In "Not for the Faint of Heart," at National Review, Andrew McCarthy breaks through the conservative and liberal media silence that has hitherto largely prevailed about my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), which nonetheless -- in a fine indication of the fact that many Americans are fed up with their politically correct media masters -- spent four months on The New York Times Bestseller List:
It is often said that in order to keep polite company polite, we must refrain from speaking of religion and politics. Yet, the two are not equals in the hierarchy of politesse. Political debate may be unwelcome in many settings, but no one clears the room by observing that the great totalitarian evils of the 20th century, Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage.Not so when it comes to religion — or, at least, one particular religion. The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam.
That the possibility is utterable at all today owes exclusively to the sheer audacity of Muslim legions, who have rioted globally, on cue, based on what even their exhausted defenders must now concede are trifles (newspaper cartoons and a tall tale of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay leap to mind). But the largest obstacle to any examination of creed — larger even than a growing alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups — has been the same Western elites who are the prime targets of jihadist ire. In the most notable instance, President Bush absolved Islam of any culpability even as fires raged at the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And, although attacks before and after that date have been numerous and widespread, it has become nearly as much an oratorical staple as "My fellow Americans" for U.S. politicians to begin any discussion of our signal national security challenge with the observation that Islam is a "religion of peace" — a religion that has surely been perverted, "hijacked," and otherwise misconstrued by terrorists.
No more, insists Robert Spencer, the intrepid author and analyst behind the Jihad Watch website. Spencer's theory is as logical as it is controversial: when the single common thread that runs through virtually all of the international terrorism of the modern era is that its perpetrators are Muslims, and when the jihadists themselves tell us that their religion is the force that drives them, we should seriously consider the probability that Islam is a causative agent, even the principal causative agent, of their terrorist actions. This he undertakes to do in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
Read it all.
I do believe the word is spelled "faint," not "feint."
Unless McCarthy is talking about fencing...
An excellent review of an excellent book. Mr. Spencer's PIG to Islam and The Crusades is like an Islam 101, it covers all the basics and is an easy read. I read it in just 2 days. It's also full of references to other sources of information. I highly recommend it.
It's good to see this important book getting more exposure.
But how can a glorious, "noble" and "holy" thing like a "religion" be the inspiration for intolerance, violence and inhumanity?
(Dark and Middle Ages, anyone? Cathars? Inquisition? Jan Hus? Giordano Bruno?)
But then, how is that those mainstream reporters/reviewers/radio inyterviewers/ politicians/etc. manage to studiously avoid mentioning anything accurate from the Koran when they talk about Islam, or jihadists, or the repetitive hysterical unhinged behavior of too many Muslims worldwide?
Whenever a cartoon comes out satirizing the potentially-or-literally deadly acts (carbombings, beheadings, tourist incineration, mass-murder of schoolchildren, ad nauseam) that are Islamically-justifiable by calling on the memory [in the Hadiths] and words [in the al-Qur'an] of the warlord "prophet" who founded their militant, imperialistic creed.
Or when a movie director mildly chastises their faith for its entrenched misogyny- and he gets slaughtered on the streets of his hometiown for daring to suggest that they might want to review their "holy" dogmas and begin treating women as equal human beings?
The excuses, excuses brigade comes trotting out: "Move along... nothing Islamic to see here, folks... just another in a long series of random acts... keep moving..."
The Muslim texts won't be honestly discussed until the parade of know-nothings-pretending-to-be-journalists, think-tankers, statesmen and scholars open the guidebook of the warrior faith and get to know its actual contents [it's short, jump on in], and not the p.r. fluff stuck on it like saccharine camouflage.
May this review open the cowardly floodgates for others to now step in and examine the suras and Muslim history frankly. Even if they do it in trying to excoriate Mr. Spencer's intentions [Islamophobia! Islamophobia!], at least it will get the facts out.
And then the readers and audience can judge whther Suras: 9:29-30, et al, are potentially-sanctifying kill-the-infidel-fodder for homicidal jihadists and junior-Caliphate tyrants everywhere, -or not.
The Imperialistic Islamic soldiers aren't getting their marching and murdering orders from the back of a halal Cracker Jack Box, that's for damned sure.
Let the Koran speak for itself.
Finally.
Cato-
I assumed the used of "feint" in the title was a pun on the ducking, dodging and weaving done by those trying to deny the connection between the violent Koranic suras inspiring jihadists and the weakness of spirit of the reporters in that regard.
But how can a glorious, "noble" and "holy" thing like a "religion" be the inspiration for intolerance, violence and inhumanity?
(Dark and Middle Ages, anyone? Cathars? Inquisition? Jan Hus? Giordano Bruno? Just to mention a part of own history our punditocracy should be familiar with)
But then, how is that those mainstream reporters/reviewers/radio inyterviewers/ politicians/etc. manage to studiously avoid mentioning anything accurate from the Koran when they talk about Islam, or jihadists, or the repetitive hysterical unhinged behavior of too many Muslims worldwide?
Whenever a cartoon comes out satirizing the potentially-or-literally deadly acts (carbombings, beheadings, tourist incineration, mass-murder of schoolchildren, ad nauseam) that are Islamically-justifiable by calling on the memory [in the Hadiths] and words [in the al-Qur'an] of the warlord "prophet" who founded their militant, imperialistic creed.
Or when a movie director mildly chastises their faith for its entrenched misogyny- and he gets slaughtered on the streets of his hometiown for daring to suggest that they might want to review their "holy" dogmas and begin treating women as equal human beings?
The excuses, excuses brigade comes trotting out: "Move along... nothing Islamic to see here, folks... just another in a long series of random acts... keep moving..."
The Muslim texts won't be honestly discussed until the parade of know-nothings-pretending-to-be-journalists, think-tankers, statesmen and scholars open the guidebook of the warrior faith and get to know its actual contents [it's short, jump on in], and not the p.r. fluff stuck on it like saccharine camouflage.
May this review open the cowardly floodgates for others to now step in and examine the suras and Muslim history frankly. Even if they do it in trying to excoriate Mr. Spencer's intentions [Islamophobia! Islamophobia!], at least it will get the facts out.
And then the readers and audience can judge whther Suras: 9:29-30, et al, are potentially-sanctifying kill-the-infidel-fodder for homicidal jihadists and junior-Caliphate tyrants everywhere, -or not.
The Imperialistic Islamic soldiers aren't getting their marching and murdering orders from the back of a halal Cracker Jack Box, that's for damned sure.
Let the Koran speak for itself.
Finally.
Cato-
I assumed the used of "feint" in the title was a pun on the ducking, dodging and weaving done by those trying to deny the connection between the violent Koranic suras inspiring jihadists and the weakness of spirit of the reporters in that regard.
the critic who writes a book review often is expected to find fault. but this review was more in the line of "we have a serious social problem that is not being addressed, and spencer addresses it well."
Good news. Now, when do the mainline churches, newspapers, and networks stop their excessive respect for a belief system they know little about?
I bought the book, I read the book, I have loaned the book to eight people so far...all the reviews were positive...thats good enough for me...
I bought this book a few months ago and sent it to my Dad, who, when I was discussing islam with him, looked at me as if I said the aliens have landed on earth and were eating our children.
This is why I've stated before how the MSM needs to talk about islam because in rural areas they don't get the information. No cable and he doesn't have a computer.
He had a hard time believing that there was a group of people who were raised to hate and they called it a religion.
Profitsbeard:
I don't think it works as a pun, at least not an accessible one. And the article itself repeats the phrase without any hint of pun intended. I think it's just a homonymous malapropism.
On the other hand, maybe I'm being too censorious. It's what I'm famous for.
just proves you cannot keep a great book down for too long.. people want information that they are not getting from the biased media. one of my ealier books was "American Jihad",more books from Roberts, and then this website, and then an avalanche of information now. informed public will be our weapon against the pc media and governemt.
I bought the book the day before yesterday and am about half way through it. I read with a pen and make a lot of notes-so I read slowly, but I'll finish reading it over the weekend. It's a good read.
Spencer is very logical and appeals to reason and not emotion. He makes the reader think. That's his talent, his gift.
I am spanish like you know, and I read in english but I would like a translation in spanish. Greetings
I think of P.I.G. of Islam as 'The Bible of the Koran' to be mildly facetious and it is wonderful to see such a smart, positive review in the middle of the Bush R of P camp. Maybe the tide is turning.
And still the PC weenies, many of who infest our Governments and think tanks tell themselves and us that Islam is a religion of peace. Here are a few choice words about Islam and what it means from none other than Ayatollah Khomeini:
“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world…. Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to the enemy? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] verses and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” - Ayatollah Khomeini
I wonder if Bush and Blair have read the above statement, which proves everything the likes of Winston Churchill and John Quincy Adams said and warned us about Islam. If that isn't a call to arms, then I don't know what one is.
Not before time. Even if Islam were just a religion, that would not put it beyond criticism. However, it isn't just a religion. I'd go further and say it isn't even a religion. It's a political movement.
Mohammed can more usefully be compared to Robespierre than to Jesus or Buddha.
"faint" not "feint"
Give him 100 lines.
It took them 9 months to get around to reviewing the book. It seems that a majority of writers at NRO subscribe to the "beautiful religion of peace and love" fantasy. That's why I no longer pay much attention to NR.
Here's a link to a great essay on the Muslim culture of deception.The author is a Westerner who does business in Iraq.Included is a quiz that appears at the end of the essay.
Civilization of Deception
Q: Why are there no democracies in the Muslim Middle East?
A: Democracies are based on the possibility of mutually held Agreements between people. Democracy is unsustainable in cultures where lying is acceptable and constant.
Q: Why is every Muslim Middle Eastern country characterized by either rigid oppression or chaotic violence?
A: The coercive use of violence is the only way to ensure Muslims in the Middle East will live up to any obligations, including basic social order and function. Middle East countries where chaos currently reigns, like Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, are merely examples of what Muslims are like without coercion.
Q: How is it that intelligence gathering by Western powers, whether it is about the weapons capabilities of an entire nation, or the simple location of a lone thug, is so constantly stymied and duped in the Middle East?
A: The job of intelligence gatherers is to determine the truth. I wouldn't take that job in the Middle East for all the money in Michael Moore's Halliburton stocks.
Q: Have you ever seen anything that says "Made in Saudi Arabia"? What was the last thing invented or produced by Middle Eastern Muslims that helped advance humankind? Why are they so incompetent at virtually everything?
A: Although some individuals with quality talents certainly exist here, it would be impossible to gather enough in one place to Agree to cooperate in any sort of complex or significant effort. The only time Muslims can stick together long enough to produce anything en masse, like nuclear missiles for Uncle Mah, is under the threat of force.
Q: Why is it that Muslim leaders can stare the world in the eye and lie through their teeth without even flinching?
A: They're not lying, they are "negotiating" with people they assume to be complete suckers.
Q: Are they right?
A: Good question.
Robert,
You will also be happy to note that when a search is done on Library Thing ( http://www.libarything.com ), no book in my library on the subject of jihad or Islam has more owners than The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
You've done good, sir.
Unfortunately, thousands died last year to Islamic jihad and our own leaders still dance, dance, dance around the harsh reality called the TRUTH:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060428/ts_nm/security_usa_dc_1
I'm off the subject again. but it's not in today's list of current news. Please read the following article:
http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/chirac-wants-world-bank-fund-for/n20060428064309990002?cid=774
Just keep that jiziya coming. The Palestinians need to pay the salaries of its government employees. I cannot believe that Europeans are not up in arms over this! $600mil a year from the dhimmis. And France wants a jiziya fund arm of the World Bank! This article makes no mention of Arab/Islamic contributions to this fund.
How says were not already dhimmis? Hard to make any other conclusion. We should cut their food imports off...
Roxanne:
I have some towels made in Turkey. Gotta love that irony. They are the only thing made by a Muslim state that I own, but I keep them because A) they were a gift and b) it amuses me to dry my feet on them.
Andrew McCarthy is always very good. He has a very good BS detector. He is a former US assistant attorney. He knowns Muslim BS when he sees it. No fool is he!
Muhammad was a charlatan, a con artist. This former prosecutor (McCarthy) can see thorough Muhammad same as he can see though other criminals
Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor and a Contributor at National Review Online. From 1993 through 1996, while an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he led the prosecution against the jihad organization of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which a dozen Islamic militants were convicted of conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Mr. McCarthy also made major contributions to the prosecutions of the bombers of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the Millennium plot attack Los Angeles International Airport.
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/biographies/biographies_show.htm?attrib_id=9716
I like this line in the review:
"It is a tutorial shorn of wishful thinking."
Exactly so.
I found the book a very enjoyable and quick read -- like popping a tasty gumdrop. Yet afterwards, I felt as if I had just been nourished by a substantial home-cooked meal. To me that's the best kind of book. Spencer applies calm reason (even a notable gentleness at times), and much wittiness, and never (as far as I can see) permits his thinking to be driven by the passions that prompt ideologues subtly and fanatics obviously. Even if you think he's wrong about some things, or just wrong, it seems to me an honest and thorough critic would have to acknowledge that Spencer has an admirably objective spirit and is a world-class reporter. He deserves a respectful hearing in the mainstream, and he's been getting such a hearing increasingly.
Such a positive review on NRO should produce a healthy spike in sales. Maybe back to the bestseller list.
I think there are a number of big journalist-pundits in the mainstream media who more or less agree with Robert but have been slow to acknowledge it because they don't want, in a censorious PC climate occasionally hazardous to journalistic careers, to have to defend momentous charges against Islam without being more fully certain of those charges, and most pundits, when it comes to Islam, are still not at the level (such as it is) of expertise and authoritative knowledge demanded at national organs like NRO. If a national journalist is contemplating staking his/her reputation on the truth of grave charges against Islam -- he will probably first want to become an expert fairly able to defend such charges against all comers, and such expertise takes time to develop. Especially when it must face down a potentially angry behemoth of conventional wisdom. Fatwa possibilities and Islamist thuggery are also causing journalists, many of whom of course have families, to be careful before proceeding. - Omar
Cato the Elder and profitsbeard:
I agree with Cato that "feint of heart" is a bad pun if pun; my guess is that it is not a pun--McCarthy misspelled it and no one caught him. This does happen even in literate literary settings more often than I would like to see.
Robert Spencer:
Looking on the bright side regarding publicity for your work (and that of other revealers of Islam), at least it's not as bad as the Vietnam War--when I was actively writing, no one could get a book published on the Vietnam War (fiction or nonfiction) by a major publisher--and maybe even minor ones--until about 10 years after the war ended. While I'm sure some people reading this will drag up individual exceptions,this was the general attitude at the major publishing houses in NY. Many people held their manuscripts until years after the war ended.
One correction (yes I know I should be contacting NR, but I think the audience here can use it to more effect): McCarthy writes:
'The Koran is not like the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is not thought to be "inspired," to be related through intermediaries whose assumed human gloss opens up possibilities of reinterpretation or correction.'
The Torat Moshe, or five books of Moses, are considered by normative Judaism (Orthodox, which is actually normative)to be the direct (exact) word of G-d as written down by Moshe. The rest of the Tanach (what is called by many the "old" testament) is a mix of direct word of G-d (to prophets, for example) and other categories. Its rules of interpretation are fairly clear and strict although interpretations themselves are variable. Correction as a category des not exist or is inapplicable; amendment or clarification is.
I enjoyed PIG, but personally Onward Muslim Soldiers is still my favorite book by Robert.
PIG is another step toward breaking down the two greatest obstacles to our democratic way of life: PC and TC (political correctness and theological correctness). If organizations like CAIR, ISMA, Christian Coalition or the Southern Baptist Convention have their way we will become a theocracy in one shape or another to suit their own views of inerrancy for their respective books.
All of the best,
Mac
I just want to thank Mr. Spencer for all the work he has done. This is not an easy line of argument to deal with. It is too easy for critics to stop at a prejudgment of "anti-muslim". This exploration of the truth concerning the Islamic threat to the advancement of mankind may prove in the end to be what saved us.
This review was spot on. The Politically Correct Guide to Islam is pedagogical, sober, and expository. It is not a polemic, not a rant. And it reads well, using biblical verses as familiar points of reference and contrast. No better book exists, I believe, to introduce a skeptical someone to the real and disturbing tenets of this ideology we must defend against.
As funds are available, I am sending gift copies of this specific book to everyone in my circle of friends, and to some whom I don't know. Some think I've gone 'round the bend, but some are starting to pay attention. That's what counts.
I'm right now reading "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance". PIG is next.
Robert
How's the book on ole Mo coming along?
Robert,
Excellent book. I had already learned some about the crusades with Thomas Ashbridge's "The First Crusade". Another good book too. He doesn't apologize for the crusades, but rather, he shows that it was a belated defensive campaign to centuries of Muslim aggression. Your book brought the issue into focus for the 21st century.
Thanks.
Interested,
Your link regarding Robespierre posted at 2:02pm today was right on. The concept of negotiating with people whose ideology encourages the notion that the end justifys the means, only works if we have overwhelming force and aren't afraid to use it. That is an ideology that the Muslims can understand.
I AM NEITHER POLITE OR PC WHEN IT COMES TO THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF AMERICA.
IF THE COMMON AMERICAN DOES NOT STANDUP AND BEHEARD, THERE WILL NOT BE AMERICA FOR OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.
PREPARE.
BE ARMED.
BE READY.
The Texican.
Freedom, the only choice at any cost and it looks like the cost will be immense.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same,
or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children
what it was once
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same,
or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children
what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
Ronald Reagan
sorry cut it off last time
"The Torat Moshe, or five books of Moses, are considered by normative Judaism (Orthodox, which is actually normative)to be the direct (exact) word of G-d as written down by Moshe."
That just goes to show that the literal belief in holy text is not the only causative factor explaining why violent, intolerant, supremacist, eschatologically expansionist Muslims are pullulating in various places all around the globe -- and why Jews, by contrast, are overwhelmingly civil, mature, responsible, productive members of all the different societies they inhabit.
I think it was Michael Savage who said
"Liberalism is a mental disorder".
As I ponder that, I am beginning to
agree with him. The quest for ideals
blinds the PC types to facts and hence
reality. Subsequently, they live in a fantasy
world, therefore they have a mental
disorder.
Let's call it PCD. Politically Correct Disorder.
Call the men in white suites and nets!!
This just in from Mr. McCarthy:
Thanks so much to JW readers for the kind words regarding my review of Robert's splendid and important book.
I am especially grateful to those who were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt that "feint" must have been some sort of intentional (and dense) pun. Alas, as one reader insightfully suggested, I simply blew it. And I confess I nearly fainted when I reread what I'd written on a train yesterday.
Let's be thankful that the book is better than the review!
-- Andy McCarthy
(note: the typo in the above headline has been remedied - RB)
"...I confess I nearly fainted when I reread what I'd written..."
I hope that there was a feinting couch nearby in case you were in need of it. Touche!
It was an excellent review even with the visit from Mrs. Malaprop.
HaMal'akh,
you know that sometimes, interpretation is everything. And you know that Our Sages of blessed memory [Hazal] were interpreting and reinterpreting. And that's how we got the Talmud Babli and Talmud Yerushalmi. Furthermore, speaking of interpretation of the Five Books of Moses [Humash, Pentateuch], you know that the Sages explicitly cancelled certain commandments of the Humash. Some of those reinterpretations --such as the so-called Three Oaths-- may have had a justification in the Middle Ages. But not today, as Hillel Zeidman once pointed out in the Algemeyner Zhurnal. The problem with some of those today called Haredim is that they hold on to the Talmudic reinterpretations in a totally inappropriate and harmful manner. Consider that Rav Ovadiah Yosef had the Shas Party join the Merets-Labor government [Rabin-Peres-Beilin-Shulamit Aloni] in 1992. That brought us the monstrous Oslo accords. Rav Ovadyah's excuse was the rule of Piqu'ah Nefesh, which he interpreted to mean that Israel could give up territory for "peace," in order to save lives. What happened in fact was that "territory-for-peace" meant mass murder in return for territory, since the "peace process" is and was and will be a mass murder process. So Rav Ovadyah too, like Rabin, Peres, Beilin and the rest of the gang, are responsible for the Oslo crime. You err in minimizing the extent of authoritative interpretation and reinterpration among us. However, you may agree with me that Israel's foreign and territorial policy should be based more on Biblical principles, than on the dhimmi-like Three Oaths [which ought to be cancelled right now, as Zeidman said].