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A year-long investigation in England has documented (once again) that mosques there teach hatred towards Christians and Jews.
An authoritative new report by Policy Exchange, the UK's leading centre-right thinktank, entitled The Hijacking of British Islam: How extremist literature is subverting Britain's mosques, reveals the worrying extent of extremist penetration of mosques and other key institutions of the British Muslim community. The report is the most comprehensive academic survey of its kind ever produced in the UK and is based on a year-long investigation by several teams of specialist researchers into the availability of extremist literature and covers more than a hundred mosques and Islamic centres throughout the UK.
Among the reports findings are:
* Most of the extremist literature is published and distributed by agencies linked to the Saudi Arabian government.
* Some of the most high-profile and prestigious mosques in Britain are among the worst offenders; in many of them, it is openly available.
* Separatist literature is distributed at the East London Mosque - which is closely associated with the Muslim Council of Britain (which purports to be the main body representing British Muslims).
Shocking statements
Pamphlets, books and leaflets obtained from mosques and Islamic centres contain an assortment of shocking statements including:
* "Jihad against a tyrant, oppressors, people of bid'ah [Muslim innovators], or wrongdoers. This type of jihad is best done through force if possible."
* "The Jews and the Christians are the enemies of the Muslim."
* "Whoever changes his religion, kill him."
Although some of the hate literature is in English, a proportion is written in Arabic. The translations commissioned by Policy Exchange have been independently verified.
Many of the publications encourage British Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims. So-called unbelievers are to be treated as second-class and avoided wherever possible.
There are also repeated calls for gays to be thrown from mountains and tall buildings and for women to be subjugated.
Radical Islamists are using the same tactics here in the U.S.
It's happening here, but to a lesser extent. According to one FBI agent interviewed in Ronald Kessler's new book The Terrorist Watch, about one in ten of the United States' 2,000 mosques are believed to preach hatred. That number was higher before 9/11, however, as radicals now seek to evade U.S. intelligence agencies.
But the problem extends beyond mosques. Islamic schools play a role, too. According to scholar Daniel Pipes, a Saudi textbook at the Islamic Saudi Academy of Alexandria, VA, teaches first graders that, "all religions, other than Islam, are false, including that of the Jews [and] Christians," while books used by New York City's Muslims schools include, "sweeping condemnations of Jews and Christians."
A new report issued by the New York Police Department indicates that radical Islam continues to have an appeal among Manhattan's Muslims, often through "informal groups or clusters of young men…usually associated with a particular venue - community center, non-governmental organization, university group, housing project, café or even a particular mosque." NYPD also noted the, "growing trend of Salafi-based radicalization that has permeated some Muslim student associations (MSA's)."
This environment has undoubtedly impacted America's Muslims. According to a Pew Research Poll, roughly one-quarter of young Muslims (ages 18-29) in the United States believe that suicide bombing is justified under certain circumstances.
The British report makes the following excellent recommendations:
i) The Saudi Arabian government must be told to stop distributing extremist literature in Britain or else risk its good relations. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is currently on a state visit to the UK and the British government should address this matter directly with him.
ii) Mosques and other Islamic institutions must act immediately to remove extremist literature from their premises.
iii) The government, local authorities, police forces, other institutions and prominent individuals should have nothing to do with mosques that continue to sell or distribute extremist literature.
iv) Islamic schools must be subject to clear and rigorous regulation and made part of a genuinely shared system of national education.
Teaching of hatred isn't tolerated in America with regard to any ethnic or cultural heritage. It must be wiped out of the mosques here.
Today Iran is bragging that it has new missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers:
Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Mostafa Muhammad-Najjar announced on Tuesday that his country had developed a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers, capable of reaching Israel and US Army bases in the Middle East.
If Iran nukes Israel, Israel will have no choice but to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike. The results would be devastating to everyone on the planet:
...in clear, concise and chillingly forensic style, Cordesman ["top strategic guru at the Center for Strategic & International Studies"] spells out that the real stakes in the crisis that is building over Iran's nuclear ambitions would certainly include the end of Persian civilization, quite probably the end of Egyptian civilization, and the end of the Oil Age. This would also mean the end of globalization and the extraordinary accretions in world trade and growth and prosperity that are hauling hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians and others out of poverty.
Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons and using them to seek it's often-stated goal of eliminating Israel from the map. The result would be the destruction, not only of Israel, but also of Iran, and of the entire global economy.
(By the way - I'm seriously jonesing to get back to more frequent blogging. I'm working mega-hours on a business project. In the meantime, this is too good to miss.)
Technology writer Robert X. Cringely has a column this week on the use of credit reporting data to get a fix on the number of illegal aliens in the U.S.:
While politicians and the U.S. Census Bureau may disagree on how many illegal aliens are living in the United States, the big credit reporting agencies have a pretty solid handle on the number and it is 17 million. That's 17 million adults of unproved nationality who have ongoing financial relationships with businesses or - believe it or not - governments. It's likely that there is some duplication in this total number, that is an illegal alien who is counted twice because he has, for example, a different relationship with his electric utility than he does with his phone company. But since the 17 million figure doesn't include children, the two are likely to wash out and 17 million is probably pretty darned close to the real number.
...A lot of this sleuthing comes down to a surprising artifact, the Social Security number. One would think that surprising for an economic class of people best known for not having Social Security numbers. Ah, but they do have Social Security numbers, just not their own. You need a Social Security number to sign up for utility services, for example. No Social Security number, no electricity, gas, phone, or satellite TV. So what's a poor alien to do? They go down to some local hangout and BUY a Social Security number to give to the utility. This has to be a legitimate number or it won't fly with utility computer systems, but does it have to be the customer's own number? Good question.
Here's where we have an interesting business ethics issue. Say you are the electric company and someone tries to set up service using a Social Security number that already exists in your database and is clearly borrowed, bought, stolen, or simply made up. What do you do? Most utilities go ahead and set up the account, because to them what counts is whether the new customer will actually pay that bill and it turns out that people operating on such borrowed numbers are more reliable bill payers than the rest of us. They can't afford to get in trouble with the electric company because that would draw attention to them. So there is a tacit agreement between the parties that a Social Security number must be provided because that's the rule, but if it happens to be someone else's Social Security number, well that's okay.
The funny thing about this is the impact it has to have on the person who was originally assigned that Social Security number by the U.S. government. Rather than hurt their credit it actually helps because there is so much evidence that they are good at paying their bills.
Of course the credit bureau notices something and that's why they are so able to estimate numbers in the first place. They know what Social Security numbers are being overused and can probably even trace the genealogy of that number as it makes its way across the country. Here's an amazing fact: some individual Social Security numbers are in use right now by UP TO 3,000 PEOPLE and it isn't at all unusual for a borrowed number to be used by 200-1,000 people at the same time. Remember that most of these folks AREN'T illegal aliens.
Meanwhile we have an AP report today that plague - the freaking plague disease, that for U.S. citizens has been a thing consigned to the dark ages of history - is making a resurgence:
Health officials in Arizona warned in September that the plague appeared to be on the rise and that more cases were likely after an Apache County woman was infected with the disease.
That case, the first human infection reported in Arizona since 2000, followed the discovery of an outbreak of the disease in prairie dogs in Flagstaff in August.
Arizona health officials have been wary about a plague outbreak because of greater activity in New Mexico and other nearby states in the past year.
A.P. tries to spin this as if plague comes from animals:
Plague is transmitted primarily by fleas and direct contact with infected animals. When the disease causes pneumonia, it can be transmitted from an infected person to a non-infected person by airborne cough droplets.
But if that's the case, why is it coming back now, after being considered a thing of the past within the living memory of today's citizens?
The answer may be in illegal immigrants who avoid health checks as they enter the country. Chris Burgard reports in his excellent film, "Border," that illegal immigrants are entering the country with diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy.
The film is available on DVD. You can read my review of it here.
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