[Editor’s note: The following edited text is from a Holy Day of Atonement message by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on Oct. 16, 2002, the 7th anniversary of the historic Million Man March. The speech was delivered at Salem United Methodist Church in Harlem, N.Y. In light of ongoing global events, particularly in the Middle East, this vitally important message is just as timely and applicable today. To order this message in its entirety, visit store.finalcall.com.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
On this, the seventh anniversary of the Million Man March and the month of the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile crisis, we are approaching a tremendous crisis that will be initiated by the present administration.
But it will bring to the world a war that the prophets dreaded, a war that ultimately would end all wars—the war that is called Armageddon. I want to talk to you tonight in a very sober, reasoned way and appeal to your intelligence.
No one in his or her right mind wants to be opposite the President of the United States of America. He’s the most powerful, it appears, human being on our planet and he is the head of the house (country).
The Qur’an and the Bible teach us to respect those in authority over us whether they respect us or not, because the idea of Allah (God) is always to have an ordered society. You cannot have an ordered home, an ordered school, an ordered church or an ordered community if there is no respect for law and respect for authority.
The only time we ought to rebel against authority, even if it is our own mother, is if our mother asks us to associate a partner with Allah (God) and to worship that which is unworthy of worship.
Then we are to disobey mother, but still with respect. If we can disobey our own mother, who brought us into the world, then we can disobey authority when authority asks us to do that which is against the principle of our faith.
The scripture says, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” If the peacemakers are blessed, then [cursed] are the warmongers for they shall be called what they are, the children of Satan.
The scripture says that the serpent would deceive the whole world. He starts off in the Genesis of the Bible as a serpent and he’s also called a serpent in the Qur’an, but in the Revelation he’s a dragon. He’s grown so huge in power.
Enemy of democracy?
(The late President Richard M.) Nixon once said that the real enemy of democracy is not communism, it is fundamentalist Islam. He said that the Third World War has already begun and we are losing it. What do you mean, Nixon? Nixon was the type of president who saw the Constitution as a stumbling block and he had a secret government that was operating. (President Lyndon B.)
Johnson, his predecessor, knew how to manipulate Congress. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed, but it was based on a lie and Congress signed that resolution and gave the president the power that he was looking for to send 500,000 American soldiers into combat in Vietnam.
What Americans do not know is that the foreign policy of America has always dealt very wickedly when it came to oil. In Iran, Mohammed Mosadeq nationalized the oil industry. The CIA overthrew him and put the Shah of Iran in power, and America used the Shah as their policeman in that area of the world.
At that time Imam Khomeini was in Iraq, then Khomeini went to France, and from France he inspired the revolution. When the Shah was overthrown and Khomeini came home, he had all of that weaponry that America had put there with the Shah and he began to talk as an Islamic zealot that there is no king in Islam. And that’s right; Allah (God) is the King.
Imam Khomeini said he was going to move down that Persian Gulf and if he had moved and taken over the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, Iran would have controlled all the energy power of the Western world. America could not abide that. Nearly 20 years ago (1983), the (Iraq/Iran) war was already on and it was going badly for Iraq. So guess who was sent as special envoy (to Iraq) from President Reagan?
It was Mr. (Donald) Rumsfeld, who is now the Secretary of Defense. What did he go to Baghdad for? Rumsfeld offered Baghdad help in the war. Why? Because America did not want Iran to succeed with the Iranian revolution. How did you aid him, America?
It came out in a magazine that America gave Iraq weapons intelligence and fed Iraq some of the germs that developed into his program because at that time America wanted Iraq to stop Iran so that the Gulf and Saudi would be free to keep giving oil to the West. America made Saddam powerful and strong.
After the war, Iran was weakened and so was Iraq, but Iraq still had more power than any Arab nation and was considered a potential threat to Israel. The cornerstone of America’s foreign policy is Israel. Israel and the United States are locked together.
I don’t have time to go into all the details of that marriage, but suffice it to say that since 9-11, President Bush’s war on terrorism has served the purpose of Israeli Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon.
Now Sharon can say that the Palestinians—who are suffering tremendous suffering in their own land—are not freedom fighters, they’re now terrorists. Sharon has conveniently used Bush’s war on terror that is legitimate from 9-11 as a cover to destroy the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian Authority.
Sharon does not want to live side by side in two states with the Palestinians. So, the Bible teaches you that when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, that’s a sign of the end. The end of what? The end of this system of things.
Notice how the country was the day before the attack on America, on Sept. 10. The country was divided. People were claiming that the presidency was stolen. Many Democrats were upset because Al Gore had won the popular vote. Then September 11th took place. Right after that, the country was united.
In less than a week, they had the picture of 19 Arabs in the paper. I asked the question: How did you know so much the day after but didn’t know anything the day before? Cynthia McKinney raised this question.
They said she was unpatriotic and marshaled their forces against her. But now we learn there were 32 or more intelligence tidbits sent to the intelligence gathering agencies of the government warning of something like this.
Now it was convenient to blame Arabs. It could have been. I really don’t know, but I looked at who the beneficiaries were. And the beneficiaries were what (President Dwight) Eisenhower warned the country against—the military industrial complex. Right after 9-11, there was a rush to give the President the power to make war.
Weapons of mass destruction?
Here’s a man (Saddam Hussein) that they say has weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. has to go there and disarm him. But America and England have been bombing Iraq for the last 12 years and they say that in 12 years Iraq couldn’t knock down one craft.
If this country is a threat to America and has been bombed for 12 years and has not been able to knock down one American or one British plane, how then are they a threat to their neighbors?
Brothers and sisters, I’m telling you that within the next three months I believe we’ll be at war. I feel sorry for the soldiers, the sailors, the Marines, Black men, Black women, Brown men, Brown women, White men, White women who love this nation and they are made to believe that they are under a threat.
Senator (Robert) Byrd asked the question, how much money is it going to cost? Where is the money coming from? When Gore and Bush were debating during the presidential campaign, they were talking about several trillion or more dollars that was a surplus.
Now all of that is gone. The country is nearly $6 trillion in debt. And I have a document from the Federal Reserve that says no way America can climb out of debt. There is no way, no way, no way!
The country is spiraling downward and the Bush administration is trying to make it appear that everything is all right. They can print money and it costs hardly anything to print. They don’t have enough money in circulation that if we got it all back, America still couldn’t pay her debt. And it’s not backed by anything substantive. So you’re looking at hard times coming real hard times.
Forty years ago, the American generals wanted a war with Cuba so bad they could taste it. And they came up with a plan to shoot down a plane and get a boatload of Cubans and blow it up and blame it on Fidel Castro to anger the American people.
Forty years later, they know that if they had attacked Cuba, that Cuba had nuclear weapons already there facing American cities. If President Kennedy had listened to his generals, many American cities would have been nuked.
Now look at the reverse, 40 years later. The generals are telling the president, don’t do this. And you have people in the Bush administration that never saw war now committing your children to war. I think we have a problem and it is serious.
What is the consequence of this war? I told President Bush in a letter that he was going to run into something that he and his planners had not figured on. I read something in the Qur’an the other day that all planning is Allah’s (God’s).
So they plan and they think it is they who are planning, but it is Allah (God) who is planning it all. The sad thing is that our planners are blinded in the arrogance of their power. When you are arrogant, you don’t see little things. You stumble and fall.
President Bush has a heavy pro-Israeli lobby around him. These people are more loyal to Israel than they are to the United States of America. Iraq cannot threaten America, but Iraq will always be a potential threat for Israel.
Iraq is to the Arab world what Germany is to Europe. What is Germany to Europe? They are the most disciplined; they are the most scientific and technologically prepared of all the Europeans.
So it is with Iraq. Iraq is the most disciplined, scientific and technologically developed country of the Arab world. Look at what they want in their new UN resolution. They want the scientists of Iraq to come out so that they can be questioned.
Lies! They want to take those scientists and use their science and rob the Arab world of any scientists that could develop any weapon to bring detente to that region. Israel already has many weapons of mass destruction and she is not afraid to use them.
No Arab nation can be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction to challenge Israel. That’s the whole idea: Make an example of Saddam. They are going to go into Iraq and look at what they are saying.
Senator Byrd asked, what are you going to do when you get there? There was no answer at that time but now the answer is coming out. They are going to occupy Iraq like they occupied Japan. They are going to control all of the oil that’s coming out of Iraq—112 billion barrels.
The second largest oil reserve in the world will be in America’s hands. And right now they are bargaining with China, with France and with Russia.” You go along with us and when we take the oil, we’ll give you so much,” and you so much. But I warn you China; I warn you in the Name of Allah (God).
I warn you France and Russia, in the Name of Allah (God). The Qur’an says the devil promises only to deceive. When he has it (oil), I guarantee you that he will not give it to you, Russia because he fears you will rise again.
The consequence of war is that all the nations are going to be afraid of the United States of America who is justifying a pre-emptive strike. She’s the aggressor but she’s making herself look like she’s being attacked.
What are the consequences? No nation will feel safe; therefore, as it is written in the Bible, “Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
“Beat your plowshares (means of cultivation of earth and people) into swords (instruments of war), and your pruning hooks into spears: Let the weak say, I am strong.
“Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.”
The nations now have to seek weapons because they don’t know where America is coming next. It’s Iraq today, Iran tomorrow, Libya the day after. But America really wants a regime change in China; they want one in North Korea; they want one in Russia, if Russia doesn’t go along.
