Ideaological Subversion, as explained by a master

Compiler's note: A must read - must see item. I received a heads-up on this from a fellow Marine. This is long, but seriously, take fifteen minutes of your day to watch this 1985 Interview with ex-KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov.

Then remind yourself who will be in office come January ...and his affiliations and political tendencies...and then let it scare the pants off you....Yuri explains how "ideaological subversion" works and explains how the enemy among us is working to destroy us; the agenda is to change the perception of reality, a great brainwashing process which takes 15 to 20 years, to destroy our society from within. The Soviet Union had tremendous success with this method, America is in (possibly) a stage of self-destruction.

Click on the title of this article for the video.

***Listen very clearly when you get right around 12:29 minute mark.

Semper Fidelis,

Bob

US Admiral 'stunned' by pirates' reach

The top US military officer said Monday he was "stunned" by the reach of the Somali pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker off the east coast of Africa, calling piracy a growing problem that needs to be addressed.

But Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there were limits to what the world's navies could do once a ship has been captured because national governments often preferred to pay pirates ransom.

"I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am the size," Mullen said of the seizure of the Sirius Star Sunday by armed men.

The huge, oil laden prize, which is three times the size of a US aircraft carrier, was some 450 miles east of Kenya when it was boarded, he said.

That is the farthest out at sea that a ship has been seized in the latest surge of piracies, according to Mullen.

The pirates, he said, are "very good at what they do. They're very well armed. Tactically, they are very good."

"And so, once they get to a point where they can board, it becomes very difficult to get them off, because, clearly, now they hold hostages.

"The question then becomes, well, what do you do about the hostages? And that's where the standoff is.

"That's a national question to ask based on the flag of the vessel. And the countries by and large have been paying the ransom that the pirates have asked," he said.

Mullen said the number of successful piracies have gone down, but the incidence of ship seizures were way up.

"It's got a lot of people's attention and is starting to have impact on the commercial side, which I know countries raise as a concern," he said.

"And so there's a lot more focus on this. It's a very serious issue. It's a growing issue. And we're going to continue to have to deal with it," he said.

Scandal exposes Islam's weakness

By Spengler

"Did you hear about the German Gnostic?"
"He couldn't keep a secret."

Just such a Teutonic mystic is Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a German convert to Islam who teaches Muslim theology at the University of Munster. Kalisch recently laid a Gnostic egg in the nest of Islam, declaring that the Prophet Mohammed never existed, not at least in the way that the received version of Islamic tradition claims he did. Given that Kalisch holds an academic chair specifically funded to instruct teachers of Islam in Germany's school system, a scandal ensued, first reported in the mainstream English-language press by Andrew Higgins in the November 15 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

On closer reading, Kalisch offers a far greater challenge to Islam than the secular critics who reject its claims. The headline that a Muslim academic has doubts over the existence of the Prophet Mohammed is less interesting than why he has such doubts. Kalisch does not want to harm Islam, but rather to expose what he believes to be its true nature. Islam, he argues, really is a Gnostic spiritual

teaching masquerading as myth. Kalisch's heretical variant of Islam may be close enough to the religion's original intent as to provoke a re-evaluation of the original sources. A labor of love from inside the fortress of Islamic theology may accomplish what all the ballistas of the critics never could from outside the walls. Koranic criticism, I have argued for years (here and elsewhere - You say you want a reformation? Asia Times Online, August 5, 2003) is the Achilles' heel of the religion. That argument has been made about Christianity for years by Elaine Pagels and other promoters of "Gnostic Gospels", and it is dead wrong. In the case of Islam, though, it might be dead accurate.

Kalisch is a Gnostic, a believer in secret spiritual truths that undergird the myths manufactured for the edification of the peasantry. But he is a German Gnostic, and therefore feels it necessary to lay out his secrets in thorough academic papers with extensive footnotes and bibliography. It is a strange and indirect way of validating the dictum of the great German-Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig: Islam is a parody of Judaism and Christianity.

It is in weird little byways of academia such as Kalisch wanders that the great battles of religion will be fought out, not at academic conferences and photo opportunities with the pope. For example: the Catholic Islamologists who organized the November 4-7 meeting of Catholic and Muslim scholars in Rome envision incremental reforms inside Islam through a more relaxed Turkish version (see A Pyrrhic propaganda victory in Rome Asia Times Online, November 12, 2008 and Tin-opener theology from Turkey Asia Times Online, June 3, 2008). Despite their best efforts at an orderly encounter with Islam, events have a way of overtaking them. Last March, Pope Benedict personally received into the Catholic faith the Egyptian-born Italian journalist Magdi Allam at the Easter Vigil. In September, Kalisch dropped his own bombshell. In a way, it is longer-acting and more deadly.

A small group of Koran scholars, to be sure, has long doubted Mohammed's existence. Their scholarship is sufficiently interesting, though, to question whether it is worthwhile exposing the alleged misdeeds of the Prophet Mohammed, who may not have existed in the first place (The Koranic quotations trap Asia Times Online, May 15, 2007). Earlier this year, I reported on the progress of the critics, as well as belated emergence of a treasure-trove of photocopies of Koranic manuscripts hidden away by Nazi Islamologists (Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code Asia Times Online, January 18, 2008). The Nazis had a Gnostic interest in Islam (call them "Gnazis"). The manuscripts and copies are now under the control of mainstream scholars at the University of Berlin, with deep ties to Arab countries.

Kalisch is the first Muslim scholar to dispute the Prophet's existence, while continuing to profess Muslim. If the Prophet did not exist, or in any case did not dictate the Koran, "then it might be that the Koran was truly inspired by God, a great narration from God, but it was not dictated word for word from Allah to the Prophet", he told a German newspaper. A German Protestant who converted to Islam as a teenager in search of a religion of reason, Kalisch can live with an alternative of reading of Islam. Very few of the world's billion and a half Muslims can.

Islam cannot abide historical criticism of the sort that Judaism and Christianity have sustained for centuries. "Abie, if you're here, then who is that there in my bed?," responds the Jewish wife in the old joke when her husband catches her in delicto flagrante. No one can offer an alternative explanation for the unique persistence of the Jewish people after 30 documented centuries of Jewish life. "If Moses didn't exist," the Jews respond to skeptics, "then who brought us out of Egypt?" Told that perhaps they didn't come out of Egypt, the Jews will respond, "Then what are we doing here today?"

Christians, by the same token, read the writings of numerous individuals who either met Jesus of Nazareth or took down the accounts of people who did, and who believed that he was the only begotten Son of God. Proof of Jesus' divinity, though, is entirely beside the point. If the Christian God wanted to rule by majesty and power, he would not have come to earth as a mortal to die on the cross. The Christian God asks for love and faith, not submission before majesty. The Christian is not asked to prove the unprovable, but to love and believe. Muslims have a different problem: if Mohammed did not receive the Koran from God, then what are they doing there to begin with? Kalisch has the sort of answer that only a German academic could love.

"We hardly have original Islamic sources from the first two centuries of Islam," Kalisch observes in a German-language paper available on the Muenster University (website). It is fascinating reading, and since it is not yet available in English I take the liberty of translating or summarizing a few salient points. Responsibility for any errors of translation of interpretation is my own.

Kalisch continues, "And even when a source appears to come from this period, caution is required. The mere assertion that a source stems from the first or second century of the Islamic calendar means nothing. And even when a source actually was written in the first or second century, the question always remains of later manipulation. We do not tread on firm ground in the sources until the third Islamic century."

This, Kalisch observes, is extremely suspicious: how can a world religion have erupted in a virtual literary vacuum? A great religion, moreover, inevitably throws off heresies: where are the early Islamic heretics and Gnostics? Later Islamic theologians knew the titles of some of their works, but the content itself was lost. "The only explanation for the disappearance is that it had long since become unusable theologically," he alleges of certain Shi'ite sources.

Kalisch draws on the well-known work of Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, whose criticism of the received version have a distinctly minority position in Koranic scholarship:

It is a striking fact that such documentary evidence as survives from the Sufnayid period makes no mention of the messenger of god at all. The papyri do not refer to him. The Arabic inscriptions of the Arab-Sasanian coins only invoke Allah, not his rasul [messenger]; and the Arab-Byzantine bronze coins on which Muhammad appears as rasul Allah, previously dated to the Sufyanid period, have not been placed in that of the Marwanids. Even the two surviving pre-Marwanid tombstones fail to mention the rasul.

The great scandal of Islamic tradition is the absence of Islamic formulations from coins and monuments dating from the its first two centuries, as well as the presence of material obviously incompatible with Islam

. "Coins and inscriptions are incompatible with the Islamic writing of history," Kalisch concludes on the strength of older work, including Yehuda Nevo and Jutith Koren's Crossroads to Islam.

The oldest inscription with the formulation "Mohammed Messenger of Allah" is to found in the 66th year of Islamic reckoning, and after that used continuously. But there also exist coins found in Palestine, probably minted in Amman, on which the word "Muhammed" is found in Arabic script on one side, and a picture of a man holding a cross on the other. Kalisch cites this and a dozen other examples. Citing Nevo/Koren and other sources, Kalisch also accepts the evidence that no Islamic conquest occurred as presented in much later Islamic sources, but rather a peaceful transfer of power from the Byzantine empire to its local Arab allies.

"To be sure," Kalisch continues, "various explanations are possible for the lack of mention of the Prophet in the early period, and it is no proof for the non-existence of an historical Mohammed. But it is most astonishing, and begs the question of the significance of Mohammed for the original Muslim congregation in the case that he did exist."

The numismatic, archeological, source-critical and other evidence against acceptance of the received version of Islamic history was well developed by other scholars. But it was never accepted by mainstream Orientalists. Cynics might point to the fact that most Middle Eastern studies programs in the West today are funded by Islamic governments, or depend on the good will of Middle Eastern governments for access to source material. Academia is not only corrupt, however, but credulous: the question arises: if Mohammed never existed, or did not exist as he is portrayed, why was so much effort devoted in later years to manufacturing thousands of pages of phony documentation in the Hadith and elsewhere?

Why, indeed, was the Mohammed story invented, by whom, and to what end? The story of the Hegira, Mohammed's flight from Mecca to Medina allegedly in 622, provides a clue, according to Kalisch. "No prophet is mentioned in the Koran as often as Moses, and Muslim tradition always emphasized the great similarly between Moses and Mohammed," he writes. "The central event in the life of Moses, though, is the Exodus of the oppressed Children of Israel out of Egypt, and the central event in the life of Mohammed is the Exodus of his oppressed congregation out of Mecca to Medina ... The suspicion is great that the Hegira appears only for this reason in the story of the Prophet, because his image should emulate the image of Moses."

Furthermore, "the image of Jesus is also seen as a new Moses. The connection of Mohammed to the figure of Jesus is presented in Islamic tradition through his daughter Fatima, who is identified with Maria ... The Line Fatima-Maria-Isis is well known to research. With the takeover of Mecca, Mohammed at least returns to his point of origin. Thus we have a circular structure typical of myth, in which beginning and end are identical. This Gnostic circular structure represents the concept that the soul returns to its origin. It is separated from its origin, and must return to it for the sake of its salvation."

Kalisch concludes that Islam itself began as a Gnosis, a secret teaching much like the Gnostic Christian sources rejected by the Church Fathers. "The myth of Mohammed ... could be the product of a Gnosis, which wanted to present its theology in a new and original myth with a new protagonist, but actually is the old protagonist (Moses, Jesus). For the Gnostics it always was clear, that the issue was not historical truth, but rather theology. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were only different characterizations of a mythic hero or son of god, who would depict an old spiritual teaching in mythical form."

He explains,

In the Islamic Gnosis, Muhammed appears along with [his family members] Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Hussein as cosmic forces ... the Gnostic Abu Mansur al Igli claimed that God first created Jesus, and then Ali. Here apparently we still have the Cosmic Christ

. If a Christian Gnosis was there are the origin of Islam, then the Cosmic Christ underwent a name change to Mohammed in the Arab world, and this Cosmic Mohammed was presented as a new edition of the Myth of Moses and Joshua (=Jesus) as an Arab prophet.

Thirst for secret wisdom drew Kalisch to Islam as a teenager, and keeps him within the faith despite his devastating critique. As he writes,

The teachings of Islamic mysticism are not specifically Islamic. They are a new minting of the perennial philosophy, which is found everywhere in the world in various traditions ... For me, this perennial philosophy is what the Koran means when it speaks of a teaching that God brought to humankind in all epochs.

My own views on the subject of Islamic mysticism are contained in a recent essay, (Sufism, sodomy and Satan Asia Times Online, August 12, 2008). Kalisch, it should be noted, adheres to a minority sect within the minority Shi'ite current in Islam, the Zaydi variant. His conclusions will convince few in the Islamic mainstream. But his work points to the great vulnerabilities of Islam. As I wrote some months ago, the German Jesuits who advise the Vatican on Islamic matters invested heavily in the supposedly moderate establishment of Sunni Islam in Turkey, and the theology department of the University of Ankara in particular (Tin-opener theology from Turkey Asia Times Online, June 3, 2008).

Of far greater interest may be the wide assortment of variant and quasi-heretical trends within Islam. Something very ancient and entirely genuine long buried within Islam may be struggling to the surface, a cuckoo's egg, as it were, waiting to hatch. It is noteworthy that Germany's Alevi community (immigrants from Turkey's 5-to-15 million strong Alevi population) expressed solidarity with Kalisch when he came under attack from other Muslim organizations.

Coming from a minority within a minority, Kalisch has offered a new and credible explanation of the motive behind the great reshuffling of Islamic sources during the second and third centuries of the religion. I cannot evaluate Kalisch's handling of the sources, but the principle he advances makes sense. It is another crack in the edifice of Islam, but a most dangerous one, because it came from the inside.

FBI sending suspicious powder to headquarters

A suspicious substance mailed to the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on its way to FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va., for further testing.

FBI agents in Salt Lake City said they received a final report from the state health department on the white powdery substance in an envelope mailed to Temple Square last week. Tests were conducted to ensure it wasn't ricin, anthrax or any other biological weapon.

"It is not any kind of biological agent or toxin or even a new strain," FBI Special Agent Juan Becerra said Monday.

Envelopes with white powder were mailed to Temple Square, the LDS Church's temple in Los Angeles, and a printing press belonging to the Catholic-affiliated Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Conn. Both churches were heavy backers of California's Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage in that state.

The FBI has labeled its probe a domestic terrorism investigation. Becerra would not say whether the agency had identified any suspects in the case, but reiterated Monday that the FBI had no evidence that linked the threats to Prop. 8 or its opponents.

Many gay rights organizations have also decried the threats.

China Passes Japan as Biggest U.S. Treasuries Holder (Update1)

By John Brinsley and Rebecca Christie

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- China surpassed Japan in September to become the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, as foreign investors sought the relative safety of government debt as stocks plunged 9.1 percent that month.

Total net purchases of long-term equities, notes and bonds increased a net $66.2 billion in September from $21 billion the previous month, the Treasury said today in Washington. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, foreigners bought a net $143.4 billion, compared with net buying of $21.4 billion the month before.

China led all foreign official investors in September by posting a net increase in U.S. Treasuries for the sixth month in the past seven, bringing its total ownership close to $600 billion. Japan was a net seller of Treasuries for the fourth month in the past six.

“The details of the report paint a much more positive picture of cross-border investments than expected,” said Michael Woolfolk, a senior currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. “China, along with others, is showing more demand than anticipated for U.S. assets.”

Economists predicted international investors would buy a net $27.2 billion of long-term securities in September, based on the median of seven estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

China leapfrogged Japan, increasing its Treasury holdings by $43.6 billion to $585 billion, the report said. Japan, now the second-largest foreign owner of U.S. government debt, reduced its holdings by $12.8 billion to $573.2 billion.

China Demand

China’s ownership of U.S. government debt has doubled since July 2005, while Japan’s holdings are down from a peak of $699 billion in August 2004.

Foreign demand for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other U.S. agency debt increased from a month earlier. Purchases of long- term agency debt totaled a net $6.2 billion, compared with net sales of $8.7 billion in August.

The Treasury’s figures include both agency debt and mortgage-backed securities and aren’t restricted to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds. Mortgage-backed securities of Ginnie Mae and corporate debt of the Federal Home Loan Bank System are also included in the report.

Stocks plunged and Treasuries rose in September as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson negotiated for two weeks with Congress over a $700 billion plan to address the worst financial crisis in 70 years.

Stocks, Corporate Bonds

International purchases of U.S. stocks totaled a net $11.5 billion, compared with net sales of $982 million in August. Foreigners sold a net $7.6 billion of corporate bonds, compared with net sales of $13.1 billion a month earlier.

Net purchases of Treasury notes and bonds increased to a net $88.9 billion, compared with $30.6 billion a month earlier. Net foreign official buying of Treasury bonds and notes totaled a net $4.9 billion, after net purchases of $4.8 billion the previous month.

The Treasury’s reporting on long-term securities captures international purchases of government notes and bonds, stocks, corporate debt and securities issued by U.S. agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages.

The dollar rose 1.9 percent in September after a 4.5 gain the previous month, according to a trade-weighted index of major currencies. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in September had its worst month since 2002, falling for the fourth time in five months.

U.S. Treasuries

The yield on the benchmark 10-year note averaged 3.68 percent, compared with 3.88 percent in August. Treasuries returned 1.8 percent in September, the most since a 2.5 percent gain in January, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.’s U.S. Treasury Master index.

The U.K., which through London acts as a transit point for international investors, especially those in the Middle East, bought $30.3 billion of Treasuries, bringing holdings to $338.4 billion.

Some economists say the difference between the trade gap and securities purchased by foreigners is an indicator of how easily the U.S. can finance its external obligations.

The U.S. trade deficit shrank in September by 4.4 percent to $56.5 billion, the smallest in almost a year. The gap narrowed as a weakening economy restricted demand for foreign goods such as automobiles and televisions.

Saudis label pirates 'terrorists' after $100m loss

Nico Hines and Catherine Philp

Royal Navy hands over eight suspected pirates | Live piracy map

The Saudi Royal Family condemned Somali pirates as terrorists today after losing $100 million worth of oil in an audacious heist that saw bandits seize a supertanker in the Arabian Sea.

The Sirius Star, which was carrying two million barrels of oil, a quarter of the Kingdom's daily output, was captured with its multi-national crew, including two Britons, 450 miles off the coast of Kenya on Sunday.

The hijack was the biggest ever act of piracy in the perilous shipping lanes off the east coast of Africa. Vela International, the ship’s owners, said today that the crew were safe and that their response team was awaiting further contact with the gang.

The furious Saudi foreign minister said the banditry was akin to terrorism and demanded an international crackdown on the pirates.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal said: “Piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together.

“This outrageous act by the pirates, I think, will only reinforce the resolve of the countries of the Red Sea and internationally to fight piracy,”

The prince suggested that several nations in the Red Sea region were willing to form a coalition to combat the ascendency of pirates in the Gulf of Aden and surrounding waters.

Last month, the UN Security Council unanimously approved resolutions calling on nations to send naval ships and military aircraft to Somalia’s coastline, and allowing foreign powers to enter Somali waters to fight piracy

A Nato flotilla of seven ships including a British frigate are already fighting piracy around Somalia. Nato, however, says its priority is escorting World Food Programme ships that deliver basic rations for three million hungry Somalis.

According to witnesses the 1,000ft hijacked ship was anchored overnight just off the lawless Somali coast. It was spotted less than three miles from the town of Harardhere, which is around 265 miles from the pirate haven of Eyl.

Abdinur Haji, a fisherman who lives near Harardhere, which is a pirate stronghold in itself, said: “As usual, I woke up at 3am and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore.

“There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship, which they can see with their naked eyes.”

The 318,000-tonne tanker, three times the size of an aircraft carrier, is not only the largest ship yet to be hijacked by increasingly bold pirates, but it occurred further out to sea than any previous attacks.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the top US military officer in the region said he was "stunned" by the reach of the Somali pirates.

"I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am the size," said Admiral Mullen. The pirates are "very good at what they do. They're very well armed. Tactically, they are very good," he said.

Its capture raises fears that international patrols nearer the coast and in the Gulf of Aden will not be enough to protect vital trade routes as pirate gangs become ever more daring.

It has been suggested by shipping experts that the prevalence of pirates in the Gulf of Aden would force ships to take the longer and more expensive journey around the Cape of Good Hope rather than using the Suez Canal. This vessel, however, was making that very journey raising the spectre that piracy now threatens all exports leaving the Middle East via boat.

The Sirius Star carried 25 crew members from Croatia, Britain, Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia, according to a US Navy statement.

The South Korean-built ship, launched earlier this year, is operated by Vela International and registered in Liberia.

The International Maritime Bureau has reported that at least 83 ships have been attacked off Somalia since January, of which 33 were hijacked. Of those, 12 vessels and more than 200 crew were still in the hands of pirates.

Britain leads a multinational task force in the area. Last week the Royal Navy was drawn into a shoot-out with a gang attempting to hijack a cargo ship, killing two of the pirates.

The US Fifth Fleet declined to say whether military action was being considered to rescue the tanker.

Shipping experts said that a rescue attempt was unlikely because of the extreme danger both to the crew and the ship.

Somalia has lacked a functioning government since the outbreak of civil war in 1991. But the lawlessness that has prevailed since the ousting of the Islamic Courts Government in 2007 has spawned the epidemic of piracy.

The gangs’ methods vary little, even when taking a 320,000-tonne monster like the Sirius Star. Gunmen typically approach on small speedboats, opening fire on the bridge until the ship’s captain submits and allows them on board, usually throwing down a ladder. The average reaction time between spotting the pirates and being boarded is 15 minutes.

Crews are strictly instructed not to resist attack once arms have been employed. Once captured, violence against crew members is rare.

In recent months the pirates’ arsenal has grown more deadly, with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and possibly shoulder-mounted missiles used to threaten the crew.

Pirate groups have hugely extended their reach from the coast with the use of “mother ships”, larger vessels from which they launch speedboats after they have identified their prey. While some known mother ships have been identified, other attacks are launched from ordinary dhows, traditional sailing boats hijacked from fishermen.

Negotiations with ships’ owners can go on for several months and are clouded in secrecy. Fourteen ships with more than 250 crew members are being held as negotiations continue. Among them is the Ukrainian arms ship Faina, which was captured in August with a cargo of 33 battle tanks, hundreds of crates of Kalashnikovs and ammunition.

Shipping companies have noticed a pattern in which new hijacks occur within days of a ransom settlement, suggesting that the gangs are acting in rotation, moving from one hijack to another as soon as the last is resolved.

Pentagon Wants $581 Billion From Obama – War Costs Not Included

By Noah Shachtman

Give the boys in the Pentagon credit; they've got chutzpah. While the federal government hemorrhages money -- and everyone from Goldman Sachs to General Motors to the city of Philadelphia is looking for more Washington cash -- the Defense Department is getting ready to ask for its biggest budget yet. The Pentagon is telling the Obama transition team that it wants $581 billion for the next fiscal year, an increase of $67 billion. And that doesn't even count cash needed to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cash request "includes $524 billion in spending authority approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget this spring... as well as $57 billion in additional needs the Office of the Secretary of Defense identified over the summer," reports Inside Defense.

The final figure does includes some money -- $12 billion -- to pay for a few "predictable war costs," Inside Defense adds. But that's less than what operations in Afghanistan and Iraq cost every month.

In contrast, President Bush inherited a Pentagon budget that was a mere $302 billion.

Iraqi bishop receives letter:

from Dhimmi Watch

"There is no place for you infidel Christians among the Muslim believers in Iraq from now on. Otherwise, our swords will be legalized over your neck"

In accordance with Qur'an 47:4, which directs jihadists to "smite at the necks" of unbelievers. "Letter From Iraqi Muslim Group Orders All Christians Out of the Country," from the Assyrian International News Agency, November 18:

(AINA) -- A Christian bishop received a threatening letter written by Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Muslim group affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The letter ordered the Christians to leave Iraq en masse and stated it is sending a final warning to Christians in Baghdad and other Iraqi governorates to leave Iraq permanently.

The letter was published on Al-Ittihad's website, a daily newspaper that covers Iraqi politics.

Here is the translation of the letter:

The General Secretariat of the Adherent of Islam Brigade has decided to address the final warning to you and to all your adherents and flocks, the infidel Christian Crusaders, in Baghdad and the other governorates and order you to leave immediately, in masses and permanently from the Muslim countries (Iraq) and to join Pope Benedict the sixteenth and his followers who crossed over the greatest symbols of humanity and Islam.

There is no place for you infidel Christians among the Muslim believers in Iraq from now on. Otherwise, our swords will be legalized over your neck and the necks of you followers and flocks similar to what happened to the Christians living in Mosul.

God is our witness
He who warns is excused
The General Secretariat of the Adherents of Islam Brigade