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June 28, 2007

Historic: GWB Defines New U.S. Policy Towards Islamists

With many Conservatives slamming Bush these days, due to his endorsement of the immigration bill (which I had great concerns about as well), he can use some support.

Yesterday GWB went to a mosque in Washington D.C. LGF reports that this is a Saudi-funded mosque - in other words, it is part of the multi-billion dollar operation run by Saudi Arabia to spread Wahhabism around the world. From Frontpage:

The religious and philosophical justifications for promoting Jihad -which means holy war - around the world, is found in the Quran, says Dr. Hussein Shehata, a professor at al-Azhar University in Cairo. According to Dr. Shehata, the following terms in the Quran combine to justify the spreading of Jihad: in Arabic- Al-Jihad bi-al-Lisan - which means - Jihad of the Tongue, and al-Jihad bi-al-Qalam - Jihad of the Pen. Both combine for preaching and writing to promote Jihad.

This command is complemented by Al-Jihad bi-al-Mal - the Financial Jihad; namely, raising money for needy Muslims and supporting the Jihad warriors - known as the Mujahideen. These are the commands that form the justification to spread the Jihad.

On his website, on March 3, 2004, the same Dr. Shehata explained the uniqueness and the reason for the financial Jihad commandment as being, quote: "a trial of strength of Muslim faith" and "a means to purify the soul from stinginess". It is through the financial Jihad, he says, that Allah gives the wealthy Muslims the opportunity to allocate some of their money for the Da'awa (literally - the call for Islam), which is the Islamic effort to teach or convert people to Islam.

In view of the fact that these commandments are interpreted as an integral part of Jihad, it is not surprising that Saudi Arabia, according to various Saudi official publications, have spent somewhere between $70-87 billion on the spread of Wahhabism around the world since the oil boom began in the mid- 1970's. This money was not only spent in Muslim/Arab countries. Large amounts were and are still being spent in the West, including in the US.

The Saudis have established endowments for American universities, have set up centers for Islamic and Arab studies, and have distributed generous scholarships, which often include visits to Saudi universities in programs similar to the one attended by Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was indicted last week for joining Al-Qaeda and for plots to assassinate President Bush and King Abdullah of Jordan. Abu Ali, by the way, graduated from the Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Virginia, in the USA, which is sponsored by the Saudi embassy in Washington, and IN which many other young Americans are being indoctrinated in Wahhabi Islam.

Many have criticized GWB for speaking at this mosque, believing that it legitimizes these Saudi operations on our soil. From an LGF post prior to the event:

Tomorrow President Bush is returning to the Saudi-funded Islamic Center, to address its rededication ceremony-and further legitimize radical Islamic groups masquerading as "moderates," without once asking them to renounce their openly-expressed support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah.

These are good criticisms. I'd rather hear Bush say what the government of Prime Minister John Howard said in Australia:

TONY JONES: Now, over the past 24 hours you've been repeating the notion that migrants, evidently Islamic migrants, who don't like Australia, or Australian values, should think of packing up and moving to another country. Is that a fair assessment?

[Treasurer] PETER COSTELLO: What I've said is that this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs.

But let's look at what GWB did say:

This is what freedom offers: societies where people can live and worship as they choose without intimidation, without suspicion, without a knock on the door from the secret police. The freedom of religion is the very first protection offered in America's Bill of Rights. It is a precious freedom. It is a basic compact under which people of faith agree not to impose their spiritual vision on others, and in return to practice their own beliefs as they see fit. This is the promise of our Constitution, and the calling of our conscience, and a source of our strength.

The freedom to worship is so central to America's character that we tend to take it personally when that freedom is denied to others. Our country was a leading voice on behalf of the Jewish refusniks in the Soviet Union. Americans joined in common cause with Catholics and Protestants who prayed in secret behind an Iron Curtain. America has stood with Muslims seeking to freely practice their beliefs in places such as Burma and China.

Many Muslims listening know that it's a central tenet of Islam that other religions are not to be accepted. GWB is telling them that that part of Islam is incompatible with America, and that we'll take any attempt to act on that "personally." GWB specifically named the Jewish religion as one that America joins with "in common cause." GWB continued:

The greatest challenge facing people of conscience is to help the forces of moderation win the great struggle against extremism that is now playing out across the broader Middle East. We've seen the expansion of the concept of religious freedom and individual rights in every region of the world -- except one. In the Middle East, we have seen instead the rise of a group of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power and a means of domination.

These self-appointed vanguard -- this self-appointed vanguard presumes to speak for Muslims. They do not. They call all Muslims who do not believe in their harsh and hateful ideology "infidels" and "betrayers" of the true Muslim faith. This enemy falsely claims that America is at war with Muslims and the Muslim faith, when in fact it is these radicals who are Islam's true enemy. (Applause.)

They have staged spectacular attacks on Muslim holy sites to divide Muslims and make them fight one another. The majority of the victims of their acts of terror are Muslims. In Afghanistan, they have targeted teachers for beatings and murder. In Iraq, they killed a young boy, and then booby-trapped his body so it would explode when his family came to retrieve him. They put children in the backseat of a car so they could pass a security checkpoint, and then blew up the car with the children still inside. These enemies bombed a wedding reception in Amman, Jordan, a housing complex in Saudi Arabia, a hotel in Jakarta. They claim to undertake these acts of butchery and mayhem in the name of Allah. Yet this enemy is not the true face of Islam, this enemy is the face of hatred.

Men and women of conscience have a duty to speak out and condemn this murderous movement before it finds its path to power. We must help millions of Muslims as they rescue a proud and historic religion from murderers and beheaders who seek to soil the name of Islam.

GWB is saying that American policy is that those who riot and kill in the name of Islam are considered to be acting against Islam and are not protected by freedom of religion.

He's saying that those who oppose the religious freedom of others in the name of Islam are considered to be acting against Islam and are not protected by freedom of religion.

This is of huge significance. GWB has shown great vision and leadership. He's produced a new U.S. policy that shows the way to protecting U.S. freedom of religion, while also protecting the U.S. constitution from Islamists. He's doing it by saying loud and clear to Muslims that those pursuing Islam as a political project which seeks to trample on Western freedoms - as is being done so successfully throughout Europe - will be considered enemies of Islam, and of the U.S.

GWB has acted on the goal identified by Daniel Pipes:

Our goal must be nothing other than the modernizing of Islam. No other enemy is as far reaching [as that of the radical Islamists] - that was the message of 9-11. We must overhaul the Muslim world as we did Germany and Russia - we changed them.

...We must defeat them - that is, convince them that their goal is hopeless - as we did the Fascists in 1945 - as we did the Marxist-Leninists in 1991.

...We have the power. There is no great power that faces us.

I have no doubt that many in that mosque understood GWB's message. 

June 27, 2007

“Former Ambassadors Call on DNC to Remove Jimmy Carter”

From RJC:

Washington, DC... The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) today sent a letter signed by six former U.S. ambassadors to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, asking him to remove former President Jimmy Carter from his position as Honorary Chairman of Democrats Abroad, an arm of the DNC.

The letter comes in response to statements by Carter which call into doubt his suitability as a representative of the United States abroad. Recently, he criticized the U.S. government for withholding direct aid to Hamas, describing this policy as "criminal."

The letter states:

As you probably know, in public comments made on June 21 after receiving a donation for his foundation from a group in Dublin, Ireland, the former President castigated our government and the governments of Israel and the European Union for withholding direct aid to Hamas leaders in the Palestinian Authority. Carter described this policy as "criminal."

It has been nearly a decade since the State Department under President Clinton designated Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. As you know, it is illegal for individuals in our country - much less the federal government itself - to knowingly provide material support or resources to an organization that has been so designated.

In light of these considerations, it is the course of action Carter is advocating - provision of direct aid to Hamas by the U.S. government - that would be "criminal." In light of Hamas' long record of murderous attacks on civilians in Israel and within the Palestinian territories, it would also be grossly immoral.

... You may recall that last November, a Hamas subsidiary issued a communiqué calling on sympathizers to attack American targets "all over the globe." It is difficult for us to understand how Carter can be deemed fit to serve as Honorary Chairman of Democrats Abroad after having urged support for Hamas.

When a prominent American such as a former U.S. President makes statements abroad so at odds with American policy and with good sense, they raise diplomatic and public diplomacy difficulties for our government and our official spokesmen abroad.

When Jimmy Carter published an anti-Israel book, the DNC issued a statement saying that "on this issue President Carter speaks for himself, the opinions in his book are his own, they are not the views or position of the Democratic Party." Given Carter's most recent statements, the former ambassadors call upon Chairman Dean to match action to words by removing Jimmy Carter from his official position with Democrats Abroad.

Conference on the Collapse of Europe: One of the Most Profound Insights of the Conference

At 3pm there was a second panel in the main auditorium for all attendees. At this panel, Daniel Pipes made what appears to me to have been one of the most profound observations of the Conference. He began with an overview of the history of Europe over the last hundred years:

Europe in the 19th century was a confident continent. It was successful and it knew it - whether in terms of political achievement, cultural achievement, scientific, engineering achievement - power projection - Europe until 1914 - what we call 19th century Europe, was superior to any other part of the world. It's achievements stood out. And indeed had been standing out, for four centuries. Europeans entered into world war I with a great deal of enthusiasm - what's been called a delirium of enthusiasm. It had been a century since there had been a major war - the Napoleonic wars. There had been the buildup of the philosophical base - let me just mention the name of Frederic Nietzsche - that found war to be romantic and attractive. And so Europeans went to war in 1914 in this delirium of enthusiam. And of course, four years later, they came out of it devastated and horrified - and came to the conclusion, never again would they engage in such a war. They would avoid war - they would do whatever it took to avoid such a war. In the 1930s we saw that policy in action, in particular by the british and french governments, as they sought to avoid war - what we call, 'appeasement.'

Well, that didn't work either, did it? And the consensus, the second consensus, was, as we faced, as the Europeans faced the Soviet threat, was that they would not appease. No more Munichs. The lesson had been learned. And that remained in place roughly through the Cold War. And - grant me a lot of generalization here, please - there were a lot of exceptions - but, overall, it was maintained through the 40 years plus of the Cold War.

But with the ending of the Cold War, in about 1990, what I think one sees, is a reversion, to the earlier consensus. In other words, the no more Munichs idea, that held through the Cold War, has evaporated [inaudible], taking 20 years. And instead what one sees is a reversion to that earlier, post-World War I consensus. In other word, we've lived our lives in the post-World War II era, but it is, before our eyes, in Europe, turning into a post-World War I era. As David Galenter of Yale University puts it, it's the 1920s all over again.

Pipes continued:

...France is a particularly interesting case, because France is, like the United States, a country that is - an idea. We're not related to each other, we don't have a history that goes back together, but we, in one fashion or another, found ourselves in this country, and we're in pursuit of happiness here. The French have liberte, equalite and fraternite. But no other countries have, at least in Europe and North America, have an idea. Not Canada - certainly not the other countries of Europe. And what they find, is particular difficulty in explaining who they are. And as their civilizations are now challenged from the inside, by a substantial and growing population, that says, 'we have something better - we have Islamism, which beats what you have' - the European peoples are finding it very difficult to come up with a response and say, 'no no, what we have is good.' And what one finds is rather pathetic. For example, the famous Dutch film, that shows the Dutch values to be shown to potential immigrants, that shows a topless woman in the surf, or two men kissing - is this really what Dutch culture is? Or, less humorous but also somewhat pathetic, is a website put up by the British government, called "Icons - a Portrait of England," which has some hundred or so, very specifically British things. Sherlock Holmes - Westminster Abbey - certain foods and the like. Just this week the incoming Prime Minister has suggested "Britain Day," to celebrate being British. Nobody quite knows what it means. [Amused laughter].

So both for historical reasons, having to do with the 20th century, and historical reasons having to do with the fact that most of Europe is made up of countries that are one large family - that have a certain set of customs, of language, foods, songs, and so forth - but are difficult to turn into an abstraction, and say, 'no - our civilization is something worth preserving.' And for all these reasons I think yes, there is a collapse of confidence. And while I don't think for sure that it's permanent - and there could well be a revival - at this point I think we're seeing a lowpoint - it could go lower - but cerrtainly a lowpoint in European confidence, and something that really is without precedent. I don't know of any historical phenomenon akin to what the Europeans have gone through in the last century.

In other words, in the United States, we have a goal: the pursuit of happiness. And it's a goal we all believe in as a nation. It's a goal worth defending, a way of life worth fighting for. It shows us why what we have is better than what the Islamists offer, because the goal of the Islamists is to destroy freedom, to destroy equality of the sexes, to destroy free speech - and to accomplish nothing more than to require that all others also join their effort to destroy their own freedoms, and the freedoms of others.

As soon as Pipes said it I knew I'd heard something tremendously significant.

The Europeans can benefit from Pipes' insight by considering what their national goals can be.

June 23, 2007

LA TIMES Publishes Groundbreaking Article: “Where is the West’s Outcry?”

On the front page of the Calendar section in today's LA Times is an article unlike any I have ever seen that paper - or any MSM newspaper - publish before. It is a passionate, brilliantly-written piece by Tim Rutten in his Regarding Media column. Every sentence of it calls on MSM, and all of us, to defend our freedoms, and our way of life, against the murderers who want to destroy them.

Rutten recounts how 19 years ago, "the Iranian revolution's spiritual leader," Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called for the assassination of Salmon Rushdie.

Rushdie survived by spending the better part of the next decade in what amounted to an "author's protection program" maintained by the British government. Several of his translators, however, were killed or wounded.

When news of knighthood spread last weekend, the flames of fanaticism rekindled. An Iranian group offered $150,000 to anyone who would murder the novelist. Effigies of the queen and the writer were burned in riots across Pakistan. That country's religious affairs minister initially said that conferring such an honor on Rushdie justified sending suicide bombers to Britain, then - under pressure - he modified his statement to say it would cause suicide bombers to travel there. Pakistan's national assembly unanimously condemned Rushdie's knighthood and said it reflected "contempt" for Islam and Muhammad. Various high-ranking Iranian clerics called for the writers' death and renewed their insistence that Khomeini's fatwa still is in force. Riots spread to India's Muslim communities.

Friday, the Voice of America reported that Pakistani "lawmakers passed a second resolution calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to apologize 'to the Muslim world' " and that, "on Thursday, a hard-line Pakistani cleric awarded terrorist leader Osama bin Laden the religious title and honorific 'saifulla,' or sword of Islam, to protest Britain's decision."

If you're wondering why you haven't been able to follow all the columns and editorials in the American press denouncing all this homicidal nonsense, it's because there haven't been any. And, in that great silence, is a great scandal.

It's breathtaking to read this in an MSM paper. The LA Times headline-writers backed him up, with a large-print headline all the way across the top of the inside page the article jumps to, saying, "Silence is unacceptable in face of violent intolerance and bigotry."

As a blogger, and a Pajamas Media blogger, I'm proud to say that Rutten takes inspiration in part from a Pajamas Media post by Flemming Rose, the editor who courageously published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed:

...one analyst who saw that clearly was Flemming Rose...

...In a column posted on the L.A.-based Pajamas Media website late this week, Rose began by reminding readers of legal scholar Ronald Dworkin's admonition that "the only right you don't have in a democracy is the right not to be offended,"...

Rutten continues:

...what is the societal cost of silence among those who have not simply the moral obligation but also the ability to speak - like American commentators and editorial writers?

What masquerades as tolerance and cultural sensitivity among many U.S. journalists is really a kind of soft bigotry, an unspoken assumption that Muslim societies will naturally repress great writers and murder honest journalists, and that to insist otherwise is somehow intolerant or insensitive.

Lost in the self-righteous haze that masks this expedient sentiment is a critical point once made by the late American philosopher Richard Rorty, who was fond of pointing out that "some ideas, like some people, are just no damn good" and that no amount of faux tolerance or misplaced fellow feeling excuses the rest of us from our obligation to oppose such ideas and such people.

If Western and, particularly American, commentators refuse to speak up when their obligations are so clear, the fanatics will win and the terrible silence they so fervently desire will descend over vast stretches of our world - a silence in which the only permissible sounds are the prayers of the killers and the cries of their victims.

Rutten and the LA Times have shown courage, insight, and leadership. It appears likely that other MSM papers will take note - and that those MSM papers that don't, will be left behind, in this great movement of our time to defend our freedoms and our way of life.

June 22, 2007

ADL Ads in NY Times: “400,000 Murdered in Darfur. And British Academics are boycotting Israel?”

These ads were run by the ADL earlier this month in the NY Times. Sample text (to help people using search engines find this post): "700 HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS DETAINED and TORTURED last year in ZIMBABWE. And BRITISH ACADEMICS are boycotting ISRAEL?" 

June 19, 2007

Conference on the Collapse of Europe: What Makes Jihad so Effective - and What to Do About It

Leon de Winter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Henryk Broder, Andy Bostom, Daniel Pipes and Greg Davis

(This photo is merged from two smaller photos.)

(This is the second in a series on the international conference on the Collapse of Europe, organized by Avi Davis of the American Freedom Alliance, and the Council for Democracy and Tolerance, at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. The first article is here.)

At 11:30 am, the event divided into a number of panels taking place simultaneously. I opted for the one titled "Eurabia: Is Muslim domination of Europe inevitable?" particularly in order to have a chance to see the courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Born a Muslim in Somalia, Ayaan was raised with terrible violence directed against her in her own home, as is not uncommon for children born into the Islamic culture. From the Townhall review of her autobiography, Infidel:

Instead of finding within her family a refuge from the cruelties of the wider world, Hirsi Ali found persecution instead. She loved both of her parents, but her mother was her father's second of three wives. He was often away (sometimes in prison for his political activities), and her mother was sometimes hysterical and frequently violent. Hirsi Ali relates being beaten with a rolling pin and being beaten while tied hand and foot. As a Muslim female she was expected to be obedient, servile and meek. All of the housework fell upon her, not her brother. He bullied her mercilessly and got away with it because he was the boy. When she was naughty and disobedient toward her Quran teacher, he cracked her skull and nearly killed her. She was also tortured -- there is no other word for it -- by female circumcision. She writes, "In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made 'pure' by having their genitals cut out." This was done to Hirsi Ali when she was 5. Her description is graphic and blood-curdling.

Because of her father's prominence in the anti-Siad Barre forces, the family was kept constantly in motion. They lived in Saudi Arabia, where Hirsi Ali heard the cries of women being beaten by their husbands, and in Kenya, where she saw young boys who had stolen something beaten to death by crowds cheering and jeering. She lived in Ethiopia among Christians her mother regarded as "despicable."

Her mother found Christians, with their beautiful Judeo-Christian culture of "love they neighbor", despicable - but not the evil all around her and in her own home, of family members beating, torturing and killing other family members. That is a crushing, devastating indictment of Islamic culture.

Such evil practices are imported into Western nations by Islamic immigrants, as seen in this article from the UK's Guardian, last Saturday: "Special units to crack down on honour killing" - "honour killing" being what Islamists call it when a Muslim kills a female member of his own family. Islamic culture considers to be honorable, things that Western culture rightly identifies as being evil.

After introducing the panel, moderator Andy Bostom asked Ayaan to speak first. She detailed what Europe can do to avoid Islamic domination. (All quotes are transcribed from audio recordings.)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Is Muslim domination of Europe inevitable? I can't predict the future. But looking at the way things are in Europe, at least what we see is that it is urgent to address this issue. And probably now in some neighborhoods, in some cities in Europe, Islamic domination is visible. Europeans have a taste of how things can look like if Islamic domination becomes Europe's future. I think it's avoidable. And it is avoidable, if European leaders and European civil society at least approach four policies in a radically different way than what we see now.

The first is of course the immigration policy. The EU have removed the borders in between the countries, without thinking about the consequences of that, inviting the people to come from other countries, mainly Muslim countries, and even those who are not invited, when they came still. The immigration laws that made it possible for a large number of people to come to the EU have not been reformed. There is no central EU policy, even though the member states no longer have borders. So either you have a planned European immigration policy, or the member countries go back and say, "You know what? We are going to take care of that part of our problems."

...The next policy that should be approached differently is what is now in many European countries called, the integration policy. Integration is just another euphemism for multi-culturalism. I think we should be honest about this and I think if Europeans adopt an assimilation policy, that that is going to prevent a complete Muslim domination in Europe.

Now that assimilation policy, should not be left to government. I think that civil society - that's the main thing that I've learned from the United States - is that civil activism is the thing that needs to change, and not top-down change. As the guiding of the Muslim movement in Europe is a grass-roots movement, not coordinated from a central command somewhere, so I think the reaction to it must be also grass roots, civil activism, and where the government should do its bit, the government should do its bit, which is [indistinct on audio]. And that policy is economic reform, meaning, to reduce government, where government is unnecessary, and especially the welfare state. You don't need Islamic domination - look at the aboriginals in Australia. If you have generations of people depending on welfare, you're just freezing them in poverty. It's an inhuman policy, I think. It's been instigated by compassion, but it's very inhuman. And if you have generations of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants, on welfare, feeling alienated, then the agents of radical Islam just target that group, and take advantage of that resentment.

And the fourth, and that's where I'm going to end, is an intervention policy, what today in Europe is known as, development aid. So the idea is, we are going to help Muslim countries, or countries where immigrants come from, and trade with them through aid. But we are not going to reform our own markets. We are not going to have crops grown in Africa, we are not going to allow them into our countries, but we are going to give them some money. And when we need oil, instead of having our defense system up-to-date, we are going to persuade them to do - we are actually going to bribe them. That's what it amounts to. And I think that approach - bribing nations where immigrants come from, should change. I think we should adopt a carrot-and-stick, the old carrot-and-stick approach, where help - I'm not a proponent of indefinite help - I think that a nation should help themselves. But ultimately, the idea that military intervention is unavoidable and that before that you need a proper defense system.

If all those policies - and some of them are changing. The debate is open. There are people like Leon de Winter and Henryk Broder and many other Europeans who are debating this, and I hope that that's going to lead to something more positive. If that has not happened, then yes, the Muslim domination of Europe is unavoidable, but it's something that Europeans have to take upon themselves.

One of Ayaan's observations - that one of the four keys to avoiding Islamic domination, is to do away with the welfare state - parallels my previous post, "Report: How Socialism and Islam work Together to Destroy Europe."

Leon de Winter spoke next. (Bios of the panelists are here.)

Leon de Winter: ...There is absolutely no Islamization of Dutch society. Can you imagine? Okay, Amsterdam changed, to some degree. We have areas now, which we didn't have 20, 25 years ago, that are more or less, no-go areas. Especially when you're a Jew. This is worrying. It's of great concern to all of us. The general public is as tolerant, and at the same time, as - this sounds paradoxical - as Calvinistic as it has been since centuries. We are not changing. On the contrary. There is a vast undercurrent among the general public of the feeling that we have had enough of it. We are fed up. We want to stop it.

Henryk Broder. 

Henryk Broder then described in detail how jihad functions, that is, how it can be effective in destroying a culture from within:

Henryk Broder: ...Our best allies in this in Germany, the same is the case in Holland, are secular, united, Liberal Muslims who come out and defend our civil rights. And they are much more reliable than my colleagues from the liberal German daily newspapers. But what happened all over Europe after the attacks in Ankara, in Madrid, in London, after some attempted attacks in Germany - there is now a culture of angst established, all around the world - a culture of fear. And you know it from personal experience, if you are afraid of something, so you have basically two options. You can react by submission to the aggression, hoping to save your life, or at least to reduce the confrontation. Or you can do something, actively, by doing something. But unfortunately most people don't do something, what they could do. So this is the main question I'm always asked when I present my book, when I give lectures and speeches - what can we do? And the number of people asking themselves the question, is rising. But it's a quite natural thing that most people prefer submission, capitulation, they prefer surrender, to any kind of active resistance.

And things are happening now in Germany that could not have happened 10 or 15 years ago. I will give you a couple of examples to illustrate the situation. Protestant churches are celebrating this year and last year, Mohammed's birthday. This was unheard of. [.....] So on the grass roots level, church and state, it's a good idea to celebrate Mohammed's birthday, together with our Muslim citizens, simply to appease them - to accommodate them - to make them feel better, hoping that they will not let out any aggression on us.

And I'll give you another example, a very recent example. Three or four weeks ago, the council of religion was established in Hamburg. Hamburg was traditionally a very liberal city. Even the Catholics are liberal there. I know the bishop of Hamburg, and he is the first one to promote birth control and gay marriage, because, this is Hamburg. And if he wouldn't behave like this, he would have no people coming to his church. So in Hamburg a religious council was established, and the members of different religions and denominations were invited to participate in this council. And then, some Muslim groups protested against the participation of the Bahai. So what happened? The Bahai are very progressive, very liberal, very education-minded - there is total equality between man and woman. And there is some progress, some very progressive books written in Islam, so it's the Bahai. So the traditionalist Muslim groups in Hamburg protested against the participation of the Bahai, and what happened? The city of Hamburg was organizing this council, asked very politely, the Bahai, to give up the seat, that was decided to them, because of the protest of other Muslim groups. Instead of telling the other Muslims, please go home, and insist on taking the Bahai with us, the Bahai were sent home. This is something, beyond everything.

A year ago there was, a young girl in Iran was hanged, because of indecent behavior. She was 16 years old. And there was some kind of astonishment in the German media that still the Iranians do that kind of cruel things. And in the [name of a German newspaper] which is a very liberal paper there was a long story about the sentence, the trial and everything, and the tragic end of this young girl. And the lady, the colleague who wrote this story wrote, that simply the fact that the girl was hanged, and she was not stoned to death, shows already that Iran is making some progress [laughter] - I'm not kidding - I'm not kidding - is making some progress in the direction of human rights. How far the policy of appeasement has progressed!

I'll give you one more example, because it is so unbelievable. There was an auction recently at Christy's in London. A couple of days ago. There was going to be an auction, but there was already a catalog out for this auction. And two pictures in the catalog have been worked on in some detail, and intimate details were erased. And there was a footnote to those pictures saying, 'out of respect for cultural sensibilities, this image has been distorted. Please refer to the department of Christy's, for an accurate representation.' [Laughter.] Out of respect for cultural sensibilities, they distored some classical pictures, with the great titles, "In the Harem," and "The State Market," showing some naked women.

So that's the way that leads us into submission, into surrender, into capitulation - without any pressure applied on us! It's enough to keep them in this culture of fear, where you know there may be a kind of violent attack happening next day or next time. That's enough! That's enough to exercise this terrible amount of discipline on you and to make you surrender, before the crisis occurs.

Daniel Pipes: The main problem with the Bahai is that they recognize a prophet other than Mohammed, and therefore are another religion, and that's not acceptable [to the Muslims]. A post-Mohammed religion.

Through these speakers we have had something of a virtual tour of Holland, Germany, and England, and have seen how in each nation Western freedoms are being attacked by the cancer of jihad. The Islamist culture preaches - to Muslims - hatred of all things non-Islamic; so much so, that there are always a sufficient number of Islamists ready sacrifice themselves in a violent attack. The Western culture is paralyzed, thinking that it cannot identify which Islamists are about to attack, and believing that as a result, it cannot do anything.

But as Ayaan Hirsi Ali outlined, there is much that can be done. 

Additionally, it appears that it may be necessary to crack down on the mosques that instill this hatred in Muslims. These mosques are just manufacturing walking human time bombs, which (as Henryk shows) the Islamists then use to threaten us. There couldn't be a plainer example than this week's story about the knighthood of Salmon Rushdie. In knighting Salmon Rushdie, England has courageously stood up to Islam. A government minister in Pakistan then called for suicide bombings against England. This government minister is threatening England with England's own Muslim citizens, who have been filled with hate by their mosques and upbringing. Such mosques must not be tolerated. They are incubating and releasing the equivalent of a cancer into any society that is foolish enough to harbor them.

Such a crackdown is to be accomplished, not merely by the government, but primarily, by a grass-roots movement - by the people. As Ayaan is quoted above: "...that's the main thing that I've learned from the United States - is that civil activism is the thing that needs to change, and not top-down change. As the guiding of the Muslim movement in Europe is a grass-roots movement, not coordinated from a central command somewhere, so I think the reaction to it must be also grass roots, civil activism..."

Such grass-roots movements are beginning. In England, TV reporters exposed the hatred being preached at the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, England. And in America, an organization is doing the same for mosques in the U.S.: 

“Our initial investigation has concluded there are between 400 to 500 radical Islamic centers in the U.S.,” said David Gaubatz, the director of counterintelligence and counterterrorism for the Society of Americans for National Existence. “In those places, they preach an extreme version of Islam that says America and the West is the enemy. They espouse violence, hatred and the need for terrorism.”

Gaubatz is a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who now works for the Mapping Shari’a in America Project (www.mappingsharia.com), which is supported by SANE, a national non-profit group devoted to investigating the 2,300 Islamic centers in the U.S. for extremist activity.

Gaubatz and his investigators are currently active and will soon form a team of about 12. They pose as people interested in converting to Islam or who are current Muslims. Their goal is to infiltrate mosques and Muslim centers. Recently, he and his team penetrated the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, located in Falls Church, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Sporting a beard and Muslim dress, Gaubatz said he went on May 18 to the center, pretending to be an American interested in becoming a convert to Islam. He discovered the center espoused terrorism and jihad against America.

“They are teaching what they call Jihad Qital, which means physical jihad,” Gaubatz said. “They’re teaching violence and hatred of the United States.”

Gaubatz said that he met the two primary clerics at Dar Al-Hijrah, Imam Shaker Elsayed and Imam Johari Abdulmalik. Both men have been trained in Saudi Arabia. He says another key individual is Yusef Estes, an informal senior leader at the center and an internationally influential Muslim scholar who was trained in Saudi Arabia.

“They put me through the process of learning their faith and ideology,” Gaubatz said. “They felt close to me and they gave me literature and CDs. They told me to study. The literature is very Jihad Qital.”

He said that the Islamic center has deep ties to Saudi Arabia and espouses Wahhabism, a virulent and puritanical version of Islam.

“Many members of the mosque provided me literature to study. Most of the literature they gave me was from Saudi Arabia,” he said. “Their literature preaches that America and the West are decadent and evil, and that Muslims have a moral duty to engage in violence against the infidels.” 

It is inevitable that with such Muslim leaders working hard to instill hate into their Islamist congregations, there will be Muslims itching to sacrifice their lives in order to commit violent acts. As Henryk Broder showed, this strategy can be very effective in getting a Western culture to surrender its freedoms. Why should we tolerate these bomb factories, that produce walking, human time bombs, intended by their leaders to kill us?

We must shut down the mosques that instill this hatred into Muslims, in order to protect our freedoms.

 

Update 6-27-07: Part 3 in this series is now up, here.

June 15, 2007

Conference on the Collapse of Europe: How Supremacy of Islam is Taught to Muslim Children

Last weekend I attended the international conference on the Collapse of Europe, organized by Avi Davis of the American Freedom Alliance, and the Council for Democracy and Tolerance, at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

Avi Davis opens the Conference on the Collapse of Europe to a standing-room only crowd.

It was a remarkable event, with many of the leading authorities on the subject gathered together. It often seemed as though every sentence from each speaker was worthy of discussion in its own right. It can't possibly all be covered in a single blog post. This is the first in a series of articles (probably three or so in total) on the conference. All quotes are transcribed from audio recordings.

Following the keynote speech by Mark Steyn, Avi presented a panel featuring Greg Davis, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, and Philippe Karsenty, moderated by Mark Steyn. (Bios).

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Islam is a political project. It is a supremacist movement. It has a three-tiered stage, and has always had that. And those stages - the first one is dawa, or missionary work, persuading individuals to agree with the basic tenets and principals of that political project. The second is hejira, or emigration - spreading the faith, by planting people who have been converted to the faith, in other areas. And finally there's the stage of jihad. And that, I don't have to tell you.

Mark Steyn: The marriage practices of one province in Pakistan, have become routine in northern English towns. People are sometimes bringing brides over who do not meet the legal age of consent in some of these countries and still marrying them, and living with them, and nobody does anything about it because of multi-cultural sensitivities.

Greg Davis noted the importance of awareness of the nature of Islam as a political project.

Greg Davis: Islam has never understood a distinction between the secular and the religious. It is really only in the West, only in Christian and post-Christian countries, where the separation between the political and the temporal - and the religious - became enshrined in a serious way, in civilization, and freedom of conscience and such things developed. This has never occurred in Islam. From the times of the prophet Mohammed, Islam was a political program - an imperialistic project. It was really, I think you could say, the first totalitarian global movement in history, far predating national Socialism, far predating Communism. It was an attempt - is an attempt - to reconstruct the world along what is imagined to be ideal lines, specific guidelines, statutes, given by Allah, by god himself, from his last, final, complete thought [expressed to] Mohammed. This is what we must understand first and foremost about Islam. It is more appropriate to think of Islam as akin to Communism, I would say, or national Socialism, than any religion that we are likely to be familiar with. If we do not understand this basic fact - if we cannot speak frankly about the danger, and identify it, and call it what it is, I think we don't have a very good chance of surviving.

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at an afternoon panel.

Ibn Warraq discussed the brief history of secular Islam, and then gave an example from his own experience, of how the supremacy of Islam is taught to Muslim children.

Ibn Warraq: Although I think, doctrinally, there is no separation of state and mosque, I think there was a de facto separation according to some scholars, within the history. That's why I think it's always useful to look at, in the way that I do in some of my books, at Islams 1, 2 and 3. Islam 3 was the one that gives us hope, as to what Muslims actually did do in history, as opposed to what they should have done. Because the early leaders of various Muslim countries in the early 20th century were all secularists, in fact. If, as many of us fear, Europe does collapse, in the next 10 years - if for example, by giving into demands from Muslims for a greater introduction of Islamic law, for greater autonomy within the European nation states, forming in effect a nation within a nation, and by continued immigration from Muslim countries, and a higher birthrate from the Muslims already living in Europe, the collapse will be very largely due to at least - this is a very rough figure, of course - at least 6 factors:

The denial of reality. The spirit of appeasement. The loss of national identity. The loss of cultural confidence. A willingness to grovel before the Arab League for short-term economic gains - for oil, gas, and markets. And the nature of Islam itself. [.....] Since we will be discussing multi-culturalism later on today, I will concentrate perhaps on the nature of Islam.

Last night Avi Davis was telling us that we should anchor our accounts in some personal experience. I had to go to Canada, Toronto, to renew my work visa, about 8 months ago. And I went through Minnesota and I stayed with a niece of mine. She came to Canada about 9 years ago from Zimbabwe. She's married, and she has 4 children. All four children were born in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. She was telling me - she told me this story herself. One day in the kitchen, her children were all very excited, because there was a big ice-hockey match, between a Canadian team, and the Sabres, I think, in Buffalo. And they were all very much, of course, for the Canadian team. They were saying, "Mama, we are really going, we are really Canadian, we really want the Canadians to win!" And she said she brought all the kids into the kitchen, and said, "Listen. Don't you ever forget. You are not Canadians. You are Muslims." This was their primary identity. And you can imagine the conflicts this must have engendered in the children. What they will be going through in the next few years, I don't know.

All Muslims swear allegiance to the ummah, the worldwide Islamic community. So the dangers don't come, won't come just from suicide bombers, but ordinary Muslms, who just somehow have been taught, from a very early age, to shun Western values. They've been told that the West is a den of iniquity, and who wants to integrate with a sinking ship, as James Baldwin once said. This is a big problem. I think it's going to be a problem of loyalty, it's a problem of identity. They have no interest, certainly my niece and her husband, in Canadian history, why they are so happy, what it is that guarantees their freedom. They don't know anything about the Constitution. They're just happy to, to profit from it, without having any kind of allegiance, or gratitude, to a system that has grown over a number of years.

This kind of teaching has been reinforced, for example - I think this example comes from Eurabia, Bat Ye'or's book - a contemporary Iranian shiite scholar, Abbas Ali Ahmed Sanjani, expressed the Islamic position when he stated that Islamic law forbids cultural dependence, or any cultural accord that subordinates Muslim culture, to that of foreigners. He wrote, quote, "Islam strongly rejects such a friendship, and forbids Muslims from engaging in such a treason." End of quote. He quotes several Koranic verses prohibiting friendship with non-Muslims, in order to presever Muslim's prestige and leadership. Adopting the ideas and following the ways of non-Muslims, quote, "would involve the loss of independence and leadership in favor of others, transformation of Islamic morals and ways, and inclination toward the ways of non-Muslims, and ultimate perversion." [.....] In 1999, the Sharia Court of the United Kingdom issued a fatwa, prohibiting any Muslim from participating in Christmas, or Christian new year celebrations taking place in the Millenium Dome. The Court referred to many Hadith [the record of the sayings and doings of Mohammed] forbidding Muslims from copying Jews and Christians.

The European establishment turns a blind eye to mullahs in mosques in Western countries, preaching hatred of Western ways, of Jews and Christians, and who strongly advise Muslims to educate their children in the spirit of jihad.

Two observations: first - the Sharia Court of the United Kingdom? Is there really such a thing? Has the Islamic cancer-like strategy of dawa, hejira, and jihad, been so effective, that there is now such a Sharia Court, and the British have permitted it? A quick search brings up confirmation of this via an article from the U.K. Daily Express, posted to LiveLeak on May 3, 2007:

UK: NOW MUSLIMS GET THEIR OWN LAWS IN BRITAIN

MUSLIM radicals have established their own draconian court systems in Britain.

Controversial Sharia courts have been set up in major towns and cities to impose Islamic law and enable Muslims to shun the legitimate British legal system.

Last night religious leaders and politicians expressed outrage that Sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in our society.

Critics insisted that the Govern­ment is allowing a two-tier legal system to flourish in the name of political correctness and that the authority of UK justice is being undermined.

The Daily Express can reveal that one of the controversial courts has been set up in the home town of the 7/7 London bombings ringleader.

Mohammed Siddique Khan was responsible for the Edgware Road Circle Line explosion which killed six people and injured 120. Our investigation has found that the Sharia court system has been set up in the heart of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and that it is a model for others across the country which are operating outside the British legal process.

The Dewsbury court is called the Sharee Council - another term for Sharia - and operates as a Muslim judiciary making decisions by which attendees must abide.

In many countries, hard-line interpretations of the Islamic law allow people to be stoned to death, beheaded or have their limbs amputated.

Non-Muslims are excluded from the secretive court which is registered as a charity to receive British tax benefits.

Although the court has no official legal standing, scales of justice adorn a sign outside a former pub building which has been converted by the Islamic Institute of Great Britain.

This is a powerful example of the effectiveness of cancer-like strategy of dawa, hejira and jihad, in seeking to subvert, dominate, and destroy, the host non-Islamic culture.

Second - let's consider the question Ibn Warraq suggests when he said, of his niece's children, "You can imagine the conflicts this must have engendered in the children. What they will be going through in the next few years, I don't know." Let's think about those conflicts. Those children may be said to have been scarred for life. They can never have their own human feelings of friendship and love for those around them who are non-Muslims. Instead, they must fill themselves with an unnatural enmity for those non-Muslims, driving them away, and closing an infinity of doors that could lead to their own future well-being and success. This will result in the inevitable rage that corrupts the Islamist culture and in some cases - plenty enough cases for the cancer-strategy of jihad - gives rise to adults willing to commit violent acts.

This cannot be permitted in the West. We have to recognize the phenomenon of dawa, hejira, and jihad, study it, and act to put an end to it within our borders, in order to defend our freedoms.

 

Update 6-19-07: Part 2 in this series is now up, here.

Update 6-27-07: Part 3 in this series is now up, here.

June 11, 2007

International Conference on the Collapse of Europe

June 08, 2007

Cutest Cat Pictures in History?

We can use a laugh - it's Friday. I may have found the cutest cat pictures in history, here. (Click the "random" button at top of their page to see more.)

Lately, for some reason Google is reminding me of SkyNet.

June 06, 2007

Two Suspects in JFK Plot were Imams - Maybe the 1st Amendment Needs Some Polishing Up

Two of the suspects in the JFK plot were imams who preached at mosques. They were Islamic holy men - respected teachers of what the Koran means:

Abdul Kadir was the imam of a Shia mosque in Guyana. 56-year old Kareem Ibrahim is the imam of one of the two main Shia mosques in Trinidad. This is based at Canefarm in Tacarigua, states the Trinidad Express. He is a father of five children and sells Islamic books.

Another suspected