THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 27, January 26, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
BEWITCHED ANIMALS & THE MUSLIM MEDIA
By Raymond Ibrahim
SUPERSTITION, CONSPIRACY THEORY, & THE ISLAMIC MINDSET: CONSPIRACY THEORIES BASED ON SUPERSTITION
& EMANATING FROM THE MUSLIM WORLD REVEAL PATHOLOGICAL TRENDS THAT NEED TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED,
ESPECIALLY BY WESTERN LEADERS WHO STUBBORNLY INTERACT WITH THE ISLAMIC WORLD UNDER THE ASSUMPTION
THAT ALL MUSLIMS "THINK JUST LIKE US." CONSPIRACY THEORIES DISSEMINATED BY THE MUSLIM MEDIA, INCLUDING
THOSE DEALING WITH "SUBVERSIVE ANIMALS," "WITCHCRAFT" & "THE CASTING OF SPELLS," REFLECT THE MUSLIM
MINDSET, WHICH DETERMINES HOW MUSLIMS TYPICALLY INTERPRET & REACT TO SITUATIONS.
FULL STORY:
Because conspiracy theories emanating from the Muslim world are nothing new a decade ago, Israel was accused of
perpetrating the strikes of 9/11, today it is accused of perpetrating the bombings of a Coptic church they tend to be
dismissed in the West.
A close examination of these theories, however, reveals pathological trends that need to be acknowledged especially
by Western leaders who stubbornly interact with the Muslim world under the assumption that all Muslims "think just
like us."
Consider, for starters, those conspiracy theories dealing with subversive animals:
"Iranians arrest fourteen squirrels for spying": According to Iranian state-sponsored news agency IRNA,
"Intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders. The squirrels were carrying spy
gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence
services." (Iran has also arrested "spying pigeons" accused of working for Israel.)
Israel unleashes rats and pigs against Jerusalem Arabs: According to the Palestinian Authority's official
news agency, Wafa, Israel is "using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes" and "Rats have
become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents of the occupied Old City of Jerusalem."
"Israel responsible for fatal shark attack and lethal jellyfish in Red Sea": According to South Sinai Governor
Mohamed Abdel, "Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the
question, but it needs time to confirm."
Saudi Arabia "arrests" a vulture as part of a "Zionist plot": According to a BBC report, the vulture appears
to have been tagged by Tel Aviv University researchers studying migration patterns; even so, "the bird
could meet a horrible punishment in the notoriously severe Saudi justice system."
As the reader mulls over the plausibility of these charges, here is the latest example, from just last month. According to
released Gitmo inmate Walid Muhammad Hajj, the Jews at the base cast "spells" on the Muslim inmates including
through the use of bewitched birds and a phantom feline that tried to sodomize Walid:
The most common method to wear down the brothers [Muslim inmates] was witchcraft
. There were, of
course, Jews among the [staff of] the Guantanamo Base, and they would set traps for the guys
. I
remembered an incident with a guy who sat next to me in the morning. When they brought the milk, he
began to urinate into the milk. I said to him: "Why are you urinating in the milk?" That's when we knew
that he was under a spell. After he had recovered a little, after we read Koranic verses to him, he said to
me: "The birds on the barbed wire would talk to me, and tell me to urinate in the milk"
. Once, when I was
sleeping on the floor, not on a bed I suddenly felt that a cat was trying to penetrate me. It tried to
penetrate me again and again. I recited the kursi verse again and again [Koran 2:255] until the cat
left.
Considering that the Koran depicts talking ants and birds, vouches for the power of sorcery, and has an entire
chapter dedicated to the Jinn (Sura 72); that Hamas arrested 150 "witches" in Gaza last year; that Islam's
prophet Muhammad decreed that black dogs must die, "for they are devils"; that there is a fatwa to kill Mickey Mouse
(a cartoon character), since rodents are "corrupters, steered by Satan" considering all this, it should come as no
surprise that animals are being portrayed as infidel operatives.
Rather, the surprise lies in who is making and disseminating these stories. After all, conspiracy theories are not the sole
domain of the Muslim world; the West has its share of crackpot theories. Yet, they are not in the mainstream.
Conversely, far from coming from a marginalized periphery, all of the aforementioned animal accusations were either
made or disseminated by "authoritative" sources in the Muslim world: Spying squirrels, Iranian state-sponsored news;
rampaging rats and pigs, Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority media; tourism-destroying shark, an Egyptian official;
spying vulture awaiting Sharia justice, Saudi media.
Consider the most recent example of Gitmo witchery. The problem is not that one Walid Muhammad Hajj believes this,
but that Al Jazeera by far, the highest rated news network in the Arab world aired it on prime time. That
the suit-and-tie host was very sympathetic, never once casting doubt on Hajj's narrative, speaks volumes. (Incidentally,
this Gitmo story was aired on the same show that earlier provided Muhammad al-Awwa a platform to incite Egypt's
Muslims against its Christian minority thereby contributing to the latest slaughter of Copts in Egypt on New Year's
Eve.)
The point here is simple: if the media especially news and current affairs programs reflect the concerns of their
society, imagine if a prime-time CNN program hosted someone who earnestly accused people of witchcraft, talking birds,
and rapist cats all to a sincerely concerned host. What would that suggest about the American mindset?
What does it suggest about the Muslim mindset?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim, a historian of Islam, Islamism and the Middle East, is the Associate Director of the Middle East Forum,
a guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, and the editor of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, a collection
of tranlations of key texts and documents of the Islamist movement. Ibrahim's translations of the religious texts and
political propaganda comprising this collection help readers comprehend the origins, development, history, and serious
danger of the Islamist war doctrines of Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Founders of Al-Qa'ida and
implacable enemies of the U.S.A. and the West.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in Hudson New York, January 26, 2011, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-ΰ-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2825/bewitched-animals-muslim-media)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
January 26, 2011
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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