Tuesday 29 January 2008

The Terrorist Cancer and the Cure for the Middle East By Daniel Greenfield Friday, January 25, 2008

International terrorism is a cancer
The Terrorist Cancer and the Cure for the Middle East By Daniel Greenfield Friday, January 25, 2008
How do you fight cancer in an infected patient? Conventional wisdom would say that you do it by attacking the cancer cells in the body. When it comes to terrorism however, the West’s prescription for fighting terrorism is to attack the healthy cells in the body instead.
If international terrorism is a cancer, the middle east is practically late stage terminal. Yet the one place in the middle east that is not producing cancer cells, the Jewish population of Israel, is the one that all the professional diplomats and surgeons busy playing surgeon are so eager to cut out.
The conventional wisdom among diplomats and pundits has it that the one non-Arab and non-Muslim state in the Middle East is the cause of all the Arab and Islamic terrorism. Which is a little like a doctor diagnosing the healthy parts of the body as cancerous and arguing that the cancer would go away if we simply got rid of the last healthy organ in the body.
An intelligent approach to the Middle East would have been to empower the Jewish, Christian, Sufi and Zoroastrian populations of the Middle East, to raise up the minority Assyrian, Kurdish, Armenian, Azeri and Coptic populations consistently persecuted by the Arab, Persian and Muslim majorities who sponsor and conduct terrorism against the West. Instead the United States has consistently disregarded their rights and focused instead on appeasing the region’s Arab, Persian Nationalist and Islamic tyrannies.
For over a century the West has buried itself in wishful thinking that the Arab and Muslim tyrannies of the Middle East would grow into good allies if only we provided them with money and weapons. But that has never taken place and rather than admit their fundamental error and look for truer friends in the Middle East, the diplomats have taken the side of the cancer cells insisting that somehow the Sunnis would embrace the Shia, Syria would cease interfering in Lebanon, the tyrannies of the Middle East would become democracies and Saudi Arabia would abandon its Wahhabist motivated Jihad against the West-- if only Israel was no longer in the way.
Western politicians who thrive on popular elections attack the problem of Arab and Muslim hostility by trying to win them over, instead of accepting the inevitable reality that people who find your culture, beliefs and successes hateful will inevitably hate you. To win the favor of those who hate the West, excising the healthy part of the Middle East that does not hate America or the West has become the accepted solution. There is a fundamental sickness in turning on your friends in the hopes of appeasing your enemies, it is a sickness born out of cowardice and fear. Fear of the growing power of a bully known as Islamic terrorism.
We are repeatedly badgered with solemn lectures on the importance of understanding the perspective of our enemies. In doing so the diplomats and the politicians have forgotten the secret that every child who has been told by his parents to try to understand the bully knows, bullies are remarkably simple to understand. Bullies bully because they can. Terrorism exists because it can exist., just as any form of widespread violence or criminality exists because it is tolerated. Terrorism in the middle east is not some noble act of desperation but an extension of the tribal raiding employed even before the days of Mohammed, fused with Western tactics and ideology borrowed from Anarchists, Marxists, Nazis and assorted political terrorists. Modern Islamic terrorist attacks are simply updated Bedouin nomad raids with makeshift 21st century technology overlaid with an Islamic cult of martyrdom.
To its apologists, terrorism appears as some sort of mystical spirit outraged against tyranny that can never be suppressed. But as the United States has demonstrated in Iraq, terrorism exists where it is given breathing room. Where it is suppressed, it ceases to exist. The Surge turned some of the most fearsome areas of Iraq such as Fallujah into places where American soldiers could feel comfortable. American liberals mock the idea that the War on Terror is what has prevented further terrorist attacks but Israel has repeatedly demonstrated that in the wake of strikes against terrorists, terrorist attacks drop sharply. Jordan suppressed its own Palestinian Arab intifada in a short burst of ruthless violence. Syria and Iraq aborted their own Islamist uprisings even more brutally. Egypt managed to stave off an Islamic takeover with jail cells and batons. The Shah of Iran had his hands tied by the Carter administration and so did not and in his place came the Ayatollahs of the Iranian nuclear theocracy. All these tactics are not morally equivalent but they do demonstrate that Islamic terrorism is very much vulnerable to the use of force.
Fear of cancer and the harsh measures of cancer treatment can drive patients into the arms of quacks and hucksters offering alternative remedies, some useless and some openly poisonous. Such remedies may seem easy but easy remedies can serve as the gateway to slow pain and death. Terrorism like cancer inspires fear, not merely of individual death, but a helpless terror before some unnameable and unstoppable force. For decades the quacks and hucksters of state departments and foreign offices have been promising the easy remedy, the cure of shrinking down and finally perhaps even eliminating Israel. Once the last healthy organ in the Middle East has been cut out, they assure us, the Middle East will be healthy again. They lie.
The only cure for any serious disease, biological or political or social is to resist it. The failure to resist it means decay, rot and eventually death. The reforms and concessions that spread the disease are often done in the name of somehow normalizing and accommodating the infection with the rest of the body, yet all it accomplishes is to destroy the healthy part of the social and political organism. Such concessions, though they may be done by liberal politicians, are almost always done out of craven fear and that fear is the first step to total destruction. Fear leads to surrender and surrender leads to the spread of the problem and that leads to widespread dysfunction and finally death.
Appeasement and concessions are terms that should have been buried after WW2 besides the murdered Czech soldiers sold out by Chamberlain at Munich. Yet the West tirelessly continues signing “Munich Agreements” on behalf of Israel which are nothing more than contracts of national destruction. Until the West understands that the front line of the Jihad is everywhere that a Muslim population exists, there will be no peace only more death and destruction. Appeasement is the way of the frightened coward and appeasement at the cost of another is the gravest form of perfidy. Yet appeasement continues to recur throughout human history when weakened civilizations confront the grinning barbarian menace and shrink back. Churchill for a time proved that Chamberlain did not represent the spirit of the West, yet once again the spirit of Chamberlain has taken up stolid residence in the history haunted legislative and executive chambers of Europe and America.
Until the West relearns the lesson of meeting force with superior force, of meeting trickery with superior trickery and commitment with absolute commitment, the Jihad will roll on. The Jihad is the problem. Resistance is the cure.

Sunday 27 January 2008

Forget about war with Iran?By Leon Hadar

Forget about war with Iran?By Leon Hadar
"Ding-dong, the witch is dead," cheerlead the proponents of the Conventional Wisdom (CW) in the Beltway's reality-based community these days - the "witch" being President Buscheney's plan to bomb Iran, which was supposed to be the next chapter in the neo-conservative narrative.Unfortunately, this CWers' (pronounced se-wers) don't-worry-be-happy spinning is based not on reality but on a lot of wishful thinking masquerading as a larger-than-life Realpolitik axiom, that is, the realist "surge" in Washington is working!On a macro-level, this realist faith has helped construct a fairy-tale-like narrative in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pentagon chief Robert Gates have mounted a courageous and effective bureaucratic and political campaign against the neo-con remnants in the George W Bush administration now that Rummy (Donald Rumsfeld) the matinee idol, Paul "Wolfie" Wolfowitz of Arabia, "The f**ing stupidest guy on the face of earth," and the man-with-the-bad-toupee who'd been given the pink slip.We are being asked to believe that Gates, who, as the former chief spook once upon a Cold War. had pressured the CIA's analytical division to exaggerate the Soviet menace to fit the ideological perspective of Reagan's neo-cons, has been transformed into President Bush's Elliot Richardson and that "Mushroom Cloud" Condi's pair of black knee-high boots are going to walk all over her boss' Dick Cheney.How else would you explain the "dramatic" changes in the administration's policies on North Korea (sending love letters to nutty Kim) and Israel/Palestine (did we say A-N-N-A-P-O-L-I-S?), not to mention the "thaw" in the relationship with those who were once bashed as Old Europe (Germany) and Cheese-Eating-Monkeys (the French)?According to the CWers these are all signs that the so, so Brilliant Condi and Very Cool Bob have gained the upper-hand in the struggle over Bush's foreign policy as Cheney has been forced to spend his time gushing over his miracle-of-the-sperm-bank grandkid instead of, say, nuking someone somewhere or doing regime-changes around the world.And then there was of course the piece de resistance in the Realist Resurgence - the historic bureaucratic coup d'etat in during which the Realists struck back - and in the "key judgments" of their US National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) that pulled the rug right out from under President Bushcheney's scheme to fillet the New Hitler and the rest of the Holocaust Deniers in Tehran. Yep. It's time for that proverbial collective sigh of relief, for some good old' shadenfroid as we watch humiliated John Bolton doing his Churchill shtick as he accuses the "appeasers" of perpetrating a new Munich in the name of Peace in Our time, etc. But let's be a bit contrarian here. It is possible that what the CWers are celebrating as strategic changes in Bush's foreign policy - suggesting that the Dubya has decided to abandon his grand designs of Freedom Marching and hegemonizing the Middle East - are really nothing more than tactical maneuvers on the way towards a new age of Pax Americana here (Iraq), there (Iran) and everywhere (watch out Russia and China!). After all, even builders of great world empires - Napoleon and Hitler come to mind - had to suffer many tactical setbacks and adjust to realities on their way to continental and global domination. Not that we - God forbid! - are comparing mini W to the big H. Instead, Bush's own Truman Narrative seems to project his fantastic mindset. The War against Islamo-Fascism equals the War against Communism, and Bush like Truman established the foundations for the grand American strategy in dealing with a global menace.From that perspective, the Rice-Gates-led so-called realist resurgence should be seen for what it really is: taking one step backward so as to prepare for racing full-speed forward. Hence, an overstretched US military cannot threaten Pyongyang with war, especially after Kim Jong-il possessed the Bomb; so the Bushies talk with him. Sort of. Try to make a deal. Perhaps. But notice that American troops are still on the Korean Peninsula.Meanwhile, Condi recognizes that she cannot "make" peace between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land and in any case, she doesn't want to pressure the Israelis. But America needs to placate the (oil-producing) Saudis by "doing something". So here we go with a photo-ops in Annapolis, Jerusalem and Ramallah that produce a sense of "momentum" in the peace process, and make it possible to maintain US influence in the region.And then there has been the coming-to-power of more conservative figures in Berlin and Paris who have been depicted by the CWers as "pro-American" (which they aren't; they're pro-German and pro-French respectively) and who are supposedly willing to support the Bush Administration's policies in the Mideast as long, that is, as the Bushies don't mention the war (if you haven't notice: there are no French or German troops in Iraq).Which brings us back to Iran. Even before the release of the NIE report and at a time when Rumsfeld and Bolton were still hanging around Washington it was becoming clear that with all the mess in Mesopotamia, the Americans didn't have the military resources to "do an Iraq" in Iran. Yes, there was some talk about targeting Iran's nuclear installations if the diplomatic pressure on Tehran would fail to force the ayatollahs to cry "uncle". And even before the coup d'etat in Washington, many CWers were arguing that a limited US strike on Iranian installations would be impractical (do we really know where they are?) and costly (oil prices and anti-Americans in the Middle East would rise above their current dangerous levels).It could be argued that the spooks in Washington just provided the Bushies with an excuse not to do what they had already decided not to do (which explains why some conspiracy theorists have suggested that the Bushies were the driving force behind the decision to release the NIE report). But consider the following: Does anyone really think that President Bush would like to read the following Wikipedia entry 10 years from now:
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) was the 43rd US president. His decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein resulted in the disintegration of Iraq and in the emergence of its neighbor and rival Iran as the main military power in the Persian Gulf, turning the Shi'ite-headed regime in Baghdad as well as the Shi'ite-led groups in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East into political satellites of Tehran. The invasion of Iraq accelerated Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear military capability (which it did in 2009 immediately after President Barack Obama entered the White House), posing a major threat to US allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Western strategic and economic interests in the oil-rich region.
In short, President Bush proved to be Iran's most faithful ally. Indeed, President Bush recognizes that the mess he has made in Iraq, combined with the rising power of radical Shi'ite forces there, has played into the hands of the Iranians.That, together with the failure of Israel to deal a military blow to the Hezbollah in Lebanon has helped shift the balance of power in the Persian Gulf toward Iran and its Shi'ite allies in the Middle East, in a way that threatens the interests of key regional US allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hence the current status quo is only making Iran more assertive, inducing it to continue its nuclear programs, and threatening the "legacy" of President Bush (see the above Wikipedia entry). That means that the Bushies are hoping that they'll be able to "do something" that would change the status quo, and remove that smirk from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At the minimum, Bush wants to be recalled as someone who "kicked some ass" in the Persian Gulf before leaving office.That doesn't mean an all-out war with Iran or even an attack on its suspected nuclear installations. If you followed the recent bizarre encounter between the US Navy and the Iranians in the straits of Hormuz, you get an idea of the opportunities that are opened to the Bushies if and when they decide to orchestrate or exploit a crisis in the Persian Gulf that could lead to an American retaliation against an Iranian "provocation".That kind of opportunistic approach is not different from the way the Bush Administration took advantage of September 11 to mobilize public support for going to war against Iraq. Just change the nationality of the 15 sailors who were seized by the Iranians in March last year, imagine that they would have been Americans and not British and you here we are watching CNN's Wolf Blitzer reporting on "Day 15: American Held Hostage" ("We have an exclusive interview with the mother of Sergeant Brittany Steele ... " and before you know it, Congressional and public pressure builds-up and US troops are storming into a headquarters of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.And it's possible that a "provocation" could turn to be a (real) provocation if and when elements in the Iranian leadership who are looking forward towards a military confrontation with the US would make sure that Iranian forces do take military action against the forces of the Great Satan.Iran will hold parliamentary elections on March 14, 2008, and you don't have to be an expert in Iranian politics to figure out that the political parties associated with President Ahmadinejad who has been under attack at home for his mismanagement of the country's economy could benefit politically from rising tensions with between Tehran and Washington.Interestingly enough, it's not inconceivable that by early March the Iranian political calendar will intersect with the American one, when we'll probably know by then who the Democrats and the Republicans have nominated as their presidential candidate. And you don't have to be an expert on American politics to figure out that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama would be in a position to challenge President Bush's decision to retaliate against Iran. Mix American nationalism aimed at long-time adversary, Revolutionary Iran, the threat of Islamo-Fascism and the support for Israel and the role of its American friends in US electoral politics, and you understand why Obama or Hillary won't allow themselves to sound less hawkish than John McCain or Mitt Romney.And apropos Israel. It's an open secret that Israel's leaders have been alarmed by the effect that the NIE report had on Washington and they clearly are concerned that the Bush Administration and Congress may lack the will to confront Tehran over the nuclear military program which, they insist, is alive and well. So if you're in the shoes of the Israeli prime minister, you will probably conclude that Israel has a narrow window of opportunity extending until the end of 2008 - before Bushcheney, Likud's best friend in Washington, leaves office - to take military action against Iran.Realistically speaking, the Israelis will not attack Iran without at least an American "yellow light" (and we'll learn about that in Bob Woodward's next anthology of White House memos and conversations). And there is no doubt that the CW in most world capitals - certainly in Tehran and the rest of the Middle East - will be that Iran was attacked by Israel and the US. Expect Obama and McCain, Clinton and Romney in the midst of a heated election campaign to stand squarely behind the Israelis in their confrontation with Iran, ensuring that Bush's successor at the White House will be forced into a multi-front war in the Middle East that could involve Israel and Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.If these scenarios sound improbable - like terrorist flying planes into the World Trade Center or the United States invading Iraq - it's probably a failure of imagination on your part. Contrary to the narrative promoted by the CWers, the realists have not won the policy war in Washington and Bushcheney and its neoconservative minions continue to have the upper hand in setting US foreign policy agenda. We're still watching and taking part in the Bush Show - and we shouldn't be surprised to find out sometime this year that the witch is not dead.Leon Hadar is a research fellow with the Cato Institute.

Why Lebanon has rise to Arabian heights

Why Lebanon has rise to Arabian heights
January 27, 2008
The Independent
Lebanon has a troubled history, but you wouldn't know it in its top ski resort. Instead, Adam Mynott found quiet pistes, friendly locals and great cuisine

Risk-averse skiers; surely an oxymoron? But no, they must exist – it's the only explanation for the fact that on our skiing trip, in high season, we enjoyed tons of snow; brilliant sunshine; wonderful, inexpensive meals; and slopes almost entirely to ourselves. Skiing in Lebanon is not a closely guarded secret, although more than one of our friends did say, "You're going there to ski – I thought it was hot?" People have been skiing in the mountains above Beirut since the 1930s. It can only be last year's war with Israel, on top of car bombings and the murder of former Prime Minsiter Rafik Hariri in February 2005 that is keeping holiday-makers away. It's true that while we were there, two buses were blown up nearby, but we were blissfully unaware of this until we got home. Increasingly, I find skiing in Europe unsatisfactory. I like to feel that I'm actually abroad when on holiday, which is difficult when Alpine slopes echo with the sound of loud English voices, and when the ludicrously expensive food comes out of the same ready-meal packages lining the shelves of Tesco. While I do not mind being seen in my archaic skiing gear, my wife does object to being made to feel like a bag lady in the Alps if she's wearing last year's sunglasses. Most hateful of all, if you have to travel in school holidays, are the lift queues. So, a week in Faraya Mzaar Kfardebian, one of Lebanon's top ski resorts, seemed a good idea.
Being truly queue-phobic, the passage through Beirut airport raised my blood pressure. Rigorous scrutiny of every page of every passport for Israeli stamps is not a quick operation. But after the all-clear, the taxi journey through Beirut, where a scattering of soldiers and couple of armoured personnel carriers were the only evidence of recent unrest, was almost too quick; we'd been hoping to have a good look at this "Paris of the Middle East". The climb from cedar-clad valleys to the snowy foothills of the Mount Lebanon range is so rapid that your ears pop. Within an hour of meeting him, we were saying goodbye to our taxi driver, at the door of our hotel in Mzaar. Vague unease about our lack of Arabic evaporated immediately. Many people seem to speak a bit of English and almost all – thanks to the French mandate between the wars – speak French. Hotel Merab is a family-run lodging: clean and friendly, if slightly disorganised. But it shed its modest aspirations for the skier's most important meal of the day. Breakfast was a sumptuous Franco-Lebanese feast including aromatic, sesame-encrusted, thyme-infused manoushe (unleavened bread), mounds of velvety labne (yoghurt) topped with olive oil, tomatoes, baby cucumbers and olives, plus a delicious legacy of French rule: croissants and pains-au-chocolat to rival anything Paris has to offer.Kitted out within minutes at the ski-hire shop, and our lift passes issued with breathtaking ease, we were standing on the slopes just half an hour after breakfast. Squinting at the pistes as we smeared on factor 60, we began to wonder where everyone had gone. It was 9.30am on a Saturday, under a cloudless sky, and the slopes were all but deserted. Abilities in our family of five ranged from absolute novice through cautious to over-confident, and we pored over the piste map, picking out long, green slopes at one end and precipitous reds and blacks at the other. The Kfardebian ski area is spread over three domaines with 80km of marked slopes and unlimited off-piste possibilities. The base of the resort is 1,850m high and it climbs up another 600m to the Dôme du Mzaar, where you get wonderful views of the Bekaa Valley away to the north-east, and below to the west, Beirut and the Mediterranean Sea. We stripped off a layer and stamped our boots into the ski-bindings. By now, a handful of Lebanese weekend skiers had begun to arrive. We slithered off towards the first drag lift. There is something exotically heady about skiing these sparkling, pristine white dunes under a Middle Eastern sun to the muted background babble of Arabic. That sense of having pitched up as new members in an unwelcoming and somewhat elitist club, which puts so many late-starters off skiing, is entirely absent. We met a group of retired teachers from Larnaca in tracksuits and anoraks, a couple of Red Cross Workers who had come up for the weekend from Cairo and three immaculately dressed Greek gods on snowboards, whose Olympian dignity deserted them as soon as they tried to move forward. The snow was deep and crisp, and brilliantly organised. We must have had more than half a metre of fresh snowfall during the week and most of it fell at night. One of the lift attendants told me that in the evening, warm, wet air blows in off the Mediterranean and is shoved rapidly to icy heights above 1,800m, where it sheds its watery load in large, crisp snowflakes. Off-piste skiing in Mzaar must rival anything else on the planet. From the top of the Dôme, vast fields of undulating powder stretch away into the distance. When you're not queuing, it's amazing how much more you ski and, consequently, improve. While sitting on a chair-lift, I worked out that if you take 12 lifts a day, and queue, typically in the Alps, for 10 minutes each time, that's two hours of skiing lost every day. There was none of that in Mzaar, and none of the core-numbing chill as the sun drops behind the mountain and sodden gloves, and fingers inside them, start to stiffen. We fell into the routine of stopping on the way back from the slopes at one of a handful of cafés for chocobas, a blood-sugar restoring concoction of hot baguette filled with melted chocolate and sliced banana. Sometimes we'd succumb to the "nut man" who would stop his old estate-car in front of us and open up his boot crammed with a fragrant, treasure trove of almonds, dates and mint-green and rose pistachios. It's possible here to ski in the morning and take a dip in the Med in the afternoon. But we never did. Six hours of solid skiing left us fit for nothing more strenuous than a walk to the nearest restaurant. Eating out was a joy, enhanced by the reckless consumption of one of Lebanon's principal exports, wine from the Bekaa Valley. Lebanese food is not, like its ski resorts, a well-kept secret; it is an international flag of honour. Determination to eat Lebanese led us twice to the Xtreme Food café, whose name belied the delicacy of the hummus, manoushe, chicken touk and baklava. One evening we took a taxi in search of authentic Lebanese food and atmosphere to Shekar's in Fakra, the next village down the valley. After a feast of fatoush, kofta and baba ghanoush our young waiter, Gabrienoush, sat down with us and, with a mournful expression, told us how he was in despair at the state of the country, at the gulf between the rich and the poor, and how, as soon as he'd saved enough money, he would be joining the Lebanese diaspora. Before we left, he insisted on summoning the owner, who wouldn't let us leave until we'd joined him in a glass of arrack – Lebanon's answer to pastis. The bill was less than £25 for an exquisite meal for five. We came away from Mzaar resolved to return next year, but while we congratulated ourselves on our adventurous spirit, putting down a deposit on one of the newly built chalets in the village might just be a step too far.

Saturday 26 January 2008

Muslim opening prayer at Iowa Statehouse raises concerns

The Iowa Legislature started just over a week ago and some people were upset before the first issue was every addressed.When the session began, a Muslim Imam began the prayer in the Iowa Legislature. This is where the controversy begins. The prayer asked of "Victory over those who disbelieve," and "Protection from the great Satan" among other things.Pastor Steve Smith of the Evangelical Free Church in Albert City is among those concerned about the Muslim prayer. Rev. Smith admits that he doesn't know about all the levels of Muslim but knows that the Jihadists believe those in the U.S. are the great Satan. Rev. Smith also wants to point out the mention of "victory over those who disbelieve." He feels "this is a request in the Iowa Legislature for God to grant the Muslims victory over every non-muslim. Not a request for salvation." Smith takes it as a gesture not of prayer but more as a political statement, especially with the wars that have been going on in the Middle East. "I'm not concerned about a Muslim Imam opening the Legislature in prayer but it concerns me with the statements that were made. He interpreted this prayer from his understanding of Islam."Here is the text of the opening prayer, as transcribed by Radio Iowa:Imam Muhammad Khan of the Islamic Center of Des Moines spoke first in Arabic."I seek refuge in God against the accursed Satan in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful," Khan said in English. Khan made no specific mention of the war in Iraq or foreign affairs, but he called God the "master of the day of judgment" and asked for "victory over those who disbelieve.""As we begin this new year...in a world with trials and tribulations, we ask you to open the hearts of our legislators and policy makers to make the right decisions for the people of Iowa," Khan said. "...We ask that you guide our legislators and give them the wisdom and knowledge to tackle the difficult problems that face us today in order to eliminate the senseless crimes on humanity. Help them, Lord, to solve the complicated problems in the State of Iowa so that we can be a model to the world."Khan's prayer lasted about four minutes and he closed with a few words for legislators. "On behalf of the Muslim community of Des Moines and Iowa, I wish you all the success in this year for making the right decisions for us," Khan said. Khan was the guest of State Representative Ako Abdul Samad of Des Moines, who is also a local Muslim leader.Rev. Smith has urged others who may be concerned to contact their representative. When asked about the prayer, Senator Steve Kettering replied in an e-mail that he had not heard the prayer, which did not take place in the Senate chambers. "I cannot tell you what was said. I have received e-mail regarding this, but since it did not occur on the Senate side I do not have much information," Kettering said. " I should point out that the senate had a Catholic priest for their opening."Representative Gary Worthan of Storm Lake said that he agrees with the concern being shown over the Muslim prayer.He said that he has registered his concerns with the proper authorities.As the father of two sons who have fought terrorism in the military, Worthan said the phrases mentioned earlier also jumped out at him and he said he shares concern for the same reasons as the constituents he is hearing from.

Interview with allah: mhammad was foretold in Bible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufh8xSk5Qyk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufh8xSk5Qyk&feature=related

Monday 21 January 2008

obama hussein bin laden next president

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H1YJCzjWeI&feature=related

who is oblama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3pHgIU4kCA&feature=related

OBLAMA: USA is a muslim nation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPgEkK3NRoo&feature=related

who is obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTOhllqOk-w&feature=related

Sunday 20 January 2008

islam terrorism homosexuality and killing kouffar

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bmy94F-rUuM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bmy94F-rUuM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bmy94F-rUuM

Gay imam finally admits islam is not against homosexuality but the Bible is; maybe that is why he left christiannism to islam.

Gay Imam Will Reach Out to Gay and Lesbian MuslimsBy Mubarak Dahir
The intersection of religion and homosexuality is almost always a difficult crossroad.
Gay and lesbin Muslims have certainly felt more than their fair share of the strain of religious intolerance both as homosexuals viewed with disdain by most Muslims, and as Muslims who, now more than ever, often feel outcast by other gays and lesbians.
Despite the difficulties, gay and lesbian Muslims deserve to hold onto both their faith and their love. And soon, a gay imam, as Muslim religious leaders are known, plans to emerge to help bridge both sides of the chasm surrounding gay and lesbian Muslims.
"It's time for a new perspective on wht it means to be Muslim and homosexual," says the man I'll call Mohammed, a 48-year-old African American lawyer with a football-player's build.
Though many of the teachers and fellow students at the Northern Virginia university where Mohammed is currently studying for his Masters in Islamic Sciences know he is gay, he asked that his real name not be used at this time. With just one course left to take until he completes his studies at the end of the summer, Mohammed doubts that coming out now would jeopardize his graduation or his induction as an imam. But he doesn't want to take any chances. The stakes are just too high.
Besides, there will be plenty of chances to take on homophobia as an openly gay imam, he chuckles during a phone interview from his home in Washington, D.C. He's well aware that his coming out as a gay imam; something he plans to do immediately upon graduation, he says "will be a lightning rod of controversy."
"But there has to be room for a more open interpretation of Islam than the one handed to us by religious scholars who lived more than more than 1200 years ago," he says. "And that interpretation has to come from those of us who are both Muslim and gay."
He is optimistic that he will be met with greater acceptance than might be expected. He's come out to the Muslim community before, with surprising support. While he was an undergraduate at Georgetown University in the late 1980's, some members of the Muslim Student Association, to which he belonged, proposed protesting a gay and lesbian event on campus. "I spoke up against the proposal, and used the opportunity to come out as a gay Muslim and discuss what it meant." The Muslim Student Association voted against holding an anti-gay protest, and, says Mohammed, "I earned the respect of the group: including that of the group's imam."
Mohammed believes the more progressive attitude of Islam toward gays and lesbians must originate in the West, where individuality and freedom of speech are protected. In many predominantly Muslim countries, he concedes, being openly gay can be dangerous. However, he also believes strongly that "Islam itself is no more or less homophobic than any other religion. It's all in the interpretation."
To bolster this view, he points out that Islam adopted its primary admonition against homosexuality from the Bible: the story of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah. The difference between, say, some of the more liberal attitudes on homosexuality by a number of Christian ministers compared to the predominantly conservative attitude among Muslim clerics isn't in the details of the story itself, but in the contemporary interpretation of it.
Much of what is commonly referred to as "Islamic teachings" against homosexuality are not religion-based, but culture-based, he says, and most places where Islam is the dominant religion remain traditional cultures. As a man who will be an imam, Mohammed feels a particular responsibility to speak up as a gay Muslim. As an out Muslim leader, hopes not only to push the Muslim establishment toward a more tolerant view of gays, but also to show gay and lesbian Muslims that they can be true both to their faith and to themselves.
"Gay Muslims need to see this happening, so they are aware of the possibilities" of their religion, he says.
Mohammed, who was raised a Christian and converted to Islam as a 34-year-old adult in 1988, knows well the personal struggle many experience in being gay and Muslim. Before his conversion, as a student of many different religions, he, too, wrestled with the apparent contradiction of being gay and being a good Muslim.
"Then I realized that Islam is so much more than the narrow interpretation against homosexuality" that has been assigned to it, he says. Despite the widely â€"held anti-gay sentiment, he chose Islam because "its form of prayer and its teachings on daily life struck a more personal chord for me" than did the teachings of other religions.
While studying Islam, he says he came to the realization that "the Koran teaches a lot of things about relationships that apply to whether we are heterosexual or homosexual. I found I could extrapolate the rules of the Koran to be inclusive, rather than exclusive."
Mohammed hopes, too, his being out as a gay imam will ease some of the "misconceptions and stereotypes about Muslims" in the gay and lesbian community. Mohammed, who has a beard and typically dresses in traditional Muslim garb, says he sometimes feels as much at odds with the gay community about being Muslim as he does with the Muslim community about being gay, particularly since the terrorist attacks of September 11.
"I've heard a lot of misplaced hatred against Muslims from the gay community," he says sadly. Not long ago, he overheard a conversation at a local gay coffee house that "basically had the theme, ~Why we should imprison Muslims in America.TM"
In addition, he has been profiled by an airline while boarding a flight to Amsterdam, and was even accosted on the street by a man who screamed "Osama bin Laden!" while lunging at him. (Mohammed used his size and his umbrella to ward off the attack.)
Asked which would be the greater challenge, coming out to Muslims or combating anti-Muslim stereotypes among gays, Mohammed responded with the typical hearty laugh that punctuated much of our conversation. With patience and determination, "both should be possible," he said in his strong and characteristically optimistic voice. "God willing."
Author's Note: When Mohammed does come out at the end of the summer, he has promised to grant me another interview. Look here for the follow-up to his amazing story of strength and courage.
For more information and resources for LGBTI Muslims visit the: Temenos LGBTI Muslim Page

Gay imams at the image of Puppet mohammad PiBUH.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TVhR_Drq734

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TVhR_Drq734

Friday 18 January 2008

USA: Vote anti islam.

Vote Keep America Alive


Monday, 14 January 2008
America is a nation and an ideal, birthed by a group of visionaries that gave it the Constitution to nurture it and protect it. What makes America, America the Beautiful, more than just a blessed land is our legacy, the Constitution. Sadly, the Constitution also makes for America the Vulnerable by enshrining freedom that enables the malevolent to subvert and destroy America from within. You, the voter, are the guardian of the Constitution. Your vote determines the health and survival of America.
America is defined by the last phrase of our national anthem: The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom, in all its forms, is our greatest legacy, which this nation has bravely fought many wars on many fronts to preserve against the unceasing assaults of totalitarianism of all stripes. Time and again, the flowers of our nation bravely sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and liberty.In the not too long ago past, we fought and defeated Nazism and Fascism in Europe and Imperialism in the Far East. Before the nation could have a respite, the flame of international Communism raged, consumed many parts of the world in its wake, and posed a great threat of scorching our land. Yet, we did not waiver, did not appease, and did not surrender. We stood and fought the scourge of Communism on multiple fronts. Once again, the forces of freedom succeeded in reducing the Communist menace to little more than a nuisance.Now, we are faced with the insidious, multifaceted, and most deadly threat of Islamism. Since Islam has been around for centuries, there is a tendency to ignore or even deny the threat it poses to humanity. Various concessions are made, some of them as good faith offerings and some in the hope of placating the Islamists. Yet, concessions to threats are appeasements. And appeasements have never solved any problems. They only whet the appetite of the aggressor, give it more power, and make it even more dangerous.And appeasement comes in many forms. When our leaders, for instance, call Islam a great religion, they are appeasing, if not lying outright. We the people elect our leaders and we hold them accountable to be honorable: using their voice to call a great religion a most deadly threat to everything we cherish as a great religion legitimizes Islamofascism, on the one hand, and infuses the rest of us with a false belief.Go by the facts on the ground and not by rhetoric: Islam is not a great religion. It is a dangerous cult of hate and violence, intent at ruling the world under the Ummeh with its barbaric shariah laws.Calling Islam a great religion and misrepresenting it is not simply a harmless gesture of goodwill and peacemaking. This is flaming the fire that has every intention of consuming us. Therefore, it is imperative that we choose the chief custodian of our constitution, the President, with great care. We must entrust the helm of our nation to the hands of a person of impeccable integrity who is unconditionally loyal to the constitution, who does not sacrifice principles and truth at the altar of expediency, and who is not shirking from what he must do to ensure our nation’s survival in the face of internal and external assaults. In a democracy called America, citizens exercise their power through the ballot box. Hence, when you vote for America, you vote for our freedom as well as for the aspiration of all people who yearn to free themselves from the yoke of secular or religious totalitarianism.Once again, it is the election season. Once again, the slick easy-answers politicians are doing all they can to get our votes. The Democrats promise us everything and more. They will bring the troops home and will give us a raft of goodies, so they promise. But, when the Barbarians are at the gate, it is suicidal to run and hide in the cellar. That’s what Obama and his ilk tripping over each other, promise us. Islamists are not at the gate. They already have breached the fortress America in significant numbers. They are waiting for the opportunity to open the gate fully to their co-cultists and make the land of the free a graveyard of Islamic slavery.First things first. Our highest priority is the preservation of this nation of the free. We have done what it took in the past and we must do what it takes now and in the future to safeguard liberty. Defeating the encroaching Islamism is this generation of Americans greatest challenge. We must meet the threat and defeat it. The alternative is to suffer the fate of the Europeans, many of whom are voting with their feet: fleeing to other lands and abandoning their ancestral homes to the Islamists.Don’t be fooled by the accusations that the incurably sick leftists at home and America’s ill-wishers abroad level at this country. America is not perfect. Yet, it is the very best hope for a humanity struggling to find its humanness. America is worth defending. Vote for the candidate who is not going to cut and run in the face of Islamic Jihadists.

kill kouffar is the motto of muhammadanism the religion of piece

Iraqi security forces clash with Shiite cultCompiled by Daily Star staff Saturday, January 19, 2008
Clashes between a Shiite messianic sect and security forces in two southern Iraqi cities on Friday killed dozens of cult members, policemen and civilians, marring Ashura religious rituals, officials said. The fighting came as hundreds of thousands of Shiites descended on the holy city of Kerbala in central Iraq for Saturday's climax of Ashura.
Members of a Shiite doomsday sect led by Ahmad al-Hassani al-Yamani simultaneously attacked police and troops with machine guns and light arms in the cities of Basra and Nasiriyya at around noon, police said.
The fighting continued throughout the afternoon but became sporadic after dark, reporters in the two cities said.
Iraqi tanks took up positions in the streets of Basra, 550 kilometers south of Baghdad, while in Nasiriyya several thousand troops pushed cult members out of schools, a mosque and a small police post they had occupied.
Basra police chief Major Abdel-Jalil Khalaf said in a statement "dozens" of cult members had been killed and an equal number arrested.
Among those who died in the fierce street fights throughout the oil city was the military commander of the cult, Abu Mustafa al-Ansari, Khalaf said.
The clashes were the biggest test yet for Iraq's Army and police in the south since Britain finished handing back responsibility for security in the region last month. Khalaf did not give a precise number of those killed during several hours of fighting.
In the city of Nasiriyya, 15 people including a police major general and two colonels were killed, officials said. Hospital officials said 82 people had been wounded.
"I was coming back from the market when clashes erupted. I was shot in my leg. There were masked gunmen shooting at police," Abdullah Khalif, 32, said from his hospital bed.
An indefinite curfew was immediately clamped on the city.
Police said those involved in the clashes in Basra and Nasiriyya were members of a cult who believe Imam Mehdi would reappear Friday and they had to take up arms against "infidels."
Mehdi was an eighth-century imam who vanished as a boy and who Shiites believe will return to bring justice to the world.
During Ashura last January, another militant sect dubbing itself the Jund al-Samaa, or "Soldiers of Heaven," clashed with US and Iraqi forces outside Kerbala and the city of Najaf.
Last year's fighting left 263 sect followers dead, including their leader Dhia Abdel-Zahra Kadhim al-Krimawi, also known as Abu Kamar, who believed he was descended from the Prophet Mohammad.
Those clashes near Najaf turned out to be one of the largest battles since the US-led invasion in 2003. A dozen Iraqi security forces were killed while a US attack helicopter was shot down, killing its two crew. The government said at the time the "Soldiers of Heaven" had planned to kill top Shiite clerics.
Little is known about Yamani and his followers except that he claims to be an ambassador rather than a descendant of Imam Mehdi.
A man who said he was from the movement told reporters in Basra that their fighters had decided to attack security forces on Friday because of persecution he said the cult had suffered.
The Ashura rituals commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.
Over 2 million people are expected in Kerbala, 110 kilometers south of Baghdad, by Saturday. They will be guarded by a 25,000-strong security force.
After news of the attacks in Basra and Nasiriyya reached Kerbala, pilgrims showed signs of nervousness, affecting the mood in the shrine city.
A suicide bomber blew himself up on Thursday during a procession outside a mosque in Baqouba, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad, killing eight people. - Agencies

Islam in Holland, Wilders

Gerard Wilder has not finished his movie on Islam yet and a warning has gone out to all meyers of holland, to be aware of repercussions of moslims.

new and coming in

hi all new here, sintandrew and ladies

Thursday 17 January 2008

muslim imam admits arabs & muslims are slaves and idiots

http://www.arab-jarab.com/video/vid_1400slavery.php

http://www.arab-jarab.com/video/vid_1400slavery.php

why do u have to beat your wivessss according to islam

http://www.arab-jarab.com/video/vid_man&woman.php

http://www.arab-jarab.com/video/vid_man&woman.php

what shiites say about aisha

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xZo5z7o0SMU&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xZo5z7o0SMU&feature=related

Religion of peace: die for 72 whores hhhhhh

http://files.ww.com/files/42866.html

http://files.ww.com/files/42866.html

New fatwa from the religion of piece hhhhhh


Fayyad's book on Prophet's wife draws ire
Syrian author flees after fatwa calls for killing
Writer and thinker Nabil Fayyad (Courtesy Syria-Life)
DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
Syrian writer Nabil Fayyad said he is fleeing to Europe after a recent fatwa calling for his murder appeared on an Islamist website.According to the Internet statement, Fayyad's new book -- The Prophet's Wife Eats her Children Up – amounts to a declaration of war against Muslims.The book tells the story of the dispute between Aisha, the Prophet's wife, also called "Mother of the Believers," and the two Islamic caliphs -- successors to the Prophet -- Uthman ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abu-Talib.

"I sent some of my belongings and books to Germany. I will immigrate there soon," Fayyad told Al-Arabiya.net. "I was reassured that the matter is under control and that nothing will happen to me if I stay, but I didn't take that seriously," added the outspoken Syrian intellectual.What he did take seriously was the fatwa published on websites affiliated to militant groups like al-Qaeda that said that Fayyad's murder was the "duty of every Muslim." Fayyad said his fear grew after the fatwa was removed days later: "This could be an indication that something is being hatched against me in secret," he said.Last September, popular Syrian magazine Al-Ijtimaiah called on its readers to "urinate" on Fayyad for "insulting Islam" over an article he wrote in defense of lesbians.At the time, Fayyad said: "Lashing out at me is better than killing me." Fayyad is one of the most outspoken Syrian thinkers, whose fervent defense of human rights and freedom of expression has made him the target of constant campaigns by conservatives. His book, published years ago in Lebanon, was banned in Syria. But a recent Egyptian edition that was distributed at the Khartoum Book Fair in Sudan landed two Egyptians in jail.A Sudanese appeals court later freed the two men, who were serving six-month sentences for degrading religion or spreading hate by insulting the Prophet and his wife.Fayyad said he knew nothing of the Egyptian edition and his permission was not sought before its publication or distribution.He denied reports that the book was related to Shiitization campaigns, said to be gaining momentum in Syria and allegedly funded by Iran."I am against the Iranian regime, and anyway the book did not use any Shiite references," Fayyad said.The translated text of the Arabic fatwa reads: "From Abi Abdullah Al-Masri to brother fighters in the Levant: There's been news about the detention of Egyptians in Sudan for displaying Nabil Fayyad's The Prophet's Wife Eats her Children Up at the Khartoum International Book Fair. "Although we believe that the two Egyptians are partly held accountable for circulating such a bad book, the writer is the one to blame. After we examined the book and reached the conclusion that it is a declared war on Muslims, we ask our brothers in Al-Sham to put an end to this apostate who openly debased Islam in its very land. Killing Nabil Fayyad is the duty of every Muslim."Two years ago, Fayyad was jailed briefly for his articles about corruption in Syria. Many of his books have been banned in Arab countries. Fayyad is fluent in English, German, and Italian. He also studied Hebrew and Aramaic so he can read religious texts in their original forms.(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid).

Wednesday 16 January 2008

our women are our tilth....al kuran al hareem

Saudi Girls Gone Wild Arabian chick-lit shines a light on a central hypocrisy in the conservative Kingdom.By Mona Eltahawy Thursday, January 10, 2008
Planet Pop
For all the entertainment value provided by so-called chick lit in the Western world--from Britain's Bridget Jones' Diary to the United States' Sex and the City--fiction detailing the shopping and dating habits of young women can hardly be called revolutionary. It's been around at least since Jane Austen's 1813 classic Pride and Prejudice.
But in a country where "driving while female" is illegal, as is checking into a hospital without a male guardian's signature, a gossipy romance can spark an explosion of political debate. That's what happened when a Beirut publishing house first released Girls of Riyadh in 2005, by 24-year-old Rajaa Alsanea. It was initially banned in her native Saudi Arabia, but young Saudis quickly got their hands on it anyway. They lauded it online, while writers and columnists debated the book's meaning and Saudi talking heads told the author she should disown it.
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In the book, an anonymous narrator details the lives of four upper-class girlfriends, showing them flirting with boys, going to parties, and in one case, contemplating a relationship with a member of a different Muslim sect.
Ahmed al-Omran, then a 21-year-old student at King Saud University in Riyadh, managed to read Girls of Riyadh soon after its publication when his roommate smuggled in a copy from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia's smaller and more liberal neighbor.
Making the most of their contraband, the two young men read the book together chapter by chapter. And contrary to the brouhaha that surrounded its appearance, al-Omran said he didn't understand why people were shocked.
"What made the novel interesting and controversial are the issues it touched on, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't shocked or surprised in the same way the media portrayed the reaction to the book," al-Omran said.
"I understand that [those over 40] would probably be shocked to learn about the lives of younger people, like how they have fun and how they manage their relationships with the opposite sex in such a strict society, but for people my age, it didn't carry that big amount of surprise because this is our life, this is how we go about it and how we try to deal with our issues," he said. In the best tradition of pop culture everywhere, Girls of Riyadh opened a rift between the old and the young.
Girls of Riyadh is no literary masterpiece, but it is written in the language of the younger generation--"webese," if you will. The book takes the form of weekly e-mails, which the narrator sends out to a list. Each post details the latest in the lives of its four protagonists. In addition to its clever nod to e-mail, the book makes reference to mobile phones and text messaging--all of which are widely used by young people in Saudi Arabia.
For the old guard, the articulation of young women's desires and frustrations wasn't the only shocking thing about Girls of Riyadh. It also let them in on just how many barriers to communication the Internet has removed. One of the characters sends and receives regular text messages from the man she is in love with, and another conducts an online relationship complete with Internet dating subterfuge--she uses a fake photograph for her profile.
As Saudi citizens become bolder, their government is trying to figure out how to let the younger generation have its say without releasing social forces so volatile they would turn society on its ear. In the city of Jeddah, the municipal government first tried to put a stop to graffiti artists, then changed course and put up designated graffiti walls.
As for Girls of Riyadh, authorities eventually lifted the ban on in-country publication. Andrew Hammond, author of Popular Culture in the Arab World, believes the novel is largely responsible for a "genuine independent flowering" in Saudi literature. "It has led to a sudden jump in the country's literary output, and half of the novelists are women."
One of those women used the pen name Siba al-Harz to write The Others, an account of "enforced" lesbianism resulting from the strict segregation of the sexes and guilt among young women in Saudi society. Considered more literary than Girls of Riyadh, it employs a sophisticated use of classical Arabic, and its publisher--the same one that published Alsanea's book--calls it one of the best books by young Saudi women writers today.
"It's received far less attention than Girls of Riyadh, maybe because it really was the real deal in terms of shocking polite society and questioning social norms," Hammond said.
One Saudi woman, who requested anonymity, put her finger on the Achilles heel that both Girls of Riyadh and The Others have exposed.
"It caused chaos because our deep, private secrets became exposed to the outside world. This is an expected reaction--we are ashamed to admit to the world how hypocritical our people can be. I see this slowly changing," she said.
Mona Eltahawy is a freelance journalist and lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues.

Monday 14 January 2008

How to defeat islam

Ways to Defeat Islamic Jihadism


Thursday, 10 January 2008
This is an urgent call to all free people to rise and defeat the Islamic Jihadists who are marching under the banner of the Qur’an to subdue all non-Muslims. It is imperative that the values and the way of life of civilized people be protected against the assault of Jihadists’ savagery born from a primitive culture of long ago Arabia. There is nothing to negotiate here. Nothing to compromise, for the Jihadists are on a non-negotiable campaign of Allah. The goal of this mission from Allah is the eradication of just about everything that falls under the rubric of human rights. It takes every free human to do his or her share in defeating Jihadism. Below is a partial list of what can be done.* You don’t have to take up arms and go around killing the Jihadists. That’s the Jihadists’ way of dealing with us and anyone they don’t approve of. Decent humans value life, even the life of a Jihadist. By contrast, the Jihadists have no compunctions at amputating limbs, stoning, beheading and hanging people even en mass. The brutal mullahs ruling the Islamic Republic of Iran welcomed the new-year by hanging thirteen people, one of them the mother of two young children. We need to dry up their sources of support and beat them in the battle of ideas. We need to show them the fallacy and danger of their pathological belief. * Fight to end the deadly practice of political correctness. Truth, only naked truth, can set us free. And freedom is our greatest gift of life. Life without freedom is death disguised as life. Remember Patrick Henry’s cry: Give me liberty or give me death. We must fight for life, for liberty and freedom. * Demand that politicians, Islamic apologists, and paid-for media do not abuse freedom by lying about Islam. When these people portray Islam as a religion of peace, they are lying through their teeth. Just take a quick look at Islam’s history as well as what is happening today in the Islamic lands. Islam is not a religion of peace and it has never been. Islam is violent, oppressive, racist, and irrational at its very core. It is treachery for people to present it as otherwise, either out of ignorance or because of their own personal reasons. * Challenge your leftist professors who may be retained by Islamic front organizations to trumpet Islam’s virtues. Demand transparency from hired lobbyists and the liberal mainstream media. Sadly, a percentage of people in Western Democracies are born alienated. These people seem to a have congenital hatred of their own societies; they ally themselves with any and all people and forces that aim to destroy our cherished way of life, and they live by the motto: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They eagerly join forces with the Saddam Husseins and Hugo Chavezes of the world.* Demand that Islamic literature, including the hate and violence manual called the Qur’an, be purged of all violent and hate spewed toward non-Muslims. Is it too much to ask that non-Muslims not be targeted for hate by the so-called sacred religious text? What kind of religion is this? Religion is supposed to bring people together, and not put them at each others’ throats. The Muslims must be made to understand that and they must reciprocate the tolerance that the non-Muslims voluntarily afford them.* Do not allow any special privileges whatsoever granted to Muslims. Demand that all Muslims have their first and foremost loyalty to the United States and its Constitution and not to the Islamic Ummeh, the Qur’an, and the shariah law. Europe is rapidly buckling under the pressure of Islamism. Just a couple of examples: Germany has legalized polygamy to placate Muslim men, Italy is forced to plan separate beaches for Muslim women* Demand that none of the barbaric provisions of Islamic sharia be practiced. Just because a woman is born into a Muslim family, that shouldn’t force her to lead a subservient life to a man, for example. All family matters and disputes, without exceptions, must be adjudicated according to the civil laws of the country.* A Muslim is, first and foremost, an Ummehist, a citizen of international Islam. So, when a Muslim takes the United States’ Pledge of Allegiance, he is either ignorant of the implications of his pledge or is lying willfully. Sadly enough, taqqiyeh (lying, or dissimulation) is not only condoned, it is recommended to the Muslims in their scripture. Hence, a Muslim can and would lie without any compunctions, whenever it is expedient.* Require that the large number of recent arrival Muslims be carefully vetted for their terrorism and Jihadists backgrounds and beliefs. Many recent arrivals from places such as Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan come as refugees and bring with them their pathological anti-American system of belief. It is criminal to admit these refugees without demanding that they completely renounce their allegiance to the hate dogma of Islam. Those diehard devotees of Islam should make any of the eighteen or so Islamic countries home, rather than invade the secular societies and aim to subvert them.* Demand that Muslims, without the least reservation, adhere to the provisions of the human rights. Muslims, by belief and practice, are the most blatant violators of human rights. We hardly need to detail here Muslims’ systemic cruel treatment of the unbelievers, women of all persuasions, and any and all minorities across the board. To Muslims, human rights have a different meaning, and its protective provisions are reserved strictly, primarily for Muslim men. * Go and talk to Muslims, particularly the young and the better educated, about the horror and the fallacy of a primitive belief that has been handed down to them through an accident of birth. Show them the magnificence of freedom, in all its forms; the indispensability of tolerance for all; and, the futility of clinging to an obsolete hodge-podge of delusional ideology. The onus is clearly on the Muslims to prove the validity, utility, and sanctity of the belief they intend to impose on all of us.* As for democracy, our cherished way of life, Muslims have no use for it at all. Muslims believe that Allah’s rule must govern the world in the form of Caliphate: a theocracy. Making mockery of democracy, subverting its working, and ignoring its provisions is a Muslim’s way of falsifying what he already believes to be a sinful and false system of governance invented by the infidels. Reason, if you can, with the Muslims that their belief is an outright rejection of the greatest gift of life: Freedom.* Support financially and in every other legal way those individuals and organizations that are fighting the Jihadists’ relentless encroachment. Many European countries are already on the verge of capitulation to the Islamists. The Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, confidently proclaimed recently that Europe will be Islamic in a dozen years. He has good reason to say that. Muslims are forming states within states in much of European towns and cities. In Britain, for instance, non-Muslims are in serious danger entering Muslim neighborhoods.In conclusion: Folks, get off your duff. Stop saying, “let George do it.” Neither George the President, nor the “other guy” George can do it by themselves. This is a battle for survival that every one of us can help wage. Let’s get on with it before, if not you, then your children and grandchildren end up under the barbaric rule of the Jihadists.

Moderate mousslimes are more dangerous than radical ones

Who’s the Bigger Threat: The Moderate Muslims or the Jihadists?


Monday, 26 November 2007
Humanity has suffered horrific wars in the past. Yet, the present multi-form and multi-front war waged by Islamists has the potential of inflicting more suffering and destroying more lives than ever before. Ruthless Islamic forces are advancing rapidly in their conquests while those of freedom are acquiescing and retreating. Before long, Islamism is poised to achieve its Allah-mandated goal of cleansing the earth of all non-Muslims. Any and all means and weapons are to be enlisted in the service of this final holy war that aims to establish the Islamic Ummeh.
Is “Moderate Islam” an illusion? Moderate Islam is a wedge that will jam open the door to Jihad, and "evil will triumph when good Muslims do nothing." The great majority of Muslims are not adherents of the radical line. Yet, because the Islamists wage their war under the name of Islam, they receive immense direct and indirect support from the rank-and-file ordinary Muslims. It is this support of moderate Muslims that keeps the Jihadists alive. And it is the Jihadists who intend to show no mercy to any and all who do not share their theology, be they Muslims or not.For the record, all Muslims, moderates, radicals, Shiite, Sunnis and other sects and sub-sects of Islam are in unanimous agreement that the Quran is the word of “Allah.” All Muslims are also in agreement that “Allah” spoke through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad. Allah declares, “The book is not to be doubted." To be a loyal and faithful Muslim, one must adhere to and perform many rituals, as specified in the Quran by Allah and the Hadiths/Sunna, every waking moment of his entire life. Disobeying these rituals does not make one a moderate Muslim, but rather it would make him a non-Muslim, facing an uncertain future.[They who deny the Quran]: "They have incurred Allah's most inexorable wrath. An ignominious punishment awaits the unbelievers..." Quran 2:89“If you doubt what We have revealed to Our servant, produce one chapter comparable to it. Call upon your idols to assist you, if what you say be true. But if you fail (as you are sure to fail) then guard yourselves against the Fire whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the unbelievers. Quran 2:23-5“Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.” Quran 9:73"That which is revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase the wickedness and unbelief of many among them. But do not grieve for the unbelievers" Quran (5:69).The jihadists have searched the scripture and have selectively chosen those statements and precedents that they could use to legitimize their violent and primitive agenda. The Jihadists, for instance, claim that the Quran itself urges them to make jihad, “jahedoo fee sabeil-u-llah,” (make jihad for the cause of Allah.) The word “jihad” has at least two vastly different meanings. It means exertion. It also stands for making war, and it is the latter that the jihadists invoke as their mandate.While the so-called moderate Muslims are generally silent, either out of fear, lack of organization, or apathy, the Islamists work around the clock and around the world to further their agenda. Hardly a week passes without a Grand Mufti or an Ayatollah issuing pronouncements in support of radical Islam. The rank-and-file Islamist clergy, for their part, transmit these fatwas and edicts to their flocks in mosques and hammer them into the minds of impressionable children in madressehs. Through this grassroots process, radical Islam is recruiting greater and greater numbers of adherents. On the one hand, the Islamists engage in acts of violence to disrupt the functioning of societies, while on the other they cleverly exploit the freedom they enjoy in non-Islamic lands to subvert them from within.Issuing death threats and finishing the job are part of the modus operandi of the Islamists who disagree with them. It is not surprising that Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" received a fatwa because it appeared to mock Muhammad. The Iranian historian, Ahmad Kasravi, on March 11, 1946, while being tried on charges of "slander against Islam," was shot to death along with one of his asssitants in open court in Tehran by followers of Navvab Safavi, a Shi'a extremist cleric who had founded a terrorist organization called the Fadayan-e Islam (literally Devotees of Islam).The Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed because one of his books was thought to be sacrilegious. And when the Arab scholar Suliman Bashear argued that Islam developed as a religion gradually rather than emerging fully formed from the mouth of the Prophet, he was injured after being thrown from a second- story window by his students at the University of Nablus in the West Bank. Even many broad-minded liberal Muslims become upset when the historical veracity and authenticity of the Quran is questioned.
Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was killed November 2, 2004, by a 26-year-old extremist Muslim of Dutch-Moroccan descent for creating a 10-minute movie Submission. The movie deals with the topic of violence against women in Islamic societies. The voices of the moderate Muslims have again been effectively silenced.When Anwar-as-Sadat signed the peace agreement with Israel in 1979; four assassins from the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated him in September, 1981."Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."—Muslim Brotherhood“During the Muslim Brothers' seventy-plus years of existence, there have been cycles of growth, followed by divisions into factions, including clandestine financial networks, and violent jihad groups, such as al-Jihad and al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya in Egypt, HAMAS in Palestine and mujahideen and Al-Qaida groups in Afghanistan.”
The mainstream American media continues to indulge in the fantasy that “radical Islam” can be reformed by everybody realizing that we are at war with this minority of devils. They are Islam revisionists because they think all the “bad stuff” in the Quran was inserted there after Muhammad’s death. Naturally, they are vague on this point, as to precisely which suras were ex-post. Presently, fanatical Islam is lashing out with mad fury before its own final demise. The “infidel” world has been complicit in the surge of Islamism through its mistakes, complacency, and greed.Unfortunately, even some Islam-realists fall short. When they are put in front of the camera, they refuse to acknowledge that it is Islam that is the source of evil, so they resort to a redundant phrase of how “moderates” can reclaim the faith. The whole thing is truly bizarre. I have yet to hear, whenever a moderate Muslim is asked about the true nature of Islam, ‘Hold on here! I do not agree with your revisionist thinking. I am an Islam-realist. We believe Islam is in and of itself a religion of evil, and I declare it, not from the view of a particular religious dogma, but from a humanistic and common sense definition of morality, not because of what some belief was inserted into the Quran but because of: 1_What Muhammad said that remains unabrogated. 2_What Muhammad did (and said while he was doing it). 3_What Muhammad did not say or command or support that is good. 4_ What Muslim consensus has been for every century afterwards.5_What the governing code of Muslim terrorists is today.’Islam is, therefore, in total, universally, and innately evil. It actively encourages some of the most debased, inhumane treatment of people known to man, regardless of which dogma you compare it to (religious or secular).While I desire freedom in Iran, I am a committed anti-Islamist and anti-communist in general. My beliefs have matured over the years. I now think that God has a set of values that are absolutely right and good, rebellion against which is wrong (sinful), and about which the commitment to deceive others is evil, as is the commitment to deny the existence of anything absolutely good or bad.I believe communism is an expression of materialist naturalist philosophy that is atheistic, representing a desire by man to dominate both nature and man. To me, it is Satan’s “denial” play...that there is no God. But Satan works in multiple theaters simultaneously. I believe Islam is Satan’s chief “deception” play. Rather than deny God exists, it asserts that God does in fact exist, but that God does not desire that men worship out of love or free will, but through rote, fear, and guilt, and through the sins of pride, envy, and chauvinism. It is a mentality of enslavement that drives Islam...”submission” in which man subdues other men in order to establish a kingdom of oppression and hatred on earth. Both atheism/materialism and Islam appear as contradictions with respect to each other, but when you peel away the veneer of their pretense, you see that their aims are the same. Fascism is fascism.Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and an American devout Muslim wrote in an article (Islamism, not Islam is the Problem): “Most should understand that strategically, identifying ‘Islam as the problem,’ immediately alienates upwards of one quarter of the world’s population and dismisses our most powerful weapon against the militant Islamists—the mantle of religion and the pulpit of moderate Muslims who can retake our faith from the Islamists.”Well, of course it does. Shaming the devil incites the devil, calling the USSR an “evil empire” did not win Ronald Reagan points for diplomacy, but nonetheless, it was an evil empire. Calling Nazis evil did not help endear the Germans to the Americans either, but they were slaughtering the Jewish Poles down to the last child. This is not a reason to be restrained in advocating the removal of evil.
This is also why liberal appeasers in 1938, who refused to call Hitler “evil,” got the world into so much trouble by creating a similar confused intellectual forum about the Nazis. They tried to build bridges to the “moderate” Nazis; they lectured clear thinkers about the dangers of inciting German hatred by pointing out the truth. They accused conservatives of being “just as fascist” as the Nazis; they sent ambassadors and made treaties and trusted that the moderates would come out and “reform” their zealous leadership. And they were wrong. Dr. Jasser: “The process of theological renewal and interpretation in the light of modern day thought—ijtihad—as it is known in Islam is in many ways hundreds of years behind Western enlightenment today arrested around the 15th century. This process can either be facilitated by non-Muslims or hindered by the belief that it is impossible.” This author betrays any knowledge of western enlightenment and its causes. He also presupposes a process of change that simply does not exist in the scripture of Islam, as defined in the Qur’anic codex. In short, he’s making this all up. Islam is a fully hardened religion because that is how Muhammad configured it. You can’t build an empire from slaughter and violence by making your ethics variable. Would you now have us believe you think Muhammad was a fool?Dr. Jasser: “the majority voices in the middle, the non-Islamist and anti-Islamist Muslims, who understand the problem, have to be on the frontlines. They cannot be on the frontlines in an ideological battle being waged that demonizes the morality of the faith of Islam and its founder, the Prophet Mohammed.”Opponents of Islamism demonize Islam with Muhammad’s own words and deeds. You cannot be a serial murderer and complain that it is unfair for the DA to constantly harp about all those people you killed!He continues: “We cannot win this war only on the battlefield.” Yes, but tell that to the Viennese who in 1632 defeated the marauding Muslims to save Christian Europe from slaughter and annihilation. Explain that to the Sudanese Christians of 2007. How about the Coptic Christians in Egypt? Does anyone know where all the Christians and Hindus in Pakistan went? Ask the French and Spanish how Charlemagne and Castile unceremoniously removed the Moors from Spain and France. And what happened in 1948, the day Israel was legally declared a nation? Oh, the battlefield is an ugly place, but it seems to have been the only way militant Islam has been repulsed. Most loving Christians believe that “love conquers all.” Well, I have news for you too, love does not conquer Islam.Dr. Jasser: “In debate, it can become easy to lose the focus of the argument when resorting to criticism based on identity rather than on ideology. For example, so many Islamists locally and nationally resort to attempting to demonize me as an individual rather than deal with my anti-Islamist ideas as a Muslim and as an American. Our Islamist enemy dreams about uniting all Muslims under one nation—the transnational Muslim ummah.” This is exactly as Muhammad desired: “Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): ‘I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.” Quran 8.012 Also, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220: Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror (cast in the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand." Abu Huraira added: Allah's Apostle has left the world and now you, people, are bringing out those treasures (i.e. the Prophet did not benefit by them, but Allah wants Islam to prevail through war and intimidation). 4:162b Muhammad said, "My livelihood is under the shade of my spear, and he who disobeys my orders will be humiliated by paying Jizya." ["Jizya" is the poll tax paid by subjugated peoples in return for the protection of the Islamic government.]4:196 Mohammad said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, ‘None has the right to be worshiped but Allah,’ and whoever says, ‘None has the right to be worshiped by Allah,’ his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his accounts will be with Allah (either to punish him or to forgive him.)"Dr. Jasser: “But academically, when dealing with the faith of one-quarter of the world, and with its history, a central morality of individual Islam (the personal character of most Muslims) has generally demonstrated synergy with Judaism and Christianity.” Synergy? You mean like this: “O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.” Quran 5.051[From Muhammad the Messenger of Allâh to Negus, king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia): "Peace be upon him who follows the Guidance. I am grateful to Allah, there is no god but Him, and I bear witness that Jesus son of Mary was no more than a spirit created by Him, and His word («Be!» - and he was) which He bestowed on Mary, the Virgin, the good, the pure, so that she conceived Jesus. Allah created Him as He created Adam by His Hand. I call you to worship Allah Alone, and not to associate any partner with Him and (I call you) to His obedience and to follow me and to believe in that which was revealed to me, for I am the Messenger of Allah. I invite you and your men to Allah, the Exalted. I bear witness that I have communicated my message. I invite you to listen and accept my advice. Peace be upon him who follows true guidance.”]Christ made it a particular point of foundation 600 years before Muhammad when he said, “love thy enemy”... in return 600 years later, Muhammad said:“O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female. And for him who is forgiven somewhat by his (injured) brother, prosecution according to usage and payment unto him in kindness. This is alleviation and a mercy from your Lord. He who transgresseth after this will have a painful doom.” Quran 2.178When Christ specifically said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone; forgive as my father has forgiven you.” Doesn’t sound too “synergistic” to me, dear Doctor. Or how about this: “Thou shalt not murder.” When Muhammad said: “Fight (in wars of aggression) those who believe not in Allah nor the Last day, nor hold the forbidden (that) which hath been forbidden by Allah and his messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission. And feel themselves subdued.” Quran 9:29But before we set aside the emotionally-exciting comparison notion to Hitler, let’s compare which doctrine is the more instructive to violence and oppression, Nazi-ism or Islam. And in conducting a rational inspection, what we find is not whether Islam should be compared to Hitler, but that Hitler never got out of the minor Leagues, whereas Islam is truly a major League...all-star team of depravity.Here’s Jihad’s legacy since the very early days of Medina, when the prophet of Islam went on an eternal rampage of bloodlust throughout the world, and based his religion on the utter destruction of every other belief system through force and fraud:"Jihad destroyed a Christian Middle East and a Christian North Africa. Soon it was the fate of the Persian Zoroastrian and the Hindu to be the victims of jihad. The history of political Islam is the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey and North Africa. Half of Christianity was lost. Before Islam, North Africa was the southern part of Europe (part of the Roman Empire). Around 60 million Christians were slaughtered during the jihadic conquest. Half of the glorious Hindu civilization was annihilated and 80 million Hindus killed. The first Western Buddhists were the Greeks descended from Alexander the Great's army in what is now Afghanistan. Jihad destroyed all of Buddhism along the silk route. About 10 million Buddhists died. The conquest of Buddhism is the practical result of pacifism. Zoroastrianism was eliminated from Persia. The Jews became permanent dhimmis throughout Islam. In Africa over 120 million Christians and animists have died over the last 1400 years of jihad. Approximately 270 million nonbelievers died over the last 1400 years for the glory of political Islam. These are the Tears of Jihad which are not taught in any school." -- Jamie Glazov, 2007 Let’s see.I have asserted in the past there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. This truth is not escaping intellectual blogs because politically correct media cannot bring themselves to rank religions or admit that some things are truly good or bad. They do not want to offend their liberal or Islamic audiences. But in this great argument, they are way behind the curve. The people are anxious for the truth. The people must know the truth so that they can defend themselves against a deadly and powerful adversary.I believe this is the most important argument facing us right now, but as long as fence-sitters feel capable of condemning “all forms of extremism” unchecked, most people will not take sides. Only when it is clear that (whether or not people will admit it overtly) Islam is unjust and dangerous. Will we get support for a number of tough measures that should send Islam back to its cage where it belongs?A word of caution, never rely on the source of moderates’ logic. Muhammad was evicted from Mecca in a much more polite and humane way than Muslims have ever treated Christian, Hindus, Buddhists, Persians or pagans. He was threatened with death if he did not leave, for it was he who mocked and disrespected the pagan Meccan religion. 21st century Muslims would cut your throat for a fraction of Muhammad’s offenses, apparently belying the notion that people were generally less civilized in the 7th century. So off he went to Medina, holding a grudge that would be eventually settled in Meccan enslavement and slaughter. It was in Medina, where Muhammad positioned himself between two rivals, warring families to establish himself as ruler.
From that point on, it was as if he had sold his soul to the devil. There were no Wahhabists telling Muhammad to order mafia style hits on poets and women who parodied him. Muhammad went from raiding caravans to creating an anti-Jewish, anti-Christian warrior culture that was sanctioned by Allah. It was a system in which you either joined up to fight the next city-state, or you were slaughtered, your wife raped, and your children and women sold into slavery. If you enlisted into this dark cult, which you did by uttering a simple chant “there is no other god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” you were entitled to steal, rape, and enslave in like manner to what happened to your village, as long as you gave 20% of your booty to Muhammad for governance and personal wealth. It was a bloody Ponzi scheme that even Hitler could not have conceived of. None of this can be denied, as it is codified (probably by Muhammad’s eunuchs since in all probability he was illiterate).It is on this ethical and political paradigm that some revisionists have invented a brave new world of lies upon which to rest their revisionist insanity. Some revisionists claim it is just as likely as not that “orthodoxy” does not exist in Islam. Does this sound like the mind of a scholar? Since the definition of “orthodoxy” is: “approved form of any doctrine, philosophy, ideology,” he is literally saying Islam as a doctrine has no meaning whatsoever, since nobody has figured out what it means. I’ll leave it to more creative intellectuals to come up with an “orthodox” description of that kind of nihilistic thinking.Here’s what Muhammad said about the “rigidity”. “None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things? Also translated as: Whatever divine communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We (without fail) bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?” Quran 2.106Could this mean that the angel of Allah (ostensibly Gabriel) was delivering divine revelation to Muhammad? A revelation such as, “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.” Quran 5.051.The only way in which this and each former or subsequent message could be changed or abandoned is if it was specifically replaced with another verse that contradicted it...then the former would be modified or removed from ORTHODOXY! This is how all Muslims understand the principle of abrogation, and it is the only way to comprehend Islam as a coherent theology. Since everybody understands this, one has to wonder if some revisionists are either wholly unqualified to be discussing the doctrine or are purposely deceiving the reader. I’ll tell you what, let’s get real Muslim clerics (as opposed to apologists pretending to understand Islamic Law) to see if they agree with Mr. Stephen Schwartz And if they don’t agree with him, I’d expect that we should ask him to henceforth study other “peaceful” religions, perhaps Aztec culture.Unfortunately for Mr. Schwartz, the foundational principles of Islam are not contained in “Aqida al-Tahawiyya”. They are codified within the Quran and Hadith. This is why Stephen Schwartz failed to invite the reader to browse the Quran, available here: And while Mr. Schwartz parses these texts (like WC Fields, when asked why he of all people was reading the Bible, he replied, “looking for loopholes”—you provide the accent), such as taking the words of the Quran as loose allegories and recommendations, or scripture applicable only to limited time spans, Muhammad had already anticipated such apostasy, when he said: “He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah. And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:" and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.” Quran 3.007Muhammad was referring to the scripture he was delivering to the people, which he referred to as “the discrimination”, or the way to determine what prior scripture was truth and what was false, and in both this and the previous verse mentioned, he was condemning Jews and Christians for what he felt was their aptitude for verse-shopping (a valid criticism by the way) and mis-applying revelations. But what Muhammad did was to shut down any argument over what is being said for all time. If Muhammad told the tribal men to stone unchaste women to death, he damn well meant it. Even as Jesus, some 650 years prior in a book well established all over Africa and the Arabian Peninsula said...nobody may stone an unchaste woman to death unless he is without sin himself...period. So we have Schwartz’s opinion, or we have Muhammad’s clear commandments about how to accept orthodoxy. Hmmm. I don’t know. Sorry, Mr. Schwartz, I’m going with Muhammad on this one...you remember him? Or is he left out of the “Aqida al-Tahawiyya” too?Stephen Schwartz: “As to the rejection of "moderate" as "impl[ying] that Muslims who are more orthodox are somehow backward and violent," Asma Khalid provides no evidence for this absurd assertion, which exists exclusively in the minds of people seeking to combat moderation. Moderate Muslims oppose the radicalism of the Saudi-financed Wahhabis and the extreme Shias because these developments are destructive of Islamic tradition. Moderate Muslims argue over aspects of the Islam existing from Morocco to Malaysia and from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Botswana, and may seek progressive changes in aspects of the faith. But they, not the "orthodox," represent the majority of believers, and, with some exceptions, do not fight against classical Islam.”“Asma Khalid goes on to complain that ‘To be a ‘moderate' Muslim is to be a ‘good,' malleable Muslim in the eyes of Western society.’ Does this mean that an "orthodox" Muslim should be "bad" - again in the manner of some African American protest -- and refuse to adjust to the customs of the West, if that is where one lives? Or seek to preserve an intransigent Islamism in the Muslim world?”“Such views would be profoundly un-Islamic. Islam is a religion and enjoins doing good.” But it is the definition of “good” that is what we need to understand, Mr. Schwarz. Don’t make me quote Bill Clinton on definitions. Tell me how the following clear, unabrogated commandments can be considered “good” by an impartial witness?“Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): ‘I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.’” Quran 8.012. Allah who we are told is all-knowing, all-wise, most compassionate, and omnipotent, commands the Muslim to put Allah’s terror into effect by cutting off the fingertips of the Nonbeliever! What should ring in your ears forever is the promise “I will instill terror” and asking Muslims to commit acts so brutal as to be the agents of Allah’s terror mentality.“Thus (will it be said): ‘Taste ye then of the (punishment): for those who resist Allah, is the penalty of the Fire.’" Quran 8.014“O ye who believe! When ye meet the Unbelievers in hostile array, never turn your backs to them.” Quran 8.015.“If any do turn his back to them on such a day - unless it be in a stratagem of war, or to retreat to a troop (of his own)- he draws on himself the wrath of Allah, and his abode is Hell,- an evil refuge (indeed)!” Quran 8.016. The above three suras are in uninterrupted succession, meaning Allah is declaring that the way he will punish the unbelievers for “striving against”...meaning those resisting his onslaught. His punishment is effected by the faithful Muslim taking the battlefield. He exclaimed these things as a rallying charge to his storm troopers who were attacking innocent villages! And this is how history records that within 70 years of his death, the Muslim hordes conquered all of the Middle East and Africa, as well as Spain! Is this all just a coincidence? Did all these nations attack Islam and lose? Or is Stephen Schwarz being consistently foolish in his interpretation of Islamic doctrine?How about this one?“Against them (the unbelievers) make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.” Quran 8.060.Or these two concurrent verses:“If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four (Reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way.” Quran 4.015. Here’s how they really feel about women’s rights. Starve the little harlots to death. Has this passage been abrogated? And if so (and if not) how can the Quran be divine?“If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful.” Quran 4.016.These two verses above prove a different system of justice for men as opposed to women.Islam can’t be good, for crying out loud! This is evil we’re looking at.Stephen Schwartz: “Why would the good conduct of Muslims be wrong because, by opposing violence, they elicit the approval of Westerners? Good is good, and nothing else, in all religions, promotion of peace, mutual respect for one's neighbor, and personal dignity.”Respect? You mean like these holy words?“Those who reject our Signs, We shall soon cast into the Fire: as often as their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the penalty: for Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.” Quran 4.056.
Hadith: 4:73 Muhammad said, "Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords." Volume 4, Book 52, Number 48: Narrated Abu Huraira: I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "The example of a Mujahid in Allah's Cause-- and Allah knows better who really strives in His Cause----is like a person who fasts and prays continuously. Allah guarantees that He will admit the Mujahid in His Cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safely with rewards and war booty." Volume 4, Book 52, Number 179: Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Turks; people with small eyes, red faces, and flat noses. Their faces will look like shields coated with leather. The Hour will not be established till you fight with people whose shoes are made of hair." How tolerant and respectful are your standards, Mr. Schwartz?Here’s a little news flash for you:…the Imam of the Mosque of Mecca in Saudi-Arabia called Jews "pigs and monkeys". Even though Islam no longer has a caliph — a figure of eminence like the Catholic Pope — the imam of the mosque of Mecca would seem to come close. After calling Jews "pigs and monkeys", he took after the West in general: "Their course is supported by the advocates of credit and worshippers of the Cross, as well as by those who are infatuated with them and influenced by their rotten ideas and poisonous culture among the advocates of secularism and Westernization. News article by John Gibson - June 4, 2002.But where did the Imam get such an idea to insult an entire group of people? Could it be this sweet little thought?
“Say: ‘Shall I point out to you something much worse than this (referring to the previous verses), as judged by the treatment it received from Allah? Those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath (Jews), those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!’” Quran 5.060.And this from a religion that erupts in a worldwide pretense of vicious violence when one Dane publishes one cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb on his head. Mr. Shwartz, that is sickening.Mr. Schwartz: “Further, traditional Islam calls on the Muslim immigrant to a non-Muslim land to accept the customs of the country to the degree they do not directly conflict with Islam -- and no country in the world either bans the practice of the Muslim religion, or compels people to drink alcohol or eat pork. From the legitimate Islamic viewpoint, Muslims are required to show a positive example of themselves and of the faith if immigrating to a non-Muslim country.”Oh, and I might add they’re doing an exemplary job of showing their true colors. If there are so many moderate Muslims out there, why do we need a man named Stephen Schwartz to explain their perfect record of moderation to us? One million French Renault owners want to know!Mr. Schwartz: “Continuing with her anti-moderate polemic, Khalid states, "True orthodoxy is simply the attempt to adhere piously to a religion's tenets." It thus becomes clear that Khalid has no conception of basic Islamic beliefs.” Khalid is perfectly correct on this point. And as such, an extremist with respect to orthodoxy would be Mr. Schwartz, who masquerades as a “moderate”, a term which represents a nonsensical, chimerical absurdity. Mr. Schwartz is confused, again. Mr. Schwartz: “No Muslim except a radical speaks of "true" Islam, because the judgment as to whose Islam is "true" was always believed to rest with God, not men.” See the above. The Quran was delivered according to the man who wrote it (as opposed to the authority who presumes to speak for all of Islam, (Mr. Stephen Schwartz) as a way for men, humans, people, mankind to know what is true and what is false. It doesn’t sound like a group therapy session here. It’s black and white. And that is exactly what Islam is.Mr. Schwartz: “This is why, in its classic period, Islam fostered pluralistic debate and discouraged accusations of heresy. In two of the best-known hadith or oral comments, the Prophet Muhammad himself compared the illumination of Muslim scholars to the heavenly bodies in the night sky. He said, "The simile of the scholars of knowledge on the earth is the stars in the sky by which one is guided in the darkness of the land and the sea." He also said, "my Companions are equivalent to the stars in the sky; whichever of them you point to, you will be guided, and the differences among my Companions are a mercy to you."Mr. Schwartz: “In addition, the call for "piety" in Islam represents a non-mainstream conception. Since the time of the 11th-12th century Islamic thinker, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, considered the greatest Muslim theologian after Muhammad, Muslims have recognized that intentions -- the beliefs of the heart -- are superior to punctilious observance of religious rituals. Asma Khalid demands to be called "orthodox," not "moderate," and such a message is complacently conveyed to the Western public by mainstream media like The Christian Science Monitor, but the arguments presented in her anti-moderate op-ed are those of a fundamentalist, not of a traditional Muslim.”Why is Schwartz constantly avoiding quoting Muhammad, you know the man who invented Islam?! Is he trying to avoid something...something terrible, dark and disgusting? He strains himself.Mr. Schwartz: “Deterioration of Muslim discourse is further visible when Asma Khalid writes "The public relations drive for ‘moderate Islam' is injurious to the entire international community. It may provisionally ease the pain when so-called Islamic extremists strike." Islamic extremists are merely "so-called"? Does this mean they do not exist? Khalid blares on, repeating her tortured and illogical claim that moderate Islam "indirectly labels the entire religion of Islam as violent." These exercises in mental acrobatics become, eventually, tedious. How could distinguishing the category of moderates within a religion label the entire faith?”If you tire of acrobatics, Mr. Stephen Schwartz, take off your leotards and begin to define terms. Stop distorting words and start quoting the long list of current and past Islamists who would completely disown your metaphorical burning of the entire Quran in a quest to purify the religion of hate.Mr. Schwartz: “Khalid wants it both ways, suddenly announcing, "The term moderate Muslim is actually a redundancy. In the Islamic tradition, the concept of the ‘middle way' is central. Muslims believe that Islam is a path of intrinsic moderation, wasatiyya. This concept is the namesake of a British Muslim grass-roots organization, the Radical Middle Way. "Here we proceed from truth straight to disinformation. It is quite accurate that Qur'an defines Islam as seeking moderation. Why then, attempt to disavow the term "moderate"? But the infamous “Radical Middle Way " project, which was financed by the British government, consisted of a roadshow in which "ex-radicals" and other fundamentalists attempted to ameliorate extremism among young Muslims. A laudable goal - but why define it in terms of a self-contradictory title like the "Radical Middle?" Whose semantical pretzel is worse? Yours for denying every unabrogated verse in the Quran and quoting other prophets over Muhammad, while you define “good” as “good”, or Khalid? The term hypocrisy comes to my mind, but that’s just my own mental gymnastics.Mr. Schwartz: “Asma Khalid, also an exhibitionistic ally, describes herself as "hijab," i.e. a woman who covers her head. But hijab is a practice among those who go out in public, not a matter for boasting about in print. Ideas, including Islamic ideas, should not he defined by the garments around the skull, but by the contents of the mind.” Actually to deny this notion is to once again eradicate what is written in the Quran. Schwartz is now appointing himself arbiter over what is and is not official Islam. Can you say megalomania?Please go back and paste these pages into your rather abridged version of the Quran, Sir. And say to the believing women that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions and do not display their adornment except what appears thereof:a- And let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms. b- And they should not display their adornment except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or guileless male servants. c- or the children who know not women’s nakedness. And let them not strike their feet so that the adornment that they hide may be known. And turn to Allah all, O believers, so that you may be successful. Qur’an 24:31.The head-covering required by Islamic law conceals the arms, the neck and the bosom, as also the ornaments worn in the ears or on the neck or over the bosom.Mr. Schwartz: “Khalid concludes with an emotional endorsement of Sheikh Abdullah Ibn Bayyah, a Mauritanian participant in the “Radical Middle Way “hoax alongside alleged "moderates" like the well-known Tariq Ramadan and the ultra-extreme speechifier-turned-"Sufi" Hamza Yusuf Hanson. Ibn Bayyah is Mauritanian by origin, but now teaches in Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Wahhabi bigotry, enthusiasm for Al-Qaida, and incitement to terror in neighboring Iraq. Concluding a maudlin evocation of the sheikh, Asma Khalid declares, "The sheikh, not bin Laden, is the authentic religious scholar. But to call him a moderate Muslim would be a misnomer." Still, to emphasize, what of the many respected Muslim scholars, from North Africa to Indonesia, who choose that title for themselves?”Mr. Schwartz: Since Asma Khalid, with her chatter about "orthodoxy" and "piety," and her self-advertising hijab, turned to the Mauritanian-born Ibn Bayyah for guidance, let me conclude by citing Tierno Bakar, one of the greatest of the West African Sufis, and born in 20th century Mali: "The conduct of which I most disapprove and for which I have the most pity is that of the ridiculous hypocrite. Such are those individuals who, with turbans carefully wound eight times around their heads, and a miniature copy of Qur'an in a fine case around their necks, walk with unnecessary dependence on the shoulder of a disciple and wave a cane that appears more like a fetish than a pilgrim's staff. Such a person pronounces the declaration of faith with more noise than fervor, and preaches with an ardor motivated by nothing so much as immediate attention. Such an individual corrupts the spirit and perverts the heart. He is a thousand times worse than the murderer who only kills the body." Mr. Schwartz: “Haters of Islamic moderation may not slay Muslims or non-Muslims physically, but they may kill the soul of a great world religion.”Lying apologists who are either hideously ignorant or desperately deceitful, are killing everyone everywhere, as Islam continues the perpetual world war it started when Muhammad felt the need to seek revenge and satisfy his lust for blood.“According to the Historian al-Baladhuri, writing only 200 years after Muhammad, the prophet said: "Peace be upon the one who follows the right path! I call you to Islam. Accept my call, and you shall be unharmed. I am God's Messenger to mankind, and the word shall be carried out upon the miscreants. If therefore, you recognize Islam, I shall bestow power upon you. But if you refuse to accept Islam, your power shall vanish, my horses shall camp on the expanse of your territory and my prophecy shall prevail in your kingdom."I have a suggestion for people like Stephen Schwartz: Open the Quran and take a black permanent marker and remove all the passages you believe are not part of the “good” that is Islam...like the ones quoted above, and hundreds more like it. Then show your handiwork to the average Muslim in Dearborn, Michigan and see what kind of consensus you receive. You’ll want to update your legal papers before attempting this.Fascism is exactly what Political and religious Islam was crafted to be. It is no coincidence that Islam has historically been so cozy with the fascist left.This gentleman is either a true-believing ignoramus or a plant...a stalking horse set out to distract vapid Americans about the true dangers of mainstream Islam. Anyone who presumes Islam is benign and that terrorist Jihadists are “radicals” can never be written off as a “healer”, a mere “secularist”, or even just a naive gentleman. He cannot presume to be intelligent, learned, and worldly and also be so blind without the rest of us treating him with a good measure of suspicion.I also nominate someone to slam shut the ridiculous argument that “true Islam” was corrupted by a doctored strain of Islam that altered scripture after Muhammad’s death...that true Islam was uplifting and peaceful, but what we see today was corrupted. If it was originally peaceful, someone forgot to mention it to Muhammad, who was, as the historical record shows, a bloodthirsty tyrant. His followers have never been peaceful.In 1992, Islamic assassins had gunned down our good and brave friend Farag Foda, a professor and columnist, a human-rights activist, and an outspoken critic of the Islamic militants. The murder had shocked Cairo and terrified intellectuals. Egypt's most popular preacher, Abdel Hamid Kishk, a blind sheikh constantly attacked both the government and its official religious establishment. Kishk had been telling his audience that Muslims who entered paradise would enjoy eternal erections and the company of young boys draped in earrings and necklaces. Some of the ulama, the religious scholars at al-Azhar University, the governments seat of Islamic learning, had disagreed. Yes, they said, men in paradise would have erections, but merely protracted, not perpetual. Other experts disputed the possibility of pederasty in paradise. "Is this what concerns Muslims at the end of the 20th century?" [Farag] Foda asked in a column in October magazine. "The world around us is busy with the conquest of space, genetic engineering and the wonders of the computer, while Muslim scholars," he wrote in sadness and pain, "were worried about sex in paradise."... He was killed.