24 January 2007

Bush declares Shia are the enemy

President George W. Bush, State of the Union Speech 2007:

"In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East.

Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbullah -a group second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.

The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.

But whatever slogans they chant, when they slaughter the innocent, they have the same wicked purposes.

They want to kill Americans... kill democracy in the Middle East... and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale."


There are an estimated 215,959,328 Million Shia Worldwide, there are over 80 million in Iran and Iraq alone and over another 30 million in the Middle East. Shia certainly wish to have political power proportionate to their numbers: a concept known as democracy and self-determination, both of which the United States is adamantly opposed to. If the Shia are a threat to the United States it is so due to the latter waging war on the former. It is the United States that is a threat to democracy and financing terrorism in the Middle East.

2 comments:

Babak said...

Thank you for your comment Graeme.

Bush could to be using the term "extremists" to denote those who hold what would be regarded as an extreme (heterodox) theological position within Shia Islam or to denote a pejorative and pervasive characterisation of Shi'ite Muslims.

Therefore we must take the context of his statement into account:

"Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East.

Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbullah -a group second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken"


What Bush characterises as extreme, is not so in Shia Islam; quite the opposite: in excess of a 100 Million Shia support velayat e faqih (Iranian model of Islamic governance) and the the majority of Shia undoubtedly regard Hezbullah as a legitimate resistance movement.

steph said...

Bush's State of the Union Speech was another warmongering rant. As if things aren't not bad enough in Iraq, he manages to declare a Crusade against the Shia!!!