|
Ahmadinejad's un-holy war
By N. Shuldig
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the youthful president of Iran. Besides being an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration, he has refused to stop the Iran's nuclear development program. He has been widely quoted for his statements that Israel must be wiped off the map and for describing the Holocaust as a myth.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that he is just a typical fanatic Islamic extremist idiot. He is not a fool, but a cunning and highly intelligent person who earned a PhD in traffic and transport engineering and planning from Tehran's University of Science and Technology, where he was also a lecturer. Prior to being the president of Iran, he was the mayor of Teheran, where he was able to reverse prior moderate policies replacing them with religious based laws.
But what is lesser known and perhaps the most worrisome aspect of Ahmadinejad is his role is the Basij. The Basij (pronounced Baseej), is an Islamic paramilitary force that was founded in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to provide volunteers for "human wave" attacks in the Iran-Iraq War.
During this war, Iran severely lacked material resources to fight against the much better trained and equipped Iraqi army. Iraq had mined much of the areas that Iran needed to take. Iran had precious few armed vehicles and tanks to utilize and deploy. Rather than endanger their meager weapons and armor to destruction in face of Iraq counter attack, a new concept was created, the Basij, a special group of martyrs to be that would sacrifice their bodies by walking through the mine field, sparing the army from damage.
Tens of thousands of children were recruited for this special Basij project. Teenage boys as young as 12 were conscripted to serve as martyrs. They were trained to march straight into the enemy fire or through the enemy mine fields which they did wave after wave.
The Iranian propaganda machine depicted the basij as a brave martyr whose future in heaven was guaranteed. In addition, his family would enjoy economic and social amenities that were difficult for impoverish families to ignore. It should be mentioned that coercive measures were also employed on the young martyrs to be, not every one was altruistic.
Whereas the Western mind will recoil at such horrors of using young children as cannon fodder, the Arab mind understands and accepts the dogma of Khomeini that life in this world is worthless, but death is the beginning of genuine life. The martyr is assured that he will inherit the highest of the true worlds. Death in battle became an opportunity to realize the greatest divine fulfillment. Parents who gave of their children were publicly praised.
The Basiji still exists. Today it is estimated to be approximately 10 million dedicated "soldiers" who are willing to give their life for their twisted beliefs. They are not just children, but also college students who have become the "Revolutionary Guard" of Iran. Those suicidal killings of perhaps a hundred thousand children are not an embarrassment to Iran; rather it is a point of pride, that so many young were willing to give their lives for the betterment of Islam.
During the war Ahmadinejad served as one of the Basiji instructors who trained children. He came to power as the candidate of the Basiji. His platform was to eradicate corruption and eliminate Western influences was really to eliminate moderate and Western thinking individuals from having any influence in Iran.
If the killing of a hundred thousand of his own people is a source of pride, the killing of five million Jews in Israel will be an even greater source of pride, even if it means killing ten million Arabs. To the Basij, his own life is worthless and death as a martyr, meaning killing a Jew, will enable him to reach the loftiest pleasures in the 'real' world. It does not matter to him, if when killing his enemy, the Jew or American, he accidentally kills another Arab. Why, he reasons, by killing the enemy of Islam, he has accorded his co-religionist who was accidentally killed the merit to enter into the gates of the loftiest heaven.
Do not think that Ahmadinejad will be moderate in using nuclear weapons. To him, this is the greatest 'blessing' that could come into his hands – the destruction of Israel, even if he and his people are subjected to nuclear reprisal even greater that what he unleashed on his enemies. In his perverted mind, his own death has value only in that it enables him to reach the great and wondrous world of pure bliss and this he desires for all of his people.
~~~~~~~
from the Febuary 2007 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
|
