Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current “Supreme Leader” of Iran, attained that position in 1989, but until recently he had used the fasl el-khitab card in public only once — in 1991, to crush a student revolt in Tehran. Over two decades, he presented himself as a pious recluse who cultivated taciturnity as an art. The idea was that, while others fought for personal or partisan motives, the Führer, living an ascetic life devoted to prayer and introspection, intervened only to close debate and unite the ummah (the community of the faithful).

Nonetheless, the doctrine of walayat faqih has remained at the center of Iranian political debate (indeed, it has been debated ever since the mullahs seized power in 1979). The Khomeinist elite has defended it by claiming that the Führer’s function is to stand above factions, prevent extremism, and arbitrate divisive issues in the broader interest of the ummah. Supporters of pluralism and democracy, on the other hand, have seen the doctrine as a façade for religious despotism.

As often happens, events rather than rhetorical pirouettes appear to have ended the debate. In the past few weeks, it has become clear that walayat faqih no longer works. Since the presidential election, Khamenei has held more fasl el-khitab events than Frank Sinatra held farewell concerts. His message is always the same: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s landslide reelection should be hailed as an “Islamic miracle” rather than a crude fraud worthy of a banana republic.

In emerging from his reclusion and so pronouncing, Khamenei has demonstrated his own irrelevance. Rather than calming spirits and fostering consensus, his interventions have deepened divisions and fanned the fires of opposition to the regime. The “Supreme Guide” has become just another character in a political soap opera, and each appearance chips off more of his mystique. Simultaneously, the number of those who doubt the “Islamic miracle” seems to be growing by the day.

“The Leader may no longer be an asset to the regime,” says Yussefi Eshkaveri, a mullah who fought for Khomeinism before becoming a dissident and being defrocked on Khamenei’s orders. “He has jumped into the mud pit alongside many others and is unlikely to reemerge with much dignity.”

The question many ask in Tehran is: Why did Khamenei abandon his role as supreme arbiter to become a hatchet man for Ahmadinejad?

There is no satisfactory answer. One theory is that, when endorsing Ahmadinejad’s reelection, he had an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) gun pointed at his temple. Another is that the he was terrified by the prospect of a “velvet revolution” that could send him to the gallows or into exile.

In 2005, Khamenei tacitly supported Muhammad-Baqer Qalibaf, a former police chief, as presidential candidate, rather than Ahmadinejad. When Ahmadinejad won, Khamenei congratulated him in brief, even cold, terms. At the time, many suspected that the IRGC had propelled Ahmadinejad into the presidency against the wishes of Khamenei’s entourage. (Khamenei’s ambitious son Mujtaba had been chief campaign manager for Qalibaf and an outspoken critic of Ahmadinejad.)

This time, however, Khamenei rooted for Ahmadinejad and made no secret of it. A year before the election, he told Ahmadinejad to “work as if you have five more years, not just one,” clearly indicating his hope that the incumbent would secure a second term.

In June, Khamenei did not even wait for the publication of official election results to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his “miraculous victory.” When the opposition disputed the results, Khamenei cast himself in the role of chief spokesman for the Ahmadinejad camp. For almost a week, the reelected president was nowhere to be seen while the Führer was everywhere fighting in his behalf.

It is now clear that, in just three weeks, Khamenei squandered three decades’ worth of political capital. Although he remains a powerful player in the Iranian political game thanks to the vast financial and security assets at his disposal, he is no longer above the melee. The regime he heads has become a typical Third World dictatorship relying on violence and bribery to remain in power. With the mystique gone, the reality of a brutal regime that kills unarmed protestors in the streets is increasingly noticed, even by people like Brzezinski and Obama.

In the past week alone, two former presidents of Iran, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami — both of them mullahs with impressive Khomeinist credentials — have made it clear that they no longer believe in walayat faqih. Both have refused to obey Khamenei by recognizing Ahmadinejad’s reelection. They have also boycotted events organized by Khamenei himself.

Mir-Hussein Mussavi, Mehdi Karrubi, and Mohsen Rezai Mir-Qa’ed, the three candidates supposedly defeated by Ahmadinejad, have also made it clear that they no longer believe in walayat faqih, by refusing to join Khamenei in his claim that the June election was “a boon from Allah.” Scores of other mullahs (perhaps even a majority of Shiite clerics in Iran) and numerous senior officials who believe that Ahmadinejad “stole” the election have followed this example.

More important, daily demonstrations in Tehran and at least a dozen other major cities continue to challenge Khamenei’s fasl el-khitab. The regime still controls these cities — but thanks only to the IRGC and the government-controlled Bassij militia, not to the prestige and authority of the Führer.

Until the current crisis exposed the fundamental contradictions of the Khomeinist system, the function of the “Supreme Guide” appeared to have at least one justification: It prevented civil war within the ruling elite. With Khamenei now adopting a clearly partisan position, that justification is gone. The Khomeinist elite are in a state of civil war, and risk dragging the whole nation into a period of strife.

For 30 years, walayat faqih was a barrier to creating a broad coalition for genuine reform and change. But now, Khamenei’s rash behavior has fostered a growing consensus that it is time for Iran to move beyond Khomeinism, as both an ideology and a governing arrangement. Only a shrinking segment of the Khomeinist constituency still clings to the bizarre and unworkable walayat faqih concept. And that is perhaps the true miracle that happened last month. National Review

— Amir Taheri is an Iranian-born journalist based in Europe and author of The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution .

Nope. He was belligerent, accusatory, uncooperative, irrational and defamatory, throwing racial slurs at the white officer, even insulting the cop's mother (as in, "Yo momma is so..."). If ever a man did NOT act with Harvard professorial dignity and decorum, if ever a black man acted like a thug from the ‘hood, Gates did. Is it any wonder Officer Crowley asked for more ID, one that actually listed that house as his address, or asked for another person to corroborate Gates' identity? I would, wouldn't you?

And when Gates refused, and became so incensed and insulting to the Sergeant who was there to protect his property that a crowd grew around his house, was Crowley supposed to allow this kind of behavior, just because Gates was black? No. He arrested Gates for disorderly conduct, as he was trained to do. Last time I checked, police arrest people regardless of race when they act like crazy people in the presence of peace officers.

So why is President Obama a racist? Because he, like his friend Gates, automatically assumed the white police officer "acted stupidly." BO assumed it was the white officer's fault, because, of course, we all know white cops are racist, right? And later, when he slightly retracted his statement, he still felt the need to say, "It would have been better if cooler heads had prevailed." By now he knew the facts, that his friend Gates had lost his mind and acted like a fool, but he assumed that Sgt. Crowley similarly lost it and "got all up" in Gates' face, because, of course, that's what all white cops do.

But this white cop didn't, because he's not just any cop, he is an expert at managing racial incidents just like this one became, because of Gates' racism. Friends and fellow officers of all races say Sgt. James Crowley is calm and reliable in situations racially hostile situs, because he was hand-picked by a black police commissioner to teach recruits how to avoid racial profiling, and Crowley has apparently been doing a stellar job at it for 5 years.

But Gates and our esteemed president didn't know that, did they?

So, who are the racists in this story? Gates accused a decent, decorated, above-reproach police officer of being a racist rogue cop, just because he was white. What did our esteemed "black" president do? He immediately took Gates' side, because he's a friend and black! Um, Mr. President, I thought you were going to help erase the racial lines that divide us? Shame on you for taking sides on something you admitted you knew nothing about, for commenting nationally on a small, local issue well beneath your pay grade, and for showing us all that you are not that different that the racist Gates who believes all white cops are bad cops, just because of their skin color.

Mr. President, you are a racist. Shame on you. American Thinker

Kelly Anderson Wright is a business owner, mother and writer in Reno, NV. She is a contributor to freshconservative.com. Her email is pray4sneaux@yahoo.com.

The official explanation given for the decision to revoke the citizenship of Jordanians of Palestinian origin is that Jordan wants to send a signal to the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu: Jordan will not allow Israel to "resettle" Palestinians in Jordan. Never mind that the people who are losing their citizenship were "resettled" in Jordan decades ago.

It seems probable that the real motive of the Jordanian decision is to entrench the control of the Hashemite monarchy to stave off demands for democratic reform. The rise of democracy in Iraq and the recent protests in the streets of Tehran have created new expectations that the region's autocrats are desperate to subdue.

So, too, with Jordan. Though it is among the more liberal Arab states and enjoys both peace with Israel and free trade with the U.S., the monarchy is fragile. Its decision to strip Palestinians of their citizenship puts the peace process at risk by creating the false expectation that Israel will absorb millions of Palestinians currently outside its borders. Yet that is a risk the monarchy seems prepared to take to protect itself.

The Kingdom's decision may be also regarded as a response to President Barack Obama's new Middle East policy. Emboldened by Obama's harsh approach to Israel and his meek support for democratic movements in the region, Jordan has taken the opportunity to restore "stability," using Palestinians once again as the political pawns of the Arab world.

Neither Obama nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- voluble in recent days on the need for Israeli concessions and "self-reflection" -- has criticized Jordan, though the U.S. has a great deal of leverage there. The Palestinian diaspora, so quick to protest when Israel defends itself against Hamas terror, is nowhere to be seen.

When Netanyahu appointed Avigdor Lieberman as his foreign minister, there was global alarm. Lieberman was already notorious for his radical and reprehensible suggestion in 2004 that Israel might one day strip its Arab citizens of their citizenship. Yet now Jordan has begun to do exactly that, and the world has encouraged it through stark indifference.

The issue ought to be an urgent priority for the UN Human Rights Council. Ironically, Jordan was re-elected to a seat on the council in May -- the same election that saw the U.S. join the council as well. If U.S. membership is to mean anything more than a legitimization of the council's anti-Israel bias, it must raise the issue of Palestinians in Jordan before the council's next session opens in September.

Until then, this episode serves as a reminder not only of the casual disregard of Palestinian human rights in the Arab world, and the anti-Israel bias of much of the human rights community, but also of the risks of subjecting American prerogatives to the judgment of international institutions run by countries that violate at home what they try to enforce abroad.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, prevents the government from depriving any American of his or her citizenship. Theoretically, Jordanian citizens enjoy constitutional rights of their own, but the Jordanian constitution begins its section on rights with a disclaimer: "Jordanian Nationality shall be defined by law."

For the Palestinians of Jordan, their country's leadership in the UN Human Rights Council and subscription to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are of little use or comfort against the arbitrary powers of their government and the passivity of the international community. As the U.S. takes its seat on the council, theirs is a sobering example, and a warning worth remembering. American Thinker

Joel B. Pollak is a recent Harvard Law graduate and the author of Don't Tell Me Words Don't Matter: How Rhetoric Won the 2008 Presidential Election.

Fifteen of his former students are said to have been directly involved in acts of terror across the region.

Asked if he was embarrassed by this, Bashir said: "There are no Muslim terrorists. The terrorists are the CIA, the Americans and the Australians. They're the ones who terrorise Muslims.

"The Australians are making a fuss about their victims, but when it comes to Muslim victims they don't say anything about it."

One of those former students is Nur Said, who many thought was one of the hotel suicide bombers. While DNA tests from the bombers' bodies at both sites have ruled him out, there remains a view that he may have been Noordin Top's second-in-command in the operation.

In the little hillside village of Katekan, northwest of Jogjakarta, famed for its tobacco, a media crew said it had been staking out Nur Said's parents' home for days but they had gone into hiding.

Bashir said he had never met Nur Said.

Speaking within the grounds of the al-Mukmin school, where students studied a noticeboard with newspaper accounts of the attacks, Bashir was asked whether Noordin Top, who used the school as his main recruitment ground, should be apprehended.

"If Noordin M.Top has bad intentions, then he should be apprehended," said Bashir. "If he is right, then Allah will protect him. What I know about Noordin M.Top is that he is a Malaysian who fights to defend Islam."

Bashir claimed it was not Muslim terrorists who conducted the suicide bombings. "The person who bombed the Marriott is probably influenced by the CIA, which is an enemy of Islam. It will do anything to discredit and destroy Islam in Indonesia.

"In my opinion, acts of bombing are only allowed after one declares war against infidels. Such as al-Qa'ida, which has declared war on America. Go ahead (and bomb).

"I'm not saying the (Marriott and Ritz) bombers are wrong, they could have been right." But he would prefer if there was a formal declaration of jihad before targets were attacked.

Students and teachers call Bashir "Pak Ustad", meaning senior teacher. One teacher, Syehuddin, said he had no problem with the school's record of producing terrorists.

"Even though terrorists radiated from here, they also come from other places. Foreign intervention leads to all the attention on this school."

The school previously ran to university level but has since dropped off. Syehuddin would not say why this was, but it seems an al-Mukmin degree is no longer regarded as something you'd want on your CV.

Teachers claim they teach the origins of the various interpretations of the Koran and let students decide for themselves.

Bashir, who lives within the school grounds, said: "The connections between al-Mukmin and the Marriott bombing is just an allegation.

"My war is to promote Islam through preaching. God willing, if the (Indonesian) government can return to the Islamic way, we can fight the Americans because those kafirs (non-Muslims) are weak. God willing, the jihadists will prevail."
The Australian

Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and evangelical churches are not regarded as heritage communities and are afforded few rights. Christian worship must be in the Assyrian or Armenian languages, not in Farsi. Several Protestant and evangelical leaders have been murdered by government agents in recent years, and last year reports surfaced of a renewed crackdown against churches operating in people’s homes, with reportedly 50 or more arrests. Mandeans have sought in vain for official recognition based on their historic ties to John the Baptist.

Members of the Bahai faith, an independent religion that originated in 19th-century Iran, are treated far worse: as heretics to be persecuted outright. According to Iranian law, Bahai blood is considered mobah — that is, it can be spilled with impunity. Over two hundred Bahais have been executed since 1979. “An enemy of Islam” was written on some of their corpses. In 1979 the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) demolished the house of the Bab, a sacred Bahai site in the southwestern city of Shiraz, and the place where it stood has since been paved over for an Islamic center. The burial shrine of Quddus, a prominent follower of the Bab, was destroyed at Babol in 2004. Bahais can gather only underground — at private homes or in surreptitiously rented halls.

Converts from Islam to any other faith are regarded by the state as apostates who can be put to death. Iran bans non-Muslims not only from proselytizing but from most public religious expression in the presence of Muslims. The Intelligence Ministry closely monitors Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian religious communities. These groups are routinely denied permission for formal contacts with foreign co-religionists.

Among these religious groups, initiation ceremonies, weddings, and funerals must be discreet affairs. Even so, they run the risk of raids by the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance to ensure adherence to “Islamic standards.” A 2004 raid of one gathering resulted in the arrest of 80 Christians for following their own mores in women’s dress and in allowing men and women to mingle.

In Shiraz, a synagogue, a church, and a fire temple are located in close proximity to one another. Anti-Pahlavi graffiti there are refreshed regularly to remind Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians that their loyalty remains suspect. Jews often are accused of aiding Israel. In 2000, eleven prominent Iranian Jews were convicted of spying for Israel.

The tomb of Daniel, from the Old Testament, is exploited by the regime to promote its relentless anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda. One mural features an imaginary scene of Iranian forces joining Palestinian fighters in seizing Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Nearby slogans denounce Jews, Zionism, and Israel. Jews have stopped visiting the site altogether.

Though the constitution permits Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to “act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education,” Iran’s Education Ministry administers minority schools and imposes a state-approved religious textbook. Many minority secondary schools have been nationalized. The surviving private schools typically have Muslim directors. All university applicants must pass an examination in Islamic theology. Bahais have been essentially barred from higher education.

Zoroastrian schools must display towering portraits of Iran’s supreme leaders. Quranic quotations and revolutionary slogans are painted on their interior walls with the forced participation of the schoolchildren, while mullahs and revolutionary guards chant Shia praises.

The same displays are forced on churches, especially those not within Armenian or Assyrian neighborhoods. Churchgoers are taunted as infidels by Pasdaran and by Basij militiamen.

Religious minorities experience high unemployment and economic impoverishment, since so much of the economy, including the oil industry, is controlled by the state. Minority storeowners must display prominent signs indicating they are najasa (ritually unclean). Bahais have no property rights, and their homes and business are vulnerable to confiscation.

Non-Muslims are not excluded from the compulsory military service, however, and they report being deployed for especially hazardous assignments. During the Iran-Iraq war, they were routinely transferred to suicide brigades. Non-Muslim communities maintain small “martyrs’ walls” as memorials to their war dead.

Any non-Muslim responsible for a Muslim’s death faces capital punishment, in accordance with medieval Islamic jurisprudence. Conversely, Muslims do not face capital punishment or even long prison sentences for murdering a non-Muslim, though they are fined. Exceptions are in the murder of a Bahai or a Muslim apostate — no compensation whatsoever is required. In a court proceeding, a non-Muslim’s testimony is valued at half that of a Muslim’s. A non-Muslim who converts to Islam becomes the sole inheritor of his or her family’s assets.

President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel, and promotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as genuine. He has reportedly vowed the end of Christianity’s development in Iran. Under his presidency, life has only become more difficult for religious minorities. Their social organizations have been subject to intrusive investigations and threatened with criminal charges on such grounds as rejecting “cultural conformity” and weakening “the centrality of the Islamic regime.” A new committee in Qom has been empowered to “combat activities of members of religious minorities.” The five minority parliamentarians, like 175 of their colleagues, left Tehran to avoid having to congratulate the president upon his reelection, prompting a new round of raids on synagogues, churches, and fire temples.

Iran’s non-Muslims cannot defend their own rights. In 2005, the Zoroastrian parliamentarian Kourosh Niknam tried to do so, by giving a speech protesting a slur against non-Muslims by the head of the Guardian Council. He was prosecuted for failing to show respect for Iran’s leaders but released with a stern admonishment in response to domestic and international pressure.

Iran’s political dissidents are defended by the West. Its diverse non-Muslim minorities ask why they’ve been forgotten. National Review

— Jamsheed K. Choksy is a professor of Iranian studies and former director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University and serves as a Member of the National Council on the Humanities. Nina Shea directs the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and serves on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The views expressed herein are their own.

And so some Christians have lodged police reports recently at the Police Stations around the country against the offensive behaviour of some Muslims who have hurt the Christians deeply. The story of this behaviour was highlighted by Al-Islam of May 2009, with the headlines; Mencari kesahihan remaja Melayu murtad, pages 28-30.

These Muslims consumed the “Holy Communion” and spat out the sacred host. They humiliated the Catholics by having it photographed and its image published in the monthly Al-Islam. This is a violation of Christians in Malaysia and challenges the nation's Federal Constitution. Is Malaysia a secure land where all religions can practice their religion in peace and tranquility? Will the police (PDRM) and AG’s chambers bring those Muslims to court? As guardians of just laws will they carry out their noble task and honour the Law of our nation Malaysia? This desecration speaks against the 1Malaysia project of the Prime Minister.

From the very beginning of the Church, the Fathers of the Church and approved theologians have addressed the Church’s serious concern that due respect be paid to the Most Blessed Sacrament, that souls not fall into the sin of sacrilege by receiving the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily.

Those Muslims who have desecrated the Sacred Host have just done that — received the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily.

This is a very serious offence to our Christian Faith, and we support the efforts of Sudhagaran Stanley and Joachim Francis Xavier for their courageous stand in highlighting this sacrilegious act of certain Muslims and we call on the Catholic Lawyers’ Society to follow this through by taking the appropriate action and ensuring that such events do not take place.

As the incident committed by those Muslims was a willful act of desecration of the Sacred Host, the Body of Christ, it is proper that we, the Catholics, make reparation for the offence committed against the Lord. It should not be seen as a single incident since there have been many such instances of this nature taking place in other churches and going unreported. Therefore, it is the duty of the parish priests of those churches where such sacrilegious acts have been committed to do the necessary acts of reparation and also forgive those Muslims and pray for them.

Let us receive the Lord worthily always. The Herald

Instead, he turned on the only democracy in the Middle East and said the presence of Jews on Arab-claimed territory -- settlements -- was an affront to be stopped. It didn't matter that agreements require ultimate ownership of this territory to be determined by negotiation or that apartheid Palestine is hardly a worthy pursuit.

From Ghana he chided Africans: "No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end."

For an Arab and Muslim audience he cooed: "America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities, which are also threatened."

Ghanaians will likely turn the other cheek, secure enough to take it and even be grateful for the spotlight. But Obama's double standard is not a victimless crime. The disparity between the scolding he gave in Ghana and the love-in he held in Cairo illuminates an incoherent and dangerous agenda.

In his lofty but empty rhetoric in Ghana, Obama promised "we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst", pledged "a commitment ... to sanction and stop" warmongers and embraced the Zimbabwe non-governmental organisation that "braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person's vote is their sacred right".

These are devastating words for Iranians struggling valiantly to keep the hope of democracy alive but forced to bear witness to the contradiction. Betrayed, they have watched the Obama administration pledge to move forward on negotiations with illegally ensconced Iranian thugs, at the same time their victims are being rounded up, tortured and readied for show trials in advance of certain execution.

On Friday, Obama, and the rest of the G8 with his blessing, announced that thinking about more sanctions on Iran can wait until September. And then we can expect yet another round of UN Security Council dickering over minimalist responses to more Iranian stalling tactics, until an Iranian nuclear weapon is inevitable.

Though it is 2202 days since the UN's atomic energy agency first declared that Iran was violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Obama pretends that legitimising those same nuclear-proliferating fascists makes it likelier the clock will stop ticking. Iranians standing up for their allegedly "sacred rights" know Obama has it exactly backwards. Speechifying about "our interconnected world" and "common interests" in Ghana was cold comfort to the voices of Muslim dissidents and Jewish victims deserted in the Obama wilderness.

Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in New York. The Australian News

The church was not converting Muslims but instead was holding the First Holy Communion Mass (one of the rites of initiation to the faith) for 98 Catholic children, many of whom were traumatised by the sight of a threatening mob. Imagine the very unfortunate impression the young Catholics would have got of Islam and of Muslims.

The mufti who had proven to be more of a misfit, was not man enough to own up. He blamed it on an SMS sent out by a woman! Why no action was taken against the mufti, and why the authorities remained mute (on both occasions) over his “mischief” remains but a mystery. You must have been motivated by the mufti.

If indeed the Catholic Church has the conversion of Muslims as its hidden agenda, it would surely have started converting hundreds or even thousands of impressionable young Muslims through its Catholic Mission schools which have existed for as long as 100 years, But no such thing has ever happened.

The Muslim classmates and friends that I had in St Michael’s Ipoh are still good and respected Muslims today, and such was their appreciation and respect for the La Salle Brothers that they made sure that their children in turn would attend a La Salle school or a Convent!

Sacrilegious

Sadly, your disrespect knew no bounds. You chose to abandon all human and religious decency with impunity as a journalist and a Muslim. Under pretense of being a Catholic you participated in the church service and even partook of the Holy Communion (a white and sacred wafer) strictly meant only for Catholics.

You consumed the white wafer which Catholics hold as very sacred and treat with utmost reverence, and both of you spat out the remnants, photographed it and published the picture in an article entitled "Tinjaun Al Islam Dalam Gereja:Mencari Kesahihan Remaja Murtad" which was published in the May 2009 issue of the Al Islam magazine.
.
I shudder to think of what could happen if the reverse took place -- if for instance two reporters from the Herald were to enter a mosque disguised as Muslims, partake of the rituals and desecrate something which the congregation considers very sacred.

I can imagine Khairy Jamaluddin leading a group of Umno Youth thugs and burning the effigy of the Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur and even threatening to set fire to a few churches, and Zulkifli Nordin rousing up a mob and invading the Herald’s office and demanding that it be shut down for good; or certain Muslim NGOs insisting that the two journalists be jailed under the ISA!

It makes me wonder how does a “creature” like you exist in this country? Are you the product of the educational, social or even religious system or process created by Bolehland’s leaders (also read as “Umno”) over the past 30 years?

How is it possible that you could blatantly trespass into a place of worship, violate its sanctity, insult its adherents, even publish your transgression and completely ignore the implications and consequences (will there be any)? What gives you such audacity?

It all points to the reality of you being a cog in Umno’s machine – a political party that has politicised religion for its survival by creating unfounded insecurities amongst Muslims and a distrust of other religions. Meanwhile it dominates, dictates, decides and even defines what non-Muslims can and cannot discuss, deliberate on, and display in print.

Najib’s 1Malaysia is really Malaysia in one big mess!

As I join my Catholic brothers and sisters in forgiving you (a Catholic duty we are reminded of!), I also pray that you will feel the full weight of God’s wrath upon you.

I feel sad for the many good Muslims in this country who have a respect for peoples of other faiths, for not only have you insulted Catholics but you have insulted them too. Islam would do well without religious misfits like you!

Martin Jalleh
(15 July 2009)

Our military system and its successes are built on trust. The other stuff's important: marksmanship, fire discipline, skilled maneuver, equipment, maintenance, etc. But the key element is teamwork. We win on the battlefield, because we can count on each other.

Sounds simple. It ain't.

We're operating in societies in which trust is restricted to the family or, at most, the clan. Even within tribes, old feuds and suspicions limit cooperation. Life is a zero-sum game and power is to be hoarded, not shared. The top challenge in training local militaries in the greater Middle East isn't getting them to shoot straight (tough as that can be), but getting them to give each other straight answers.

The next-biggest problem is inculcating a culture of responsibility. Afghan and Iraqi officers -- to say nothing of NCOs -- learned long ago to duck responsibility, to kick even minor decisions up the chain of command. Our Marine Corps speaks of "strategic corporals." Middle Eastern militaries don't even have "strategic colonels."

So we're struggling to build efficient, effective forces in cultures where responsibility means risk, not reward, and in which you can't trust your brother officer to have your back. Critics in Washington focus on slow equipment deliveries, but a force built on trust and armed with truncheons will out-perform a unit with state-of-the-art weapons but torn by suspicion and haunted by old grudges.

In Iraq, we had the right formula early on -- "As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down" -- but Iraqi performance lagged behind our electoral timelines. Ultimately, though, progress in Iraq did come. Because Iraqis finally took responsibility, as Sunnis turned on al Qaeda and Shia turned against the militias.

Today, there's real hope in Iraq. If the Iraqi military and police can maintain national unity in their ranks.

Afghanistan's far tougher. Iraq had a budding sense of national identity. Afghanistan doesn't. Isolated successes, the inevitable "patriotic" Afghan captain trotted out by well-meaning US advisers, can't substitute for a broad sense of national destiny.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban shouldn't be our top concern. We can beat the Taliban every time. The crucial question is: How many times will we need to beat the Taliban before Afghans themselves stand up and fight?

At present, the Afghans aren't helping us out -- they're waiting us out. After 7½ years, our troops are still the only real Afghan army. We aren't training Afghan troops, we're empowering scavengers.

The Afghans don't really know what we're doing in their country. Neither do we. Ralph Peters in The New York Post

You needn’t approve of the slatternly attire so often found on Western women to stoutly and angrily resist the encroachment of the burqa — and everything it represents — into Western life. Let’s be clear. It took guts for Sarkozy to say what did. He called the burqa “a sign of subjugation . . . of debasement.” Al-Qaeda, reliably enough, issued a fulminating statement: “We will not tolerate such provocations and injustices, and we will take our revenge from France . . . by every means and wherever we can reach them.”

Muslims agree that the faith requires “modest” dress on the part of women. Beyond that, things get disputatious. Some argue that the face must be veiled. Others deny it. Both cite Koranic authority. But there is no doubt that the vast majority of the world’s Muslim women do not wear these personality-obliterating shrouds. The burqa’s revival in some parts of the Muslim world (Iran, Egypt, Morocco, even Lebanon) is more of a political than a religious expression. Some women insist that they freely choose to swaddle themselves. But in many Muslim nations women are subjected to a variety of coercions, both cultural and political, to erase themselves in public. Also, there must be thousands of Muslim women who, by moving to Western Europe, thought they could shed the oppression of their home countries. Instead, they have found cringing European “multiculturalists” eager to excuse every Third World depredation — from wife-beating to polygamy to the burqa – as a sign of their broadmindedness.

Europeans are not the only ones cringing. In his Cairo address, President Obama engaged in his by now famous false equivalence: “Among some Muslims, there’s a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of somebody else’s faith . . . Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit — for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.”

Since the president’s speech predated Sarkozy’s comments on the burqa, Obama must have been referring to France’s 2004 decision to ban the headscarf (along with crucifixes and yarmulkes) in public offices and schools. Let’s see, in Saudi Arabia it is illegal to build a church (to say nothing of a synagogue) or to carry a Christian Bible on your person. In most Muslim-majority nations, alcohol is prohibited to everyone, not just to practicing Muslims. And little girls are subjected to genital mutilation and other forms of torture and abuse on a widespread basis. Well, President Obama explains, both sides need improvement.

The French approach would be constitutionally complicated in America. But as C. C. Colton observed, “The law allows what honor forbids.” For all men and women who consider themselves enlightened, fighting off the burqa should be a matter of honor. National Review

— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.