Do the mullahs seek martyrdom?
[NOTE: Athough I’m still just on the cellphone and therefore, at the moment, my posting capacity is quite limited, I found this old draft that was already written. So I’ve posted it while waiting for Comcast to fix the problem.]
From commenter “Gregory Harper”:
Do the mullahs really seek martyrdom? Probably not. They’ve had their chances and have always declined. They like wealth and power and martyrdom is for the gullible little people. Do I want them to obtain a nuclear weapon to test the theory that they wouldn’t actually use it? Nope.
I agree that they don’t seek martyrdom. They could do that easily enough, by becoming suicide bombers or standing in the middle of the street holding a sign saying, “Great Satan and Small Satan, here I am!” What they do seek is the destruction of the Jews and the West, and the spread of Islam – particularly their own brand of Shia Islam – all over the world, with them in charge.
But despite this, they’re willing to become martyrs if along the way they happen to meet that fate. It’s a win/win situation for them. They try to avoid martyrdom because they like power, plus they think they will be able, while alive, to steer the world towards the glorious goal of Islamic supremacy and takeover for which they aim. So they try to stay alive if they can. But not at the expense of wreaking havoc and seeking to wreak more.
And they’re fine with martyring their own people, even children. Those supposed keys to paradise they gave the mine-clearing children during the war with Iraq, for example – I don’t think that was just a cynical ploy. They were fine with the children dying because their belief is that those children would become blessed martyrs, too. The children’s lives are cheap; their deaths would be in order to effect the same victory for which the mullahs yearn, and their deaths are of no real consequence to the mullahs. And of course killing infidels, or apostates, or Iranian women whose hair in insufficiently covered – that’s okay too, to the mullahs.
Martyrs, in Christian tradition, are people who sacrifice their own lives in testimony of their faith.
People who “volunteer” others to die for their faith are murderers.
And they’re fine with martyring their own people, even children.
But whose children? Not “their own” children. Little people’s children. Those little keys were not handed out to clerics’ kids and IGRC commanders’ kids. Those kids grew up to jet between Tehran and Los Angeles, showing off their designer outfits and handbags on Instagram. They weren’t beheaded or flogged when they got off the plane in Tehran either.
Niketas:
That’s why I wrote “their own PEOPLE, even children” and not “their own children.”
The word “people” there means the Iranian people, and the word “children” there means the children of the Iranian people. It does not mean the children of the mullahs or the other Iranian leaders.
Based on my understanding of islam, martyrdom is something that happens. It is something their god grants, sought or unsought, to righteous persons who have died for the faith. Their mileage may vary. Literally.
@neo:It does not mean the children of the mullahs or the other Iranian leaders.
I thought it likely you did, and thank you for clarifying. As Aesop Fan says, it’s not really “seeking martyrdom” if it’s other people you are “volunteering” for it.
In Islam Allah demands the sacrifice of human lives. You die for Allah.
In Christianity God dies for you.
Every religion which demands human sacrifice is demonic. Islam is demonic.
Seems like some hard-core cognitive dissonance is baked into this particular cake, though; wherein one fervently claims that one seeks glorious death, on the one hand, while on the other fervently whines about those who actually do the killing….
(Talk about ungrateful…)
As I understand it, you get martyr credit if you die in war against the infidel, including killing defenseless innocents.
“In Islam Allah demands the sacrifice of human lives.
You die for Allah.
In Christianity God dies for you.
Every religion which demands human sacrifice is demonic. Islam is demonic.” David
Well said Sir!
Clearly the mullahs don’t seek martyrdom, but they do accept it as a definite risk.
There was understandable hope that after the US and Israel took out the top two or three levels of Iranian leadership, that the lower levels would be more likely to make a deal and live.
That doesn’t seem to be the case.