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International News Title: Egypt Gets Its Khomeini, Yusuf al-Qaradawi Returns in Triumph Friday, February 18 may be a turning point in Egyptian history. On this day Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the best-known Muslim Brotherhood cleric in the world and one of the most famous Islamist thinkers, will address a mass rally in Cairo. It was 32 years ago almost to the day when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned in triumph to Tehran to take the leadership of that country. Qaradawi has a tougher job but he's up to the challenge if his health holds up. Up until now, the Egyptian revolution generally, and the Brotherhood in particular, has lacked a charismatic thinker, someone who could really mobilize the masses. Qaradawi is that man. Long resident in the Gulf, he is returning to his homeland in triumph. Through internet, radio, his 100 books, and his weekly satellite television program, Qaradawi has been an articulate voice for revolutionary Islamism. He is literally a living legend. Under the old regime, Qaradawi was banned from the country. He is now 84 years old--two years older than the fallen President Husni Mubarak--but he is tremendously energetic and clear-minded. It was Qaradawi who, in critiquing Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaida, argued that Islamists should always participate in elections because they would, he claims, invariably win them. Hamas and Hizballah have shown that he was right on that point. Symbollically, he will give the Friday prayer sermon to be held in Tahrir Square, the center of the revolutionary movement. The massing of hundreds of thousands of people in the square to hear Islamic services and a sermon by a radical Islamist is not the kind of thing that's been going on under the 60-year-old military regime that was recently overthrown. The context is also the thanking of Qaradawi for his support of the revolution, an implication that he is somehow its spiritual father. Qaradawi, though some in the West view him as a moderate, supports the straight Islamist line: anti-American, anti-Western, wipe Israel off the map, foment Jihad, stone homosexuals, in short the works. One of Qaradawi's initiatives has been urging Muslims to settle in the West, of which he said, that powerful West, which has come to rule the world, should not be left to the influence of the Jews alone. He contends that the three major threats Muslims face are Zionism, internal integration, and globalization. To survive, he argues, Muslims must fight the Zionists, Crusaders, idolators, and Communists. Make no mistake, Qaradawi is not some fossilized Islamic ideologue. He is brilliant and innovative, tactically flexible and strategically sophisticated. He is subtle enough to sell himself as a moderate to those who don't understand the implications of his words or look beneath the surface of his presentation. What is his view of both the Mubarak regime and the young, Facebook-flourishing liberals who made the revolution? As he said in 2004: Some Arab and Muslim secularists are following the U.S. government by advocating the kind of reform that will disarm the nation from the elements of strength that are holding our people together. Have no doubt. It is Qaradawi, not bin Ladin, who is the most dangerous revolutinary Islamist in the world and he is about to unleash the full force of his power and persuasion on Egypt. Who are you going to bet on being more influential, a Google executive and an unorganized band of well-intentioned liberal Egyptians or the world champion radical Islamist cleric? Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 14.
#1. To: Happy Quanzaa (#0)
What a total crock of shit this article is.
The US will intervene with troops if Bahrain's king is threatened. "This isn't about removing a despot. It's about class warfare, of which no one will speak in western media. The revolution signals the rise of organized labor, a frontal assault on the Washington Consensus, and the race-to-the-bottom regime that has pushed Egyptian workers to the breaking point. This didn't happen overnight; these forces have been coalescing for a long time and now the tinder has been lit.
Plagarism will no longer be tolerated. I've warned you about this before. Put the source for every quote you make. Why do you liberals steal others words and make them as your own. You cut and paste and try to make us think you wrote those words. Here is the source for the words you made as your own. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27504.htm It was by Mike Whitey, not you.
You know I will test this the next time the usual right wing suspect(s) engages in this. I support this policy not to tolerate this, but I hope this means it will be tolerated if you like the person doing it, but won't if you don't.
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