lost their lives in the process of  horrific schemes and crimes against humanity in the name of Allah
   
The charlatan mullahs sanitize their wicked deeds that have caused the death of their victims by calling them martyrs and affording them an honorable burial place. It is the mullah’s devious way of hopefully attracting new recruits from the ranks of the young. 

According to a report by Rasmus Christian Elling, the fascination of burying martyrs inside Tehran’s universities has a little history in itself. When the crown “buffoon” of the Islamic Republic, Ahmadinejad, was Tehran’s mayor, he brought up the subject numerous times. However, pro-freedom and courageous Iranian students have strongly protested against any plans to bury decaying remains of ancient human bones next to their classrooms. They look at it as an instrument for the regime’s oppressive policy.

Based on this horrific ideology of death, the Muslims have visited death on untold numbers of both Muslims as well as non-Muslims. The Khomeinist regime of the IRI sent tens of thousands of its own children to their death to clear minefields in its holy war with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Not limiting itself to this horrific act, the Khomeinists massacred tens of thousands of political dissenters without the least due process. Islam wins, either when you kill or you get killed. That’s the motto of the religion of death.

In Rasmus Christian Elling’s report, one way to interpret this situation is that this is the regime’s way to impose upon the university milieu and student life a militant ideology, one that praises shahâdat (the martyr death), endless war and military values accompanied with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and eulogizing of the eight-year war with Iraq.

It is also an Orwellian tactic for the militia groups (Basijis) to clamp down on student gatherings and demonstrations. It is an invasion of personal privacy, either directly physically or indirectly by surveillance. It is an Islamic way of controlling its citizens’ daily life, as in "Big Brother" is watching you. It is the Islamic republic’s strategy to suppress dissident voices within Iran’s lively university environment.

Read more

Chaos, Crisis & Terror Serves the Islamic Republic

by Amil Imani

As the Islamic Revolution completed its third decade, it would not be too difficult to realize the reality and the fruits of its mismanagement during its imperial and revolutionary eras. Throughout the three decades of its existence, the Islamic Republic has managed, notably, to produce more hunger, extreme frustration and anger, prostitution at a record pace, drug addiction beyond control, child execution without any regard to the international human rights bylaws. There are many reports regarding cases of child sexual abuse and molestation reaching epidemic proportions. Prosecution and imprisonment of the innocent people and systematic and illegal abuse of detainees and hundreds of gruesome acts have also been reported.

The genocidal Islamists have been doing all they can to completely wipe out the Baha’is in Iran as well as everywhere else in the world that their blood-drenched hand can reach. The Islamic government condones and promotes every measure of oppression against the Baha’is. The Islamists don’t even spare the dead. They bulldoze and even uproot the trees in Baha’is cemeteries.  Harassment of other religious minorities is prevalent and torturing innocent people beyond recognition is part of their modus operandi. They routinely hang dissidents and amputate the limbs of anyone for petty theft. They are responsible for the unmitigated poverty in the oil-rich country, sex slaves in the Persian Gulf region and the raping of children as young as 2 years of age.  Here is the Amnesty International report published in February 2009.

The Islamic Republic also has started a nuclear program, not for peaceful purposes, as they claim, but only to prolong their unwanted existence long enough to get their hands on the bomb so that they can feel invincible and continue their control over the armless Iranian people and ultimately export their version of Shi’a Islam and terrorism around the globe.

What is the likelihood that the ruling Mullahs will actually use their new toy? If they remain in power long enough to have it, they are very likely to use it, in one form or another. At the very least, they will use the bomb for blackmail and intimidation in the region. Not even the all-out nuclear exchange can be ruled out. Islam is a religion centered on death with the faithful eyes fixed on the afterlife and its promised eternal pleasures. If the faithful kills, he goes to Allah’s paradise; if he gets killed, he goes to Allah’s paradise. An urgent warning to the people of the world: stop the Islamic Republic nuclear program now, or face eradication from the face of the earth and I am not in any mood to make you laugh.

What does the Islamic Republic do to cover up its crimes against humanity? They immediately create chaos and crisis. In other words, they create smoke and mirrors and push the dust under the rug again as they did when the Islamists took the American diplomats as hostages for 444 days and during Iran and Iraq war and recent Israeli war with Hamas. Ironically, the first victims of the chaos and crises doctrine have always been the Iranian people. They are trying to distract the world from their nuclear intention as they did during the Gaza crisis. They took the attention away from their nuclear program.

Read more

by Amil Imani

What’s in a name? A great deal. Democracy, fascism, and communism represent different systems of government. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are also titles for different religious systems. 
 
Whereas democracy is defined as the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, Islam is defined as the rule of Allah, by Allah and his emissaries, for the pleasure of Allah. And when people, out of concern for political correctness or ignorance, describe Islam as a religion of peace, they are, at the very least, guilty of misrepresenting it.
 
The word “Islam,” is derived from the word “taslim,” which means surrender. The word for peace is not “taslim,” but it is “solh.” Hence, when Muslims behave in violent barbaric ways, they are only doing so in obedience to the dictates of their creed. They are surrendering and sacrificing anything and everything in service to the will and pleasure of Allah, as they see it.
 
Of course, not every Muslim surrenders fully to the will of Allah. The great majority of Muslims are only partial Muslims. They may say their daily obligatory prayers, they may tithe some, and they may keep the fast from time to time. Yet, they may also have a few drinks now and then, and do many things that they are not supposed to do. 
 
But Islam can be a “forgiving” religion, specifically for the male. If you neglect to say your prayers or you simply don’t want to, you can hire someone, preferably an imam or a mullah, to pray on your behalf. Going to the Hajj is too onerous and takes you away from the pleasures and comforts of your life? You can deputize someone else to go in your stead. You have a few drinks of the forbidden brew and it is time to say your prayer? Simply rinse your mouth and go ahead with praying. But, always remember the will of Allah and serve him. Do your duties to vanquish the unbelievers, promote the rule of the Shari’a, and make the earth Allah’s.
 
If only the masses of Muslims arise and carry out the orders of Allah, then we would have the promised paradise of Islam on earth as exemplified by such rules as that of the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and of course the Shiite nirvana of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 
 
In these model Islamic societies, freedom of expression, worship, and assembly are taken away. Women are treated as chattel. Young girls are subjected to barbaric genital mutilation to make them sex slaves and birth channels without the ability to enjoy intercourse. Minors are executed, adulterers are stoned to death, thieves have their limbs amputated, and much much more. Isn’t that everyone’s idea of paradise? 
 
This misogynist religion of Allah is custom-made for the savage male. A faithful follower of Allah is allowed to have as many as four permanent wives – and replace any of them at any time he wants — as well as an unlimited number of one-night or one-hour-standers that he can afford to rent. But, woe unto a woman if she even has a single love affair with another man. Nothing less than death by stoning is her just punishment.
 
The partial-Muslims are seemingly harmless, may appear normal, and are under the radar. What gets our attention is the die-hard, the real Muslims who are a small minority. Yet this virulent combative minority is campaigning simultaneously on two major fronts. It works to herd the partial-Muslim majority into its fold and vanquish all other non-believers by any and all means. 
 
It is prudent to keep in mind that all important events in the history of humanity have been instigated by either an individual or a small group. These individuals or groups have been the sheep-dogs that have directed the movements and activities of the masses, the sheep.
 

Read more

Islamism is to Religion as Sadism is to Human

by Amil Imani

It is not about God or love, it is about control and domination–just as Sadism is not about human intercourse or love, it is about control, torture, punishment and domination.

Why else name a so-called religion "submission?" Islam seeks nothing less than a total global domination. The word Islam literally means “Taslim,” or (submission) or just “surrender”, the kind that comes by force and fraud. Its scripture must be taken literally; its provisions are intended to dominate every waking moment in the life of a believer. There is no room for being a half-hearted Muslim and no toleration of watering down its invocations.

It’s true that it is quite human to seek to control one’s environment, just as the parent tries to control the child. The difference with the Islamic whack jobs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, et al is mainly in the level of their brutality toward those who do not share their particular mental affliction.

What a pitiful crop of miscreants has been raised in once-proud Persia. The Mullahs and their lackeys have tortured, raped and executed hundreds of little girls and little boys out of their abject fear of losing control. They are to be ridiculed and despised among men as the wretched, miserable, and entirely loathsome creatures that they are.

How do the Islamists prey upon their victims? For one, Islam is stamped on the impressionable mind of the child from birth. The parents and immediate members of the family are the ones who make the very first impressions on the tabula rasa of the young mind. These early impressions are the grid-work for further formation of the person’s mind and belief system. It is by far easier, as life goes on, to incorporate “items” that readily fit into the grid-work, than to modify it or dismantle it altogether and begin anew. It is in recognition of the importance of early training and education that people such as Saint Augustine and Freud considered the first few years of life as critical for molding the person.

It is some consolation; however, to realize that there are many practicing religions who are willing to stand up to the extremists, even at their own great peril. It is also quite human to fight against control and domination. However, marrying Islam with government is stoking fire with explosives. That is what the Islamic Republic of Iran currently represents.

Read more

by Amil Imani

For years, the U.S. State Department has called the Islamic Republic of Iran the world’s “most active state sponsor of terrorism,” For years, U.S. officials say the Islamic Republic of Iran has continued to provide funding, weapons, training, and sanctuary to numerous terrorist groups based in the Middle East and elsewhere, posing a security concern to the international community. And for years, the U.S. Administration has been unable to outdo the Islamic Republic’s propaganda machine and clearly has been unable or perhaps unwilling to help the Iranian people to end this nightmare in Iran.

President George W. Bush, of all U.S. presidents, at his annual State of the Union addresses, spoke numerous times about the plight of the Iranian people. He once said, “If the Iranian people stand for themselves, the United States will stand with them.” Throughout his presidency, the Iranians, of all people, hailed this courageous president, as an angel of freedom and his popularity was surging in Iran while his approval rating at home was low.

As time went on, President Bush vowed that the Islamic Republic would never be allowed to achieve its goal of developing nuclear bombs during his watch. He kept using all kinds of threats and promises, in order to persuade the mullahs to drop the project, to no avail. When a belligerent end-of-the-worlder, Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad, became the Islamic Republic of Iran’s president, things started heating up greatly.

Time and again, the bellicose Ahmadinejad kept vilifying the Great Satan and its sidekick Israel for having the gall to demand Iran abandon its program while his two main adversaries had their own arsenal of nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad informed the world that what the Islamic Republic does is within its own national rights. He shored up his credibility cleverly by dispatching endless series of negotiators to meetings with the Europeans. He was successfully stalling for time, while working around the clock to get to the Surge Capacity.

Iran, under the late shah, launched a plan to achieve “Surge Capacity:” A code word for getting all the ingredients and procedures down pat for making the bomb quickly, short of actually making it; a clever power-play.

A saint and revered man of God, according to none other than  Jimmy Carter (who considers himself as another great man of God), the late Ayatollah Khomeini cancelled the nuclear program with the same saintly and prompt edict that he cancelled the life of thousands of Iranians for daring to disagree with his system of medieval Shari’a rule.

Read more

.

Mr. King Never Asked…

by Amil Imani

CNN’s king of the talk-show hosts and the icon of one of the major television networks, Larry King, hosted an interview on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 with the devil himself.  Many Iranians felt completely betrayed by Mr. King’s line of questioning. They felt that Mr. King was missing key questions. I am not advocating a hostile interview here, but how could Mr. King allow Ahmadinejad to easily dance away. It seemed he was deliberately making Ahmadinejad look and act like a human being.

As the old saying goes, "There’s no such thing as a stupid question." However, in the minds of many Iranians as well as many non-Iranians, there is such a thing, and Mr. King lost huge points with his line of questioning. Yet, valid questions remain about media performance and the role of public communication practitioners in shaping perception. The role of media is not to impose self-censorship and avoid critical questions.

It is hard to digest how the liberal media has single-handedly, in a matter of three short days, managed to make Ahmadinejad look statesmanlike. Mr. Ahmadinejad was given a forum to reiterate his deception, repeatedly. Larry King would not even say that he himself is Jewish and that he supports Israel. He looked very mesmerized by the presence of this evil man who is responsible for the death and misery that exists in Iran. He did not contradict Ahmadinejad, did not show him up. He allowed him to make points to undermine the existence of the friendship between Israel and the United States.

Ahmadinejad’s utterance on Tuesday echoed the past remarks he has made, including calls to annihilate Israel and threats to the U.S. and other countries that support Israel. On September 18, 2008, he said, "the Zionist regime is a regime that will disappear." But, I have news for him, most Iranians believe that the Islamic Republic is an illegitimate regime and will soon disappear. On February 28, 2007, he said, "Zionists are the true incarnation of Satan." Ironically, most Iranians believe that Ahmadinejad is the Satan and does not represent the Iranian people any more than his turbaned-colleagues presently ruling Iran do. What needs to be understood is that in fact Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs, above all else, are true Muslims and despise anything "Iranian" and its ancient "pre-Islamic" heritage.

When Mr. King asked him about his statement last year that there are no homosexuals in Iran, Ahmadinejad replied, that it is not the way it is here. It’s disliked in Iran. Then he asked Mr. King if he were concerned for 70 million Iranian people or a few homosexuals.

Mr. King should have asked how many homosexuals he has hanged this year and instead of asking him how many children he has, he should have asked him how many children he has hanged in the four years he’s been in office.

Mr. King missed an opportunity to ask him why he is so interested in securing Palestinian rights, while he is denying such rights to the Iranians. Why doe he want a referendum for the Palestinian people to decide their own destiny, while he refuses the same to 7o million desperate and unhappy Iranians.

Over the years, much of the world has been preoccupied with its own problems and shown little concern for the plight of the Iranian people until the Mullahs installed a firebrand Islamist, Ahmadinejad, as the President of the country. This man, called "The Monkey," by many Iranians is now alarming the world by being at the control of the Islamofascist train and throttling it full speed ahead for a cataclysmic collision. Ahmadinejad and his gang are loading their guns and doing all they can to obtain the bomb to bring about the biggest and most dreadful death that would usher in the "Mahdi", their savior-ruler of the world. 

In dealing with the mullahs ruling Iran, what you see is not what you get, and what you hear is not what they mean. Transparency and honesty are not their strong suit. So, we need a first-rate understanding of the Mullahs to see through their smoke-and-mirrors, as well as beyond their twisted tongues into their warped brains:

Read more

Religious Imprinting and Jihadism

by Amil Imani

Religious belief is emotional at its core. And emotions are not governed by logic or reason. Becoming religious is similar to imprinting, most dramatically seen in ducklings. During a critical period of time after hatching the ducklings become imprinted on any moving object—be it the mother duck, a mechanical duck, or a moving human. It doesn’t matter. The ducklings simply follow the initially moving object.

Religion, for most part, is infused into the mind of children from the moment of birth. Early childhood is the time that children are most imprintable. The strength and permanence of this imprinting process depend on a variety of influences. Over time, some people retain the initial imprint and strengthen it, some adopt a middle course, and some might even discard it altogether. A significant number in any religious faith becomes extremely committed to the extent that they are willing to kill others and themselves in the service of their religion.

The human mind is a battleground of contending forces where the two most powerful are reason and emotion: where reason assesses life and produces measures that are adaptive, to the best of its ability; while emotion, by-and-large, operates on feelings. Ordinarily, an uneasy truce prevails between the two generally incompatible powers.

In many situations, the clash between dictates of reason and promptings of emotion result in intra-psychic conflicts. In any given case, the conflict may settle by one party getting its way, reaching a compromise, or a deadlock producing paralysis of inaction.

Beliefs, as is the case with all living and non-living complex systems, are targeted by forces that aim to break them down. In the case of beliefs, any threatening event, particularly when severe, produces great anxiety in the believer.

Anxiety produces aversive reaction. The mind deals with anxiety by a mix of chemical and psychological measures. On the psychological side there are defense mechanisms such as rationalization and denial. Both these measures reduce the debilitating impact of anxiety by the person literally misleading himself. Rationalization supplies faulty reasoning by telling the person that the bad thing, or the threat, is not all that bad; while denial completely refuses to admit it exists. Alcoholism, for instance, is known as the disease of denial since the alcoholic denies that he is an alcoholic even in the face of irrefutable objective evidence.

Read more

From the same mold?

Vote to Keep America Alive

by Amil Imani

America is a nation and an ideal, birthed by a group of visionaries that gave it the Constitution to nurture it and protect it. What makes America, America the Beautiful, more than just a blessed land is our legacy, the Constitution. Sadly, the Constitution also makes for America the Vulnerable by enshrining freedom that enables the malevolent to subvert and destroy America from within. You, the voter, are the guardian of the Constitution. Your vote determines the health and survival of America.

America is defined by the last phrase of our national anthem: The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom, in all its forms, is our greatest legacy, which this nation has bravely fought many wars on many fronts to preserve against the unceasing assaults of totalitarianism of all stripes. Time and again, the flowers of our nation bravely sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and liberty.

In the not too long ago past, we fought and defeated Nazism and Fascism in Europe and Imperialism in the Far East. Before the nation could have a respite, the flame of international Communism raged, consumed many parts of the world in its wake, and posed a great threat of scorching our land. Yet, we did not waiver, did not appease, and did not surrender. We stood and fought the scourge of Communism on multiple fronts. Once again, the forces of freedom succeeded in reducing the Communist menace to little more than a nuisance.

Now, we are faced with the insidious, multifaceted, and most deadly threat of Islamism. Since Islam has been around for centuries, there is a tendency to ignore or even deny the threat it poses to humanity. Various concessions are made, some of them as good faith offerings and some in the hope of placating the Islamists. Yet, concessions to threats are appeasements. And appeasements have never solved any problems. They only whet the appetite of the aggressor, give it more power, and make it even more dangerous.

And appeasement comes in many forms. When our leaders, for instance, call Islam a great religion, they are appeasing, if not lying outright. We the people elect our leaders and we hold them accountable to be honorable: using their voice to call a great religion a most deadly threat to everything we cherish as a great religion legitimizes Islamofascism, on the one hand, and infuses the rest of us with a false belief.

Read more

Mohammed Khatami

by Amil Imani

In order to understand the clerical rulers of Iran, we need to learn about the genesis of their religious faith, Shi’a Islam, and the pivotal place of the Mahdi. Examination of the vast Islamic literature shows that the present sect of Shi’a Islam has evolved from a mix of cultural, political, economic and religious influences. I shall outline, in a summary form, how the belief in the Mahdi, the revered Imam whose advent is expected by the Shi’a faithful, crystallized over time. The Mahdi is expected to appear and save the world when it has reached the depth of degradation and despair. Below is a brief chronological account of how Shiism and the belief in the Mahdi as its pivotal figure were formed.

* Muhammad ruled with an iron fist while alive and no one contested his authority. He designated no heir, and left no will, oral or written, and had no male issues from any of his wives and slave women to inherit the office. Some believers, however, felt that the prophet wished for Ali, his cousin’s and son-in-law, to assume the Ummah’s leadership while a vast majority opted for the Arab’s traditional patriarchal seniority-based practice by choosing Abu-Bakr as the Caliph.

Read more