Canary In The Coal Mine

Zuhdi Jasser’s Counter-Jihad

by *R James Woolsey and Seth Leibsohn  |  October 6, 2011

 

The administration refuses to utilize a strong opponent of radical Islam.

 

Shortly after 9/11, many thought it was imperative to teach about and promote the heroes of that deadly day. One such hero whose life and example we can never learn enough about was Rick Rescorla. Originally from England, he came to America and distinguished himself as an Army infantry officer in Vietnam. Later he became head of security at Morgan Stanley, and, after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, he knew the terrorists would go after the Twin Towers again. He warned the authorities continually; moreover, he led regular evacuation drills between 1993 and 2001. On 9/11, he successfully led almost every Morgan Stanley employee out to safety. He himself did not make it. His last known words were, “As soon as I make sure everyone else is out.” He said those words to another Morgan Stanley employee who had yelled to him that he had to get out too. Rick Rescorla’s remains were never found.

Rick’s life was not wasted; he saved a lot of people. But if the government had listened to him before 9/11, he would have saved even more. Rick was somebody who should have been posted at the top of our intelligence community, but he wasn’t. Today, we are still not listening to the most creative and prophetic thinkers among us. One of them is Dr. Zuhdi Jasser (Pictured Below), founder of the American Islamic Forum on Democracy. He is the intellectual Rick Rescorla of our day.

Dr. Jasser, a practicing Muslim, is a physician and former lieutenant commander in the Navy — someone who, like Rick Rescorla, served his country with distinction, and continues to do so both in his medical practice and in his public warnings and teachings about the dangers from radical Islam. One of his efforts has been to confront members of Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), who continually denigrate America. Jasser’s view is that we should promote the virtues of American freedom and tolerance, which American Muslims enjoy, and should also publicize the way our efforts abroad have given freedom to Muslims in other countries.

Indeed, while most so-called mainstream Muslim and Arab groups in America feed hysteria and spread conspiracy theories, Dr. Jasser despises the grievance narrative; he loves America. Now more than ever, he is the kind of man our government should listen to — and, more important, he is the kind of man our government should use.

But, although Dr. Jasser has offered to serve his country again, this administration has ignored this unique opportunity. Last year, recognizing the need for a shift in our thus-far-ineffective public-diplomacy program, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and others nominated Dr. Jasser to serve on the State Department’s U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. The commission is charged with “Appraising U.S. Government activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics.” There could be nobody better suited to serve in this role. Here is some of what Dr. Jasser said when testifying — extemporaneously — before the House Committee on Homeland Security earlier this year:

Until we have an ideological offense into the Muslim communities domestically and globally to teach liberty, to teach the separation of mosque and state, you are not going to solve this problem. . . .

. . . Our organization has . . . created a Muslim liberty project that looks at inoculating Muslims with the ideals of liberty, giving them the empowerment to counter imams, to feel that they can represent their own faith. . . .

This is our homeland. And we want to begin, if you will, a counter-jihad, an offense to counter these ideas. That, I think, is the best way to use our resources as a nation, and remember that the freedoms that we have don’t come with a cheap price, and we need to give back.

This is, simply, Dr. Jasser’s life’s work. This is the kind of thought and talk we need more of, not less. This is the intellectual Rescorlaesque effort we should be promoting and the government should be availing itself of.

Upon his nomination, Dr. Jasser submitted reams of information about himself to the State Department and the White House Office of Personnel Management. He spent hours upon hours in interviews. He passed every clearance with flying colors, including receiving confirmation of a top-secret clearance. This is a man, after all, who gave eleven years of service to the U.S. Navy, including some very sensitive assignments. And, now, after 15 months of vetting, he has learned that his nomination has been “removed from consideration,” with no explanation.

What explanation could there be? Unlike some commission members, Dr. Jasser was not a donor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. But something else must have been at work as well. That something might have ranged from a lack of understanding of the dangerousness of jihadism and Islamism to a lack of respect for the muscular advocacy of the ideas of freedom and liberty. And, probably, one other thing was at work too: a political decision based on Dr. Jasser’s open criticism of the administration for its lack of clarity in the war of ideas and its inability to identify the ideology we are fighting. It should be noted, however, that Dr. Jasser is an equal-opportunity critic: He has spoken out against both the Bush and the Obama administrations when he believes they have faltered.

Clarity in the war of ideas, the ability to identify the ideology we are fighting, and expertise in the religion of Islam are precisely what we need. It’s ten years late, but not too late. It is a shame we will not soon be availing ourselves officially of Dr. Jasser’s work. It is work that we sorely need. Indeed, it is intellectual and rhetorical courage and heroism. We ignore and spurn it at our continued peril.

*R. James Woolsey is the chairman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and was the director of central intelligence from 1993 to 1995. Seth Leibsohn is a radio host and the co-author of The Fight of Our Lives.

Source:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279276/zuhdi-jasser-s-counter-jihad-r-james-woolsey

Israeli Scientist Wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry

by Kenneth Chang  |  NYTimes.com  |  October 5, 2011

 

The scientist Daniel Shechtman, right, during a news conference in Haifa, Israel, on Wednesday after winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals. Photo: Ariel Schalit/Associated Press

 

An Israeli scientist won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a material in which atoms were packed together in a well-defined pattern that never repeats.

Recent Nobel prizes have generally split credit for scientific advances among two or three people, but this year’s chemistry prize and accompanying 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million) went to a single scientist: Daniel Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Shechtman is also a professor at Iowa State University and a researcher at the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory.

The citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences states simply, “for the discovery of quasicrystals.”

Such regular but nonrepeating patterns, defined by precise rules, have been known in mathematics since antiquity, and medieval Islamic artists made decorative, nonrepeating tile mosaics, but it was thought impossible in the packing of atoms.

Yet Dr. Shechtman discovered the same type of structure in a mix of aluminum and manganese. During a sabbatical in the United States at the National Bureau of Standards, now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, he took a molten glob of the metals and chilled it rapidly. The expectation was that the atoms would have been a random jumble, like glass. Yet when he examined his metal with an electron microscope, Dr. Shechtman found that the atoms were not random.

His notebook recorded the exact date: April 8, 1982.

Scientists believed that crystals in materials all contained repeating patterns. For example, a square lattice has fourfold symmetry. Rotate it by 90 degrees, and it looks identical. A repeating lattice with fivefold symmetry, however, is impossible. On that morning in 1982, the electrons Dr. Shechtman bounced off his aluminum-manganese alloy formed a pattern that indicated tenfold symmetry. Dr. Shechtman himself could not quite believe it. He wrote in his notebook, “10 Fold???”

While a periodic lattice could not produce that pattern, a quasicrystal could.

It took years for Dr. Shechtman to persuade others.

During the announcement, the Nobel committee noted that one colleague said, “Go away, Danny” and that he was even asked to leave the research group. Many scientists — notably Linus Pauling, the Nobel-winning giant of chemistry — argued vehemently that Dr. Shechtman’s data could be explained by defects within ordinary periodic crystals.

“That must have been intimidating,” said Nancy Jackson, president of the American Chemical Society. “When he first discovered these materials nobody thought they could exist. It was one of these great scientific stories that his fellow scientists thought was impossible, but through time, people came to realize he was right.”

An atomic model of an Ag-Al quasicrystal. Image: Ames Laboratory, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Even the definition of crystal had to be redefined. Previously, a crystal had “a regularly ordered, repeating three-dimensional pattern,” according to the International Union of Crystallography. The new definition, adopted in 1992, states that a crystal is simply a solid with a “discrete diffraction diagram” — that is, something that produces patterns like Dr. Shechtman saw.

That leaves the door open for yet more different kinds of crystals in the future.

Quasicrystals have since been found in many other materials, including a naturally occurring mineral from a Russian river. Materials scientists have been exploring quasicrystals because of their distinct properties. One kind of highly resilient steel, consisting of hard steel quasicrystals embedded within softer steel, is now used in razor blades and thin needles for eye surgery.

 

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/science/06nobel.html?_r=1&hp

Circumcision Makes You Crazy. So Holland Moves To Stop It.

by Abigail R. Esman, Contributor  |  Forbes.com  |  September 19, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ancient Egyptian carved scene of circumcision, from the inner northern wall of the Temple of Khonspekhrod at the Precinct of Mut, Temple of Karnak, Luxor, Egypt. Eighteenth dynasty, Amenhotep III, c. 1360 BC. Photographed February 5, 2005, by Lasse Jensen

Calling the practice “a violation of human rights “ and a precursor to mental illness, Holland’s Royal Society of Medicine is encouraging  the country’s parliament to place a ban on male circumcision.

Of course, such proposals come up regularly – there’s one out now in San Francisco, for instance – but they are usually the work of political groups; after all, the idea of banning circumcision is itself politically based.  That it comes from a medical association, however, suggests something significantly more sinister, if for no other reason than the fact that the arguments they offer to support the measure fly in the face of actual science.  In other words, doctors in the Netherlands have clearly put themselves in a position of being willing to put public health at risk in order to achieve racist, political ends – and to lie in order to do so.

And it’s not just the doctors. Indeed, the move, coming on the heels of a so-called “modified ban” on kosher and halal slaughter, demonstrates just how far Europe has come in its response to what it sees as a threat on Western democratic  values posed by its growing Muslim population; increasingly,  as I argued after the Norway massacre, Europe is at serious risk of transforming itself into a white, Christian supremacist state in its efforts to avoid becoming an Islamic one.

According to the Dutch medical society, for instance, circumcision — practiced by Dutch Muslims and Jews and standard procedure for almost all newborn males in the USA, can result in castration (just how many times does thathappen, I wonder?) or death; cause infections; create “mental anguish”; cause sexual problems (we all know about Einstein’s sexual issues, right?), and more.   And here’s the kicker: “no medical association anywhere in the world,” they claim, endorses male circumcision for health reasons.

Oh, no?

This, of course, is an outright falsehood, and surely they know it.  In fact, the California Medical Association, faced with a similar proposal, recently wrotethe following statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee: “”From political to religious, there are many differing views on the practice of male circumcision.However, in the medical world, the CMA has long endorsed the concept of newborn circumcision as an effective public health measure.” (Italics mine.)  And a 201o statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)declares that while it does not necessarily recommend routine neonatal circumcision, various trials since 2005 show that “circumcision decreases human immunodeficiency virus acquisition by 53% to 60%, herpes simplex virus type 2 acquisition by 28% to 34%, and human papillomavirus prevalence by 32% to 35 % in men. Among female partners of circumcised men, bacterial vaginosis was reduced by 40%, and trichomonas vaginalis infection was reduced by 48%.” The policy of the AAP therefore indicates a strong awareness of “evidence of long-term health benefits of male circumcision.”

Meantime, Holland’s wise doctors have yet to issue any formal statement about the far more serious problem of the country’s enormous infant mortality rate (among the worst in Western Europe) and high breast cancer fatality rate  (the fourth highest in Europe, and rising).

To be sure, the KNMG, or Royal Dutch Medical Association, has not called for an outright ban on the procedure; they are far too politically clever for that. Claiming that such a ban would only put the practice into the hands of the unskilled, they have rather recommended a “change in mentality” among those groups which practice circumcision in the Netherlands – namely Jews and Muslims, those same minority groups which happen also to be affected by the ban on ritual slaughter.  Because what this is really about is not health at all, but culture. As radical Muslim groups increasingly put pressure on Holland’s politicians to change policies in order to accommodate their religious preferences – from censoring art exhibitions to (speaking of medicine) requiring that female Muslims be treated only by female physicians (an effort that thankfully failed) — indigenous Dutch are responding with a stronger nationalism and a tightened grasp on their Christian roots – even to the point of mangling the truth.

Nonetheless, you have to hand it to the KNMG for ingeniousness. At a time when far-right groups push for closing Europe’s borders, when the Netherlands in particular has developed the toughest immigration laws in the West – requiring even Americans, Australians, Canadians, and other non-EU nationals (except Swiss and, ironically, Turks) to pass a citizenship course simply for a green card or long-term visa,  organizations like the KNMG, along with the passage of bills against halal and kosher slaughter, offer the same outcome with none of the controversy: no one but a European Christian would want to come and live there, anyway.  Call it ethnic cleansing, 21^st century edition. And counting.

Source:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailesman/2011/09/19/circumcision-makes-you-crazy-so-holland-moves-to-stop-it/

Israeli Researchers Open Path To Cure Diabetes

From: Xinhua*  |  News.Xinhuanet.com and English.news.cn |  September 15, 2011

 

JERUSALEM -- A cure for Type 1 diabetes or " Juvenile diabetes" is on the way, after Israeli researchers discovered a link between high levels of glucose and the regeneration of the cells that produce insulin.

Type 1 diabetes is an illness in which the body destroys the cells in pancreas that produce insulin, the hormone needed to process sugar, starches and other food into energy. Without the insulin, the body accumulates these elements in the blood causing a variety of serious diseases.

The cells that produce insulin are called betacells.

"What we've been studying all these years is what causes the betacells to regenerate and replicate," Prof. Benyamin Glaser, (Pictured Right) the head of endocrinology service at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Schools, told Xinhua on Thursday.

"The study showed that what's causing them to regenerate and replicate is the work load (the betacells secrete insulin depending on the amount of glucose), so if there's a lot of glucose the betacells will replicate more of them," he said.

Glaser took part in the study with Prof. Yuval Dor (Pictured Left) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, in collaboration with researchers from the diabetes section of Roche Pharmaceuticals.

The problem with the work overload is that it "stresses" the betacells and many tend to malfunction.

"We're still working on that - on finding a way to 'stress' the betacells without any malfunctioning," Glaser said, "but we've already managed to find the connection between high glucose levels and the betacells replication."

Even though understanding how the betacells work is in itself groundbreaking, Glaser emphasized that it is not a cure.

"We're not talking here about a cure for diabetes, that's still far in the future," he said, "but we have opened a path that can lead to a cure. I cannot foretell when we'll see a cure for it, it could be two years, it could be ten or more."

However, there exists a possibility of combining other existing drugs with their discovery to provide a better treatment for Type 1 diabetes.

"In two years we could see the first steps to cure, by using a drug that's already being developed and by manipulating two or three drugs that are already on the market, we might be able to come up with a drug to better treat diabetes," Glaser said.

Source:  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2011-09/16/c_131141440.htm

Utah - U.S.A.: Family Health Insurance In Accordance With Shariah

 

Takaful Family Care is a family health insurance program. Minimum number of participants is 2 people. Many of the benefits of Takaful Family Care, including daily cash, death benefits, and compensation for total permanent disability. Please jump to view more info about family health insurance.

The definition of family health insurance is an attempt to protect each other and mutual help among people through investment in assets and or tabarru ‘which gives the pattern of return for the risk / specific hazards.

Family health insurance that has been used by the majority community (non-Islamic) insurance is not known by the predecessors of fiqh among experts, because it does not include transactions that are recognized by Islamic jurisprudence, nor from among the companions who discusses the law.

Family health insurance with the agreement at the beginning of a clear and transparent with aqad Shariah compliance, in which the funds and the insurance premiums collected (also called tabarru funds’) will be professionally managed by insurance companies through investments based on Islamic principles syar’i with .

And in the end all these managed funds (funds tabarru ‘) will be used to deal with and anticipate the catastrophe / disaster / claims that occurred among participants of insurance. Through our family health insurance to prepare yourself financially while maintaining the principles of transactions in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence. So there is no doubt for insurance.

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Source:  http://globalhealthms.com/family-health-insurance-in-accordance-with-shariah/

ACLU Joins Effort To Quash Vote On Circumcision Ban

by Christina Jewett  |  CaliforniaWatch.org  |  July 18, 2011

 

The ACLU of Northern California filed a court brief Friday supporting an effort to block a ballot measure that would ban juvenile male circumcision in San Francisco.

The friend of the court brief bolsters the arguments of a coalition of Jews and Muslims who filed suit in June asking a judge to invalidate the controversial measure headed for the Nov. 8 ballot.

The lead supporter of the circumcision ban characterizes the procedure as “genital mutilation that is unnecessary, extremely painful and even dangerous,” the Associated Press reported.

The ballot measure would make the circumcision of a male younger than 18 years old a misdemeanor carrying up to $1,000 in fines or a year in jail. There would be no religious exemption to the ban, even though Jewish and Muslim followers consider circumcision part of their religion.

The move flies in the face of mainstream practices. The New York Times has reported that 80 percent of U.S. males are circumcised.

A group seeking to get the ban off the ballot cites a number of mainstream sources, including Harvard and UC San Francisco physicians, saying the procedure can stem the spread of AIDS and should be based on parental choice.

In the brief filed Friday, the ACLU argues that state law bans any city or county from passing a law that restricts a licensed medical professional from performing “any procedure that falls within the professionally recognized scope of practice of that licensee.”

In other words, no city authority can stop a doctor from doing things that doctors normally do.

The brief also argues that the initiative would threaten the rights of mature teenage boys younger than 18 to make decisions about their health.

Lloyd Schofield, the initiative’s supporter, also filed a court brief Friday, batting off criticism that has surfaced about the law's apparent anti-Semitism. Schofield, of Oakland, noted that “it is not honest to suggest that the sole purpose of the initiative was to be anti-Semitic.”

Schofield goes on to raise concerns about the religious traditions of a non-medically trained Jewish mohel, usually a rabbi or doctor, or Islamic barber who at one time performed circumcisions.

The question of anti-Semitic motivation for the ban came up when San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders posted the image of the buff and blond “Foreskin Man” comic book, posted on a website run by a man who supports the circumcision ban.

The hero is apparently fending off a dark and shifty Hasidic rabbi who is leering over a baby. The book’s author brushed off the notion that the movement is anti-Jewish, saying it is “trying to be pro-human rights.”

Source:  http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/aclu-joins-effort-quash-vote-circumcision-ban-11534

Israeli Umbrella NGO To Send Aid To South Sudan

by Jeremy Sharon  |  JPost.com  |  July 11, 2011

 

Group will send a consignment of humanitarian aid to the newly formed nation, will also provide assistance to vulnerable women and children.

IsraAid, an umbrella group of Israeli and Jewish humanitarian aid organizations, is preparing to send a consignment of humanitarian aid to the newly formed nation of South Sudan, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

The aid package worth $100,000 will include food, clean water, medical supplies and other non-food items.

In addition, IsraAid teams have also begun to plan for a long-term project, aimed at providing assistance to vulnerable women and children living on the streets and in refugee camps around the capital city of Juba. The group, whose full name is the Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid, hopes to raise $1.5 million for the initiative.

“As a small and relatively new-born country, Israel has gained experience in various factors of water, agriculture, post-traumatic stress disorder, education, migration and others that would be valuable to the people of South Sudan who are now building their country,” said Shachar Zahavi, founding director of IsraAID. It is our mission and Jewish commitment to reach out to our new friends in any way we can.”

IsraAid is working in conjunction with Operation Blessing, a Christian humanitarian aid organization based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which is providing support on the ground for IsraAid’s efforts.

The American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto are IsraAid’s main partners for its efforts in South Sudan.

South Sudan faces intense humanitarian challenges.

According to the Southern Sudan Household Health Survey conducted in 2006 in conjunction with UN agencies, the infant mortality rate in the country is 102 per 1,000 (the rate in Israel is four per 1,000).

Nearly 10 percent of the population is severely food-insecure, according to the World Food Program, and the United Nations DevelopmentProgram says that more than 90% of the 9.1 million people in South Sudan live on a dollar a day.

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=228768

The Nonverbal Message of Jihadis

by Nancy Kobrin, PhD, Joan Lachkar, PhD  |  FamilySecurityMatters.org  |  July 1, 2011

 

An Expression of Hatred and Terror of Women.

This article addresses how early "traumatic" childhood development leads to aggression, terrorism and destruction which is expressed by jihadi nonverbal violent communication. Many analysts, sociologists, psychohistorians have questioned and have been baffled by how entire nations can develop such hatred and sadism toward others. Many have repeatedly discussed early childhood abuse and trauma in the Muslim world, but do not specifically address how this affects women, especially the little girl who grows up to be a mother -- mainly the hatred and envy toward women and thus the need to destroy her. This means that they are terrified of her -- that is their terror, which in turn is projected into us under the guise of political terrorism.

 

This kind of negative maternal bonding does not allow the woman freedom instead it leads to suffocation, control and domination. While this might sound far-fetched to some, the unconscious infantile thinking and the terrors of the jihadi go something like this: "I now have control of mommy, her breasts, her vagina and her mind. She will do what I want her to do!”

 

Our last piece, “Driving Miss Daisy Saudi Style” stirred up a lot of these issues relating to the human rights of women and hence the impetus for writing this article. We both have written extensively on the role of women in the Muslim world, mainly man's relationship with the mother as a maternal object and how this reflects on negative maternal attachments as the male child internalizes the devalued abused mother as a self perception, especially as victim. 

 

Kobrin in her Banality of Suicide Terrorism, is the first to link the murderous behavior to the devalued female in Arab Muslim shame-honor culture. She also explains how this dynamic spreads through radicalization into pockets of western culture where the female has also been devalued in a patriarchal family attracting non-Arab Muslims to convert to Islam again under the guise of jihad, joining up to live out their violent fantasies in real time.

 

If a regime were to be selected as the most horrific one for human rights violations, it would be Saudi Arabia.  Their rulers prohibit freedom of speech, freedom of religion/press, beheadings, stoning, amputation, threats, kangaroo courts and other barbaric methods to keep women "in check," let alone drive a car. We must not forget the continuation of the burka even in scorching desert heat and temperatures. The Saudis set the golden standard for hating their mothers and all other females even though they may try to claim otherwise, their aberrant nonverbal behavior towards females speaks volumes.

 

We cannot help thinking how these violent jihadis coming out of Saudi Arabia can be likened to the song from West Side Story, "Dear Officer Krupke" in which one of the gang members sings:

 

“Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset; 

We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get. 

We ain't no delinquents, 

We're misunderstood !” 

 

 

In our culture we send violent boys or men for a psychological evaluation and treatment whenever possible. Obviously we cannot send jihadis for psychiatric treatment, but we do want to emphasize how the impairment of traumatic bondingwith the devalued female is inextricably linked to childhood trauma within the collective psyche of jihadis. 

 

It is imperative to address how early traumatic childhood developmental arrestleads to relentless aggression, terrorism, sadism, and destruction. The cure is not a quick fix and will take generations to address the problem of bonding with violence if there is no democracy for women.

 

After experiencing such deprivation it is understandable how they become sadistic because they do not develop the healthy feedback of a superego or moral consciousness to guide them through life.

 

We advocate that more historians, politicians, homeland security specialists, sociologists studying terrorism and violent behavior begin to consider seeing jihadi behavior through the lenses of trauma and psychopathology tied to the rampant abuse of the female, their mothers, in order to profile, apprehend and dismantle the terrorist threat. Nonverbal behavior of the violent traumatic bonding is key.

 

We view this kind of psychopathology the jihadis exhibit as a mental illness. This does not mean that the jihadis can not be held accountable for their actions. In fact, all criminal acts can be viewed through a psychopathology lens. Lachkar in How to Talk to a Borderline expands this even further how violence, rape and murder borders on the edge of psychosis. 

 

Sander Breiner, M.D., a learned psychoanalyst who has much knowledge and experience concerning Arab Muslim culture and who is author of Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse through the Ages and Today, 1990 wrote the following to us after our “Driving Miss Daisy” piece. We wanted to share his thoughts with you -- our readers:

 

“In the first two years of life the brain quadruples in size (also [there are] many chemical changes). Every child's identity, self-image, self-concept, imago, etc. etc.  is established (though not consciously remembered), and neurologically imprinted. That child's identity is based on identification with its primary caretaker in those crucial two years (mother). No matter how hard she tries, how she feels about herself is non-verbally communicated to the child [our emphasis added] whereby he identified with her and shapes its own self-image. No wonder children as adults will have a hurt, damaged, impaired self-image regardless of their sex. The self-hatred is commonly projected and does affect one’s self image and even worse gets passed on generation to generation. Changes in the household of the nuclear family that is supportive of mother can make a change. This will take at least two generations to be generally successful (40 years).”

 

Part of the change that is now afoot in the Arab world has to do with changing the role of women. The attitude and role women play in the Middle East have had an enormous impact on family dynamics. Given this, it is also a diverse yet shame-honor culture where many of these issues are hidden as it is too excruciatingly painful to discuss these kinds of issues in public. 

 

To conclude, this is where the brilliance of Leonard Bernstien and the jihadis meet. The song “Dear Officer Krupke” is about gang violence which is also relevant to jihadi violence and dramatically draws our attention to the severe problem of the maltreatment of women in the Arab Muslim world. The phenomenon of jihadism is spreading throughout the world and radicalization in our view is rooted in the abuse of the female. We go so far as to say that in all cultures and pockets of patriarchal families where the female is prone to be abused, there will always remain the risk of producing violent jihadis but Saudi Arabia wins the prize. So our hats off to you ladies of Arabia (or should we say burkas) for the “drive” to drive and there is no stopping now!!

 

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst with a Ph.D. in romance and semitic languages, specializes in Aljamía and Old Spanish in Arabic script. She is an expert on the Minnesota Somali diaspora and a graduate of the Human Terrain System program at Leavenworth Kansas. Her new book is The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing. 

 

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Dr. Joanie Jutta Lachkar is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist in private practice in Brentwood and Tarzana, California, who teaches psychoanalysis and is the author of The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment (1992, The Many Faces of Abuse: Treating the Emotional Abuse of High -Functioning Women (1998), The V-Spot, How to Talk to a Narcissist, How to Talk to a Borderline and a recent  paper, “The Psychopathology of Terrorism”  presented at the Rand Corporation and  the International Psychohistorical Association. She is also an affiliate member for the New Center for Psychoanalysis.

 

Source:  http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9854/pub_detail.asp

Mullahs and Opiates

by Amil Imani  |  FamilySecurityMatters.org  |  June 24, 2011

 

 

America and her quasi-backboned “allies” have a huge problem that grows by the day. Expectedly, there are as many analyses of our problem as there are “experts” to tell us what to think. A deluge of Western analysts has their diverse expert opinions regarding the “Mullah Problem” and what do about it. Some strategists advocate a military solution that ranges from full invasion of Iran to selective bombardment of its burgeoning nuclear centers and related facilities. Others are proponents of imposing economic sanctions of various types and severity. Still others feel that we simply have to learn to live with the inevitable—those “crazy” Mullahs with the bomb.

 

Perhaps there are no easy answers. But we should still take the time to understand the millstone that hangs around our collective necks. Perhaps within the problem there is a solution. So what are the forces at work? What is the source of power that positions the Mullahs to be such a large threat?

 

Iran’s economy is a basket case. The ruling party has eviscerated productivity,employment, and consumer power, all while destroying personal freedom, and buying every weapon the Russians and Chinese can deliver. The Islamic Republic of Iran represents the cutting edge for the newly petrodollar-invigorated Islam. This energy exporter/arms importer is not popular at home, but its rulers couldn’t care less. Iran is as far from a democracy as a country can get. No wonder it is adored by the ex-Soviets, and regional dictator-wannabes like Hugo Chavez.

 

But Iran is no ordinary tyranny. It has a special zeal that gives it an edge: Islam. Iran is ruled by the mullahs, who are zealously determined to complete their Allah-appointed task of ending the world of “Dar-ul-Harb”—the non-Muslim world to be warred upon—and establishing the “Dar-ul-Solh,” or “Dar-ul-Salam”—the Muslim world of the Ummah under the rule of the “Mahdi.” If achieving this aim hinges on the conflagration of a Third World War, the mullahs are more than eager to make it happen. This is their self-proclaimed destiny.

 

Karl Marx once said derisively about spiritualism: “religion is the opiate of the people.” If so, one of them is more like crack-cocaine. Islam is the foundation for the Iranian theocracy’s ideology of hate and destruction, but it is not the only force propelling it. Therefore, do not dismiss these vicious destroyers as mere “religious fanatics,” or harmless old cranks who are disconnected from reality, soon to be replaced by sane moderates. While they were close to being crushed by the Iranian people, they are nowhere near the point of being forced out by a natural revolution, at the moment. They know what they are doing, and they are playing a very long game of chess.

 

Likewise, do not doubt their steadfastness to their cause even if it means their own annihilation. If invoking catastrophe will compel their precious Mahdi’s coming, their sentiment is “bring it on.” We should rid ourselves of the “happy talk” we tranquilize ourselves into reasoning that these doddering old-world religious fools may be mischievous, but they could never do real harm. Oh, sure, they might be arming some Iraqi Shiites, killing a few US soldiers, providing a little support for Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine—but they have no global destructive capacity. After all, we pacify ourselves that we’re not exactly talking about criminalmasterminds like Hitler. Or are we?

 

Such optimistic self-delusions fully misunderstand the evil genius of the Mullahs. The mullahs’ method of staying in power relies heavily on oil for arms...and arms forcomplete control. They have a sizable but otherwise insufficient cadre of true-believing Shiites, but popular support is not needed in their situation. To remain in power, their apparatus relies on “preventive” measures. They don’t bother much with due process of law. Their “revolutionary guard” dispenses with the “due” and gets right to the “process.” On the slightest suspicion, they arrest, convict and execute. They let Allah in the next world take the time to determine the person’s guilt or innocence.

 

Presently, the Mullahs have been doing all they can to imprison, rape and kill with impunity the internal opposition, and want the rest of the world to keep its nose out of their “family” business. Executions in Iran have skyrocketed.

 

This bunch of miscreants has the full support of Syria, Venezuela, and Russia. They have enthusiastic support from many terrorist organizations in the region and drug-running organizations worldwide. They have tacit support from China, Cuba, and some European countries because the power structures of these countries resent the USA, and Iran is the leader in the expression of threats against the U.S. “superpower.” The Mullahs receive (ed) almost no criticism from semi-socialist democracies like Western Europe and Canada who seemed obsessed with anti-Bush, anti-US diatribes. Certainly, the UN could care less about their bomb-building, and would be holding “talks” after the first detonation because “everybody knows war never solved anything”...until of course the UN building is blown away, then you’ll see these empty-headed bureaucrats become instant “anti-terrorists.”

 

The mullahs have their job to do on God’s earth: to cleanse it from all infidels. When one has a tall order like that to fill, he can’t be bothered with the tedious due process the Western democracies “waste” so much time and resources on.

 

But these high priests of Iran are not exactly living up to their brand. The mullah Mafia has a great scam going. They promise the ignorant Islamic devotees the phony ‘paradise’ of afterlife while they themselves enjoy their paradise of women, wealthand wine on this earth. They are unraveled in duplicity and heartlessness. So in nearly perfect emulation of Muhammad and his leadership 1400 years ago, the pious Mullahs go about plotting earthly destruction as they enrich themselves and enjoy earthly pleasures on the backs of their people. Great work!...if you can get it.

 

Lest you think these men should at least be admired for their self-discipline and abstention from personal sins, know that the majority of mullahs are heavy opium smokers. In that land, opium smoking is still very popular with people who can afford the fruit of the Poppy. It is the Muslim’s alcohol. Although, its use is prohibited by law, with stiff penalties on the books, the use of opium continues and has become more endemic than ever under the mullahs’ rule. This is in part because many of the mullahs as well as the law-enforcement officials are users and many officials make a personal fortune by getting their cuts from the traffickers. Opium is the drug of choice in the countryside, and heroin is primarily used by the more affluent city dwellers. Moreover, this is the drug that is used to calm the restless people. And don’t think that a little of their stash doesn’t make its way to the west.

 

The mullahs take pleasure and pride in their lavish lifestyle and power, and they want to bequeath it to their children, not to the people of Iran. So they assure their minions that Allah does not approve of the anti-Islamic practice of democracy, an invention of “western devils.” Be sure to remember that these crafty, evil men are also long-term planners. They have messianic plans to rule the world some day. And with their lifestyle, they can have their cake and eat it too: leisure, power, and destruction, insulated from the corrective forces of the political marketplace.

 

The Mullahs are superb practitioners of the art of making a deal. In this practice, like in the game of poker, much depends on how one plays their hand. In the game of deal making, beating around the bush is a standard operating procedure. They know that weak-willed Westerners feel productive when they “talk”, and engage in “negotiations”. These activities do nothing; but then again, accomplishing anything other than advancing their own careers and generating an undeserved sense of self-importance is never the goal of pinheaded diplomats.

 

As for the “Great Satan”, going after the mullahs seems completely out of the question. We have no stomach for it; the Ayatollahs know it. Even former President Bush’s most loyal sidekick, ex-UK-PM Tony Blair, was opposed to it. The Iraq misadventure has hopefully taught them an old lesson they seem to have had difficulty learning. The lesson is that it is a terrible mistake to go half way across the world and invade a country, unless you are able and willing to bulldoze the whole thing from one end to the other, with all the people bar none buried under the rubble. The reason this rule is so important for us to learn is that having and displaying overwhelming power usually means you will not have to use it. But because the West has forgotten how to overwhelm the enemy, the war of attrition persists, and the people of the West become disheartened. They can’t even interrogate presumed terrorists; they have to send them to Egypt to get the job done!

 

It’s no wonder that recent military undertakings have been by-and-large busts— in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and even Afghanistan. This same policy of weakness has been successfully replicated in Israel, where the West ties Israeli hands behind their back so they don’t “over-react” to missiles hitting their towns and cities, tunnels dug under their borders, and soldiers being captured by terrorists! The Mullahs know this game very, very well. They persist, and we pretend the worst can’t happen. Whose opiate is the more effective, theirs or ours?

 

In the meantime, Iran’s illegitimate terrorist regime will, with ever greater peace of mind, pursue their quest for the nuclear bomb, by hook or by crook, and the Mullahs of mass destruction will keep the corrupt, yawning, toothless UN “watchdog” content and distracted by throwing it a bone or two from time to time. Eventually, these suicidal, homicidal followers of Muhammad will have their WMD. In time, they will use it. Future historians will ask: how could the entire world have seen it coming and done nothing about it? What kind of opiate were these people on?

 

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and a pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com. Amil Imani is the author of the smashing book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.

 

Source:  http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a013487f321e0970c0133f4d36060970b/post/compose

Video: Ingrid and Jorgen Go To Gaza

Uploaded to YouTube.com by arthurpelicier on Jun 20, 2011

 

Ingrid & Jörgen have a solution to help the people of Gaza: