Saturday, March 25, 2006

Nineteen

There's an extremely interesting post at Terrorism Unveiled which is following the progress of Mohammad Reza Taheri Azar's trial. Azar attempted to do "God's will" by running over students on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill in early March. Taheri Azar's explanation of his actions compel attention.

I am a servant of Allah. I am 22 years old. I was born in Tehran, Iran. My father, mother and older sister immigrated to the United States in 1985 when I was 2 years of age, and I have lived in the United States ever since. ... I have decided to take advantage of my presence on United States soil on Friday, March 3, 2006, to take the lives of as many Americans and American sympathizers as i can in order to punish United States for their immoral actions around the world. In the Qur'an, Allah states that the believing men and women have permission to murder anyone responsible for the killing of other believing men and women. I know that the Qur'an is a legitimate and authoritative holy scripture since it is completely validated by modern science and also mathematically encoded with the number 19 beyond human ability.

Nineteen? A partial explanation of Taheri Azar's belief in the power of this number can be found at The Mathematical Miracle of the Quran.

When told about the mathematical miracle of the Quran and how it is related to number 19 , many people ask : Why 19?! ... The number 19 possesses unique mathematical properties, for example: 1-It is a prime number , only divides by itself and one. 2-It encompasses the first numeral (1) and the last numeral (9), as if to proclaim God's attribute in 57:3 as the "Alpha and the Omega". 3-Its {numerals} look the same in all languages in the world.The numerals (1) and (9) look very much the same in , for example Arabic and English. 4-It possesses many peculiar mathematical properties. For example, 19 is the sum of the first powers of 9 and 10, and the difference between the second powers of 9 and 10.

There follows various ways of enumerating Koranic objects to result in the number 19. This immediately calls to mind the numerological interpretations of the Kabbalah.

Kabbalah teaches that every Hebrew letter, word, number, and accent of the Hebrew Bible contains a hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for ascertaining these meanings. One such method is as follows:

Torah (first five books of the Bible) is an encoded message with hidden meanings. Specifically, kabbalists traditionally have taught that Kabbalah is the secret part of the Torah given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Gemetria is a method for discovering hidden meanings in Torah. Each letter in Hebrew also represents a number - Hebrew, unlike many other languages, never developed a separate numerical alphabet. By converting letters to numbers, Kabbalists were able to find hidden meaning in each word. This method of interpretation was used most extensively by the school of Rabbi Yitzchak Luria.

Not far behind are the ancient Pythagoreans, who saw the Universe encoded in numbers and treated them as mystical objects.

The Pythagorean view of the universe rested squarely on the belief that Natural (counting) number was the key to the various qualities of mankind and matter. Since in their view everything was composed of number, the explanation for an objects existence could only be found in number. Elsewhere about this time, number existed for utilitarian purposes only, as a device for solving problems in calendar construction, building and commerce. It was the Pythagoreans who saw number as important in itself, the numbers themselves having "personality in a rustic landscape". The distinction was made between logistic (art of computation) and arithmetic (number theory). Kline quotes the famous Pythagorean Philolaus (425 B.C.E.), as writing:

"Were it not for number and its nature, nothing that exists would be clear to anybody either in itself or in its relation to other things...You can observe the power of number exercising itself ... in all acts and the thoughts of men, in all handicrafts and music."

Pythagoras and the early Order initially treated number concretely, as patterns with pebbles, but over time the Pythagoreans developed and refined their concept of number into the same abstract entity which still exists today. Though it is difficult to separate fact from fancy in some of the surviving references to the Pythagoreans, it is generally conceded that they began number theory, and were responsible for the introduction and development of number mysticism in Western Society.

The number mysticism of Pythagoras with roots in number theory,  seems at first glance to be far more technically sophisticated than Taheri Azar's rather thin "19" thesis as proof of the infallibility of the Koran. All the same, there are claims that Pythagorean number mysticism long stood in the way of accepting irrational numbers, which are now a normal part of mathematics.

The earliest known use of irrational numbers was in the Indian Sulba Sutras composed between 800-500 BC. The first existence proofs of irrational numbers is usually attributed to Pythagoras, more specifically to the Pythagorean Hippasus of Metapontum, who produced a (most likely geometrical) proof of the irrationality of the square root of 2. The story goes that Hippasus discovered irrational numbers when trying to represent the square root of 2 as a fraction. However Pythagoras believed in the absoluteness of numbers, and could not accept the existence of irrational numbers. He could not disprove their existence through logic, but his beliefs would not accept the existence of irrational numbers and so he sentenced Hippasus to death by drowning.

Comparisons will inevitably made with Intelligent Design, which also sees non-randomness encoded into observable universe. However,  Intelligent Design only makes weak claims about what can be safely inferred from this observation.

Intelligent design deliberately does not try to identify or name the specific agent of creation – it merely states that one (or more) must exist. While intelligent design itself does not name the designer, the personal view of many proponents is that the designer is the Christian god. Whether this was a genuine feature of the concept or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from science-teaching has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design.

Taheri Azar treats the number 19 as some kind of public key which allows him to decrypt messages which come direct from Allah. In this case, the plaintext says:

In the Qur'an, Allah states that the believing men and women have permission to murder anyone responsible for the killing of other believing men and women. I know that the Qur'an is a legitimate and authoritative holy scripture since it is completely validated by modern science and also mathematically encoded with the number 19 beyond human ability.

Commentary

It probably never occurred to the thousands of people dying in flames or under rubble in the World Trade Center that their doom may have had anything to do with the number 19. They might have seen the number scrawled, like graffiti on some storefront mosque or printed on some obscure handbill. Yet they never suspected its significance. But who would have guessed that in the early 21st century messages emanating from a void beyond space would instruct apparently sane human beings to fly wide-bodied aircraft into Manhattan skyscrapers?

91 Comments:

Blogger Jack said...

The Pythagoreans also drowned a man in their midst who accidently "discovered" irrational numbers. The lesson: Don't get between fanatics and their delusions. (Correlary: Don't be successful hedonists while Islamists wallow in poverty and failure.)

3/25/2006 08:39:00 PM  
Blogger M. Simon said...

Some one should explain imaginary numbers to them. That ought to keep them busy for a year or thirty.

Then we give them transfinites. In Hebrew. That will fix them for good.

Then we Goedelize the whole bit and prove that only some truth is provable.

3/25/2006 09:30:00 PM  
Blogger Cobalt Blue said...

Forget the numerology--the western world has plenty of fruitcakes who believe all sorts of superstitious crap: astrology, homeopathic medicine, scientology, whatever.

The disturbing part of this news lies in what he said just before the argle-bargle about the number: "In the Qur'an, Allah states that the believing men and women have permission to murder anyone responsible for the killing of other believing men and women."

The Koran grants a license to murder.

Hmm. We should tolerate Islam how?

3/25/2006 10:21:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

hey, creepy--it dawns on me I was 19 when the Stones released "19th Nervous Breakdown". I listened to it for 19 straight hours, and ended up with a 19 IQ for the next 19 years.

3/25/2006 11:00:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

19

3/25/2006 11:38:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

They're still arresting people for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, too. Although I've never seen what, exactly, is considered to be black magic there. I'm sure it's something equally as scientific as 19, and that it's "in the Koran".

3/26/2006 12:06:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Mat's FOOTBALLS link from the last thread.

Other songs with the number in their titles include "Nineteen" by the Old 97's and "Hey, Nineteen" by Steely Dan.

3/26/2006 12:28:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"In accordance with Allah's Swill."

3/26/2006 12:30:00 AM  
Blogger neuroconservative said...

Wretchard,

There are some interesting paradoxes and parallels here.

Rashad Khalifa, who developed the theory of 19, was denounced as a heretical Zionist Coptic Christian and was assassinated (in 1990), possibly by a Pakistani-based terror group.

More details are here:
Khalifa rejected Hadith (words attributed to Muhammad), Sunnah (practices said to have been initiated by Muhammad), and Ijma (the consensus of scholars about Muslim doctrines). In brief, he rejected Islamic tradition. Like his counterparts among Protestant fundamentalists with respect to the Bible, he held that the Koran was the only reliable source of Islamic beliefs. Islamic leaders were incensed by his demand that the last two verses of Sura 9 be removed. Their fury increased when Khalifa's egotism grew to the point of declaring himself the divine messenger of Allah foretold in the Koran (3:81). Death threats against him steadily mounted.

As a side note, Khalifa's followers apparently believed that George W. Bush's election as the 19th Republican president demonstrated the divine signature.

3/26/2006 12:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Then we Goedelize the whole bit and prove that only some truth is provable. "
---
For the non-engineers: Goedelize This:
The MCA (Mechanical Contractors Assoc.) rented a bunch of the swanky hotels on the Beach in Maui.
Had Kenny Loggins and the Beach Boys for entertainment this week.

They found some lady on the lawn, got her back to her room, and just as they got her to her bed, she puked and then faced it down.
Next she lost control of her bladder.
Engineers never change:
My dad took me to one of their parties 40 years ago!

3/26/2006 12:41:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Wretchard:
I spent all evening looking for that link you had to the Site that had a detailed description of the Battles re:
The Shuri Line, and General Ushijima's last stand.
Couldn't find it at the old site, this one is missing the search bar:
Could that be put back up, please?
">Buddy, here's a W post on Fallujah I and the Shuri Line

3/26/2006 01:32:00 AM  
Blogger Karridine said...

Wretchard, the 19's in the Quran aren't there to inspire to KILL, they are there as reinforcement for the OTHER prophecies about the Glory of God.

All Arabic letters have numerical values, so when one reads Baha, (Glory) Abha (Glory), Baha'u'llah (Glory of God) and Amit-Abha (Most Glorious) in the Quran or in Arabic, they all have the numeric value of 19.

The Muslims are kept from learning about His coming in much the same way that conscientious Jews were kept from learning about the righteousness of Christ in Jesus: they asked their clergy!

And our CLERGY wouldn't be ignorant about something as important as the coming of the Promised One, would they?

3/26/2006 01:48:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Al Qaeda's nuclear option

3/26/2006 02:03:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

DISTIL

PRECIPITATETRANSMUTE

ADDTOREDUCEREDUCETODEDUCE

THENUMBEROFTHEWORDOFTHEWORDOFTHENUMBER

3/26/2006 04:57:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

ALLAH

ALL ARRIVETH HERE

THATISISISTHAT

AM I THAT THAT I AM

3/26/2006 05:02:00 AM  
Blogger enscout said...

Some may be interested in reading Michael Drosnin's fascinating book, "The Bible Code".

You can get it free here:

http://www.freegiftworld.com/gift.html?nopop=1&ADTGID=81561&xid=0&CID=39216&KWID=The%20BIBLE%20CODE&SID=KE3141634

3/26/2006 05:14:00 AM  
Blogger erp said...

I have a vague memory of the number 19 being bandied about by that great mathematician Louis
Farrakhan as well. Don't remember the context.

3/26/2006 05:24:00 AM  
Blogger Jeff Burton said...

Here is my favorite proof of the divine nature of the Quran:

24-The word "Quran" occurs in the Quran 58 times, with one of them referring to
"another Quran" in 10:15, therefore, if excluded, the frequency of "this Quran" in
the Quran is 57, or 19X3

3/26/2006 05:25:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

3/26/2006 05:47:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Azar was a well educated young man who had a good family, membership in a fraternity and a job. He was also a loner and may have had psychological problems (follow the link). I've got a hunch he's playing up the "19" angle so he can employ the fruitcake defense.

On the other hand you can ask, which came first the cult or the cult member? A guy with problems is going to gravitate to something like "19", which would be invented sooner or later if didn't exist just to fill the need.

You are always going to be able to sell tickets for the Mothership.

3/26/2006 06:01:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

While the number theory is interesting, the fact that this guy has been here since he's two years old and harbors a murderous hatred against us is the point of this story for me. There must be many more like him, and in addition to him, there must be many, many more converts to Prislam who started out sociopaths and can now "rationalism" their sociopathy. Our children are going to be facing their own intractable "Palestinian problem" in this country, I fear.

3/26/2006 06:13:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Tony,

Not to worry. Every cloud has its Silver lining. You just find that pot of Gold.

3/26/2006 06:18:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

My folks had a 19 inch Zenith TV.
---
erp,
19 is why the Bush Admin planted dept charges on the New Orleans Levees.

3/26/2006 06:28:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"depth"

3/26/2006 06:29:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Gold, and Silver and don't forget, Rubies! Yep, I heard that quote from Imam Farrakan.

The thing is, America is not in the Bible or Koran, so they gotta make up some new "truth" to justify the hate. Then again, I suppose we fit into the box of anyone who is not Muslim living under sharia. Yeh, that's the ticket, that justifies mass murder.

3/26/2006 06:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Them Chauvinist Pig Engineers had Erin Brokobitch here to talk to the wives.
(Maybe that's how the lady got ill on/in her bed)
---
Yurin the Cookies, now, Sweetie.

3/26/2006 06:36:00 AM  
Blogger jinnderella said...

the pythagoreans were the first republicans, in that they believed in republics.
and they were wiped out by the first democrats, a mob of Crotonian villagers led by Cylon.
they were also reputed by Heroditas to possess the secret of immortality, learnt from Pythagoras' slave, Slmonia the Sycthian.

3/26/2006 06:36:00 AM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

The point of the story is well taken, but the numerological aspect is interesting.

I recall recieving an article published by some Islamic scholar who shows how the Korran "predicts" the speed of light. Of course, it was all results based with a pinch of bat boogars added when needed to make the number come out. I do recall the units did not come out properly.

As far as a Koranic license to kill, I would argue that we can find such license in our Old Testament. While the Old Testament is not to be out and out disregarded by Christians it needs to be put into persepctive by the understandings taught to us by Jesus.

There is a rift in Islam and it is the Shiites vs. Sunnis and there are smaller sects of Islam as well. Suffis is one and there was one sect of Islam HQ'ed in Nizwa Oman (can not recall the name). I think we don't see the conflcit between the two as much because it is not our fight, our MSM isn't delving into it, and the fight on both sides seem to be driven by the "Lets go back to the 7th Century" crowd. Most of us are looking for a rift involving progressive Muslims and miss the actual one.

3/26/2006 06:38:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Tony,

I thought you'd recognize gibberish when you see it. Whether in Hebrew script, Latin, Greek, Arabic, or Egyptian Hieroglyphs, it's all the same.

3/26/2006 06:38:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Also, let us not ignore 19.5 degrees which is said to have a very special significance, it being the position of the star Sirius, as encoded in the Great Pyramid and also the position of the Face on Mars and all kinds of other things relating to not only the basic structure of the Universe but also the aliens who came to Earth thousands of years ago.

Of course, there is a gigantic conspiracy to cover all this up.

Slide over to enterprisemission.com
and read all about it.

You don't have to be crazy to be a terrorist...
... but it helps, a lot.

3/26/2006 06:40:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

No matter how you licker it,
It's still Gefiltefish.

3/26/2006 06:44:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

" ... can understand why the president and the secretary of state would rather deal with this through back-channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies.

Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours." ... "

He tells the story, better than I.

Mark Steyn

"Facing down a culture where they talk like crazies"

3/26/2006 06:44:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"In a more culturally confident age"
---
That's SO 18 Hundred.
We're talkin 19 now.

3/26/2006 06:52:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
LA Unified School District is now 76% "Hispanic."
What's Phoenix?

3/26/2006 06:54:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Tony,

What does justify mass murder?

3/26/2006 07:02:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

mass murder
Plus
mass murder
Adds up to 20.
Minus the one in your 7:01 AM post,
Equals
19

3/26/2006 07:05:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

and now to cover it all up,
he JooDeletes the 7:01 AM.

3/26/2006 07:06:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No, doug, we are into the 20's, now
19's are so "last century"
So yesterday.
That is what the Mohammedans are really fighting for, yesterday.

When all their troubles were far away.

Even the NYTimes offers
"Stay the Course" advise in Afghanistan, today. The other day they wanted to cut and run, along with peter boston.
" ... Afghanistan's post-Taliban judiciary, however, has shown a propensity to use Islam as a political weapon. The country's chief justice, Fazil Hadi Shinwari, is a hard-line conservative associated with the Islamist parties of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani. He has used the court as a bully-pulpit, issuing fatwas on a variety of issues outside his jurisdiction.

For instance, under Justice Shinwari's leadership the Supreme Court has variously attempted to ban co-education; tried to eliminate a rival to President Hamid Karzai from the 2004 elections; and jailed newspaper editors, all in the name of Islam.

In other words, the court has overstepped its bounds and contributed to the radicalization of Afghan politics in the process. To further his aims, Justice Shinwari has packed the lower courts with judges who have Islamic educations but no foundation in Afghan law or experience in the judiciary. ... "

" ... Under the Constitution, Mr. Karzai must appoint a new Supreme Court this month, and he sent his slate of nine justices to Parliament for approval last week. Although the current chief justice has retained his position, there are some very promising choices among the eight other justices. They include known moderates, like the former chairman of the Judicial Reform Commission, Bahauddin Baha, and the deputy minister of justice, Qasim Hashimzai, who led a major corruption investigation involving members of President Karzai's cabinet.

These appointments mark President Karzai's first opportunity to compose Afghanistan's Supreme Court under a fully constitutional government. They are of momentous importance to the country's stabilization and the consolidation of its nascent democracy.

By creating a competent, professional and moderate judiciary, President Karzai will help to establish the rule of law. ... "

NYTimes.

A martyr here or there along the way, what's the beef.
2,300 US soldiers have already died, 3,000 plus US civilians have already died.

If we carpet bomb Afghanistan, make it a Free Fire Zone, as peter boston suggested, Mr Rahman and/ or countless other innocents, women and children, will die, regardless, in the Firestorm of US bombing.

Stay the Course, have patience.

We will figure out who the Enemy is, someday.

3/26/2006 07:08:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

We do not keep those kinds of stats, doug, it Hispanphobic to even ask.

?? do not know ??

3/26/2006 07:10:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Doug,

Lay off the liquored gelfilterfish, you're giving me a tooth ache.

3/26/2006 07:11:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

But La La Unified is in the Spirit of 76. (%)
What's Phoenix?

3/26/2006 07:11:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

No matter what you do,
She'll still ache for you.
"Be Mine,
Gefiltish and Wine."

3/26/2006 07:15:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"fish"

3/26/2006 07:16:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sorry Doug,

That spell is: "Girlfilterfish"

3/26/2006 07:20:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

rat

You misquote me. I want to make Cambridge, MA a free fire zone.

3/26/2006 07:20:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Gefiltefish and Wine has 18 letters,
and when you add the period, that makes 19.

3/26/2006 07:21:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This is all I'll do for your need for data, doug.

There are multiple school districts, here in Phoenix. All little fiefdoms, each to their own.

" ... The Phoenix Union High School District, with 13 feeder elementary school districts, enrolls 23,000 students. Of those, nearly 85 percent are minorities.

The Hispanic student population has grown by 2 to 3 percentage points each year since 1990, when the Anglo student numbers started to decrease. Hispanic students now account for 69 percent of enrollment. ...

3/26/2006 07:23:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Or, alternatively: "Girlfillfishtush"

3/26/2006 07:23:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Girlfilterfish"
Still has a period.
It's up to chew.

3/26/2006 07:24:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Girlfillfishtush plus the quotes,
Plus the Period
=
19

3/26/2006 07:26:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I was paraphrasing, pb, not directly quoting.

Cambridge, MA? ain't there one of them fancy collages, there?

3/26/2006 07:26:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

7:23 AM
So in a Century, America will be like Japan:
All one "race."
(Democrat)

3/26/2006 07:29:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Chew, Choi. Ding, Dang.
What's the diff.

3/26/2006 07:31:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Yin Yang,
Poon Tang.

3/26/2006 07:33:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Ah yes, gibberish, courtesy of Farrakhan:

"I say you call yourself Goldstein, Silverstein and Rubinstein because you [sic] stealing all the gold and silver and rubies all over the earth. . . we call it jewelry but it's really Jew-elry, Jew-elry because of your deiving [sic] and stealing and rogueing [sic] and lying all over the face of the planet earth."

Baltimore, MD, February 19, 1994


Holy guano, Batman! There's that 19!

3/26/2006 07:35:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Bakersfield plus Buck Owens
=
19

3/26/2006 07:38:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

To see. Putana is same.

3/26/2006 07:39:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Farrakhan
= Fart on Kahn
= 19

3/26/2006 07:44:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Mətušélaḥ asks What does justify mass murder?

You mean, outside of war? Nothing.

In war, we don't call it murder. In war, we call it Gettysburg, Antietam, Chickamauga.

As for when it is "justified" ...? How 'bout when the enemy won't give up, and the shortest distance to the end of war is ... Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

3/26/2006 08:00:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Hey 19,
Steely Dan may have been before their time. 19 Hijackers? Product 19 cereal? Spooky. It seems to come up at least once every time I count to 20.

Pythagoras exhausted geometric improbabilities religiously and I have often marveled at the unlikliness of the quarditure of the lune.

It would appear that the clash of civilizations may not exist, but that all current conflicts can be traced to the relics of the ancient semitic gnosticism and drawing diagrams in the sands of time.

3/26/2006 08:03:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

How come Cedarford sounds so much like Farrakhan?

3/26/2006 08:05:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

post modern War, tony, is different.

No more Victories, they've been traded for the promise of no defeats.

Since the US instituted the Dept of Defense there have been no Victories, just withdrawls, stalemates and ceasefires, managed by the Pentagon.

Unless one counts Grenada and Panama. Neither worthy of much mention in the history of US Wars.

3/26/2006 08:08:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Tony,
I assume (keeping the erotika theme) we certainly don't intend to give up. So why isn't Mo justified in his "rationalism".

===

Doug,
Don't forget your scuba gear. It's a long dive to sonia's treasure island.

3/26/2006 08:09:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Ha! And that was post 69.

3/26/2006 08:15:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Mətušélaḥ,

O no, as Desert Rat points out, given our recent history, I think Mo does expect us to give up. Here's the plan:

A Vietnam-War-Style Anti-War Movement Needed to Awaken Americans

3/26/2006 08:24:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Well, Mo is in for a sunrise surprise.

3/26/2006 08:28:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

There you go, tony, in the end, it's always about US.

3/26/2006 08:29:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

3/26/2006 08:33:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Is that when Delta Force moves in and frees Mr Rahman?

Do they get his kids as well, or are they sacrificed to allah's cult, being to hard to find & free?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Hope you've got another 19 years, mat, sunrise is that far off, according to Mr Cheney.

3/26/2006 08:35:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Got kind of a conumdrum with this guy. We are expected to believe that he was perfectly sane when he set out to do Allahs bidding, then must feign instability in his defense? I'd believe him to be insane either way, but in my world insanity, though playing to motive, makes but a more dangerous sociopath. We can't expect to rehabilitate sociopaths, we can only hope to remove them from society.

3/26/2006 08:37:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No, am, Mr Rahman feigns nothing.
He does not even plead insanity, the Court summarily finds him so.

Check out the NYTimes article, according to it, Mr Rahman is a pawn in a bigger game.

In other Muslims locales, Eygpt and Pakistan, they found ways around execution of apostates.

When we can name the Enemy, we can win the War. Until then, we are fighting the fog.

3/26/2006 08:45:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Well aint that great. There's no such thing as terrorism. Just a mental condition caused by Western hegemony. The psychologists are gonna save us all.

3/26/2006 08:57:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

" ... Black-clad Mahdi army militiamen drag the body of Sheikh Ghazi Al-Zoba’i, the Imam and preacher of the Al-Sabbar mosque around a street in Husseiniya, a mixed suburb north of Baghdad.

I reported this lynching incident during the sectarian attacks that followed the Samarra shrine bombing. This is an extremely disturbing cell phone video clip of the whole scene. ... "

" ... Note that life looks absolutely normal in the surroundings. You can see children running about, stores open, religious holiday flags and even a traffic jam. Perhaps Ralph Peters will happen to drive by with an American army patrol and enjoy the scene of children cheering for the troops, while wondering where his civil war is, dude.

Meanwhile, the rising young Shi’ite cleric Yassir Al-Habib, like most of his Islamic counterparts, is just learning how to soar himself to stardom and popularity: by calling for more death and mayhem. Our friend laments the fact that the government has failed to protect the Askari shrine and the cellar of the Imam Al-Mahdi, which he believes is of higher standing with Allah than Jerusalem.

His solution? Lets send an army of the faithful to liberate Samarra and cleanse it from the rotten Nawasib (a derogatory term used by fundamental Shia to describe Sunnis, very much like the Rafidha or ‘rejectionist’ stigma used by some Sunnis when they refer to Shia. ... "

" ... Today it was all out war in Baghdad.

Please don’t ask me whether I believe Iraq is on the verge of civil war yet or not. I have never experienced a civil war before, only regular ones. All I see is that both sides are engaged in tit-for-tat lynchings and summary executions. I see governmental forces openly taking sides or stepping aside. I see an occupation force that is clueless about what is going on in the country. I see politicians that distrust each other and continue to flame the situation for their own personal interests. I see Islamic clerics delivering fiery sermons against each other, then smile and hug each other at the end of the day in staged PR stunts. I see the country breaking into pieces. ... "

" ... I was stopped in my own neighbourhood yesterday by a watch team and questioned where I live and what I was doing in that area. I see other people curiously staring in each other’s faces on the street. I see hundreds of people disappearing in the middle of the night and their corpses surfacing next day with electric drill holes in them. I see people blown up to smithereens because a brainwashed virgin seeker targeted a crowded market or café. I see all that and more.

Don’t you dare chastise me for writing about what I see in my country. ... "

From
with a hat tip to Steve @ threatswatch.

The entire blog is worth reading, these are just some excerpts.

3/26/2006 09:10:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

In time they'll make it a hate crime to blaspheme Allah and justify murder as freedom of religion. Invest in firearms.

3/26/2006 09:12:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

DR,
If what you describe is civil war then the Bloods and the Crips have been raging civil war in LaLa land for a generation or more. But the war against Mods and Rockers, Zootsuit ruffians, and Sharks and Jets have failed fully involve the whole of Western Society or spread to other hemispheres.

Having said that, the social pecking order must sort itself out somehow, maybe they can steal a page from New Orleans and have a nice big parade dressed in drag. Silly savages.

3/26/2006 09:42:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

annoy mouse,

It is not my description.
Though almost all Iraqis have, one time or another, described Iraq as being at Civil War. Pre Invasion, post Invasion, Occupation all have been described as Civil War.

As many have pointed out, an Insurrection by definition is a Civil War.
What is lost is an adequate idea of Scale. If one was living amongst the Bloods & Crips, during their violence, one may have thought they were in the midst of a Civil War. An outsider could see just a Gang Fight for the hood.

But what was the Narco Civil War in Columbia, between Pablo and his cartel and the Federal Goovernment, but a gang war writ extra large?

3/26/2006 10:07:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Well, whit, I say that because all those you listed are not on the Government's Enemy list, nay my friend, they are all subsidized, in part, by you and I.

They represent the Religion of Peace.
Mr Bush has said so, many times.
It is part of the Course we Stay.

That is the condundrum of supporting the President and the tactics the Federals have decided upon.

The Prosecutor and the Judge in Mr Rahman's upcoming Apostate Trial, they are our Allies, working in a System we approved.

Iran is funding Islamic Jihad, 1.3 Million USD in Feb '06, according to Israel.
Known State Sponsors of Terror negotiate with US diplomats in Baghdad, all the while the aQ are still given Sanctuary, the training camps are still open, the IEDs components still flow into Iraq.

3/26/2006 10:21:00 AM  
Blogger erp said...

Step back please for this important announcement: Every year in the 20th Century begins with 19!!! Yikes, glad that's over.

3/26/2006 10:30:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Well, Al Jazeerah, Osama, Michael Moore, et. al. seem to think it's all about US.

I’ve been searching, but I can’t find any “anti-war movement” in the 90’s. I wonder why that was? And since it didn’t seem to exist during the Clinton Administration, I find it hard to trust these sentiments now, especially when people against the war in Iraq sound EXACTLY like our enemies, they're preaching from the same page. For example, "Vietnam" article from Al Jazeerah. Tell me this doesn’t sound exactly the same as the anti-Bush people in this country. Gives me the willies.

Our enemies have made it as clear as they possibly can that their foremost enemy is US. They have made clear exactly the point they are attacking, our weak Paper Tiger nature, which libs and the MSM constantly tease them with.

3/26/2006 11:54:00 AM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Taheri-Azar might believe in the mystical properties of the number 19, but he also might believe that the best way to get to a recruitable population is to join them. This might be the real terrorist act.

3/26/2006 12:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Playing with Fire (1985) (TV)Arnold sets fires, 8 June 2004

This was Coleman's attempt at drama and it didn't come off well. He plays a kid who is having a rough time in school and at home. His only way of release is to start setting fires to property.

The demonic look on his face is laugh out loud hilarious when he sets something on fire.Yahphet Kotto plays the fire chief of the town. He calls Coleman's disease "revenge fire" and wants to try and straighten him out.
But his parents think there is nothing wrong...until he sets their house on fire!!!
---
Could this be what started it all?
His parents were Lefty's fer shure:
All Clear Here!

3/26/2006 01:42:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I'll bet Coleman was 19.

3/26/2006 01:43:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"which libs and the MSM constantly tease them with. "
---
That's what Rush means by
"Drive By Media,"
And he's not being flippant at all.

3/26/2006 01:46:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"By the way has anywone noticed that our multiculturalism is detroying this country? Witness Mexifornia."
---
VDH notices, writes, and I'll bet, weeps.

3/26/2006 01:49:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Well I never felt more like cryin' all night
'Cause everything's wrong
And nothing ain't right.

3/26/2006 02:13:00 PM  
Blogger miriam sawyer said...

The number 18 has significance in Judaism. The two letters spell out "Chai," or life in Hebrew.

3/26/2006 02:52:00 PM  
Blogger allen said...

"42"

3/26/2006 03:26:00 PM  
Blogger Red River said...

The corrollary of Godel's Theorem that some things are undecidable, is the Fahqir Theorem, aka, Barnum and Baily theorem, that you can make anything up that you want and claim it is true.

Fourier's Theorem says there are an infinite number of curves that will fit though any enumerable set of points.

Why 19? Why not choose some other number in another base system? 1010 in binary or A3 in Hex?

Better yet - what is 19 in base 19?

What a bunch of idiots.

3/26/2006 10:05:00 PM  
Blogger Karridine said...

erp, you're quoting the Common Era calendar. On the new calendar, everything is accounted from May 23, 1844. We're in the Year 163 of the Baha'i Era.

3/26/2006 10:49:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

The last great bird flu killed most of its forty-million (as opposed to 12,000,000 in the just ended Great War) in 1919.

Steven King uses the number as the bad omen all through his writing, and while writing a an evil vehicle story, went for a walk one day (the 19th of the month) and was run over, crippled, and very nearly killed by a vehicle.

He shouldn't've been near one, while channeling that creepy alternate universe where numerology lives.

3/27/2006 02:57:00 PM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

The most striking impression one gets in reviewing the case of Mohammad Reza Taheri Azar, the self-proclaimed UNC terrorist-for-Allah, is that he chose to take this action against his fellow citizens after living in the U.S. his entire life. During that life he will have seen numberless examples of our perverse protection of vicious and perverted sociopathic criminals. It cannot have escaped his notice that most murders go unpunished, and that even confessions are discounted and dismissed. He has seen repeatedly that murdering and maiming his fellow citizens is more likely to propel him to celebrity, rather than subject him to anything like the injury and suffering he attempted to inflict.

Such a context must be an awful temptation to a worthless turd yearning to be mistaken for a hero.

I fail to dredge up a word sufficient to express the contempt this shabby opportunist musters.

He will give Islamic terrorists a bad name.

There must be a passage in the Quran that disqualifies a gutless prick like this from any of the several-score-plus-a-couple virgins in the afterlife.

3/27/2006 09:06:00 PM  

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