"Just my observations not analytical history." Observations in accordance with analytical history

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Feb 25, 2007 at 06:23

Dear Plato, you wrote referring to my sentence :

"Between 1919-1922 the Moslem Turks fought a ruthless and fateful war against the Greeks."

That piece of history I was only aware of in a general way but not the details.

One relevant detail can invalidate a most beautiful theory.

But your using the term Moslem Turks is of a piece with the use of Christian Nazis by Mulims to deflect accusations of atrocities committed by Muslims.

All the Turks fighting the Greeks and Armenians were Moslems ( most fanatic Moslems ) whether you wish it or not. The explanation for the genocide they perpetrated was given to them in religious terms , the only thing they really understood. The first meeting of the Grand Assembly in Siva was convened on Friday after the service in the main mosque. The original idea of Mustafa Pasha was that the caliph would lead the resistance movement in Anatolia. And as good Moslem as he was so thought all the others. But after Mehmet VI ordered Mustafa back to Constntinople and threatened with his imprisonment (which amounted to execution) the latter had no choice but fight his holy caliph to survive. Mustafa was a very revengeful man and never forgot any offence , let alone such a threat backed by a civil war which followed against the Caliph's guerrilla.

By the way , to tell you the truth I am a little fed up with all these Nazism analogies used and abused by all. I know it's impossible to find anything resembling the monster of Islam in the whole of European history but equating it with Nazism doesn't help much (in my view) neither for those fighting Islam nor for the apologists of Islam. Better no analogy than a misleading one.

You will be weakening your case about Muslim atrocities, which are practically numberless, if you let a secularist Ataturk's massacres take on the colour of a religious attack.

Penning up the Armenians like cattle in their churches to burn them alive there and cutting to pieces an archbishop doesn't look quite "secular", does it ?

Now if the Ottoman Empire was still in existence and the Ottoman Caliphs being the religio-political head of Muslims, the charge that Muslims because of their religion were responsible for the massacres would hold water. Or if the Turks under Ataturk said they were exterminating the Greeks because of their religion.

They didn't have to say that. They did it as Moslems and like Moslems had alway done and will always do. The title they gave Mustafa „ al-ghazi" - the Destroyer of Christians" comes from „ghazawat" – a less known term meaning the same as „jihad" - „holy war". So you may logically call „secularist" Mustafa Pasha a „ jihadist" par excellence.

" The demise of the Ottoman empire saw the emasculation of whatever military vigor the Muslims had." ? Would you mind elucidating that ?

Yes. Let me elucidate that. First the Middle East, the homeland of Islam. Israel with a tiny population compared to the surrounding Arabs has beaten and humiliated them for close to 60 years now.

It happened in 1948 , 40 years later. Before that many other unpleasant things happened among which I'd like to point to the unification of Arabia under Ibn Saud , an event which might well have been prevented if the British had wanted to. Instead they allowed this monster to emerge and engulf all the centrifugal forces on the Peninsula with fateful consequences which we are facing today.

> Every time an Arab dictator dares to raise his voice the US beats him down from thousands of kilometres away. Gaddafy, Saddam and all those Persian Gulf states hosting the US military are not signs of Muslim vigor. Pakistan, with its belief that one Muslim is the equivalent of 10 Hindus based on what the Koran says, has gone to war with India and has been humiliated at least three times and is now dismembered.

These are again general observations , dear Plato. Gaddafy is still sitting securely in his tiny empire and he hasn't changed his ways or his mind. The Saudis are corrupting American political elite to a degree that is ashaming and harmful to the rest of the world! The US has always backed Pakistan in its conflict with India which no Hindu can forget or forgive. The US is conducting an active pro-Islamic policy on the Balcans and elsewhere.

The vigor that you see in the Muslim world is the vigor of the fulminations of frustrated imams unable to explain the sorry condition of Muslims everywhere.

Everywhere ? Two new Moslem states have been created in Europe by the US and its corrupt politicians – Bosnia and Kosovo. 20 000 000 Moslems in Europe are growing almost exponantially with every year and the West is gradually degenerating into a Moslem colony with dhimmitude as official response to Moslem demands and intimidations.

Their Allah tells Muslims that he will give them victory over the infidels and that Muslims are his chosen people. So what can the imams do. They fill themselves and their Muslim listeners up with hot air to try and frighten the infidels. Those muscles you see require only a pin prick for them to collapse as you saw happen in the Middle East and in India.

As far as I see things I can hardly share your Platonic optimism, dear Plato.

And those are not authoritative statements but the observations of a very ordinary layman who is not a professional historian. Take them for what they are worth.

The problem is , dear Plato , that they are so general. It's sort of a soup – if you excuse me this Socratic analogy – which contains too little meat and too much liquid.

> Ianus,

My comments in bold. Yours in inverted commas.

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of history is of too general a nature. Detailed knowledge of the history of any region of the world is beyond my ken. All I do is pick up a piece of history which seems relevant to an argument and try and connect it to what is being discussed. I do not attempt an analysis of the events.

OK. I am also far from being competent in the field but we all are learning all the time and it's good we have a chance to test if what we know is borne out by outside evidence.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".