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23 May 2006
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Nederlandstalig
In the name of freedom - and against it
Ayaan Hirsi Ali headed to the American Enterprise Institute
By Daan de Wit
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is moving on. 'As a reason for her departure she cited her forced relocation, but for quite some time now she has been looking for work abroad. Let's not be mistaken about this', wrote J. A. A. van Doorn Wednesday in NRC Handelsblad. She is departing for the American Enterprise Institute. In her farewell speech she made reference to September 11th. Now that she is leaving, what was already obvious is now becoming crystal clear: Hirsi Ali isn't fighting for freedom, but against it.

Hirsi Ali wants to liberate the world and above all Muslim women from the yoke of Islam. Van Doorn in the NRC Handelsblad: 'Without fanfare, Hirsi Ali demanded the Integration portfolio and got what she wanted from VVD leader Van Aartsen after he put up a weak struggle'. 'Contributing to the debate' was her principal accomplishment during her work in Parliament, she said in her recent press conference, contributions that have translated into the further entrenchment of positions on both sides of the issue. In order to underline her message, she said in her press conference that the world has changed after September 11th. Indeed, the world has changed after September 11th. The main cause of this are the neoconservative forces that were galvanized after the attacks, and which stirred up a whirlwind upon which Pim Fortuyn was able to spread his wings and take flight. In The Netherlands this gave direction and inspiration to someone who channeled his personal frustration and rage into a murder that took place 911 daysmurder of Fortuyn. After the death of this friend of Hirsi Ali, the polarization - which is centered around the supposed danger of Muslims - only increased.

Writer Abdelkader Benali today in NRC Handelsblad: 'She provoked and confronted on an unparalleled scale. She fought for the rights of the Muslim woman, but the Muslim woman turned away from her. She applied shock therapy but the patients didn't trust her method. Even among more enlightened Muslims, her message barely resonated. She lives on in my imagination as an Islamic Don Quixote. She was a plaything of the Dutch elite, just as the Dutch elite every now and then needs one. This elite was white, lived in Amsterdam, and saw in her criticism a welcome mouthpiece with which to give vent to their anti-Islamic feelings. After 9-11 she made her grand ascent into this circle, and her star rose with each Islamic terrorist attack.' The biggest catalyst was the death of Theo Van Gogh.

The origin of the fear that flourished at that time lies in the resurgence of age-old animosities that play out along religious lines, a resurgence that in large part is attributable to the organization that Hirsi Ali is now going to join, the American Enterprise Institute.  This is a neoconservative think tank, just like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), about which DeepJournal has written regularly. These organizations foment mutual dissension among groups in the name of freedom, resulting in constraints on the freedom of the individual, something that is becoming more and more apparent in both American and Dutch legislation.

The divide between groups which arose after September 11th led initially to unity within both Christian and secular groups in the West, but now dissension is holding sway alongside mounting disenchantment with the Bush administration. This is in sharp contrast to the campaign slogan that the neoconservative George W. Bush used to win the presidency: 'I'm a uniter, not a divider', and stands in total contradiction to the liberal principles that Hirsi Ali claimed to defend from within the VVD. It is therefore essential to look beyond the form and the rhetoric.

After looking at the content, it speaks for itself that the polarizing Hirsi Ali would feel at home at the American Enterprise Institute, and that a neoconservative campaign that has been shaped with the help of this same American Enterprise Institute resulted in the policy of the Bush administration. Not only does this policy exploit the alleged conflict with Islam, but according to a recent article, Professor Morgan Reynolds, no less a former member of the Bush administration, has come to the conclusion that September 11th - the same September 11th that Hirsi Ali cites in her crusade - was organized by neoconservatives, almost all of whom have roots in the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century. It was the attacks on September 11th that fueled the negative attitude in the West toward Muslims and Islam. But in the opinion of more and more people - the Republican Reynolds among them - Muslims had nothing to do with the attacks. Because of this, clarifying what exactly happened on September 11th remains of utmost importance, something that DeepJournal has been appealing for since Tuesday, September 11th 2001.

From the article about Bush's former chief economist in the Department of Labor: 'Reynolds stated that everyone in the worldwide intelligence community knew that 9/11 was an inside job as soon as it happened, with the obvious stand-down of US air defenses, controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, and non-protection of the President in Florida being the biggest tip-offs'. He is warning of a false flag operation against Iran - i.e. an attack that is blamed on Iran and after which can be used to victimize Iran by an American preemptive nuclear strike, a tactic which DeepJournal has written about previously. And though DeepJournal is long since familiar with the work of Reynolds, we asked him whether his bold statements as they appeared in the article had been portrayed correctly. Reynolds told DeepJournal that they indeed were: 'Quite accurate, written by Kevin Barrett, the organizer of the event.' Reynolds feels that the best way to prevent an attack on Iran is to make the facts surrounding September 11th public. At the same time, publicizing these facts would take the wind out of the sails of Hirsi Ali and her neoconservative colleagues, because they are making September 11th the focus of their crusade.

The Netherlands continues to take part in what is referred to at the Pentagon as The Long War This can be seen in Dutch military policy as well as in increasingly authoritarian legislation. But if September 11th was not carried out by 19 Muslim hijackers, but instead by neoconservative elements within the U.S., then that leaves much to reconsider - legislation from Minister of Justice Donner, the participation of the Dutch military in Afghanistan, as well as the campaign by Hirsi Ali, who said to fight for the liberation of Muslim women, but who will now fight more openly alongside the neoconservatives against the greater Muslim threat, a threat that in the opinion of Reynolds and an increasing number of scientists, journalists and ministers is unjustly predicated on September 11th. For in the opinion of Reynolds and his supporters, the attacks on that day were carried out at the direction of neoconservative extremists, the same people with whom Ayaan Hirsi Ali has now chosen to join hands.

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