Att 1 = Q&A-20

[johnkarls]

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Question 20

Why has there been no public disclosure in the wake of the capture of Osama's personal documents which have been described as being the size of a small college library, regarding what has happened to Osama's fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans (the number of Arabs he calculated had been killed by the U.S. or its allies)? After all, (1) Graham Allison, the Founding Dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, wrote a book on how to deal with Osama's Fatwa by controlling nuclear material, (2) it has often been pointed out that Allison's approach is wishful thinking because, for example, the old Soviet Union's missing 178 suitcase-size nuclear weapons contained a considerable amount of recycle-able nuclear material and have long since been universally agreed by experts to be in the hands of terrorists, and (3) this issue has been the subject of intense concern for every recent Chair of the Sen Fgn Rel or Sen Armed Services Committees with, indeed, Sen Fgn Rel Chair Joe Biden writing an Op Ed piece for the Wall St. Journal during the 2008 Presidential campaign arguing that all nuclear material has "DNA" indicating where it was produced and the U.S. should announce to the world that if the U.S. is ever subject to a nuclear attack from terrorists, the U.S. will annihilate with nuclear weapons the country of origin of the nuclear material used against the U.S. (causing some wags to point out that if the U.S. itself is the country of origin, the Biden Doctrine would obligate us to commit nuclear suicide!!!).

Suggested Answer 20

Once again, "Allah/God only knows"!!!

Incidentally, one might wonder whether a "fatwa" dies with the person who issued it so that, from strictly the viewpoint of Islamic Law, America need no longer worry about Osama's "fatwa" to nuke 10 million Americans.

The answer is provided by the famous case of Salmon Rushdie whose book "The Satanic Verses" provoked Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to issue on 2/14/1989 a "fatwa" calling for the assassination of Rushdie. On 3/7/1989, Britain broke diplomatic relations with Iran because of the "fatwa" and the fact that Rushdie resided in the U.K.

The "fatwa" sparked violence around the world, including the fire-bombing of innumerable book stores that stocked "The Satanic Verses."

On 9/24/1998, diplomatic relations were restored by Britain and Iran on the basis of an Iranian public commitment that it would "neither support nor hinder assassination attempts on Rushdie"!!!

The reason why that was all Britain could get???

Because the Iranians successfully made the case that under Islamic Law, a "fatwa" can be revoked only by the cleric who issued it!!! And Ayatollah Khomeini who led the 1979 Iranian revolution had died in 1989 shortly after issuing the "fatwa"!!!

Incidentally, the current Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, re-affirmed to Muslims on the occasion of their 2005 Holy Pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that Ayatollah Kohmeini's "fatwa" calling for the assassination of Rushdie remained in full force and effect because "fatwas" can be revoked only by the cleric who issued them and Ayatollah Khomeini died without revoking it!!!

[It is amusing that even though the 2005 re-affirmation of Ayatollah Khamenei to the 2005 Pilgrims to Mecca was a clear violation of the 9/24/1998 Iranian commitment underlying the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, those relations were not threatened by the re-affirmation and Britain did not even emit a whimper!!!]

HOWEVER, WITHOUT PRESUMING TO BE ALLAH/GOD, THE SUGGESTION IS OFFERED THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA PROBABLY DOES NOT WANT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC TO FOCUS ON THE FACT THAT WITH THE ASSASSINATION OF OSAMA, HIS "FATWA" TO NUKE 10 MILLION AMERICANS CAN NEVER BE EXTINGUISHED!!!

After all, President Obama is trying to cut the military budget. And, as noted in Question 20, experts have long since concluded that the 178 suitcase-size Soviet suitcase bombs had long since fallen into the hands of terrorists and, since the bombs contained quite a bit of recycle-able nuclear material, experts have been opining since 9/11 ten years ago that it would only be 2-3 years from then before the first American cities would be destroyed by nuclear weapons of terrorists. Indeed, that was the reason for Senate Foreign Relations Chair Joe Biden's famous OpEd piece when he was running for President in 2008 that the U.S. should announce to the world that the U.S. will annihilate with nuclear weapons any country from which terrorists had obtained their nuclear material.

Perhaps we should discuss on June 15th whether President Obama is wise to try to cut the military budget. After all, it is currently only 3% of GDP contrasted with a high of 6% before President Clinton assumed office. And it would seem the country could survive the destruction of a few major American cities with nuclear weapons - but can the Democratic party survive such destruction if they have cut the defense budget in the face of a "fatwa" to nuke 10 million Americans which, courtesy of Osama's assassination, can never be extinguished???