    15

    extin

    ction of other human beings as a validation of manliness, a heroic

    gesture in the name of truth, or simply a good way to get ahead in the

    world.

    Certain Islamic societies tend to be high on this list.  On

    November 28, 1943, Franklin Roosevelt met secretly with Joseph Stalin

    and Winston Churchill in Iran.  When Roosevelt returned home, he

    sent a telegram to the Shah thanking the Iranian ruler for his

    hospitality.  The President explained that he'd noticed the hills in Iran

    were bare.  American agronomists had learned to prevent soil erosion

    and enrich the landscape by planting trees on slopes like these.

    Roosevelt suggested an experimental tree-planting program.  The

    Iranian leader thanked FDR.  But privately the young potentate was

    highly insulted:  According to Moslem standards, the gift demeaned

    his virility.  Stalin was far more understanding of Mohammedan

    culture.  He offered the Shah tanks and planes.29

    Hafez al-Assad, current leader of Syria, worked hard to solidify

    his  position  as  the  country's  undisputed  ruler.    He  didn't  do  it  by

    selling Syria's citizens on the values of his political platform.  Instead,

    he slaughtered 20,000 Moslem Fundamentalists who opposed him.30

    According to The New York Times, in 1980 Yasir Arafat, the

    Palestinian leader, had a Lebanese imam (a holy man roughly

    equivalent to a pastor) shot in the head for refusing to preach the

    propaganda of the PLO.   Then Arafat visited the imam's Lebanese

    home, took his ten-year-old son aside, explained to the little boy that

    his father had been murdered by the Israelis, handed the lad a gun,

    and said, "When you grow up, use this to take revenge."  Arafat

    wanted the boy to be a killer.31

    Holiness, righteousness, and even day-to-day propriety in

    Islamic cultures are based on the example of Mohammed.32    Though

    Islamic literature praises Mohammed as a man of peace, he was also a

    military leader.  In 624 AD, The Prophet announced the concept of the

    Jihad--the holy war.  He said in the blessed book, The Koran, "I will

    instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their

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