From Larry Wohlgemuth…
72 virgins is the going Islamic rate to get a man to drive a car filled with explosives into a group of Americans. It must be true, it has to be true, because that’s what our leaders have told us. They want us to believe it’s about the deviant sexual desire of a Muslim, nothing more, nothing less.
I’ve wondered about who would believe that. Amazingly I hear it from people who occupy high stations in life, and not just from the ignorant, wallowing masses. I’ve heard doctors, lawyers, preachers and teachers repeat this claim; totally convinced of its truthfulness. It begs the question, do people become suicide bombers to cash in on a promise of an eternity frolicking with 72 virgins?
My first adult experience with propaganda was Idi Amin. His brutality was never in question, however during his rise to power it wasn’t mentioned in the Western press. His ascension was supported by Western forces eager to get their hands on rich Ugandan mineral deposits. We needed “our son of a bitch” in charge, and only when his demands for a larger cut became inconvenient did the Western press refer to him as “the Butcher of Africa”. Rumors that he was a cannibal were part of the plan to demonize and remove him from power.
In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait for slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields. He’d received the okay from George Bush I via April Glaspie, who said the United States viewed it as strictly an “Arab matter”. Immediately upon the invasion we spread wild rumors about 300 babies in incubators being removed from hospitals and killed by Iraqi forces. This was the justification used for the first Gulf War. Known as “the Butcher of Baghdad” (sound familiar) he was eventually hunted down and killed.
There are others, like Manuel Noriega and Augusto Pinochet, but the story’s the same. Empowered by the West to facilitate the theft of resources, only to later be demonized and deposed. The reality is that they got greedy and demanded ever bigger shares, and the West dispatched and replaced them with men willing to work for less.
Fast forward to today’s rhetoric and it’s obvious things have not changed. Outlandish claims are made about the Islamic people in the Middle East that we are expected to believe. “They hate our freedoms” and “72 virgins” are the most used. It’s a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign, courtesy of Edward Bernays, designed to influence your beliefs about Muslims. It works because people are too lazy to consider its irrationality. Given that the American Taliban can get one of their unhinged members to walk into a church and shoot a doctor, anything must be possible, right? But let’s consider an alternative.
In the 1953 coup in Iran the CIA helped overthrow the duly elected Mossadegh government and installed the Shah and his American trained SAVAK secret police. A 1963 CIA-backed coup in Iraq brought the Baath party and eventually Saddam Hussein to power. There’s the first Gulf War in 1990, a decade of bombings in the no-fly zones in Iraq throughout the 90s and finally the second Gulf War. As a result millions of Muslims are dead and tens of millions have been injured or otherwise damaged. I can’t imagine what it would be like on my wedding day to see my family and fiancée all lying dead as the result of a bomb. Or my door being kicked in and my wife being dragged away by a secret police force to be beaten, tortured and raped. Or digging through a pile of rubble to retrieve the lifeless body of my three-month-old baby. (WARNING: Graphic Content)
When I was a young man my blood would boil; either for sex when I was horny or revenge when I had been hurt. You could have promised me 72,000 virgins to no avail, but if I had just buried half of my family someone could have convinced me to strap a bomb on my back to kill the people responsible for my pain. I lived for revenge, and I don’t think people in that part of the world are fundamentally any different than me in this regard. They kill because we killed first.
Our government wants us to turn people into cartoon characters, stereotypes, so we won’t consider the ramifications of our actions. In World War II they were called the Krauts and Nips, in Korea it was Chinks, Vietnam was Gooks and now it’s Hajis. The government spreads stories about 72 virgins, but you can’t convince me that they’re any different than we are. They want to fall in love, get married and raise children in what they hope to be a better world, just like we do, and anything else is complete and utter nonsense.
They’re just like us because they ARE us; we’re all one. If our leaders can’t get us to see them as subhuman we would no more pick up a rifle and kill them than we would our own parents, grandparents, spouse or children. By reducing their status it validates our entitlement to exterminate them. Don’t let them do that to you. Your humanity is your birthright, and no one can take it away without your permission.
When we realize we have more in common with the people we are shooting than the people instructing us to do the shooting, then we will own our humanity and the world will know peace, and not before. I say the time is now.
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The propaganda against Muslims in the West is huge. It is orchestrated, manipulated and produced in what has become a center-piece of the world culture war. One could just as easily find scripture in Christianity and the Torah that makes them sound ridiculous, but that is rarely done. And when it is, people say well its not really like that. It’s a double standard.
There is no nation more ignorant to what goes on outside its own borders that the United States. I am American and I see it everyday. We are so malleable and have come to believe that our cultural norms and values are the minimum standard of living. It’s crazy really.
Read Edward Said’s “Covering Islam.” A brilliant dissection of how the media portrays Islam and all that stand as differing from the colonizers. In fact read anything by Said.
I want 144 virgins. Then I’d think about it.
It may not be the reason but find another religion that promises virgins. It is there in their doctrine. There is no denying that. They don’t even like talking about it, but its true.
The same goes on in the East in terms of America. We’re all alcoholics and don’t know who are father’s are. They machine works both ways and those in power on either side of the fence are in collusion. Divided we are conquered by those who wish to control us.
I want 288 virgins and before I die, for one year. Then I would do it.
Americans don’t even know anything about Canada and we’re right next door. MOst cant name the capital, who’s the Prime Minister, nothing and you expect them to understand the textured nuance of an entirely different culture half way round the world. it will NEVER Happen.
I have Two Words to Explain the level of ignorance is millions of Americans… Tea Party.
The fact that millions actual take moronic boob Sarah Palin seriously speaks volumes.
A quote from the text: “When we realize we have more in common with the people we are shooting than the people instructing us to do the shooting, then we will own our humanity and the world will know peace, and not before. I say the time is now” AWESOME article~! A “MUST-READ” for everyone. Thank you for posting…..I will definitely share!
But the “72 virgins” stipulation never mentioned they would look like models, sexy actresses, and celebrities.
What if they all looked like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan? Who would want to be with 72 Britneys or Lindsays for all eternity. They are all the same.
What if it’s 72 dumb blondes?
What if they can’t cook?
The media both consciously and unconsciously has turned definition of Islam into a narrow expression. Many of the West’s underlying perceptions of Islam are rooted in Said’s ‘Orientalist’ context that alternatively mystifies and demonize Islam.
There are ideological reasons for the culture war and the perception of Islam that is pushed not only by the West but factions within the East who want division and even hatred in order to maintain power and control. These reasons include corporate and financial stakes which need the division for their own gain, geopolitical manipulation by those who want Israel to be seen as the victim, rather than a rabidly ethnocentric state obsessed with regional dominance, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has set loose the USA as the planet’s sole unilateral power, and let us not forget the analysis streaming academia from those who call themselves Middle East “experts” who readily demonize Islam. There is nothing more powerful than an idea and mass inception has been the name of the game for quite some time now.
What is amazing is just how incredibly well the manipulation and control of by the powers that be works. Israel has made up international as its gone along having broken over 200 UN resolutions, wile squashing any real attempt at diplomacy and crying “antisemitism” anytime people disagree with their policies. Gaza is a modern day concentration camp, this is not an opinion, this is a fact. Palestinian people have NO rights, meaning ZERO under the Israeli law – again this is not an opinion this is a fact. International opinion is changing as Palestine is now rightfully being seen as the victim for the first time. Only time will only tell if the push for more spin and control ends this. I for one am not hopeful.
@ Serverton, well the Bible tells us that if we find our wives are not virgins to murder them. It also says that if our daughters are raped that the rapist must pay us 50 shekels and marry her. It also says that eating shellfish is an abomination. Not exactly the same but carbon copy in its level of idiocy.
I don’t need propaganda to illustrate to me the idiotic nature of Islam. The idiocy is not the religion itself, as so many of you have demonstrated with passages from other religious scripture. The problem lies in the in-ability for the followers to evolve. Islam itself is stuck in the past, where Judeo-Christian beliefs were some 500 years ago (using the protestant revolution as a time line, but i am sure people can argue even less farther back). But unlike Islam these religions have evolved with the culture in which they are embedded.
Don’t get me wrong i in no way think that all Muslims are bad, that is just idiotic. But until the religion goes through an evolution, or revolution it will be impossible for people to look past the fanatic behavior. Much like the US evolving with giving women the right to vote, Scopes trial of 1925 removing religion bias in schools, and the Civil Rights act. Until these Islamic nations evolve from the oppression of women, such as, stoning their wives, having there brothers and husbands cut of their noses and ears, forceful wearing of demeaning clothing, use of the cane, honor killings, and using mentally challenged women as suicide bombers. It is hard for anyone to look past such acts and not find idiotic nature in them, especially for those who have lived through such change, and cannot see why it still exist or why people can still think in that way.
@ Gibbs, I guess you are not paying attention to what happens here in the US. A religious whacko was convinced to walk into a church and gun down an abortion doctor. Texas is removing evolution from its school books and teaching creationism. Sarah Palin, darling to the teabaggers, attends a church where they regularly expel demons and witches. Yours is exactly the kind of arrogance that allows this type of propaganda to work. Living in an among fundie Christians I can assure you most of them have the reasoning skill of an 8 year old. I mean, let’s face it, a bunch of people that think a god would hang someone on a tree to save us all from our sins is clearly idiotic.
@ Larry, I view those acts the same way i view the before mentioned acts as idiotic and horrible. But when you have a society where it is legal to kill people to save the perceived “honor” of the family, and nothing is done. Tell me which is more horrific; Having a nut-job kill someone for their wacko beliefs and at least be prosecuted and punished for their actions, or allowing these wacko beliefs and actions to be laws?
Its not legal Gibbs! And yes Islam is comparable to Christianity 500 years ago. That’s because Islam is 600 yrs younger than Christianity. Read the article “The End of the Painted Veil” and Hohol alludes to this himself, as do some of the comments.
The Palestinians are crazy even to consider talking to Israel when it continues to build on Palestinian lands in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Also, without the involvement of Hamas, the talks are meaningless. The prediction that the negotiations will be complete “successfully” within one year shows that Obama and Hillary Clinton are completely delusional. They seem to live in a different planet.
great blog. hope i got your experience come back soon.