'There is no moderate Islam,' says far-right Dutch legislator Geert Wilders

[ZingPao]

By Cnaan Liphshiz

An international conference on jihad that took place in Jerusalem on Sunday highlighted what hawkish scholars on Islam described as "real disputes" about the nature of the problem. The event also inspired the controversial Dutch legislator Geert Wilders to plan a European follow-up in the coming months.

"It's time for such an event in the Netherlands," the far-right Wilders said on the terrace of Jerusalem's Begin Center, where the event was held. "But the cost of security would be much higher in Holland than in Israel."

Wilders - the only one of the six speakers to receive a standing ovation from the 600 people in the audience - told his listeners that "as the terrorist attacks in Mumbai proved, there's no moderate Islam," and it is time for the West to realize it is "in a conflict with the Muslim faith at large." He sided with scholars like Haifa University's David Bukay, who averred that "moderate Islam" does not exist and that the Koran could not be reformed or modernized.

But American scholar and activist Daniel Pipes disagreed. Quoting Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi, Pipes said the Koran "is like a supermarket where one takes what one wants and leaves the rest." This freedom of selection, he argued, provides a means for reshaping Islam.

Pipes opined that those who regard Islam rather than jihad as the enemy fail to realize that a change has occurred over the past few years: Although moderate Muslims are still a small force, they are stronger than they were two years ago.

"Millions took to the streets to protest Turkey's Islamist ruling party, the AKP," he said when asked to name examples. And "hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Pakistan" following the murder of prime ministerial candidate (and former premier) Benazir Bhutto last year.

Nonetheless, Pipes said he supported more determined Western military action against radical Islam as a means of fostering this change. He also advocated "crushing the Palestinians' hope for eliminating Israel" and opposed the creation of a Palestinian state and the ongoing peace talks.

Duke University's Prof. John Lewis, pointing out that Turkey and Pakistan are not Arab countries, suggested that the fight against jihad needs to focus on non-Arab Muslim nations like Indonesia, whose populations "do not share the jihadists' apocalyptic practice of Islam."

Wilders' short movie "Fitna" also received its first Israeli screening at the event, which was organized by MK Aryeh Eldad of the Hatikva Party. The film consists mainly of Muslim hate sermons and gory images from jihad-inspired attacks, and due to the death threats he has received since its release in February, Wilders is now constantly accompanied by bodyguards.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1046505.html

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Profile: Geert Wilders
By Paul Kirby
BBC News


Geert Wilders has released a controversial film about Islam which no TV company would broadcast and some politicians in the Netherlands tried to ban. The Dutch MP has upset the Muslim world before, by calling for a ban on the Koran and likening it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Nicknamed "Mozart" because of his mane of platinum blond hair, he was voted politician of the year in 2007 by the Dutch political press, partly because of his "well-timed one-liners".
But his opponents see him as a provocateur and a disillusioned colleague describes him as "the most stubborn man I've ever met".
His stance has created problems for the Dutch government, which fears a re-run of the cartoon furore in the Muslim world. Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has complained of the danger to Dutch companies, soldiers and residents abroad.
When asked about the impact of his film, Mr Wilders told a TV interviewer: "It's not the aim of the movie but people might be offended, I know that. So, what the hell? It's their problem, not my problem".
Catholic upbringing
Born in the Limburg town of Venlo in 1963, Geert Wilders came from a Catholic background and went to a Catholic secondary school.


He is no longer religious and once told a friend he knew little about Easter, despite regularly speaking out on the Netherlands' Judaeo-Christian heritage.
The son of a printing company director, his own career began in social and health insurance. It was socio-economic policy that brought him into politics, as a speech-writer for the liberal VVD party.
The VVD was also home to ethnic Somali politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose views on Islam have often been compared with those of Mr Wilders.
He was elected as city councillor in Utrecht in 1997 and MP the following year.

Because of his party's support for Turkish entry into the European Union, he left the liberals in 2002 and struck out on his own.
He has prompted comparisons with Pim Fortuyn, the maverick political leader who famously described Islam as a backward religion. Fortuyn was murdered by an animal rights activist in 2002, shortly before an election.
But it was in November 2004 that Mr Wilders' career dramatically changed with the murder of film-maker Theo van Gogh by a radical Islamist, Mohammed Bouyeri.


Together with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh had produced the short film Submission, which featured an actress in see-through clothing with Koranic script on her body. Although he had no involvement in the film, Mr Wilders was now to have a permanent bodyguard, in common with Ms Hirsi Ali, because of their outspoken views on Islam.

He set up his Freedom Party (PVV), later attracting widespread political support for his call for a ban on the burqa - which covers most of the body - even though the measure would have affected only around 50 women.
Mr Wilders' greatest success was in picking up nine seats in the Dutch parliament in 2006 elections, and securing 20% of the vote in his home town of Venlo.
But he has never achieved the same high ratings in the opinion polls as the late Pim Fortuyn.
And lawyer Gerard Spong, a friend of Fortuyn's, argues Mr Wilders is very different.
"Geert Wilders... incites hatred against Muslims, and Pim did not do that: he had sex with Moroccan boys in dark rooms," he told Dutch television.
Mr Wilders is adamant that he is not a racist. "We have to learn and defend who we are," he says.
He is married to a Hungarian woman he met at the Hungarian embassy in The Hague.
Media-savvy
Dutch conservative TV presenter Bart Jan Spruyt got to know him when he set up the Freedom Party, becoming his speech-writer and freelance adviser.


"I have to admit it was the most naive thing I've ever done in my life," says Mr Spruyt of his brief period with the party. "Mr Wilders is a very gifted and talented politician. All TV programmes are about his movie: he knows how to play with the media, how to dominate the public debate. The problem was and is that he is a monomaniac, but not in a pejorative sense."

In other words, he is a politician 24/7. Bart Jan Spruyt says you cannot talk to Geert Wilders about novels or music because politics is his life and he is also unwilling to co-operate with others. "It's He, Himself, Him," he says.
And he can understand why. The presenter remembers walking with Mr Wilders surrounded by six bodyguards to the MP's room, which he likened to a furnished cell at a suburban bank.


From that perspective, he could understand that the politician's mind was focused on the death threats against him. But Mr Wilders' politics were not always about Islam. In 2005, he was one of the leading campaigners for a Dutch No vote against the European Constitution, arguing that it limited national sovereignty.
In March 2006, Mr Wilders told the BBC that he thought that 5-15% of Dutch Muslims were sympathetic to radical Islam.

"I believe we have been too tolerant of the intolerant. We should learn to become intolerant of the intolerant," he said.
"People like Mohammed Bouyeri who killed Theo van Gogh, they should be arrested under administrative detention for the safety of Dutch families." He has seen administrative detention without trial used in Israel, which he has visited on many occasions.

The Dutch Muslim community has reacted to Mr Wilders in different ways, according to National Moroccan Council Chairman Mohamed Rabbae.
He says there are those who think he is a friend of Israel and the Israeli embassy. Some see him more as an opportunist promoting fear and hate, while a minority does not see him as an enemy at all.
"He's a little bit crazy because he's giving the impression to some people that he's going to combat Islam," says Mr Rabbae.
"He's a kind of Don Quixote, fighting against things and presenting goals which will never happen."
Like Mr Spruyt, Mohamed Rabbae believes Mr Wilders may have become isolated by the limitations imposed by living with bodyguards.
The controversy has parallels with the row over the Danish cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen was quick to criticise Mr Wilders when the Dutch MP went on Danish TV to praise the prime minister's stance on freedom of expression.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...pe/7314636.stm

Published: 2008/03/27 18:45:59 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

[Knight of the Word]

there is no moderate islam as they all follow blindly the extremist fundies, which makes those sheep stupid and dangerous to all.

[TEC3009]

'There is no moderate Islam,' says far-right Dutch legislator Geert Wilders

I suspect what actually the case is - There is no moderate Geert Wilders.


Seeing as how I speak to moderate Muslims at least once per week - his statement can not be correct in any way shape or form.

You can fool some of the people etc etc does come to mind here, except those who actually speak to and work with Muslim people and realise they are very very similar to Christians & have essentially many of our Christian values - indeed Jesus is one of their key PROPHETS!

[Knight of the Word]

Originally Posted by TEC3009

'There is no moderate Islam,' says far-right Dutch legislator Geert Wilders

I suspect what actually the case is - There is no moderate Geert Wilders.


Seeing as how I speak to moderate Muslims at least once per week - his statement can not be correct in any way shape or form.

You can fool some of the people etc etc does come to mind here, except those who actually speak to and work with Muslim people and realise they are very very similar to Christians & have essentially many of our Christian values - indeed Jesus is one of their key PROPHETS!

Those moderates you speak too once a week can be whipped up into a fanatic mob in minutes by there fundie leadership. Wait untill they outbreed you and have the majority, then see how moderate they will be.

You are obviously very ignorant to the way they think and act, they are mindless sheep, spreading their hatefull controlling religion.

[TEC3009]

During the days of the Crusades, when French & English knights invaded palatine, there were many killed in the name of religion on both sides.

Eventually both sides had a truce whereby Christians could visit their holy land places in that region under the express protection of the Muslims who lived there so they could worship at the very same sites the Muslims also regarded as sacred.

That agreement is still in force to this very day.

It has never been violated by one single Muslim - Ever!


Clearly - one should actually observe the true history and actual facts and ignore the spoon fed diet of American propaganda!

And to add to your current complete and utter ignorance in this particular matter your say: "they are mindless sheep, spreading their hateful controlling religion".

Wonder which TV station says that over & over & Over ?


Just stop for one moment and actually ---- think.


No, don't stop, just think for one second more please.


-
-

Well, can we between us name one single Muslim country which has invaded any other country to spread religion or their values?

Even Saddam Hussain's attacks were US backed originally and he was not spreading the Muslim religion.

-
-

Here are a list of American Wars since 1775 - 2009, not counting all the US terrorist atrocities :

The American Revolution
1775-1783

The Indian Wars
1775-1890

Shay's Rebellion
1786-1787
Rebellion
Anti-(state)Government Rebels vs. Massachusetts

The Whiskey Rebellion
1794
Rebellion
Anti-Tax Rebels in Western Pennsylvania

Quasi-War With France
1798-1800
Inter-State (Naval) War
France

Fries's Rebellion "The Hot Water War"
1799
Rebellion
Anti-Tax Rebels in Pennsylvania

The Barbary Wars
1800-1815
Inter-State War
The Barbary States
(Tripoli, Algiers & Morocco)

The War of 1812
1812-1815
Inter-State War
Great Britain
The Growing & Troubled Republic

Primary Name of Conflict Dates of Conflict
(U.S. Involvement Only)
Type of Conflict Primary Opponent(s)
of the United States

Mexican-American War
1846-1848
Inter-State War
Mexico

U.S. Slave Rebellions
1800-1865
Slave Rebellions
Various Slave groups

"Bleeding Kansas"
1855-1860
Civil War (state of Kansas)
Pro-Slavery vs. Anti-Slavery Kansans

Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
1859
Rebellion
Anti-Slavery Rebels (Led by John Brown)

United States Civil War
1861-1865
Civil War
United States (The North)
vs.
The Confederate States (The South)


U.S. Intervention in Hawaiian Revolution
1893
Internal Rebellion & Foreign Intervention

The Spanish-American War
1898
Inter-State War

U.S. Intervention in Samoan Civil War
1898-1899
Civil War & Foreign Intervention

U.S.-Philippine War
1899-1902
Colonial War, War of Imperialism

Boxer Rebellion
1900
Internal Rebellion & Foreign Intervention
Chinese Government & "Boxer" Rebels

The Moro Wars
1901-1913
Colonial Wars
Philippine Muslim Rebels

U.S. Intervention in Panamanian Revolution
1903
Secessionist Revolution & Foreign Intervention
Colombia

The Banana Wars
1909-1933
Civil Wars & Foreign Intervention
Various Rebel Groups In Central America


U.S. Occupation of Vera Cruz
1914
Inter-State War
Mexico

Pershing's Raid Into Mexico
1916-1917
Inter-State, Border War
Mexican Government & Mexican Rebels ("Bandits")

World War I
1917-1918 (American involvement only)
Inter-State War
Germany

Allied Intervention in Russian Civil War
1919-1921
Civil War & Foreign Intervention
Russian Bolshevik (Soviet) Government

World War II
1941-1945 (American involvement only)
Inter-State War
Germany, Japan & Italy

The Cold War
1945-1991
Global Inter-State Cold War
The Soviet Union & Communist China

The Korean War
1950-1953
Inter-State War
North Korea & China

The Second Indochina War "Vietnam War"
1956-1975
Civil War, Inter-State War
North Vietnam & South Vietnamese "Viet Cong" Rebels

U.S. Intervention in Lebanon
1958
Civil War & Foreign Intervention
No real foe for U.S. Troops landed to support Lebanon Gov.

Dominican Intervention
1965
Civil War & Foreign Intervention
Rebels in the Dominican Republic

The Mayaguez Rescue Operation

News Story 1975 (May 15)
Hostage Rescue & Inter-State Conflict
Khmer Rouge Guerrillas (the new government of Cambodia)

Iranian Hostage Rescue "Desert One" or "Operation Eagle Claw"
1980 (April 25)
Hostage Rescue & Inter-State Conflict
Iran

U.S. Libya Conflict
1981, 1986
Inter-State War
Libya

U.S. Intervention in Lebanon
1982-1984
Civil War,Foreign Intervention & Inter-State War
Syria & Various Muslim and Leftist Lebanese Militias

U.S. Invasion of Grenada
1983
Inter-State War
Marxist Grenadian Faction & Cuba

The Tanker War

"Operation Earnest Will"
1987-1988
Inter-State War
Iran

U.S. Invasion of Panama
1989
Inter-State War
Panama

Second Persian Gulf War "Operation Desert Storm"
1991
Inter-State War
Iraq

"No-Fly Zone" War
1991-2003
Inter-State War
Iraq

U.S. Intervention in Somalia
1992-1994
Civil War & Foreign Intervention
Various Somali Militias

NATO Intervention in Bosnia (Operation Deliberate Force) Summary
1994-1995
Civil War,Foreign Intervention & Inter-State War
Bosnian Serb Rebels

U.S. Occupation of Haiti
1994
Foreign Intervention
Haitian Government

U.S. Embassy bombings and strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan (The bin Laden War)
August, 1998
Terrorist Conflict

"Desert Fox" Campaign (part of U.S./Iraq Conflict)
December, 1998
Inter-State War
Iraq

Kosovo War
1999
Civil War, Foreign Intervention & Inter-State War
Yugoslavia/Serbia

Attack on the USS Cole
October 12, 2000
Terrorist Conflict
Terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden

Attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
September 11, 2001
Terrorist Conflict
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization

Afghanistan War (Operation Enduring Freedom)
October 7, 2001-Present
War against Terrorism
The Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida organization

Third Persian Gulf War "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
March 19, 2003-Present
Inter-State War
Iraq

Attack on South Ossetian women & Children 2008 using Georgia as a patsy.

Supplying Terror state Israel weapons to bomb innocent civilians in the west bank. 2008

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

How many dead the 'war on terror?' 1.5million?

99.9% Muslims. I'd be seriously pissed off too.

Phew! I'm glad we're the good guys.

[Knight of the Word]

To tech 3009,
The spread of moderate islam
Here is one example.
Sudan, a mixed country where moderate peace loving muslums live in the north.
Through their peace loving ways they gentle swoop down on the inhabitants of the south raping killing burning, and spreading their peace loving religion converting all by death or torture.

By peacefully moving into areas then breeding like a cockroach infestation they spread there wonderfull religion, then when they have the majority, they institute there laws and religion on all, and squash all forms of freedom.

Europe better wake up some day in the near future you will be living under their rules and there ways.

If you don't they will get rid of you because their god says its ok to do it because they are his chosen.

All chosen people of gods are sick corrupt bastards, who can't think for themselves.

[Knight of the Word]

Sudan jihad forces Islam
on Christians
Women refusing to convert gang-raped, mutilated, says relief worker
Posted: March 04, 2002
1:00 am Eastern

By Art Moore
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com



Sudan's militant Muslim regime is slaughtering Christians who refuse to convert to Islam, according to the head of an aid group who recently returned from the African nation.

The forced conversions are just one aspect of the Khartoum government's self-declared jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south, Dennis Bennett, executive director of Seattle-based Servant's Heart told WorldNetDaily.

Villagers in several areas of the northeast Upper Nile region say that when women are captured by government forces they are asked: "Are you Christian or Muslim?"

Women who answer "Muslim" are set free, but typically soldiers gang-rape those who answer "Christian" then cut off their breasts and leave them to die as an example for others.

Bennett says these stories are corroborated by witnesses from several tribes in the region. Upon returning to the U.S., he wrote a letter to influential members of Congress and activists.

"After witnessing once again the situation on the ground there," Bennett wrote, "I must ask 'How long will the United States government allow the Government of Sudan to continue its jihad against the Black African Christians of South Sudan?'"

Backed by Muslim clerics, the National Islamic Front regime in the Arab and Muslim north declared a jihad, or holy war, on the south in 1989. Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine. About 4.5 million have become refugees.

Sudan's holy war against the south was reaffirmed in October by First Vice President Ali Osman Taha.

"The jihad is our way, and we will not abandon it and will keep its banner high," he said to a brigade of mujahedin fighters heading for the war front, according to Sudan's official SUNA news agency. "We will never sell out our faith and will never betray the oath to our martyrs."

The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution finding that Khartoum is "systematically committing genocide," but current legislation that would impose sanctions has been stalled. The Sudan Peace Act is opposed by both the White House and Wall Street.

Sanctions in the House version of the bill target oil revenues that Khartoum is using to fuel its war effort. Bennett, with 20 years experience in international risk management and banking, said he was the first to probe the link between oil and jihad that is now documented and publicized by human rights groups. His research began in 1996 when he asked: If you're the government of Sudan and you're broke, how are you paying for your war?

In his letter urging action by the U.S., he points out that Sudan's military continues to decorate and promote known war criminals such as Commander Taib Musba, who in the mid-1980s killed an estimated 15,000 unarmed, civilian, ethnic Uduk Christians.

In 1986, Musba entered the Uduk tribal capital of Chali and declared to its Christians: "You are all going to convert from Christianity to Islam today, because here is what's going to happen to you if you don't."

Musba then killed five church leaders in front of the gathered villagers. When they refused to convert, he began killing unarmed men, women and children. Some were herded at gunpoint into a hut then run over by a 50-ton, Soviet-made tank.

He also herded groups of about a dozen people into a hut, where he asked the first person "Do you renounce Jesus Christ?" Anyone who refused was killed by a three-inch nail driven into the top of the head.

The U.N. high commissioner for refugees granted the Uduks international refugee status in 1992 after investigating the atrocities, but almost as many died during the six years they waited for the declaration.

Islam also is forced on Sudanese in the Muslim north. Security police in Khartoum are pursuing a local convert to Christianity who went into hiding three weeks ago to escape arrest and possible death, the Compass Direct news service reports. Aladin Omer Agabni Mohammed, who left Islam 11 years ago to become a Christian, is subject to the death penalty under Sudanese criminal law for "apostasy." According to a church leader, two other converts face a similar situation.

Forced starvation

Bennett says that in addition to the more immediate, readily apparent atrocities taking place, there is a slower, less perceptive persecution that is equally deadly.

Forced starvation is one of the primary tools of the Khartoum regime, he says. When government forces attack a Christian village, they kill everyone they catch, but those who flee lose everything necessary for survival.

"The government comes in and burns the crops, burns grain stored if there was any excess, burns houses down," Bennett said. "Now you have only the clothes on your back, no tools, no cooking pots, no buckets for water, and you have to run two days through the bush in 115-degree temperatures in order to escape."

In the arid wilderness, escapees try to survive on tree leaves and stagnant, dysentery-infested water. If a women is breastfeeding, her milk dries up, Bennett said, and the baby starts dying. Small children, just weaned, also start dying.

"But all the family has to do is change their name to Muhammad or Ramadan, convert to Islam and walk the two days back to the government of Sudan who will care for them," he said.

Last year, the government of Sudan burned all the crops in the area where Bennett's group works.

"There wasn't anything to harvest," he said. "Literally we saw people eating roots and tree leaves. It's like eating the nutritional properties of cardboard. It's enough to put something in your stomach but not enough to feed you."

A food drop came from the U.N. World Food Program, he said, "but they never came in to do an assessment; they just dropped it from the air."

As the "hungry season" approaches – the rainy period of June, July and early August – emergency food supplies become critical. Servant's Heart believes it will need to feed 50,000 people in its area during that time.

Slavery as tool of terror

Slavery is another tool of the National Islamic Front regime, though Bennett says it is not known in the northeast Upper Nile region, mainly because of lack of transportation.

Western Bahr El Ghazal is one location where it persists because the railroad line allows captured men, women and children to be taken to slave markets in the north.

"If you want to end systematic slavery, blow up the train line and keep it blown up," Bennett said.

The ongoing controversy surrounding slave redemption – the practice of buying freedom promoted by some humanitarian groups – arose again in the past week when the Irish Times and Washington Post published exposes acknowledging the existence of slavery in Sudan but alleging that fake slave redemption is taking place.

Bennett respects the work of groups buying back the slaves, but he believes it is inevitable that some will be conned. Engaging in the practice is a matter of individual conscience, he says.

"Anytime you have tens of thousands of American dollars coming into an area you've got potential problems of corruption," Bennett said.

He says the "jury is still out" on whether it fuels the market by increasing demand.

"Slave-taking would still be happening even if nobody was buying back slaves," he said. "Maybe not to the full extent."

But he believes it's important to keep in mind that taking slaves is "just one more facet of the jihad against the civilian population" in southern Sudan. The methods may vary in different parts of the country, but the aim is the same.

"In the Uduk tribe, Taib Musba drove three-inch nails into people's heads," he said. "In northeast Upper Nile, they are gang-raping women and cutting off their breasts; in western Bahr El Ghazal, they are capturing women and selling them as slaves."

[Knight of the Word]

Last week the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding that the Sudanese government "disarm and prosecute" the Janjaweed. Together with government troops, the armed Arab militia is responsible for the deaths of up to 50,000 African villagers and the displacement of another million from their homes in the country's western province of Darfur. The ruling National Islamic Front has 30 days to comply with the resolution or Sudan will face diplomatic and economic measures. But why would sanctions matter to a government that's been politically and economically isolated for most of the last 15 years? Are they really going to stop the Janjaweed from killing, raping, and looting?
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Both Australia and England say they're ready to send troops to Darfur, but what about their Iraq coalition partner, the West's leading proponent of Middle East regime change? While the U.S. Congress declared the mass killing of civilians in Darfur to be genocide, the White House has studiously avoided the word, since using it, according to the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide, would require the United States to intervene. Evangelical Christian leaders have urged Washington to act forcefully, but with the U.S. military already overtaxed in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is unlikely President Bush can accommodate a group whose wishes he usually takes to heart, even in an election year. For the time being, at least, the United States is left with diplomatic initiatives, vague threats from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth, and rhetorical questions from Secretary of State Colin Powell. "What is it that they [the Sudanese government] need a month to do that they can't do right now?" Powell recently asked.

Khartoum argues that it's not a genocide, just a land dispute, and the real culprits aren't the Janjaweed but the Darfur rebels, African Muslims who are trying to settle scores with the government by killing its Arab Muslim sympathizers. It's true that the rebels have contributed to the death toll, and the fact that the press has largely overlooked their culpability only feeds the NIF's paranoid fears that an ascendant West is looking for a pretext to further expand its reach into the Muslim world. If any Western nations do try to intervene in the country's internal affairs, Khartoum promises to confront "the enemies of the Sudan on land, sea and air."