Categories: General
John de Rosier

9 Responses

  1. Phil says:

    Sad but true.

  2. phil says:

    John, there’s two facets to this, and don’t think this is weird. Islam was born of violence, and has continued as wars in Middle East have shown. The other is an Armageddon scenario. Check and see. This is material I’ve seen over the years in print and in religious texts. It’s doesn’t mean I’m buying the thesis,same as the Mayan thing. It’s worth a look see.

  3. Randy says:

    Obama’s plan to save the middle east has certainly backfired. The region burns and no one understand why, after saving Egypt and Libya how they can do this. Its not about the video, its about dangerous terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood that are seeking to put in their own place of extremist government. Nice cartoon too btw.

  4. Mickie Lynn says:

    John, I’m very disappointed in you because of your choice of words and images. If you had written Islamic extremists then your cartoon would have more merit. As it is it invites the anti Islamic bias expressed in the comments above.

    For starters, people might want to visit the Muslim Women’s blog and read their articles on the subject. Particularly Sofia’s article,


    There are also excellent articles by Azra and Hadeer on the topic of Islamic values and the patience needed to chart progress in the newly freed countries of the Arab Spring.

    Randy, it’s easy to understand why the region is filled with anger towards the Western powers who resisted the overthrow of several long term dictators, who cooperated with their foreign interests, and still does so in Bahrain and Yemen

    For your information the US didn’t help with, or even support the Egyptian overthrow of Hosni Mubarak until the outcome was very clear.

    And it’s still unclear whether military intervention in Libya and the proliferation of heavy armaments throughout the country has “saved” Libya. One of the reasons that the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi was so lethal was the availability of those very same weapons.

  5. John de Rosier says:

    Mickie Lynn,

    “Islamism” is the correct term here, which is entirely different from “Islam.”

    Here is more info:


  6. Mickie Lynn says:

    John, Thanks for the explanation. I understand where you’re coming from now that I’ve read the article that you linked to. However, I think that you stopped too soon in choosing your definitions. Here’s further commentary on the very same link:

    {…}Some observers suggest Islamism’s tenets are less strict, and can be defined as a form of identity politics or “support for [Muslim] identity, authenticity, broader regionalism, revivalism, [and] revitalization of the community”.[3] Following the Arab Spring at least one source has described Islamism as “increasingly interdependent” with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim world, such that “neither can now survive without the other.”[4]

    Many of those described as “Islamists” oppose the use of the term, and claim that their political beliefs and goals are simply an expression of Islamic religious belief. Similarly, some experts favor the term activist Islam,[5][6] militant Islam,[7] or political Islam instead.[8] {…}

    What I find particularly ironic is the fact that the most militant or radical form of Islamism is funded by the petro-dollars of our so called allies in Saudi Arabia and has been for decades!

    …The interpretation of Islam promoted by this funding was the strict, conservative Saudi-based Wahhabism or Salafism. In its harshest form it preached that Muslims should not only “always oppose” infidels “in every way,” but “hate them for their religion … for Allah’s sake,” that democracy “is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century,” that Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslims were infidels, etc.[66]

    While this effort has by no means converted all, or even most, Muslims to the Wahhabist interpretation of Islam, it has done much to overwhelm more moderate local interpretations, and has set the Saudi-interpretation of Islam as the “gold standard” of religion in Muslims’ minds.[67]”

    It was in fact the Salafist fundamentalist preachers who took to the airwaves and demanded a public response to the ( as yet unseen) video.

    This is extremist behavior that is as repulsive as the extremist Islamophobic beliefs that are its western counterpart and the source of the video in question.

    Having read the article, I still think that it would have been more objective and responsible on your part to use the term “radical Islamists” or “Islamist extremists” if you wanted to avoid the knee jerk Islamophobic responses that are so easily provoked in the US at this time in our history and political situation.

  7. Dave says:

    It isn’t “Islamic extremists”. The very term implies a distinct minority, those on the extreme edge of a position. If that were the case their influence would not be so pervasive. “All Muslims are good (or misunderstood)” is every bit as irrational as “All Muslims are bad”.

    It is also a mistake to view this solely through the prism of religion. To the extent the Islamic masses hate “us” it is as Americans, not Christians–why do they burn/bomb KFC’s instead of churches?

    And Mickey, with respect, it is a dramatic mistake to equate American Islamaphobes with armed and murderous terrorists.

  8. MoonSword says:

    I remember reading somewhere that one of the Muslim clerics involved decried that America wouldn’t tolerate depictions of the Pope and Abraham Lincoln… But we do. The Pope is no less publicly criticized than any politician and Abraham Lincoln was the topic of a popular book turned into cheesy movie, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I can’t decide if this cleric simply doesn’t understand what he was saying or if he was deliberately stirring up trouble for political gain. Or both!

  9. Randy says:

    Mickie, the US has paid approx. a 1/3 of Egypt’s defense budget for a very long time. I’ve trained with Egyptians officers being supported by US tax payer dollars. The same thing about Afghani, Jordanian, and Israeli soldiers. With all this money being spent you would think the entire Middle East would love America, plus the fact that we are a major supplier of their oil trade doesn’t hurt. The sad fact is the US has been sending far too much money outside our borders only to see those same dollars being spent to support subversive movements against the US. (this also occurs in Latin America to some extent as well) It doesn’t matter when the US got behind Egyptians current leadership, it should not be supporting the Muslim Brotherhood at all. All aid should be cut to the Middle East. Obama has a terrible apologetic stance towards foreign policy and its time someone replaces him.