PCG's leaders are emotionally invested in convincing people, mainly Americans, that Iran will soon plunge the world into catastrophe. PCG's leaders are not just soberly reporting facts. This is the interpretation that they project onto world events and they use their magazine to convince readers that the interpretation is correct.
PCG's leaders also vilify and demonize President Obama. In 2013 Gerald Flurry even wrote a booklet condemning President Obama as "another Antiochus", essentially an Antichrist like figure of his own devising.
But outside of PCG's information bubble what is really going on?
PCG's leaders say President Obama is useless and events in the Middle East, including Iran, are besting him at every turn.
Is this really the case? Let's remember what things were like under the previous Bush Administration.
For the record, during the administration in which Cheney served and played a prominent role in guiding foreign policy, Iran’s nuclear program went from rudimentary and primitive to highly sophisticated. By 2008-2009, it was churning out substantial quantities of the highly enriched uranium needed to build a bomb and carrying out important research into the design of such a bomb. The Bush administration failed to even slow that program, and in fact it acted as if it was utterly helpless to do so. By any measure, the Obama administration has already been far more successful. (Jay Bookman, "Dick Cheney embodies much that is wrong with today’s America", Atlanta Constitution Journal, April 9, 2015.)And what did President Obama do? Only make war with Iran a far more remote possibility.
Career journalist Barbara Slavin, who spent years covering Iran, tells The Hill that the chances of war with the Islamic Republic went down by a “gazillion” with Thursday's announcement of a political framework to restrict Iran's nuclear program.And let's also remember the Stuxnet virus.
“The chances of a war with Iran just went down by a gazillion. There's no way that there's going to be a military option now against the Iranian program if this deal is implemented,” the Atlantic Council's non-resident senior fellow says in an interview. (Molly K. Hooper, "Nuke deal kills chances of war with Iran, says Barbara Slavin", The Hill, April 3, 2015.)
I certainly have no way to see the future but there is no need to believe PCG's dire predictions that Iran will plunge the world into catastrophe.
There is no need to live in fear that what PCG's leaders might come to pass. It will not. Their predictions are false just like what they said about the Muslim Brotherhood.
But I am afraid of PCG false prophecies:
ReplyDeleteI've been laughing so hard my sides hurt.
I'm afraid all this hilarity could do me some damage.
Over the span of my life, the USA has seemed to follow the pattern set forth in Orwell's "1984", in which we always seem to have a major enemy.
ReplyDeleteI am in favor of nuclear non-proliferation, and am glad for any reduction in the possibilities of thermonuclear warfare. And, it is not as if we have never had any problems with Iran since they had their revolution following the deposing of the Shah.
However, I wonder if the model for these international threats doesn't morph and change, somewhat as a retrovirus. Communism's formula actually failed in Africa in the late 1950s and early '60s. It failed because individual Africans, though horribly impoverished, had no sense of nationalism. The Islamic nations may not always appear to be radical, but the example set by Mohammed, and the Muslim religion most definitely foster a radical element, and on a scale not seen amongst secular or Christian nations. Though civilized in their official approach, the Islamic nations appear to eiither host, or be victimized by, a very crazy and radical element that has posed a threat to journalists, Christians, Jews, and employees of US and other non-Islamic nations working in the Middle East. It is very difficult to take a measured approach to jihad, or to avoid stereotyping.
Much of the stereotyping actually occurs because people take the terrorists at their word. We don't necessarily trash Islam from the arbitrary standpoint of racial prejudice or our own chauvinism. The terrorists openly attribute their atrocities to their religion, creating a mindset internationally. ISIS, as nearly as I can determine is not an official arm of any one nation. They are, instead, the arm of an ideology. They survive largely because the more moderate and peaceful Muslims are not actively speaking out against them or attempting to apprehend and stamp them out, as the US did with the Christian militias, and Christian abortion clinic bombers.
I fear that we are going to be facing more problems with radicals throughout the future. Official national policies and treaties may change, giving a false sense of security, but bands of radicals who are actually not driven by a sense of nationalism, but by an ideology, are immune to sanctions. The nations in which they operate tolerate them, and sometimes encourage them. And, now ISIS has a training base in Mexico, just south of El Paso. The ACOGs and their propaganda are completely beside the point with regard to these developments, although they attempt to capitalize on them in a way to authenticate their false prophecies. It is very difficult for anyone who loves freedom and safety not to take the fascist elements of Islam seriously. Their power appears to be in the upswing.
BB
In many Muslim countries, even so-called "moderate" nations like Saudi Arabia, renouncing Islam is a capital crime, and other religions besides Islam are forced underground, unable to worship or practice their faiths openly for fear of persecution by the government. Religions other than Islam are formally suppressed by the governments of most Muslim nations. For instance, in Sudan, Christians and animists in the southern Darfur region are enslaved and sold north by Muslim (mostly Arab) radicals, and this goes on with the knowledge and promotion of the Sudanese government. Iran routinely harasses, jails, and even executes Christian pastors and those who convert from Islam. In Arab areas of the West Bank, Palestinian Muslims have not only carried out attacks on Israeli Jews, but have also been systematically driving out indigenous Arab Christians and have desecrated sites held sacred by both Christians and Jews.
ReplyDeleteI knew a contractor who went to Saudi Arabia to work on the Government's HP3000. He had a photography hobby and subscribed to "Photography". He received each issue with major portions of the magazine cut out -- because the pictures insulted the sensibilities of Islam (those women is skimpy swim suits just won't do).
I'm thinking that even at best Islam adherents are not particularly tolerant of other religions or anyone who disagrees with them. You say one thing against them and you might find yourself with a Fatwa issued to take care the problem -- you.
A few blocks over, there's an Islam center. I would suppose the people from there that shop at Fred Meyer are nice enough, but you may notice that when extremists attack, they don't seem to say anything decrying the incidents. I haven't seen or heard anyone from Islam apologizing for 9/11.
In New York, I attended CICS class at IBM. There was a group of Moslems taking the class. I, being open and friendly, attempted to engage in conversation with them: After all Bahrain is interesting and they worked for a major bank there. I found them sullen. They would not talk to me or any other members of the class outside their own group. I finally got one man to talk to me (reluctantly) and he told me where they were from and that they didn't particularly mix with anyone outside their religion / social group.
It left an impression.
And, after all, Bibles are banned in Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, there is an encroachment of shari'a law in many democratic countries, such as Britain and even some in the United States. It seems like a mixed bag, with emphasis on the medieval aspect of Middle Eastern culture.
So I do look at both sides of the issue and just wonder about the peaceful Moslems. I certainly don't see religious tolerance and particularly when Islam is embedded as a power in a nation.
One of my oldest and best friends is, oh, I don't know exactly how to express this, perhaps a backsliding Muslim? Agnostic Muslim? His younger brother is also a friend of mine, and is very observant of the Islamic faith. Both of them are fairly Americanized, but the older brother told me that if you are born Muslim, you are Muslim for life. It is ingrained in their culture. He says that while he can be somewhat agnostic, there is no way he could convert to another belief system. Fortunately, he does think for himself, and is very open minded. Both brothers have openly spoken out against the fundamentalists of their faith. This is something most of us wish all Muslims had the capacity to do.
ReplyDeleteIf all Muslims were tolerant like my two friends, we wouldn't be having the massive international problems that exist today. I mean, they don't particularly care for Jewish people, but at least they recognize their right to exist.
BB
I'm not forgetting that some Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem will not permit the shadow of Gentiles touch them at the Wailing Wall -- they move out of the way (if you are wondering who are Gentiles, think not Jews, which is most of us).
ReplyDeleteSo there is that.
Intolerance isn't restricted to one religion.
If we've not learned anything else, the WCG taught us that....