A Muslim Says Islam Causes World Destruction

Associated Press

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi made his remarks during a speech celebrating the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad—which was ironically held on January 1, 2015 (a day not acknowledged or celebrated in the Muslim world as it is based on a Christian calendar)—and he was addressing the nation’s top Islamic authorities from among the Awqaf Ministry (religious endowments) and Al Azhar University.

Although el-Sissi’s words were directed to Islam’s guardians and articulators, they indirectly lead to several important lessons for Western observers. However, those observers looking for the "Muslim Martin Luther" bringing a radical Reformation of Islam may be overreaching, so be wary until reading my whole blog here. El-Sissi will not disappoint anyone, but he has his limits too--which still means the sky is the limit.

This is the same person, by the way, who Obama was mad at that toppled Mohamed Morsi,  the radical, leftist Muslim Brotherhood President in Cairo and threw them out of power. Whereas, Obama withdrew aid in retaliation in hopes of toppling him; it didn't work. Now Obama just stands by clueless while sucking his thumb watching el-Sissi transform the region instead...Boo-hoo, Obama, Boo-hoo!

First, in just a few words, el-Sissi delivered a dose of truth and hard-hitting reality concerning the Islamic world’s relationship to the rest of the world—a dose of reality very few Western leaders dare think let alone proclaim:

“It’s inconceivable,” he said, “that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!”

What a refreshingly honest statement to come from not only a political leader but a Muslim political leader who has much to lose, not least his life! --Contrast his very true words with the habitual reassurances of the Western establishment [U.S., France, Germany, England, et. al.] that Islamic world violence and intolerance is a product of anything and everything but Islam.

Even after the appearance of the head-chopping, infidel-crucifying Islamic State, politicians like U.S. President Obama and U.K. Prime Minister Cameron insisted that the “caliphate” is not Islamic, despite all the evidence otherwise. Yet here is el-Sissi, the pious Muslim, saying that the majority of the terrorism plaguing the world today is related to the holy texts of Islam themselves:

That thinking [that is responsible for producing “anxiety, danger, killing and destruction” around the world]—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Obama, Take Notes:  As a Muslim, el-Sissi will not say that Islam, theObama is clueless about Islam. “religion,” is responsible for “antagonizing the entire world,” but he certainly goes much further than his Western counterparts when el-Sissi says that this “thinking” is rooted in an Islamic “corpus of texts and ideas” which have become so “sacralized.” 

• Recall that here in the West, Islamic terrorists are seen as mere “criminals” and their terrorism as “crimes” without mention of any Islamic text or ideology driving them. 

• The Egyptian president further invoked the classical Islamic teaching—the “thinking”—that divides the world into two warring halves: the Muslim world (or in Islamic/Arabic parlance,Dar al-Islam) which must forever be in a struggle with the rest of the world (or Dar al-Harb, the “abode of war”) till, in the Koran’s words, “all religion belongs to Allah” (Koran 8:39).

• “Is it possible,” asked el-Sissi, “that 1.6 billion people should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live?”

• el-Sissi made another important point that Western leaders and media habitually lie about: after affirming that Islamic “thinking” is “antagonizing the entire world,” he said that “this ummais being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.” 

In other words, Islamic terrorism and chaos is not a product of grievance, territorial disputes, colonialism, Israel, offensive cartoons, or anything else the West points to. It’s a product of their “own hands.”

Again, one must appreciate how refreshing it is for a top political leader in the heart of the Islamic world to make such candid admissions that his Western counterparts dare not even think let alone speak. And bear in mind, el-Sissi has much to lose as opposed to Western politicians. Calls by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists that he is an apostate are sure to grow more aggressive now.

NOTE: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi gets it!...It is to purge the religion of Islam from "extremist ideas" or "Islamism." 

To balance your understanding of who, what and how the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi views and plans will change the Islamic terrorist threats, you must know he is a dictator, a ruler with a standing army offering massive armed support. In this region with an uneducated, illiterate population they're schooled only in the Queran in Madrassas, religious schools, that teach theocratic rule and Sharia laws rather than a democratic form of government. Secular Education with religious tolerance is the key to freedom from tyranny that leads all people to a democratic self-governance; every country needs this national unity if they are to survive.  

Please read the Huffington Post's informative article below. 

Egypt's President Calls For A 'Revolution' In Islam

The Huffington Post - 01/09/2015

By SARAH EL DEEB and LEE KEATH5

Egypt's president opened the new year with a dramatic call for a "revolution" in Islam to reform interpretations of the faith entrenched for hundreds of years, which he said have made the Muslim world a source of "destruction" and pitted it against the rest of the world.

The speech was Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's boldest effort yet to position himself as a modernizer of Islam. His professed goal is to purge the religion of extremist ideas of intolerance and violence that fuel groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State — and that appear to have motivated Wednesday's attack in Paris on a French satirical newspaper that killed 12 people.

But those looking for the "Muslim Martin Luther" bringing a radical Reformation of Islam may be overreaching — and making a false comparison to begin with, El-Sissi is clearly seeking to impose change through the state using government religious institutions like the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar, one of the most eminent centers of Sunni Muslim thought and teaching.

Al-Azhar's vision for change, however, is piecemeal, and conservative, focusing on messaging and outreach but wary of addressing deeper and more controversial issues.

Al-Azhar officials tout a YouTube channel just launched to reach out to the young, mimicking radicals' successful social media outreach to disenfranchised youth. They proudly point out that clerics in the videos wear suits, not al-Azhar's traditional robes and turbans, to be more accessible.

Young people "have a negative image toward this garb," said Mohie Eddin Affifi, an al-Azhar official. "As soon as they see it they don't listen."

In a more ambitious effort, religious school textbooks are under review. Affifi said texts outlining rules for slavery, for instance, have been removed.

It's a problem across the Muslim world: State religious institutions are burdened by stagnation and heavy control by authorities.

For decades, al-Azhar has lost credibility in the eyes of many Muslim youth who see it as mouthpiece of the state rather than an honest interpreter of religion. More appealing to some young men and women searching for identity in a rapidly changing world are calls for a return to the roots of the faith, including from the extremists of al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

In his Jan. 1 speech at al-Azhar addressing Muslim clerics — held to mark the Prophet Muhammad's birthday — el-Sissi called on them to promote a reading of Islamic texts in a "truly enlightened" manner to reconsider concepts "that have been made sacred over hundreds of years."

By such thinking, the Islamic world is "making enemies of the whole world. So 1.6 billion people (in the Muslim world) will kill the entire world of 7 billion? That's impossible ... We need a religious revolution."

Radicals — and el-Sissi's Islamist political opponents who have wide religious followings — angrily denounced el-Sissi, saying he was trying to corrupt the religion. Even secularists, who would normally promote a more modern interpretation of Islam, frowned at el-Sissi's statist approach to such a complicated issue. "A state-approved revolution," questioned Amina Khairi, a columnist in the generally pro-state newspaper al-Watan.

And even state religious officials pushed back against the use of the word "revolution" or the idea of dramatic change.

Affifi, from al-Azhar, told the AP that el-Sissi didn't mean changing texts -- something even el-Sissi quickly made clear in his speech.

"What the president meant is that we need a contemporary reading for religious texts to deal with our contemporary reality," said Affifi, who is secretary general of the Islamic Research Center. The center is an Al-Azhar body responsible for studying Islamic issues and for providing preachers to explain religious affairs to the police, military, schools, government and private companies. It is also responsible for censorship.

He said al-Azhar has already been working for months on such a campaign, following calls for modernizing the faith that el-Sissi has been making since his May presidential election campaign.

Key Point: Committees have been examining textbooks used in the large network of grade schools and universities that al-Azhar runs across Egypt to remove things that have "no place in modern life." Texts on slavery and on refusing to greet Christians and Jews, for example, have been removed.

Key Point: Affifi said positions on issues like slavery, jihad and dealings with non-Muslims were adopted by scholars five centuries ago in a particular historical context. "These were opinions of scholars, these interpretations are not sacred."

Key Point: There is also a push to encourage a nationalism that officials see as moderating religious sentiment. El-Sissi this week attended Christmas services for Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Christians and declared that Egyptians should not view each other as Christians or Muslims but as Egyptians.

The sheik of al-Azhar has launched a campaign in schools and universities promoting the message that "love of nation is part of faith," said Affifi. Al-Azhar also plans to introduce a new Islamic culture course in all of Egypt's universities, Affifi said.

For el-Sissi, the impetus for his modernization campaign is not only the violence wreaked by extremist groups around the Mideast and the world. It's also rooted in his political rivalry with the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sissi, then head of the military, led the overthrow in July 2013 of an elected president from the Brotherhood, and since then Egypt has cracked down hard on Islamists, with hundreds killed in street clashes and thousands jailed.

To counter Islamists' claims of religiosity, el-Sissi has presented himself throughout his rise as a pious proponent of a moderate, mainstream Islam.

At the same time, his government has shown little tolerance for dissent of any kind. That raises a key problem with the "religion revolution" — state control over religious reform could just stifle it. Al-Azhar has always claimed to be the bastion of "moderate" Islam, but it has moved to silence progressive and liberal re-interpretations just as often as radical ones.

"Any religious modernization will ultimately be against al-Azhar, since it is the conservative fortress in the system," said Amr Ezzat, religion researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The "authority of religion over modern life and law is what needs to be reviewed. What we need is freedom to have more than one religious discourse to enrich discussion, because as it is pluralism is outlawed."

State control of al-Azhar makes those most vulnerable to militancy least likely to listen.

If the sheik of al-Azhar speaks out against radicalism — as he often does — "no one who is remotely inclined to a violent interpretation will be impressed by that," said H.A. Hellyer, a fellow at the Centre for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "They will say: You are just an ally of the state, instead of a genuinely independent figure."

Like Ezzat, he says only independent voices can present a counter-narrative to militant thought. But el-Sissi shows no sign of allowing that, Hellyer said.

His idea for the faith "is something rather docile to the needs of the state rather than independent," Hellyer said.

Hillary & Jeb's Game of Three-Card Monte

Will 'Real Candidates' be running in 2016?

"Voting for Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush after the leadership train wreck of what was the eight years under Barack Hussein Obama is like losing your pay check playing a rigged game of three-card Monte and then playing the same game again a week later 'cause the cards are a different color." ~ Anon. (No racial slur intended)

Wow, I didn't realize how true that person got it as we all are looking into the 2016 elections for the next President. It's also a problem about the two prospective candidates running, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, both have last names connected to former candidates that have been revered from their respective sides as great Presidents. I will concede that they both were less destructive than Obama, but both spent the taxpayer's monies with no regard to spending or balancing budgets. I will quickly summarize:  

Bill Clinton did not leave office with 'the only balanced budget in recent history,' he accomplished it with smoke and mirrors.

Clinton feverishly spent us into massive debt along with the Republican majority controlled Congress and transferred all 'social security funds' over into the treasury to balance his deficit and left an I.O.U. in the Fed Bank vault as uncollateralized notes guaranteed under the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. These debts are not included in the OMB National Debt line items which allows them to miraculously appear in the balance sheets with income or taxes, as assets to 'balance the budget deficit.' The Social Security 'lock box' that held its funds was pillaged and not repaid--now you can see why its under water and in a financial dilemma today while leaving social security retirees with less benefits. 

G.W. Bush, on the other hand, never met a spending bill that he ever vetoed either. He increased spending and had exercised little further oversight into the whole Wall Street debacle with homes sales and sub-prime mortgages ultimately sold as 'unregulated derivatives.' All of these flaky Sub-prime mortgages increased from $18.5 billion in 1995 to $507.9 billion in 2005 which was a disaster waiting to happen and it did under both Bush and Clinton. The bank act, TARP or the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, wrongly bailed out the banks which should have declared bankruptcy and reorganized under the bankruptcy court's scrutiny--that would have probably dug up too many political land mines for both parties. Still, in turn, the Federal government could have stood behind the depositors with their FDIC guaranteed monies in the meantime while the banks reorganized without the taxpayers bailing them out. But, Washington power politics favor the banking lobbyists in power with a taxpayer bail out.--Obama continued on with further bail outs while citing his Republican predecessor did it too. 

So, can we assume that Jeb and Hillary will continue those family policies?--Ah, yeah!  There are several important key issues to consider as a non-partisan voter: 

• Both candidates support 'Common Core State Standards", the Federal Government takeover of our children's educational system. It has stripped individualism, American ideals, nationalistic pride and democratic principles away to lay down a foundation of a 'one-world', 'for the good of all', socialistic identity as a member of the 'world community' under the United Nations World Charter. It is P.C., political correctness, at its zenith of intrusion into our children's thoughts and thinking, while they are young--believe it or not our Nationalist Sovereignty or Country identity is all important if the U.S.A. is to survive the onslaught of 'One World Government' dominance to lead or we will take a place in line behind lesser nations. The Federal "Common Core' Program is supported by U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan who continues to walk a line between supporting states as he implements funding grants and not giving critics ammunition to cry "federal overreach." Meanwhile, they are weaving it further into the fiber of our education system.

• The U.S.-Mexico border stretches 2,000 miles. At issue, specifically the Immigration Law, is up for votes at the ballot box and both candidates are for an 'Amnesty Bill.' Jeb Bush's faux pas is in describing the violation by illegal immigrants as "an act of love" to cross the borders while staying illegally even as it flaunts in the face of the prevailing laws. Jeb totally ignores the even larger group of people entering our very porous border to sell illicit drugs along with human and gun trafficking. The terrorists are now enlisting the cartels to transport themselves and their WMDs across the borders too. Some points to consider:

What about enforcing border security first and then take care of the immigration reforms?

How, otherwise, does the U.S. handle an existing immigration problem when the population grows exponentially every day unchecked?

Will either party own up to just beefing up the border patrol wth resources and personnel?--deploy returning troops from the middle east. Or do our politicians shrink from any actions due to offending future potential voters as being too harsh?

Why then don't the politicians just give up their whole charade and make all the illegal immigrants legal, put them all into our welfare system, then tax all the working people and be done with it?--problems solved! 

NOTE:  Please see my September 14, 2013 blog - I saw it coming then..

RINO - DEMO Obamacon Party Logo

Bush-Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign On

*The Obamacon Party* - A choice between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton is interchangeable, both liberals will spit out warmed-over pap what voters want to hear in their Presidential 2016 campaign races.   

Serious Political Accusations:

Jeb is currently working as an advisor for a large Wall Street firm. This certainly bodes ill for his image as he is on the payroll with one of the biggest firms on Wall Street. Bush is the only major candidate who has a direct tie to a big Wall Street investment bank as a paid advisor, a role that began in 2007 after his second term as Florida governor ended and he was hired by banking firm Lehman Brothers and in 2009 transitioning to Barclay's. But hold on, it may be much ado about nothing, read about Hillary.

Hillary is currently on the Board of Directors with the Wall Street firm of BlackRock Investments and very close with Larry Fink, Founder, a large Democrat donor and a U.S. Treasury Secretary choice under Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton. BlackRock is easily the biggest investor in the world, with $4.1 trillion of directly controlled assets (almost as much as all private-equity and hedge funds put together) and another $11 trillion it oversees through its trading platform, Aladdin. 

Question: Who will throw out the Wall Street smear as Campaign attack ads?