Islam and Politics *A tragic joke plays out in proud Iran<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1563> *
Allow me to quote the British novelist Martin Amis, writing about Persia in the Guardian: “Iran is one of the most venerable civilisations on earth: it makes China look like an adolescent, and America look like a stripling”. Iranians, aware of that history, are a proud people. They do not take kindly to being played around with, nor to seeing their country turned into a laughing stock. They do not like the memory of an election campaign that now seems like pure theatre, the expression of the sadistic whim of some puppeteer. So the line I take away from the important Friday sermon of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the two-time former President who believes that the Islamic Republic’s future lies in compromise rather than endless confrontation, is this one: “We shouldn’t let our enemies laugh at us because we’ve imprisoned our own people”. There’s been tragedy aplenty since June 12 — dozens of killings, thousands of arrests, countless beatings of the innocent — and I hope I belittle none of it when I say there’s also been something laughable. -- *Roger Cohen* *Photo: Hojjatoleslam Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani* More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1563> Islam and the West *Six years after Saddam: Dictator or Martyr<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1562> * *Saddam fell victim to his adventurism, but Arabs still revere him* Iraq has been living without Saddam for six years, but the dictator's shadow still haunts the land. He was and remains a hideous tyrant for some, but others recollect with nostalgia the halcyon days when suicide bombers did not blow themselves up in the streets and when Iraq was one of the most influential regional powers. -- RIA Novosti commentator *Andrei Murtazin* Photo: Anti-American rally outside the US embassy in Baghdad, January 15, 1991. More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1562> Islam and the West *America's Serial Warriors: How Serial War Became the American Way of Life<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1561> * On July 16, in a speech<http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/07/17/address_to_economic_club_of_chicago_96945.html> to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the "central question" for the defense of the United States was how the military should be "organized, equipped -- and funded -- in the years ahead, to win the wars we are in while being prepared for threats on or beyond the horizon." The phrase *beyond the horizon* ought to sound ominous. Was Gates telling his audience of civic-minded business leaders to spend more money on defense in order to counter threats whose very existence no one could answer for? Given the public acceptance of American militarism, he could speak in the knowledge that the awkward challenge would never be posed. We have begun to talk casually about our *wars*; and this should be surprising for several reasons. To begin with, in the history of the United States war has never been considered the normal state of things. For two centuries, Americans were taught to think war itself an aberration, and "wars" in the plural could only have seemed doubly aberrant. Younger generations of Americans, however, are now being taught to expect no end of war -- and no end of wars. -- *David Bromwich* More.<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1561> -- Syed.Asadullah --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Asalam o Alaikum, You Are Receiving This Message, Because You Are A Member Of FOCUS ON ISLAM, A Google Group [..:: The Best Group For Nice Islamic Mails ::..] \/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<>\/ You can Post Your Comments and Suggestions to Me [Moderator of this Group] on this email address: [email protected] To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.google.com/group/focusonislam/ To post messages/mails to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Please forward our Mails to Your friends, and convence them to join our Group. Wanna subscribe to this group, send email to [email protected] \/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<>\/ *********************************************************** The Official Website of Group is LAUNCHED, http://www.geocities.co -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
