[nasional_list] [ppiindia] RENT-A-RIOT ABCS
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:11:10 +0100
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**http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19313
RENT-A-RIOT ABCS
by Amir Taheri
New York Post
February 9, 2006
February 9, 2006 -- 'A BLESSING from God": So have Iran's leaders, starting
with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, described the controversy over the Danish
cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.
A closer look at the row, however, shows that the whole rigmarole was launched
by Sunni-Salafi groups in Europe and Asia, with Ahmadinejad and his Syrian
vassal, President Bashar al-Assad, belatedly playing catch-up. God had nothing
to do with it.
To see how the whole thing was manufactured to serve precise political ends,
consider the chronology of events:
The cartoons were published last September and, for more than three months,
caused no ripples outside small groups of Salafi militants in Denmark.
In December, a group of Danish Muslim militants filled their suitcases with
photocopies of the cartoons and embarked on a tour of Muslim capitals.
They failed to get to Tehran: The Iranians, being Shi'ites, saw them as Sunni
activists bent on mischief. But they managed to go to Cairo, Damascus and
Beirut and, were allowed to send emissaries to Saudi Arabia.
The Danish Muslim group also did something dishonest - it added a number of far
more derogatory cartoons of the Prophet to the 12 published by the
Jyllands-Posten newspaper, and misled its interlocutors in Muslim capitals into
believing that all had appeared in the Danish press.
In Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood told the Danish group that this was not the
time to kick a fuss over the cartoons. The brotherhood was busy plotting its
election strategy and pretending to be a "moderate" political party. The last
thing it wanted was to be branded as a rabid anti-West force. The brotherhood
leaders suggested that the matter be put on ice until January.
The Danish militants also received a negative reply from Hamas, the Palestinian
radical movement. Hamas was busy trying to win a general election and needed to
reassure at least part of the Palestinian middle classes. The Hamas advice was:
Wait until after we have won.
The emissaries found a more sympathetic audience in Qatar - where the
satellite-TV channel Al Jazeera (owned by the emir) specializes in inciting
Muslims against the West and democracy in general. The channel's chief Islamist
televangelist, Yussuf al-Qaradawi (an Egyptian preacher who is also a friend of
Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London), was all too keen to issue a "fatwa" to
light the fuse. He then mobilized his network of Muslim Brotherhood militants
in Europe to attack the cartoons and claim, falsely, that images were not
allowed in Islam and that the Danish paper had violated "an absolute principle
of The Only True Faith."
Thus the call for Jihad received its supposed "theological" green light.
(Ironically, the section of the brotherhood headed by al-Qaradawi is financed
by the European Union as a non-governmental organization.)
As the first rent-a-mob crowds appeared on global TV screens, Ahmadinejad
realized that here was a cow worth milking.
For Denmark is set to assume the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security
Council - at the very time that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
is expected to refer Iran to the Security Council and demand sanctions. What
better, for Tehran's purposes, than to portray Denmark as "an enemy of Islam"
and mobilize Muslim sympathy against the Security Council?
To regain the initiative from the Sunni-Salafi groups, Ahmadinejad quickly
ordered a severing of commercial ties with Denmark, thus portraying the Islamic
Republic as the Muslim world's leader in the anti-Danish campaign.
Syria was next to jump on the bandwagon, again for mercenary reasons. The
United Nations wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and five of his relatives
and aides, including his younger brother, for questioning in the murder of
Lebanon's former premier, Rafiq al-Hariri. (Assad has tried to negotiate
immunity for himself and his brother in exchange for handing over the others -
but the U.N. wouldn't play.) As with Iran's nuclear program, the Syrian dossier
will reach the Security Council under Danish presidency. To portray Denmark as
"an enemy of the Prophet" would not be such a bad thing when the council, as
expected, points the finger at Assad and his regime as responsible for a series
of political murders, including that of Hariri.
The Danish-cartoons cow will also be milked in another way: Tehran and Damascus
have launched a diplomatic campaign to put the issue of "protecting religions
against blasphemy" on the Security Council agenda. If that were to happen,
issues such as Iran's quest for the atomic bomb and Syria's murder machine in
Lebanon might be pushed aside, at least as far as world public opinion is
concerned.
People watching TV news may think that the whole Muslim world is ablaze with
righteous rage translated into "spontaneous demonstrations." The truth is that
the overwhelming majority of Muslims, even if offended by cartoons which they
have not seen, have stayed away from the street shows put on by the radicals
and the Iranian and Syrian security services.
The destruction of Danish and Norwegian embassies and consulates happened in
only two places: Damascus and Beirut. Anyone who knows Syria would know that
there are no spontaneous demonstrations in that dictatorship. (Even then, the
Syrian secret police failed to attract more than 1,000 rent-a-mob militants.)
And the Syrian government refused the Norwegian Embassy's request for
additional police protection. It was clear that the Syrians wanted the
embassies sacked.
The rent-a-mob attacks in Beirut were more cynical. The Syrian Ba'ath - which
has been murdering, imprisoning or deporting Sunni-Salafi militants for years -
was suddenly transformed from a radical secular and Socialist party into "the
Vanguard of the Faith." The mob that committed the atrocities in Beirut was
bused from Syria and consisted of Muslim Brotherhood militants who are never
allowed to demonstate on their own account.
The Muslim crowds that have demonstrated over the cartoons seldom exceeded a
few hundred; the Muslim segment of humanity is estimated at 1.2 billion. And
only three of Denmark's embassies in 57 Muslim countries have been attacked.
The Danish Muslim gang who lied by adding cartoons that had never been
published has done more damage to the Prophet and to Islam than the 12
controversial cartoonists of Jyllands-Posten.
The fight between Denmark and its detractors is not between the West and Islam.
It is between democracy and a global fascist movement masquerading as religion.
Iranian author Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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