"Extremism in the defense of Liberty is NO VICE... moderation in the pursuit of justice is NO VIRTUE."
Friday, November 30, 2007
BUT ISN'T THE WEST THE BAD GUY?
Author Christopher Hitchens is first slammed by a marginally young peacenik who one presumes doesn't believe that blood should be shed for oil, and then by a well-spoken elderly gentleman who claims to be a Marxist. Hitchens swings back in typical fashion, not missing a beat. Funny stuff in a sad way.
Here, Chris Hitchens mops up spilt milk by telling the elderly gent Marxist where to get off the Hitchens' train.
An unabashed Christopher Hitchens surprises the crowd at the 30th Annual Convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation by announcing his choice for the next US presidency. And while trashing two other sacred cows to boot! This English bloke seems to have his priorities straight.
To hear another interesting clip from this same speech, click here.
Here's a bit of light reporting by the Washington Post. Read it all. But in savoring the PR of the man who seems to feel peculiarly qualified to lead America in these treacherous times solely because he has smelled the stench of poverty in his own family, and by virtue of mixed race, can solve America's racial puzzle, I suggest we look closer at the man and not so much at the tailored suit he's wearing.
Let's step back. I watched Obama's breathtaking speech at the '04 National Democratic Convention, and like any of the millions of patriotic Americans who watched with me, I was enthralled by the combination of words, the force of delivery, the charm and charisma of this man from Illinois. But one cannot help but wonder, how far this packaged idealism will fly in a world of hidden bombs and brutal treachery, particularly since this article doesn't answer any of the tough questions it only hints at asking. Is it possible that Obama can stride into the White House and become the new Lincoln? It's possible, but so far I haven't seen or heard much since that speech at the Convention to warrant such sketch of wishful thinking.
This article answers none of the questions that have been floating about, including the one about the racist attitudes of the Chicago-based church of which he is a prominent member. The Chicago Sun-Times reports on this matter here. Are Obama's ties to Islam equally entrenched in shadows and undergirded by secrets? It is easy to doubt that these things can be true. But surely, it is better to know that they are false.
The article..
In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama's biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world. Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama's stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.
Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.
In campaign appearances, Obama regularly mentions his time living and attending school in Indonesia, and the fact that his paternal grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, was a Muslim. Obama invokes these facts as part of his case that he is prepared to handle foreign policy, despite having been in the Senate for only three years, and that he would literally bring a new face to parts of the world where the United States is not popular.
The son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, Obama was born and spent much of his childhood in Hawaii, and he talks more about his multicultural background than he does about the possibility of being the first African American president, in marked contrast to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who mentions in most of her stump speeches the prospect of her becoming the first woman to serve as president.
"A lot of my knowledge about foreign affairs is not what I just studied in school. It's actually having the knowledge of how ordinary people in these other countries live," he said earlier this month in Clarion, Iowa.
"The day I'm inaugurated, I think this country looks at itself differently, but the world also looks at America differently," he told another Iowa crowd. "Because I've got a grandmother who lives in a little village in Africa without running water or electricity; because I grew up for part of my formative years in Southeast Asia in the largest Muslim country on Earth."
What would you do if your foreign policy agenda had these priorities: * Get Arab and European support for solving the Iraq crisis. * Mobilize Arab and European forces against a threat led by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah. * Get Iran to stop its campaign to get nuclear weapons. * Reestablish American credibility toward friends and deterrence toward enemies. * Reduce the level of Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That pretty much describes the U.S. framework for dealing with the Middle East nowadays. The Annapolis conference is not going to contribute to these goals. The most likely outcome is either failure or a non-event portrayed as a victory because it took place at all. No one is going to say: We are so grateful at the United States becoming more active on Arab-Israeli issues that we are going to back its policy on other issues.
On the contrary, the conference is more likely to show the inability of the United States to produce results, thus undermining belief in U.S. leverage in the region in general. It shines the spotlight on the most divisive issue, the great excuse for not doing more to help U.S. efforts, raising its prominence. What most of Washington simply fails to understand is that any real demand for Palestinian or Arab concessions will be fodder for radical groups and frighten Arab regimes, pushing the latter away from support for America rather than toward it. And any Israeli concessions obtained by this process will not satisfy their demands either.
Despite thousands of claims by lots of famous people, national leaders, and respected journals, solving the Arab-Israeli conflict will not make radical Islamism or terrorism go away. Would you like to know why? Because even if this issue could be solved—which isn’t about to happen for reasons requiring a different article—to do so would necessitate a compromise including an end to the conflict, acceptance of Israel, and compromises by the Arab side. These steps would inflame the extremists and make any Arab rulers who accepted it vulnerable to being called traitors. It would increase instability in the Arab world, also by removing the conflict as splendid excuse and basis for mobilizing support for the current rulers. Arab politicians understand this reality; most people in the West don’t.
Read it all here in the essay by Barry Rubin at the GLORIA Center.
Rubin's headline for this article is Drilling a Hole in the Lifeboat. But here's my own bit of painful, yet nevertheless, strategic wishful thinking. The operative question is simple. Is the United States still operating with a few aces short of a full deck in dealing with this foul enemy of basic human dignity and its phoney peacemakers, or is this rather the traditional final opportunity for the five families to look each other in the eye and declare themselves according to their own peculiar lights as rational businessmen just prior to the moment when the real turf war begins?
We know what happens next. Vito Corleone is hammered with bullets as the hapless Fredo fumbles about nearby. But this despicable action sparks the required no holds barred heroic response to take down these unlikeable mobsters who wish to spread its immoral oppression, in our case, around the globe. I'd like to think it is this latter scenario we are facing, in anticipation that Bush and company are determined that we must finally move this sixty year old family feud towards the finishing stage, which is a true peace built of strength of character and not some awkward and deceitful strength by religious police we see implemented across the sand belt from Africa to Indonesia.
But I'm not getting my hopes up. Old fashioned nationalism certainly seems to be taking a back seat to this push toward absolute globalism these days.
Breaking news. Same old Saudi smoke and mirrors. Yesterday we read in the Arab News that the House of Saud has released 1500 Al-Qaeda extremists, who were detained on charges of embracing and spreading takfeer (the ideology that brands other Muslims who disagree with them as infidels) after they repented. Today we hear that the Saudi regime has arrested over 200 extremists who have terrorist ties.
One must wonder how many of the 1500 released were rounded up again the next day in order to create a splash at Annapolis. It is the House of Saud, of course, who finances the madrassas and mosques around the globe including over 1500 here in the States. These schools teach the most virilent form of Wahabbism, including one in the Washington, DC area that several US Senators are trying to have shut down. No word on the traction of this shut down, but we shall certainly follow the story here.
You be the judge. Here is an excerpt from film maker Aaron Russo's rather frightening documentary. I have been hearing about David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission world banking conspiracies since I first began to open my political eyes in the early 1970s, only to slam them shut quickly to avoid instant blindness, but here is a more contemporary, and dare I say, less conspiracy-riddled investigative report that makes a strong case that the bankers did indeed destroy what was once a beautiful world.
The preceding clip is only an excerpt. See the entire documentary here.
But while we're busy at saving the world, leaving no jihadi unturned, here is more news from NYC about the Somali terrorist convicted for planning to blow up a shopping mall. A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Somali immigrant to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall with a man later convicted of being an Al Qaeda terrorist.
Nuradin Abdi, a cell phone salesman before his arrest, will be deported to Somalia after serving the sentence. U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley imposed the sentence as part of a plea deal Abdi agreed to in July. In a 20-minute statement to the court, Abdi's attorney Mahir Sherif said his client apologized to the people of the United States, the people of Ohio and the Muslim community.
"He apologizes for the things he thought about and the things he talked about and the crimes he pleaded guilty to," Sherif said. "He wants to make it very, very clear that he does not hate America."
The alleged plot was never carried out and Sherif long maintained Abdi was guilty at most of ranting about the United States' handling of the war in Afghanistan. Abdi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support for terrorists. Three charges were dropped as part of his plea deal; Abdi could have received 80 years in prison had he been convicted of all the counts he had faced.
Prosecutors said Abdi made threatening comments about the unspecified shopping mall during a meeting with two other alleged terrorists on Aug. 8, 2002, at a coffee shop in suburban Columbus.
Abdi and the two "could attack the mall with a bomb," Abdi told his friends as they sipped $11.25 in refreshments at the coffee shop, according to court documents. One of the men with Abdi that day was Iyman Faris, who pleaded guilty in May 2003 to providing material support for terrorism. A Pakistani immigrant, Faris was convicted of plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The third man alleged to be at the meeting is Christopher Paul, a U.S. citizen who grew up in suburban Columbus. He was charged in April with plotting to bomb European tourist resorts frequented by Americans as well as overseas U.S. military bases, and his trial is scheduled for January 2009.
Abdi was arrested in November 2003. His attorneys have said he was upset at the war in Afghanistan and reports of civilians killed in bombings by the U.S.-led invasion. Prosecutors also say Abdi gave stolen credit card numbers to a man accused of buying gear for Al Qaeda, and lied on immigration documents to visit a jihadist training camp. His attorneys meanwhile have pointed out that the stolen credit card numbers were never used and that the Justice Department never alleged what organization they believed was running the camp, what Abdi intended to do with the training, or whether he ever actually went.
Big whoop, say I. It's not important to write the entire screenplay of an act of aggression against innocent people in order to stop it, and arrest the plotters. Now, the big question is this: shouldn't we also be going after the Saudis who are our deceiving enemies, and people like David Rockefeller who are cold-blooded usurpers of the American republic and George Bush who gives blundering aid and comfort and outright appeasement to both these players in an endgame no one can be sure is worth winning...
I suppose not, so instead let's just say a prayer for the spirit of Tom Paine who fought with powerful words against both these types of men in the flesh of his own times.
Mainland China continues to ramp up its threatening gestures towards the US as tensions mount over the Taiwan and Middle East strategies of both countries. Then of course, there is the toxic toys scandal which continues to replicate almost daily.
The Pentagon criticized China yesterday for denying a Thanksgiving Day port visit to Hong Kong by the USS Kitty Hawk, but would not say whether the snub will lead to limits on military exchanges with Beijing. Pentagon and military officials were stunned by China's abrupt decision on Wednesday to disallow the carrier visit, which was planned for at least a month and timed for the holiday.
"This was a most unfortunate incident that we are still working to better understand," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, adding that it is "premature" to say whether military exchanges with China will be cut back as a result.
However, Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told reporters in Hawaii that China's decision is a setback for U.S. military relations with Beijing and is not in line with plans for increased exchanges.
As yesterday's festivities pass into memory here is a clear thought from the efficacious Right Wing Nuthouse:
I know, I know. We simply can’t let a Thanksgiving go by without being made to feel simply awful as a result of rapacious white Europeans betraying and eventually murdering Rousseau’s “noble savage” in bunches. This line of thinking leads to a rather interesting conclusion; Europeans should have stayed in Europe, allowing only Asians to emigrate to North and South America.
If European naval technology had been just a little less advanced, we very well could be speaking some Asian tongue today—or perhaps even Polynesian given the enormous skill and intrepidness of their sailors. The last great migration from Asia may have occurred as recently as 6,000 BC according to some exhaustive yet controversial linguistic studies. But if European ship building improvements had lagged by just a couple of hundred years, North America would have been a ripe target for settlement by any number of Asian cultures. Then, it would have been rapacious yellow men who would have gotten tagged with killing the native population.
That’s because it didn’t matter who came, the clash of civilizations was inevitable. Failing to understand our early history in the context of the history of migrating peoples from the time that Homo Sapiens first moved out of Africa is shallow, stupid, and these days, politically motivated. It doesn’t absolve white people of murder nor does it lessen the tragedy of the destruction of native American culture. But thinking in these terms should animate our total understanding of the history of our continent and our country—something the modern day left, whose guilt-ridden diatribes against our ancestors always sounds such a discordant note on this, the most unique of American holidays, deliberately ignores in order to prove their solidarity with the oppressed.
All of that was in the future when the Pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621 in recognition of the help given to them by the Cape Cod Indian tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag. By that time, the Pilgrim’s numbers had been dramatically reduced by disease, losing more than half the number that landed at Plymouth Rock. The Indians had no doubt contributed to the survival of the remainder by showing them how and where to fish as well as introducing them to some native American crops like Maize and beans.
But what we tend to forget about the Pilgrims is that they were not explorers or people inured to hardship. They were country folk from the Midlands of England—most of them were not farmers or possessing the skills necessary to begin a colony. They were simple townsfolk whose separatist ideas about the Church of England landed them in trouble with the authorities – so much so that they were driven out of the country. First to Holland, where their religious views were tolerated but where parents were concerned that the children were losing their essential “Englishness” and pined for the homeland. That’s when William Bradford made a deal with the London Company for a land patent and the crossing was planned.
But while he makes sense, I still worry about the Left's typical dismissal of US security issues in this capricious and dangerous world. Edgy and cerebral to the core, Ralph Nader continues his war on poverty while his attempt at persuading even the filthiest capitalist pig in the playpen that the reeling in of corporate steamrollers is a desirable fix to most of what ails us, I can idealogically support most of his actions in these regards. Missile defense system? Yes, divert some, hell, divert most of that budget, but don't act like America by virtue of its long gesticulating shadow doesn't need to do the smart thing in protecting itself against its enemies, those declared and those hiding in the henhouse alike.
I had been invited recently to a Nader speech here in Washington, DC to be held at the hip, smart, hard left cafe called Busboys & Poets, located uptown at the corner of 14th and V Sts, NW. Charming, inexpensive food on the menul, there is always an emphemery of elbows to rub up against. The place is ALWAYS packed to the gills. I declined this invitation from a newly minted friend for two reasons. I am trying my best to keep my nose to the grindstone, staying busy in my painting studio once I arrive there after a morning of reading and blogging, until I am ready to drop. However, this recent incursion of new friendships, dears all, has been threatening both my slipping energies and the fragile stability of routine I nevertheless depend upon in keeping with this program.
And secondly, I am loathe to encourage unrelenting peer encroachment of foggy ideals, reminiscent of my unstructured youth, ideals I've since traded for cold reckoning in these rather dangerous times. The $35 dollar hit to the wallet for this Nader fundraiser was probably a third mitigating factor.
Tough to prove, but footsteps in the sand are more real than a dead theory on pavement, and I feel confident that my wife and I tend to practice a ruse of Marxism far closer to the strategem I've ever known a MINO (Marxist In Name Only) to practice in the day to day. And that's probably why I have little empathy for the screed and rhetoric of this supposedly well-meaning crowd. Nothing is what it seems anymore.
I only just found this rather dated news, but since it goes to the heart of why I keep this blog without concern for active readership—liberty of conscience—it bears mentioning here.
Norway's newspaper Aftenposten reported back in April of this year yet another "stupid Muslim trick" fleecing their country. Norwegian-Somalian Kadra, who became famous in Norway for exposing imam support of female circumcision, was attacked and beaten unconscious by seven or eight persons of Somali origin. Kadra said that the gang of Somali men attacked her around 3 a.m. in downtown Oslo on Thursday. A medical examination found that she had several broken ribs, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. Kadra filed charges and was due to speak with police on Friday.
“I was terrified. While I lay on the pavement they kicked me and screamed that I had trampled on the Koran. Several shouted Allah-o-akbar (God is great) and also recited from the Koran,” Kadra told VG. Her role in a 2000 hidden camera TV documentary revealing the positive attitude of Muslim leaders to female circumcision had a massive impact on Norway, and sparked new legislation.
When our leaders wake up to the fact that this Koran has given millions of young men around the globe a license to thuggery and murder? Sudden Jihad Syndrome or SJS is a very dangerous contagion.
But that's not all...
A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The 19-year-old woman—whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms—was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200. A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
A Dallas man convicted this week for tainting grocery store baked items by sprinkling dried feces on the food is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. Prosecutors had store surveillance videotapes from a Fiesta grocery store of two incidents in July.
"He takes his own fecal matter and spread it to the wind over the food going to the public," prosecutor Will Ramsey said in court. "It's just so disgusting and, you know what, people get hurt."
The 49-year-old taxi driver was charged with two felony counts of tampering with consumer products. However, defense attorney Clark Birdsall told jurors that there was no way to prove that Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh's actions would have harmed anyone.
"It's OK to be angry at the defendant. I am. But you've got to follow the law," Birdsall said.
Customers had complained that the fresh-baked items smelled and tasted like manure. Nahidmobarekeh said in a statement that he sprinkled the material on the baked goods because store personnel mistreated him. The video showed Nahidmobarekeh take a bag from his pocket and toss what he admitted was feces on baked items. The video also showed him repeat the action several times.
In the statement, Nahidmobarekeh said he took his own feces and dried it in the sun. He then used a cheese grater to grind the material into smaller portions. A jury convicted Nahidmobarekeh, who now faces punishment ranging from probation, to two to 20 years in prison.
How many times does something similar to this happen but the culprit not get caught? How many of these recent e coli breakouts have actually been terrorist activities carefully covered up by officials so as not to alarm the popluation and create backlash—the favorite phobia of those dirty dealers from CAIR I have no empirical evidence that this is the case, but I hear through the grapevine that a recent book by Col. David Hunt has included the Al-Qaeda handbook in the back, and go figure, one of the "war is deceit" twisted jihad techniques outlined by Osama bin Laden and his minions recommends putting feces in the food supply to kill infidels.
The following essay is a very astute and quite complete analysis from a writer named Selwyn Duke one of the most profane horrors of the PC crowd.
In a racial profiling lawsuit against the Maryland State Police (MSP), a plaintiff's attorney named Eliza Leighton said that some training documents contain "startling examples of racial stereotypes about Hispanics." According to the Associated Press:
For example, one document cautions that Hispanics generally do not hold their alcohol well. They tend to drink too much and this leads to fights. And it notes, Hispanic males are raised to be MACHO and brave, while females are raised to be subservient. Other stereotypes include the assertion that the weapon of choice for Hispanics is a knife and that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English.
Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, we can now expect such information to be purged from the training documents. But, as I wrote about Dr. James Watson's comments regarding Africans, intelligence and genetics, this is part of a very distressing pattern. Everyone fixates on the fact that such comments constitute generalizations (about groups that are supposed to be immune from such things), as if this is an offense in and of itself. Yet, no one seems to ask the only relevant question.
Are the generalizations true?
Before anyone waxes stupid, please don't tell me that all generalizations are invalid because not every member of the given group will conform to a generalization. Intelligent people understand that legitimate generalizations are statements about a group's general characteristics, not individuals' specific ones. For example, if I say that men are taller than women, I don't mean that every man towers over every woman; nevertheless, it is an accurate relation of a general difference between the groups.
This brings us to an important point: While we must judge everyone as an individual, there are differences within groups but also differences among them. Thus, it makes no more sense to paint every group with the same brush than it does to pain every individual with the same brush.
My response to those who cannot or will not accept this is that if they can't understand commentary written for adults, they shouldn't read it. Besides, not all generalizations can be invalid simply because the statement that all generalizations are invalid is itself is a generalization.
Modern dogma holds that diversity is one of the greatest qualities a society can enjoy, that it bestows many advantages. But what does this imply? Well, by definition "diversity" refers to differences among groups. Now, not only is it illogical to assume that every one of these differences will be flattering, the supposition that diversity is beneficial implies otherwise. After all, if diversity is beneficial, it is only because certain groups bring qualities or strengths to the table that others do not. And, if a given group possesses a certain unique strength, then other groups are wanting in that area relative to it.
Any which way you care to slice it, this is a corollary of diversity dogma.
So, ironically, despite the fact that the diversity dogmatists would eschew stereotyping, a version of it imbues their ideology. So it's not that they don't have biases relating to generalizations, only that their understanding of group differences is clumsy and primitive, sort of like Archie Bunker but with advanced degrees, the illusion of intellectualism and the inability to be honest with themselves and others. So let's be honest now.
Stereotypes often arise because they have a basis in reality. For example, often it has been remarked that Irishmen liked to drink. Once again, intelligent people know this doesn't mean that every Irishman is a drunkard, but informed people might know something else: Ireland ranks number two in the world in per capita alcohol consumption next to Luxemburg.
Another difference among groups is that some are more patriarchal than others. We know that Moslem societies are quite so, as women are usually afforded fewer legal rights. In fact, Westerners will often emphasize and lament this difference as a way to burnish their credentials as believers in women's liberation.
In light of this, let's now analyze the MSP's statement that "Hispanic males are raised to be MACHO and brave, while females are raised to be subservient." Since some groups are more patriarchal than others, this can be true; and I venture to say that anyone who has had great contact with Hispanic people and possesses eyes and common sense will know it's often enough true compared to, say, Swedes.
As to these matters, Raul Caetano, Catherine L. Clark and Tammy Tam, three Ph.Ds who received a government grant to study common sense, implicitly vindicate two of the MSP's assertions. They write in their paper, Alcohol Consumption Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities:
"One traditional explanation for heavy drinking patterns among Hispanic men, particularly Mexican-Americans, is the concept of ‘exaggerated machismo.'"
While these researchers didn't accept or reject this explanation, they didn't question the suppositions that Hispanic men drink too much and are "macho." So then why are the Maryland State Police probably going to have to pay money for saying what these academics got paid money to say? Well, it neither serves the left's agenda to sue a few eggheads nor can cash be extracted from them.
Besides, there is another factor: If a truth hurts, since you can't destroy the Truth, you destroy the truth-teller.
And here is another truth. I have only one thing to say about the idea that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English: I've never been asked if I wanted to press two for German.
Stereotypes aren't just woven into flawed leftist ideology (please forgive the redundancy) and million-dollar research substitutes for common sense; they also appear in entertainment. Just think about all the times that whites are characterized as nerdy, lacking rhythm or liking mayonnaise (as to this, watch the movie Undercover Brother or Al Yankovic's music video "White & Nerdy"). Yet, golfer Fuzzy Zoeller was practically clubbed to death for quipping that Tiger Woods shouldn't request fried chicken or collard greens after the latter's record-setting performance at the 1997 Masters tournament. (I was "startled" myself; since Woods' mother hails from Thailand, I would have thrown in phat gapow). Seriously, though—or almost seriously—if whites can be smeared with mayonnaise, other groups can be coddled with their cuisines.
This isn't to say that every stereotype or generalization—or what is known as a "profile" in the realm of law enforcement—is completely accurate. But when one is found wanting, it simply warrants the alteration of its flawed elements, not the throwing out of the baby with the bath water. If a difference is frivolous and fun, it should be a source of mirth; if it indicates greater ability, it should be applauded; and if the difference is damning, remedy should be sought.
But this standard won't be embraced until we accept what is perhaps the most valid generalization of all: The leftist thought police are a menace to civilization and free speech. They are turning us into an ideological state, a place where ideology isn't rejected when it departs from truth but truth is rejected when it departs from ideology.
As for remedy, the best antidote to political correctness is its opposite. We don't have to speak and joke and talk and think in a way that pleases those who prove that infantilism doesn't always peak in infancy. Instead, we should stand up for truth—be it in the form of wit, policy or paradigm—and those who speak it. Do this en masse and "startle" those thought police enough, and we just might be rid of them after all. That is, if they actually do have hearts.
Is there any agency in the US Government worth its salt watching this fellow with the strange ideas? With all this noise from the chattering classes about the persistant erosion of privacy and other civil rights of American citizens, how is it some people still feel bold enough to advocate treason right here on the web? Don't be fooled, dear citizens and fair admirers of this young nation. Advocating sharia law to replace the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and American jurisprudence is indeed the devil in the details.
Now however, I feel I more fully comprehend the 1980s Bad Brains track called The Big Takeover in a whole new darkness. Thanks to Brigitte Gabriel'sAct For America and author Art Moore for passing along the following article:
A Washington, DC imam states explicitly on the website for his organization that he is part of a movement working toward replacement of the U.S. government with "the Islamic State of North America" by 2050. With branches in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Philadelphia, the group As-Sabiqun—or the Vanguard—is under the leadership of Abdul Alim Musa in the nation's capital.
Musa's declaration of his intention to help lead a takeover of America was highlighted by noted Islam observer Robert Spencer on his website Jihad Watch. Spencer told WND that figures such as Musa should not be ignored, "Not because they have the power to succeed, but because they may commit acts of violence to achieve their purpose."
Musa's website declares: "Those who engage in this great effort require a high level of commitment and determination. We are sending out a call to the believers: Join with us in this great struggle to change the world!"
Musa launched the group in the early 1990s at the Al-Islam mosque in Philadelphia. His group says it is influenced by the writings and life work of Muslim thinkers and leaders such as Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Iranian revolutionary Ayatollah Khomenei. The writings of Al-Banna and Qutb figured prominently in al-Qaida's formation.
Musa's organization says its leadership "has delivered numerous speeches in the United States and abroad, contributing their analyses and efforts to solve contemporary problems in the Muslim world and in urban America."
"The paramount goal of the movement is the establishment of Islam as a complete way of life in America," the group declares. "This ultimate goal is predicated on the belief—shared by many Muslims worldwide—that Islam is fully capable of producing a working and just social, political, economic order."
The groups says it does not "advocate participation in the American political process as an ideal method for advancing Islamic issues in the U.S.; instead, it believes in a strong and active outreach to the people of the U.S."
Spencer told WND he does not know of any direct influence Musa has on prominent Muslim leaders or on U.S. policymakers, but he says it's "unclear how much 'mainstream' Muslim leaders harbor similar hopes—because no one dares question them about it."
As WND reported, the founder of the leading Islamic lobby group CAIR, the Council on Islamic-American Relations, reportedly told a group of Muslims in California they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper also has said, in a newspaper interview, he hopes to see an Islamic government over the U.S. some day, brought about not by violence but through "education."
In London last summer, as WND reported, Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government—a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America.
Musa says he wants to avoid what he calls an "absolutist" outlook on "the advancement of Muslims." His group's philosophy is to stress unity between the various streams of Islam "in the attainment of common goals."
Although As-Sabiqun is a Sunni movement, it has publicly voiced support for Shia movements and organizations such as the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah, which waged war on Israel in the summer of 2006.
Musa, the group says, repeatedly has "stressed that the tendency by some Muslims to focus on the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam at this juncture in history is counterproductive to the goals of the Islamic movement as a whole."
The group says it encourages social-political advancement concurrent with a program of spiritual and moral development according to the Quran and Sunnah, compilations of stories from the life of Islam's prophet Muhammad, and also says it has a six-point plan of action which is implemented at each location where a branch of the movement is established.
Establishing a mosque "as a place to worship Allah in congregation and as a center of spiritual and moral training." "Calling the general society" to embrace Islam.
Establishing a full-time school "that raises children with a strong Islamic identity so they can, as future Islamic leaders, effectively meet and deal with the challenges of growing up in the West."
Establishing businesses to "make the movement financially stable and independent."
Establishing "geographical integrity by encouraging Muslims of the community to live in close proximity" to the mosque.
Establishing "social welfare institutions to respond to the need for spiritual and material assistance within the community as well as the general society."
In addition to daily classes, each mosque in the movement "also provides youth mentorship, marriage counseling, a prison outreach program, and employment assistance for ex-convicts."
As-Sabiqun says its branch in Los Angeles "was instrumental in creating a free health clinic in cooperation with other Islamic groups. The headquarters branch in D.C. has developed scout programs for young members of the community."
The group says the inspiration for its name comes from Quran, 9:100:
"The vanguard (as-Sabiqun) of Islam—the first of those who forsook their homes, and of those who gave them aid, and also those who follow them in all good deeds—well-pleased is Allah with them, as are they with Him: For them hath He prepared Gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein forever: that is the supreme Felicity."
Is DC shooting itself in the head with present gun laws? The following essay was originally published by Robert A. Levy on February 19, 2003. The real news, however, is that the Supreme Court is finally about to rule on the case in the next few days. But, to tide us over in the meantime, here's the background story.
Six District of Columbia residents want to be able to defend themselves in their own homes. To vindicate their rights, on Feb. 10 three local attorneys and I filed a civil lawsuit in a Washington, D.C. federal court.
The litigation, Parker v. District of Columbia, will not be about machine guns and assault weapons. It will be about the right to own ordinary, garden-variety handguns. Nor will the plaintiffs argue for the right to carry a gun outside the home. That's another question for another day.
The D.C. government has done little or nothing to disarm violent criminals; yet it has done a really effective job of disarming decent, peaceable residents. Still, lots of cities and states have restrictive gun laws along with high rates of violent crime. What, then, is unique about the District of Columbia? Why do D.C.'s laws have gun defenders up in arms? First, a little background.
In a recent Texas case, United States v. Emerson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the Constitution "protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia ... to privately possess and bear their own firearms ... that are suitable as personal individual weapons."
That right is not absolute, said the court. It does, however, establish a powerful presumption against gun control. And to rebut that presumption, government regulators must first identify exceptional factors that justify a limitation on our Second Amendment right. Then government must show that its regulation goes no further than necessary to achieve its aims.
For example, no reasonable person would argue that killers have a constitutional right to possess weapons of mass destruction. Some persons and some weapons may be restricted. Last year, the Ninth Circuit, in Silveira v. Lockyer, rejected a challenge to California's ban on so-called assault weapons. In the Emerson case itself, the Fifth Circuit held that Emerson's Second Amendment rights could be temporarily curtailed because there was reason to believe he posed a threat to his estranged wife. Emerson asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse that holding, but the Court decided not to review the case.
The High Court hasn't decided a Second Amendment case since United States v. Miller in 1939. On that occasion, the challenged statute required registration of machine guns, sawed-off rifles, sawed-off shotguns, and silencers.
First, said the Court, "militia" means "the body of the people capable of bearing arms." That suggested a right belonging to all of us, as individuals. But the Court also held that the right extended only to weapons rationally related to the militia—not the sawed-off shotgun questioned in Miller. That mixed ruling has puzzled legal scholars for more than six decades. If military use is the decisive test, then citizens can possess rocket launchers and missiles. Obviously, that's not what the Court had in mind. Indeed, anti-gun advocates, who regularly cite Miller with approval, would be apoplectic if the Court's military-use doctrine were logically extended.
Because Miller is so murky, it can only be interpreted narrowly, allowing restrictions on weapons, like machine guns and silencers, with slight value to law abiding citizens, and high value to criminals. In other words, Miller applies to the type of weapon, not to the question whether the Second Amendment protects individuals or members of the militia. That's the conclusion the Fifth Circuit reached in Emerson. It found that Miller upheld neither the individual rights model of the Second Amendment nor the collective rights model. Instead, Miller simply decided that the weapons at issue were not protected, whether used individually or collectively.
Enter U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. First, in a letter to the National Rifle Association, he "reaffirmed a long-held opinion" that all law-abiding citizens have an individual right to keep and bear firearms, clearly protected by "the text and the original intent of the Second Amendment."
Ashcroft noted that early Supreme Court decisions "routinely" recognized an individual right, as had U.S. attorneys general of both parties prior to Miller. Ashcroft's letter was followed by the Justice Department's brief to the Supreme Court in the Emerson case. For the first time, the federal government argued in formal court papers that the Second Amendment "broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia ... subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."
Despite that pronouncement, the Ashcroft Justice Department declared that Emerson was correctly decided. A restriction on persons subject to a domestic violence restraining order was a reasonable exception to Second Amendment protection. That's roughly the position of an impressive array of legal scholars, including Harvard's liberal icon, Laurence Tribe, and Yale's highly respected Akhil Amar, who agree on two fundamental issues: First, the Second Amendment confers an individual rather than a collective right. Second, that right is not absolute; it is subject to reasonable regulation. To the extent there's disagreement, it hinges on what constitutes reasonable regulation; that is, where to draw the line. That's why D.C.'s handgun ban is so interesting—and so vulnerable.
For starters, no handgun can be registered in D.C. Even those pistols registered prior to the District's 1976 ban cannot be carried from room to room in the home without a license. Moreover, all firearms in the home, including rifles and shotguns, must be unloaded and either disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. In effect, no one in the District can possess a functional firearm in his or her own residence. The law applies not just to "unfit" persons like felons, minors, or the mentally incompetent, but across-the-board to ordinary, honest, responsible citizens.
Roughly three dozen challenges to the D.C. law have already been filed—but mostly by criminals who are serving longer sentences because their crimes included gun possession. This case is different. The lead plaintiff, Shelly Parker, resides in a high-crime neighborhood and is active in community affairs. As a result of trying to make her neighborhood a better place to live, Ms. Parker has been threatened by drug dealers. She would like to possess a functional handgun within her home for self-defense, but fears arrest, prosecution, incarceration and fine because of D.C.'s unconstitutional gun ban.
A second plaintiff is a Special Police Officer who carries a handgun to provide security for the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center. But when he applied for permission to possess a handgun within his home, the D.C. government turned him down. Other plaintiffs include a gay man who was assaulted in another city on account of his sexual orientation, but was able to ward off the attacker with a handgun.
Quintessentially, a handgun is a personal weapon, used by citizens to defend themselves against criminal predators. It is not a weapon like the sawed-off shotgun barred in Miller. If "reasonable" regulations are those that prohibit bad persons from possessing massively destructive firearms, then the District's blanket prohibitions are patently unreasonable. "Some gun laws—Washington's notably among them—sweep more broadly than any individual right can reasonably be read to permit," said the Washington Post in an Aug. 5, 2002 editorial.
Just as important, Congress has plenary legislative authority over the nation's capital. That means the D.C. government, a creature of Congress, is constrained no less than the federal government itself by the Second Amendment. Until 1868, when the 14th Amendment was ratified, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. But unlike most of the other 10 amendments, the applicability of the Second Amendment to the states has not been resolved. Yet because Washington, D.C. is not a state and is controlled by Congress, that complex, widely debated question need not be addressed when D.C. law is challenged on Second Amendment grounds.
Finally, felonies under D.C. law are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, an employee of the Justice Department—the same Justice Department that is now on record favoring an individual rights theory of the Second Amendment. To be sure, Ashcroft declared in an internal memorandum that the Justice Department "will continue to defend the constitutionality of all existing federal firearms laws." But D.C. law, although enacted pursuant to congressional delegation, is not federal law.
Naturally, D.C. law must comply with the U.S. Constitution, and the federal courts are the ultimate authority on the meaning of that document. Sixteen years ago, a local court in D.C. held that "the Second Amendment guarantees a collective rather than an individual right." That precedent, however, is not binding in D.C.'s federal court, which has not yet resolved its theory of the Second Amendment.
Soon, the court will have an opportunity to do so. The six plaintiffs in Parker v. District of Columbia are asking a federal judge to prevent D.C. from barring the registration of handguns, banning the possession of functional firearms within the home, and forbidding firearms from being carried from room to room without a license. The plaintiffs live here, pay their taxes here, and obey the laws. But the District of Columbia says that if someone breaks into their houses, their only choice is to call 911 and pray that the police arrive in time. That's not good enough. The right to keep and bear arms includes the right to defend your property, your family and your life. No government should be permitted to take that right away.
Robert A. Levy is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.
AS WE HAVE BEEN predicting for several years now, this nation's economy is facing assaults from not just the jihadists but on several other fronts as well, particularly Saudi Arabia and China and their war on the dollar.
China roiled financial markets around the globe yesterday when it asserted that the dollar is losing its luster as the world's reserve currency and that Beijing will swap some of its $1.4 trillion in reserves out of U.S. dollars and into stronger currencies like the euro and Canadian dollar.
China's verbal assault on the dollar helped trigger a 360-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and came as French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned in a speech to Congress that the "disarray" caused by the dollar's steep fall could lead to "economic war."
We must stop this trade surplus misery right now, George Bush. Fair trade, not libertarian-styled free trade is the ticket for global stability. With the euro soaring against the dollar, the Europeans themselves are feeling the same painful assault on their economies but for different reasons. Presently, they are feeling the pinch of not being able to sell their suddenlly higher priced goods, stagnating their own economies. Meanwhile China and Saudi Arabia are running the table with a host of unfair practices from A to Z.
Teddy Roosevelt in Egypt Despite almost certain risk of being tagged a filthy racist pig and anything else the heavy hearted, high-minded so-called globalist, uh I mean, anti-globalist, uh fiddlesticks, the uh, let's call 'em the "which is it" crowd, can fathom in their ragged pursuit of raging chaos they prefer to call peace in their lifetime—when it comes to immigration and those immigrants who refuse to assimilate into America, TR said it best:
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt—from a letter he wrote to the president of the American Defense Society on January 3, 1919 three days prior to his death.
To clarify these points I am working offline on an essay which seeks to identify and apotheosize The True American. Of course, this process must begin with Thomas Paine. And I don't mean the monolithic American, but simply the true American. Stay tuned.
Despite SOS Condi Rice's stern admonition, somebody's not listening. Clearly, one of the most brilliant insights and policies the Reagan administration articulated was that as long as Iran and Iraq were fighting each other, they would constitute a lesser threat to everyone else. History has reflected this, since shortly after the Iran-Iraq war ended, both found new enemies.
When Sunnis and Shiites are channeling their Islamic jihad impulses into fighting each other rather than harassing everyone else, humanity as a whole is safer.
Jihad is a virtual imperative in Islam. It will either seep into the daily lives of those eager to please their bloodthirsty diety as intersectarian, interethnic, intertribal, interparty, inter(whatever) warfare between Muslims or else as warfare against humanity as a whole (e.g. all non-Muslims). The bottom line is that if Muslims are not fighting themselves, they pose an existential threat to everyone else.
There is a strategic lesson here.
But no, Bush had to lunge for Saddam Hussein, who terrified the Saudis; for the belated honor of his dad, Bush senior; supposed easy oil, and some heretical fantasy about being a war president. Democracy? What a joke!
Illegal Jewish settlements on land where before there were none.
The late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir is infamous for uttering the bold political statement: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people."
The statement has been a source of ridicule and derision by Arab propagandists ever since. They love to talk about Meir's "racism" when skies are blue and not bloody with Arab aggression they can never admit, eager to suggest she was in historical denial. They love to say her statement is patently false—an intentional lie, a strategic deception.
What they don't like to talk about, however, are the very similar statements made by Yasser Arafat and his inner circle of political leadership years after Meir had told the truth—that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.
So, despite the fact that the woefully misnamed "politically correct" wisdom has now proclaimed that there is indeed such a thing as the Palestinian people, Ione must consider a few inconvenient quotations made by Arafat and his thugs when their public-relations guard was down.
On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
This statement requires no Clintonian parsing. It's even more specific than Golda Meir's statement. And it is hardly the only such statement of its kind. Arafat himself made a very definitive and unequivocal statement along these lines as late as 1993. It demonstrates conclusively that the Palestinian nationhood argument is the real strategic deception—one geared to set up the destruction of Israel.
In fact, on the same day Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles, also known as the Oslo Accords, on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, he explained his actions on Jordan TV. Here's what he said: "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."
No matter how many people convince themselves that the aspirations for Palestinian statehood are genuine and the key to peace in the Middle East, they are still deceiving themselves.
Let's be plain. In the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation. The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.
Why has this issue become such a critical priority to those jostling on the world stage for power in this post 9/11 era? The answer is because of a massive deception campaign and relentless terrorism to push Israel completely out. Golda Meir was right. Her statement is validated by the truth of history and by the candid, but not widely circulated, echoes of Arafat and his lieutenants.
The path is before us. Israel and the West must not surrender to terrorism by granting the killers just what they want—a public relations triumph and a strategic victory. It's not too late to JUST SAY NO to another Arab terror state. It's not too late to tell the truth about Palestine, no matter how the apologists dress up their lies in sweet-sounding good intentions.
Now for another truth. On November 29, 2005, the United Nations in a so-called Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, instead wiped Israel off the map. Read more.
And let us not forget that roughly the same people in the United States who vigorously clamor for a Palestinian state and the relinquishing of the "illegal" territories now held by Jewish settlers, also have no qualms about allowing "illegals" to pour into the US from the south, and elsewhere. Even the class dunce sitting with his nose to a corner can spot the trend here.
Bono with wife Ali Not that this news is sweeping through the mainstream media wind tunnels, but Bono, lead singer for the Irish rock band, U2, has issued a warning in a recent Rolling Stone interview that bears repeating. A noted liberal celebrity bucking his own usual party line to engage the results of honest unbias observations is indeed real news. Because let's face it, the press loves to headline celebrities who speak out against President Bush, the war against Islamic fundamentalism and anything else that strikes paydirt in the darling media's end zone. This celebrity, however, has gone off-script.
Bono's efforts for Africa, unlike many other celebrities, appear to be sincere and he has shown himself to be unconcerned with who helps him, as shown by his collaborations with President Bush—a strange bedfellow scenario that would be anathema to most of his fellow celebrities. Now comes evidence that Bono also understands the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists such as al-Qaeda, and his courage to call evil by it's name. In the interview with the ultra liberal magazine, Bono said of the Islamic nemesis:
"I want to be very, very clear, however: I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It's real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let's not pretend it isn't."
Bono goes on to show that he discourages those steeped in the Bush Derangement Syndrome approach to world politics. In response to the reporter's statement that "But this Administration destroyed that." when they discussed the outpouring of support for the United States immediately following the attacks of September 11, Bono says of President Bush"
There was a plan there, you know. I think the president genuinely felt that if we could prove a model of democracy and broad prosperity in the Middle East, it might defuse the situation.
Despite his sometimes petulent ideology, this particular celebrity—in my opinion—is someone worthy of respect, because he understands that the threat is a real one and it is not one that can be defused simply by talking. In this, as in his statement that I try to stick to my pitch, and it's an abuse of my access for me to switch subjects, he earns that respect.
The rocker turned activist and philanthropist is keenly focussed on his efforts for Africa, knowing that this focus is what gets him access and he did not want to abuse it. Bravo, Bono. I for one, have never been much of a fan, but with these recent developments, while his music may still fall on deaf ears, I have gained a strong measure of respect for Bono the man.
By Alan W. Dowd published by FrontPageMagazine.com
Buried deep in a recent Washington Post piece deriding former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s penchant for firing off memos, we find this morsel:
“In one of his longer ruminations, in May 2004, Rumsfeld considered whether to redefine the terrorism fight as a ‘worldwide insurgency.’ The goal of the enemy, he wrote, is to ‘end the state system, using terrorism, to drive the non-radicals from the world.’” Love him or hate him, Rumsfeld was right about this. He was also consistent, recognizing that the jihadists’ worldwide insurgency—or global guerilla war, if you prefer—is not the only challenge to the nation-state system. In fact, Rumsfeld also spoke at length about international institutions that undermine the nation-state system.
“We see respect for states’ sovereignty eroding,” he said during a 2003 conference in Germany. “We see it, in my view, in the International Criminal Court’s claim of authority to try the citizens of countries that have not consented to ICC jurisdiction…We see it in the new Belgian law purporting to give Belgian courts ‘universal jurisdiction’ over alleged war crimes anywhere in the world.”
Rumsfeld understood that the erosion of sovereignty “absolves states of their responsibilities to deal with problems within their borders.” Or within their neighborhood: As historian William Pfaff wrote of Europe’s Balkan debacle in the 1990s, international organizations such as the United Nations and European Community (forerunner to the European Union) “proved an obstacle to action, by inhibiting individual national action and rationalizing the refusal to act nationally.”
Of course, some governments prove by their actions that they are simply not capable of governing—or not worthy of governing. “We need to be able to hold states accountable for their performance,” Rumsfeld explained. In other words, states either have to police what happens inside their borders or open themselves to outside intervention.
States like Lebanon and Iraq and the Philippines that strive to control what happens inside their borders but are too weak to overcome our common enemies deserve our help. States like Pakistan that play games with sovereignty—claiming they are too weak to control their territories in one breath but then invoking their sovereign and inviolable borders the next—don’t. States like Syria and Iran that refuse to respect international borders or international norms—and terrorist groups like the PKK, al Qaeda and their kind that thrive on anarchy and partner with rogue regimes—must be treated as enemies, no matter how risky. And states like Somalia and too many of her neighbors in Africa are so broken that they need not just external intervention, but international administration.
In short, Rumsfeld understood that the nation-state system is under assault from two unrelated sources—international, supra-state organizations and transnational, terrorist organizations. Both seek a stateless world, although their visions for what such a world would look like are dramatically different. After all, one is utopian, the other dystopian.
Christian leaders in the Gaza Strip were intimidated into attending and expressing support for a speech yesterday in which the territory's Hamas leader urged the worldwide spread of Islam, according to sources in Gaza's Christian community. Artinious Alexious, priest of Gaza's Greek Orthodox Church, and Emanuel Salum, a Catholic leader in Gaza, were at a major speech yesterday by Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas government in Gaza and deposed prime minister of the previously Hamas-run Palestinian Authority.
Also present were hundreds of gunmen, including members of a group, Jihadia Salafiya, suspected of carrying out anti-Christian attacks in Gaza such as the lobbing of grenades last September at Alexious' church. Hamas banned most international media from covering the event, only allowing entry to journalists accredited by the terror group.
A major theme of Haniyeh's speech was the spread of Islamic values throughout the world, according to reporters in attendance. Haniyeh also strongly denied Hamas had plans to take over the West Bank, as many recent reports had speculated.
The reporters present said at one point during his speech, Haniyeh spoke about the "excellent" situation for Christians living under Hamas rule in Gaza. He pointed to the two Christian leaders in attandence, at which point to two raised their hands and nodded in agreement, witnesses told WND.
According to sources in Gaza's Christian community speaking on condition of anonymity, Alexious and Salum were intimidated into attending the speech. The sources said in recent weeks Haniyeh's office repeatedly called the Christian leaders to request they free their schedules to assist in yesterday's event.
"The priests thought it was a diplomatic way to threaten them and put pressure on them," said one source.
"After discussions within the Christian community leadership it was decided it would be dangerous not to assist in the meeting even though it would be very strange to see priests assisting in a meeting about the spread of Islam," the source said.
Nick Griffin on the Islamization of Europe and other controversial but related topics. Griffin is the chief spokesman of the British Nationalist Party, arrested, tried and acquitted a few years ago for hate speech.
"Look," Shannen Rossmiller says, pointing at her computer screen. She's in an online chat room, and the name Terrorist11 has just popped up. "He's one of the more popular guys."
To get here, she signed onto alfirdaws.org. Then she clicked into the Paradise Jihadist Supporters Forum. The site is in Arabic, so she turns on the basic Google text translator that renders the discussion into clumsy phrases.
"Take a charge with caution," warns one jihadist posting, "this thread is monitored." Meanwhile, Terrorist11 is praising the 2004 Madrid train bombings and posting videos of the dead for other jihadist wannabes to enjoy. Old news, terrorism-wise. Rossmiller flips her blond hair. She looks bored. "They are just flaming, ranting and raving," she says. "Do you want to see some blood and guts? Let's go find it."
In her small, one-chair home office in Montana, I sit beside Rossmiller on a little tiled table normally reserved for a lamp. Outside, the vistas stretch across Big Sky Country to the Elk Horn Ridge Mountains. Inside, Rossmiller shows me what she does as perhaps America's most accomplished amateur terrorist hunter.
We're monitoring jihadist chatter, and she has warned me that we're not likely to come across anything too dangerous. Home-brew cyber-counterterrorism, it turns out, is a lot like most police work—weeks of tedious beat patrols punctuated by occasional bursts of excitement. And the section of the Internet populated by terrorists is a lot like the rest of the Internet—only instead of commenting on, say, a video of 1,500 prison inmates performing Michael Jackson's "Thriller," everyone's chatting about the death of Americans.
Rossmiller hopes to find some people discussing an actual upcoming plot and then join the conversation. But it's mostly just idle banter today. We come upon a thread in which participants are discussing a Baghdad sniper who has been killing US soldiers. "They call him Juba," Rossmiller says. She suspects there isn't a single sniper but rather a cell, and that the thread is designed to create an identity for Juba, a hero who might attract others to the cause.
Endless ink has been wasted on trying to answer the question of what is Islam? Is Islam the religion of peace? Or is the true Islam a radical ideology? Is a moderate Muslim the real Muslim?
This reminds a scientist of the old arguments about light. Is light a particle or is light a wave? The arguments went back and forth. Quantum mechanics gave us the answer. Light is dualistic; it is both a particle and a wave. It depends upon the circumstances as to which quality manifests. Islam functions in the same manner.
Our first clue about the dualism is in the Koran, which is actually two books, the Koran of Mecca (early) and the Koran of Medina (later). The insight into the logic of the Koran comes from the large numbers of contradictions in it. On the surface, Islam resolves these contradictions by resorting to “abrogation”. This means that the verse written later supersedes the earlier verse. But in fact, since the Koran is considered by Muslims to be the perfect word of Allah, both verses are sacred and true. The later verse is “better,” but the earlier verse cannot be wrong since Allah is perfect. This is the foundation of dualism. Both verses are “right.” Both sides of the contradiction are true in dualistic logic. The circumstances govern which verse is used.
(...)
All of Western logic is based upon the law of contradiction—if two things contradict, then at least one of them is false. But Islamic logic is dualistic; two things can contradict each other and both are true.
No dualistic system may be measured by one answer. This is the reason that the arguments about what constitutes the “real” Islam go on and on and are never resolved. A single right answer does not exist.
Dualistic systems can only be measured by statistics. It is futile to argue one side of the dualism is true. As an analogy, quantum mechanics always gives a statistical answer to all questions.
For an example of using statistics, look at the question: what is the real jihad, the jihad of inner, spiritual struggle or the jihad of war? Let’s turn to Bukhari (the Hadith) for the answer, as he repeatedly speaks of jihad. In Bukhari 97% of the jihad references are about war and 3% are about the inner struggle. So the statistical answer is that jihad is 97% war and 3% inner struggle. Is jihad war? Yes—97%. Is jihad inner struggle? Yes—3%...
No assembly required. No stereotypes allowed. No counter-arguments declarable.
From the awesome Hugh Fitzgerald files, also known here at the Project as instant relief thanks to a battalion of word soldiers...
“When the world is compelled to coin a new term to take account of increasingly widespread bigotry—that is a sad and troubling development,” Annan said. “Such is the case with ‘Islamophobia.’ The word seems to have emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, the weight of history and the fallout of recent developments have left many Muslims around the world feeling aggravated and misunderstood, concerned about the erosion of their rights and even fearing for their physical safety.” —Former Secretary-General of the U.N. Kofi Annan
The “world” was not “compelled to coin a new term”—it was Muslims who coined the word, and they did so deliberately. For that word so deliberately kept undefined is merely a weapon employed to deflect criticism, to label all those who may offer criticism of Islam and of its adherents, basing their criticism not on some blind prejudice, but on their own observations and study. Indeed, the entire Western world—its political leaders, its media, its university departments of Middle Eastern studies—have all been engaged in a massive effort to deflect criticism or disarm it. It is despite all that that Infidels everywhere are coming to some conclusions about Islam, and the more they study, and the more they observe, and the more “Interfaith” gatherings and little Muslim Outreach evenings they attend, all of which end up being dismal exercises in Taqiyya and Tu-Quoque argumentation, the more wary, and critical, and indignant, and sometimes more, they become. The game is up. From a Beslan school full of children to a Bali nightclub full of revellers, from Madrid subways to Moscow theatres, from New York skyscrapers to Najaf mosques (where Sadr’s bezonians tortured, killed, and stacked the bodies of Iraqis who had opposed their reign of terror), from Istanbul to India, the evidence just keeps piling up. And the evidence, too, of what is actually in the Qur’an and hadith and sira—and how many Infidels, a few years ago, even had heard of the “hadith” and the “sira,” or had any idea what was really in the Qur’an, or had ever heard of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya—now online, and it can easily be read. And all the excuses, all the nonsense, can no longer be offered up—for we Infidels, fortunately, have the guidance of defectors from Islam, ex-Muslims such as Ibn Warraq (whose own guide to debating Muslims, and how not to be intimidated or snookered, will for many prove invaluable).
Kofi Annan, as Oriana Fallaci notes in her Fallaci Intervista Fallaci, looks, on the surface, to be far more presentable, and far more decent, and far more intelligent—grey hair, gravelly voice, grave mien—than in fact he is. The words quoted above are the words of a simpleton. Perhaps Edward Mortimer, that early admirer of Khomeini and Nazi-Zionist conspiracy theorist, who feels a special responsibility to protect Islam, is the main puppet-master here, or perhaps it is Ms. Rishmawi (the “Palestinian” behind-the-scenes operative who was so influential with Mary Robinson, she of the antisemitic lynch-mob meeting in Durban in September 2001).
Or perhaps it is Annan—the man on whose watch for more black African deaths occurred than anyone since Leopold III of Belgium—really thinks that the word “Islamophobia” came into use because it actually described a real, and deplorable condition; that it describes an unfair, unjust, prejudiced and irrational (i.e. without foundation, against reason and logic) phobia, or hatred, of Islam. What is unreasonable or irrational would be the opposite. That is, the continued ability of many Infidels to regard Islam as just another “religion” worthy of respect, perhaps at the edges a bit rough, but hijacked by a few extremists, or even many extremists, but having a decency at its core, a real religion of “peace” and “tolerance” as a number of Western leaders have insisted.
If, upon reading and studying Qur’an and hadith and sira, and if, after looking around the world over the past few years, and if, after having studied the history of Jihad-conquest and Muslim behavior toward dhimmis—Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists—you do not feel a deep hostility toward the belief-system of Islam and toward its adherents (for the category of “moderate” is nearly meaningless, given the dangerous use to which “moderates” can be put in continuing to mislead the unwary Infidels), then it is you who are irrational, and need to have your head examined.
The word “Islamophobia” must be held up for inspection, its users constantly asked precisely how they would define that word, and they should be put on the defensive for waving about what is clearly meant to be a scare-word that will silence criticism.
So let us ask them which of the following criticisms of Islam is to be considered “Islamophobic”:
1) Muhammad is a role-model for all time. Muhammad married Aisha when she was 6 and had sexual intercourse with her when she was 9. I find appalling that Muslims consider this act of Muhammad to be that of the man who is in every way a role model, and hence to be emulated. In particular, I am appalled that virtually the first act of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a very orthodox and learned Shi’a theologian, was to lower the marriageable age of girls in Iran to 9—because, of course, it was Aisha’s age when Muhammad had sexual relations with her.
2) I find appalling that Islam provides a kind of Total Regulation of the Universe, so that its adherents are constantly asking for advise as to whether or not, for example, they can have wear their hair in a certain way, grow their beards in a certain way, wish an Infidel a Merry Christmas (absolutely not!).
3) I find appalling the religiously-sanctioned doctrine of taqiyya—would you like some quotes, sir, about what it is, or would you like to google “taqiyya” and find its sources in the Qur’an?
4) I find appalling many of the acts which Muhammad committed, including his massacre of the Banu Qurayza, his ordering the assassination of many of those he deemed his opponents, even an old man, a woman, or anyone whom, he thought, merely mocked him.
5) I find appalling the hatred expressed throughout the Qur’an, the hadith, and the sira for Infidels—all Infidels.
6) I find nauseating the imposition of the jizya on Infidels, the requirement that they wear identifying marks on their clothes and dwellings, that they not be able to build or repair houses of worship without the permission of Muslim authorities, that they must ride donkeys sidesaddle and dismount in the presence of Muslims, that they have no legal recourse against Muslims for they are not equal at law—and a hundred other things, designed to insure their permanent, as the canonical texts say, “humiliation.”
7) I find the mass murder of 60-70 million Hindus, over 250 years of Mughal rule, and the destruction of tens of thousands of artifacts and Hindu (and Buddhist) temples, some of the Hindu ones listed in works by Sita Ram Goel, appalling.
8) I find the 1300-year history of the persecution of the Zoroastrians, some of it continuing to this day, according the great scholar of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce, which has led to their reduction to a mere 150,000, something to deplore. There are piquant details in her works, including the deliberate torture and killing of dogs (which are revered by Zoroastrians), even by small Muslim children who are taught to so behave.
9) I find the record of Muslim intellectual achievement lacking, and I attribute this lack to the failure to encourage free and skeptical inquiry, which is necessary for, among other things, the development of modern science.
10) I deplore the prohibition on sculpture or on paintings of living things. I deplore the horrific vandalism and destruction of Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist sites.
11) I deplore the Muslim jurisprudence which renders all treaties between Infidels and Muslims worthless from the viewpoint of the Infidels, though worth a great deal from the viewpoint of the Muslims, for they are only signing a “hudna,” a truce-treaty rather than a true peace-treaty—and because they must go to war against the Infidel, or press their Jihad against the Infidel in other ways, on the model of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya, no Infidel state or people can ever trust a treaty with Muslims.
12) I deplore the speech of Mahathir Mohammad, so roundly applauded last year, in which he called for the “development” not of human potential, not of art and science, but essentially of weapons technology and the use of harnessing and encouraging Muslim “brain power” for the sole purpose of defeating the Infidels, as a reading of that entire speech makes absolutely clear. Here—would you like me to read it now for the audience?
13) I deplore the fact that Muslims are taught, and they seem to have taken those teachings to heart, to offer their loyalty only to fellow Muslims, the umma al-islamiyya, and never to Infidels, or to the Infidel nation-state to which they have uttered an oath of allegiance but apparently such an oath must be an act of perjury, because such loyalty is impossible. Am I wrong? Show me exactly what I have misunderstood about Islam.
14) I deplore the ululations of pleasure over acts of terrorism, the delight shown by delighted and celebrating crowds in Cairo, Ramallah, Khartoum, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and of course all over Saudi Arabia, when news of the World Trade Center attacks was known—and I can, if you wish, supply the reports from those capitals which show this to have taken place. I attribute statements of exultation about the “Infidels” deserving it to the fact that Islamic tenets view the world as a war between the Believers and the Infidels.
15) On that score, I deplore that mad division of the world between Dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, and the requirement that there be uncompromising hostility between the two, until the final triumph of the former, and the permanent subjugation, and incorporation into it, of the latter.
16) I deplore the sexual inequality and mistreatment of women which I believe I can show has a clear basis in the canonical Islamic texts, and is not simply, pace Ebadi and other quasi-”reformers,” a “cultural” matter.
17) I deplore the fact that Infidels feel, with justice, unsafe in almost every Muslim country, but that Muslims treat the Infidel countries, and their inhabitants, with disdain, arrogance, and endless demands for them to bend, to change, to what Muslims want—whether it be to remove crucifixes, or change the laws of laicity in France, or to demand that “hate speech” laws be extended in England so as to prevent any serious and sober criticism of Islam.
18) I deplore the emphasis on the collective, and the hatred for the autonomy of the individual. In particular, I believe that someone born into Islam has a perfect right to leave Islam if he or she chooses—and that there should be no punishment, much less the murderous punishment so often inflicted.
19) I find the record of Muslim political despotism to be almost complete—with the exception of those Muslim countries and regimes that have, as Ataturk did, carried out a series of measures to limit and constrain Islam.
20) I deplore the fact that while Muslims claim it is a “universalist” religion, it has been a vehicle for Arab imperialism, causing those conquered and Islamized in some cases to forget, or become indifferent or even hostile to, their own pre-Islamic histories. The requirement that the Qur’an be read in Arabic (one of the first things Ataturk did was commission a Turkish Qur’an and tafsir, or commentary), and the belief by many Muslims that the ideal form of society can be derived from the Sunna of 7th century Arabia, and that their own societies are worth little, is an imperialism that goes to culture and to history, and is the worst and most complete kind.
21) I deplore the attacks on ex-Muslims who often must live in fear. I deplore the attacks on Theo van Gogh and others, and the absence of serious debate about the nature of Islam and of its reform—except as a means to further beguile and distract Infidels who are becoming more wary.
22) I deplore the emptiness of the “Tu Quoque” arguments directed at Christians and Jews, based on a disingenuous quotation of passages—for example, from Leviticus—that are completely ignored and have not been invoked for two thousand years, and I deplore the rewriting of history so that a Muslim professor can tell an American university audience that “the Ku Klux Klan used to crucify (!) African-Americans, everyone standing around during the crucifixion singing Christian hymns (!).”
23) I deplore the phony appeals of the “we all share one Abrahamic faith” and “we are the three monotheisms” when, to my mind, a Christian or a Jew has far less to fear from, and in the end far more in common with, any practicing polytheistic Hindu.
24) I do not think Islam, which is based on the idea of world-conquest, not of accommodation, and whose adherents do not believe in Western pluralism except insofar as this can be used as an instrument, temporarily most useful, to protect the position of Islam until its adherents have firmly established themselves.
25) I deplore the view, in Islam, that it is not a saving of an individual soul that is involved when one conducts Da’wa or the Call to Islam, but rather, something that appears to be much more like signing someone up for the Army of Islam. He need not have read all the fine print; he need not know Islamic tenets; he need not even have read or know what is in sira and hadith or much of the Qur’an; he need only recite a single sentence. That does not show a deep concern for the nature of the conversion (sorry, “reversion”).
26) I deplore the sentiment that “Islam is to dominate and not to be dominated." I deplore the sentiment “War is deception” as uttered by Muhammad. I deplore what has happened over 1350 years, in vast swaths of territory, formerly filled with Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, much of which is now today almost monotonously Islamic. I do not think Islam welcomes any diversity if it means the possibility of full equality for non-Muslims.
27) I deplore the fact that slavery is permitted in Islam, that it is discussed in the Qur’an, that it was suppressed in 19th century Arabia only through the influence of British naval power in the Gulf; that it was formally done away with in Saudi Arabia only in 1962; that it still exists in Mali, and the Sudan, and even Mauritania; that it may exist in the Arabian interior, but certainly the treatment of the Thai, Filipino, Indian and other female house workers in Arab households amounts to slavery, and it is no accident that there has never been a Muslim William Wilberforce.
I could go on, and am prepared to adduce history, and quotations from the canonical texts. And so are hundreds of thousands of Infidels who have looked into Islam, or in their own countries, had a close look at the Muslim populations which have made their own Infidel existences far more unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous than they would otherwise be.
If this is “Islamophobia”—show me exactly why it is irrational (i.e. not based on facts or observable behavior, or a study of history), an “irrational” dislike or even hatred of Islam. If you cannot show that, then perhaps the word should not be invoked. But if you do invoke it, be prepared to have copious quotations from Qur’an and hadith and sira constantly presented to audiences so that they may judge for themselves, without the “guidance” of apologists for Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
"West concludes with a stern warning that permanent adolescence puts us at risk before a confident and imperialist political Islam. Not surprisingly her critics have had at her for implying that it takes self-assured grown-ups to recognize and respond to the threats posed to Western Civilization—that immature tree humpers and naked peace marchers are not up to the job. William Grimes of the New York Times dismissed West's book with the headline "Dress like Your Child, Terrorists win." Understandably, West's critics are discomfited. No one likes to hear that his worldview is infantile, and it is all the more unsettling when statistics and research support your thesis."
This might be an interesting read. Whether we can all agree that the liberalization of adulthood has made "happy feet" cowards and "naked to the teeth" hedonists who neglect our more somber duties of citizenship of far too many of us still grappling with the ideals of our founding fathers, I too suspect that something is wrong when we refuse to face up to the mortal threats imposed by the slow jihad, or the massive Islamic immigration surge seemingly bent on bringing its own cultural mores into the West rather than integrating into the host cultures, especially when coupled with the rise of authentic and militant aggression by those radicals also speaking in the name of Islam. And instead, turn the vitriolic back onto those who would stand against the well-documented dangers all civilizations have faced.
Islam will not tolerate encroachment upon a Muslim’s freedom to worship and behave as Allah demands, and will use not only all but any means to achieve the submission of the violating party, i.e. surrender from the host country.
“When Muslim minorities become frustrated by the unworkability of a pluralistic society, either because they believe they are discriminated against or their expectations are not met, they become antagonistic to their host society. This is so much more so when they perceive the majority as having transgressed the limits of previous coexistence and encroached upon their freedom of worship or conduct. In such cases, they use Western vocabulary (freedom, tolerance, democracy, human rights, etc.) to impress upon their hosts that while they wish to play by the rules of their adoptive countries, it is the latter that violate them. In more extreme cases, like with some Muslim fundamentalist leaders (religious actors par excellence) in London, they claim that they came to Europe in order to change it, not to be reshaped by it, or they reject Western attitudes altogether. This sets the Muslim minority, and especially the fundamentalist elements in its midst, on a collision course with the host authorities. Militant elements among this disaffected minority may seek political or cultural autonomy (such as the London Muslim ‘Parliament’).
“In India, Muslims had conquered the land and subjugated Hinduism, but when Muslim power was eroded by the British, Islam sought and achieved separation from the Hindus for the most part, rather than submit to the democratic rule of modern India that would have allowed the Hindus to exercise political domination over the Muslims. When the majority of Indian Muslims established their own state (Pakistan), their 'ulama spoke of the reinstitution of the Shari'a as their state law. There was no alternative to this arrangement if one bears in mind the fact that Islam is incompatible with other political ideologies."
Report: Four score and seven (or a few million years) ago—an idea
of freedom took root in this American soil. Knowing life is crisis, punctuated by brief periods of solace,
we also know that after all is said and done, we shall never cheat infinity, nor extinguish the mark of a
single thought. Like this mathematical pun, strong and fiercely sought, we engage this nation, its myths,
its memories, its magnanimous messengers, and its monstrosities as we seek a more perfect union. But
as always in America, we must rebuke an enemy with both fists on the wheel driving for success and justice
for all. An enemy that is always changing is an enemy that never changes. We must engage that enemy on
the ancient battleground where art and politics beat each other up and few are they who seem the wiser.
We must reject roving wild-eyed policy now weakening our nation, to live again as one nation under truth,
both as strategy, and as reality on the ground, certain of the age in which we struggle and from which we
must engage the enemies that threaten our existence as a nation of liberty. A vigorous new morality must
replace the old farces found frothing along the same profane beachheads as those which defiled the hopes
of our ancestors. In renouncing our petty grievances must all stand together as one to rebuke our mortal
and spiritual enemies who care not for our struggles, and even less for our feelings. We are at war, people.
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice...moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." —Barry Goldwater
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” —Johann Wolfgang Goethe
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." —George Orwell
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it
to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on
for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children
and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." —Ronald Reagan
"I have been made victorious through terror." —Muhammad, founder of Islam
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort,
to protect themselves against tyranny in government. —Thomas Jefferson
"Think about it folks. Capitalism is the most effective and purest form of Communism ever practiced." —Gabriel Thy
"Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties,
from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." —George Orwell
"Exaggerated self-criticism would be a harmless luxury of civilization if there
were no enemy at the gate condemning democracy's very existence. But it
becomes dangerous when it portrays its mortal enemy as always being in the right.
Extravagant criticism is a good propaganda device in internal politics. But if it is
repeated often enough, it is finally believed. And where will the citizens of
democratic societies find reasons to resist the enemy outside if they are persuaded
from childhood that their civilization is merely an accumulation of failures and a monstrous imposture?" —Jean Francois Revel
“Never ascribe to malice that which may be ascribed to stupidity.” —Napoleon Bonaparte
"A communist is someone who reads Marx & Lenin. An anti-communist is someone who understands them." —Ronald Reagan
"The world is far more complex than the concentrated cool of some flippant rock star." —Dunaway Ka
