Islam

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.

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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:

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I found it rather interesting when I got the Sunday paper (Union Leader’s NH Sunday News) a couple weeks back from the box, and contained within it was an eye catching insert with a DVD of the chilling movie "Obsession":

The back of the piece noted that the movie, which is a couple of years old, has been shown on CNN and Fox News Channel.

I do recall watching parts of the movie during several airings and, much like the work of Steve Emerson (Jihad in America), it presents grim details of what is happening among the radical Islamic "street" (regular people, if you can use that term) that is not often presented in the mainstream media.

When I visited my parents later that Sunday, my Dad commented on the DVD, which he too got with his paper. We discussed what a good thing this movie was getting around, as we believe when at war, ordinary citizens must understand why, and who the enemy is. This movie does both. Then I began to wonder why this came to us and took a close look at the list of newspapers that this appeared in, which was printed on the package:

Interesting. I told my Dad, "This is pretty clever. Look at the list… it’s all newspapers in swing states. I’m glad somebody’s reminding people about this… that we still have a huge problem on our hands, something people ought not forget as they vote." And then we went to the beach.

At the beginning of this week, several of my employees showed up with copies they got… in the mail:

Now the wheels started to turn. Whoever was doing this was doing a great service to our country as we get ready to choose the next war time president. Many people forget that there is a growing number of religious fanatics and their brainwashed automatons waiting for the next chance to take a whack at America. This movie is a good reminder. Near as we can tell, the guys at work that got the mailed DVD have military connections, or perhaps it’s that they voted in a Republican primary– it’s hard to pinpoint. *Perhaps some ‘Grok readers can report whether they’ve received a copy through some means.

Anyway, my observations about the distribution of the movie are in tune with none other than the pro-Islamist propaganda arm here in the US, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). And guess what?

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by Amil Imani

To understand Ahmadinejad’s mind set and behavior requires a close scrutiny of the elaborate and intricate theology of Hujjatiyyah Shiism, perhaps the most fundamentalist of the numerous Shiite sects.

In the 1950s, a group of Islamic clergy led by Sheikh Mahmoud Halabi (a close associate of Ayatollah Khomeini) formed a society called the Anjoman-e Khayryyehye Hujjatiyyah-ye Mahdaviat (Charitable Society of the Mahdi), based in Mashhad, Iran. The Hujjatiyyah membership was mostly composed by the bazaar-i  businessmen and fanatical mullahs. Among many things, they were against the communists, Marxists, and atheists. Their overarching "raison d’être," however, was to prepare the world for the upcoming of the 12th Imam — the Mahdi.

However, the most important immediate agenda item on their list was to harass and persecute the Baha’is, a religious group representing a small percentage of Iran’s population. In fact, the Hujjatiyyah-y’s alternative name became "The anti-Baha’i Society" (Anjuman-e Zidd-e Baha’iyat). They collectively worked for a single purpose: the eradication of Baha’is.

The terrible plight of the Baha’is in Iran is particularly heart-wrenching, since they are the largest non-Muslim population in the country and have been, from day one, severely brutalized by Muslims. Baha’i teachings of tolerance and openness to science are anathema to the Islamofascists on many levels, but the history of the faith includes direct challenges to the theological legitimacy of the mullahs. These slaveholders find the Baha’i faith a threat to their own version of Islam and the absolute theocratic power it puts their hands.

The egomaniac President Ahmadinejad is a member of Hujjatiyyah. He sees himself as the personal vassal of the Mahdi-Messiah or Hidden Imam, with whom he has fantasized tête-à-têtes frequently.

Ahmadinejad, a man driven by his religion, has a spiritual advisor in Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi (the defacto leader of the Hujjatiyyah). The President’s advisor is known for his extremist views on Islam and promotes suicide bombings and attacks on civilians in the West.  There is only view of Islam for him. He once said, "…if anyone tells you their own interpretation of Islam, punch them in the mouth!"

President Ahmadinejad has in a short time acquired great many descriptors at home and overseas: zealot, fascist, fanatic, anti-Semitic, lunatic and more. One prominent Western columnist called him "unhinged."  But we cannot just dismiss the man as an aberration, someone who is in urgent need of psychological help, a person out of touch with reality, who represents nothing of substance.

Once again the West is misreading and misjudging people and events in the Middle East, due to the fact that it views things through its own prism.

Looking at the man through Western spectacles, he indeed appears to be all of the above and more. Yet Ahmadinejad is far from unhinged. As a matter of fact he is firmly hinged to a set of beliefs that dictate his views of the world, and inform him how he should deal with it from his position of power.

An unhinged man has the potential of becoming once again hinged. But, there is very little that can be done to a person who is inseparably hinged, and Ahmadinejad views are firmly rooted in the most orthodox philosophy of Shiism.

For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to document the fact that Ahmadinejad is not mentally disturbed; there is no display of contradictory thoughts and behavior. There is a full internal consistency in Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad’s words, deeds and beliefs show a fully hinged person.

Below are a few examples of his sayings, beliefs and actions. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them, they all fit perfectly into a consistent pattern:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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by Amil Imani

Across our great nation, there are hotspots of Islamist hatred.  Beautiful Boca Raton happens to be one of them. The starting point is at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). 

It was there that the Muslim Student Organization (MSO) decided to establish two Islamic centers, each appropriately within arms length of the school. Three FAU professors would take key roles in the creation process.  Imad Mahgoub would become president of the Assalam Center, and Khalid Hamza and Bassem Alhalabi would be co-founders of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR). Today, both Islamic centers are looking to expand and have purchased large tracts of land to this effect.

If they get what they want, they will have two multi-faceted mosques, in the heart of Boca Raton, within blocks of each other… and of course, the university.  One will be a huge 27 thousand square foot facility;  the other will be built to resemble the Al-Aqsa mosque which sits on top of Judaism’s holiest site in Jerusalem, a city that the ICBR says on its website Jews have no right to and prays Allah will cleanse it of its Jewish inhabitants immediately.Local residents have questioned why there is a need for two mosques of near identical backgrounds in such close vicinity to one another. 

That’s certainly a good question, but when you look at several of the people involved in the undertaking of these centers, and when you look at some of the individuals that they have associated with, this question becomes one of many.Khalid Hamza, who was an advisor to the Muslim Student Organization at FAU, not too long ago used a Texas A & M University internet forum to defend Sami Al Arian, a Tampa professor that was recently taken into custody for his involvement as a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

I used the term “was an advisor to the MSO,” because FAU has told him that they don’t want him to return to his teaching duties, and because the Islamic Center of Boca Raton sent out an e-mail announcing that he was leaving the South Florida community.Aside from his involvement with the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and the Muslim Student Organization, Khalid Hamza is also an author.  He recently wrote a novel entitled ‘The Veil,’ which is being promoted on the MSO’s website, www.msofau.org.

The book is about a Muslim family living in Boca Raton.  The first member of the family, as listed in the forward, is fittingly named Jihad. While Hamza was with the MSO, the student group brought a couple of key radicals to speak at the university.  On April 21, 2001, the MSO’s second annual Scholars’ Night featured Rafil Dhafir, a man that now sits behind bars for raising millions of dollars for terrorist organizations in the guise of an Iraqi children’s charity called ‘Help the Needy.’

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