May 2006 Archives

More tourist jihad. "30 injured as militants attack tourist buses in Kashmir," from Deutsche Presse Agentur, with thanks to LGF:

Srinagar - At least 30 people were injured when suspected Muslim militants hurled powerful grenades at two tourist buses in Srinagar, capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state Wednesday, police said.

The buses, carrying tourists from eastern West Bengal state, were attacked within five minutes of each other Wednesday evening in the busy Dal Gate area of Srinagar.

Two tourists were killed according to NDTV news channel. The police, however, did not confirm any deaths. One person was critically injured, a senior police official said....

This is the third major attack on tourists by rebels in the past 10 days.

The economy of the scenic Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir is heavily dependent on the tourism industry, which has been badly hit by two decades of a violent, secessionist militant movement [that is, an Islamic jihad -- RS].

It sure seems as if raging, frothing, obsessive types, flinging wild charges without evidence, and simultaneously claiming the moral high ground, are coming out of the woodwork these days. Here are yet more: The Muslim Public Affairs Council of the United Kingdom (MPACUK), which styles itself "the UK's Leading Muslim civil liberties group, empowering Muslims to focus on non-violent Jihad and political activism."

But MPACUK doesn't seem so moderate in "Masajid and ISOCs Silent As Zionists Move In On Inayat Bunglawala!," a hysterical article about the Little Green Footballs death threat brouhaha (about which the latest update here). This expands in a big way upon Bunglawala's own piece of paranoid conspiracy-mongering as he denied that he sent the death threat: "Methinks some Zionists are up to mischief."

"See with your own eyes that I am standing here firm and determined, and I will not flee" Khalid Bin Waleed. Today we can reveal that Inayat Bunglawala the pro Palestinian Media spokesperson for the MCB has been the target of Zionists around the world, in an onslaught that began last Thursday (25.05.06), in an all out campaign to have him sacked from his job. Someone had sent an offensive email from the same workplace to a Zionist Blog [that would be LGF]. The person who sent the email was indeed suspended last Friday (26.05.06).

The Zionist machine as organised and well funded as it is, tracked it back to the work place of Inayat. Now the central nervous system of the Zionist machine sent an alert around the world. Thinking they had him trapped, they launched a world wide campaign to have him sacked.

MPACUK has always said that individual Zionists may harm Muslims, but in reality, any major attack on a Muslim group or leader is co-ordinated, even if it seems like it's coming from an individual. The attack on Ken Livingstone for example has all the hallmarks of a planned and co-ordinated attack. It may have taken months if not years to plan and organise, the public may have seen a furore around him then, but you can bet your bottom dollar that was the tip of the ice berg.

Zionist Blogs too, are too well researched and co-ordinated to be the work of individuals.

Curses, Jihad Watchers! They are on to us!

No part time nut could watch every minute for any slip by a Muslim group as vigilantly as they do. Most probably they are part of a well funded central network. They are another weapon in the growing armoury of the Zionist machine that is deployed against Muslims.

You're right, fellows. I am strictly a full-time nut.

They are used to frighten, smear and intimidate Muslim groups and individuals that stand up against Israel. They target organisations, then isolate individuals within those organisations and then use all their powers in a sustained co-ordinated attack to smash the person and destroy them.

Today we can reveal that Inayat Bunglawala the pro Palestinian Media spokesperson for the MCB was targeted by Zionists around the world last Thursday (25.05.06) in an all out campaign to have him sacked from his job. This is how quickly they can mobilise given even the slightest scent of blood. Someone from the same workplace sent an offensive email to a Zionist Blog. The Zionist machine as organised and well funded as it is, tracked it back to the work place of Inayat.

Now the central nervous system of the Zionist machine sent an alert around the world. Thinking they had him trapped, they launched a world wide campaign to have him sacked. Calls flooded Inayat's workplace demanding he be sacked for (you guessed it) - 'anti-Semitic'! Emails from around the world, many from the USA flooded in demanding his sacking too.

Call after call from prominent UK Zionist organisations demanded meetings with the organisation to 'discuss the incident'. The news spread and appeared in the Zionist press from Canada to Israel. (Now you know what we mean by a well oiled machine!). A Muslim leader was about to fall, and they all knew about it and were relentless.

Now stop and reflect for just a minute. Zionists were able to mobilise from around the world to attack a British Muslim Leader, within 24 hours. Yet our pacified, incompetent Muslim 'Leaders' right here in the UK did not even acknowledge this. Muslims thus were not mobilised or even made aware of the attack against one of our spokesmen and a defender of Palestine. At this moment if MPACUK did not report it, only a handful of Muslims would have known about it - correct? No Mosque would have mentioned it or taken much needed action to inform the community and mobilise us. Not a single Muslim 'Leader' would take action....

If you feel this is no big deal then you are on the wrong website, please re-direct your reading. If however you are shocked at the powerful nature of those who attack you, and are more angry at the incompetent nature of those who are currently supposed to be defending you then fund us, or join us. Together we can protect men like Inayat from the most powerful enemies Muslims have faced in a thousand years.

Wow. The heck with Pajamas Media -- where can I sign up for this Zionist Blog thing?

Hugh Fitzgerald comments on the influence Bernard Lewis wields, and does not wield:

Many have spoken approvingly of Bernard Lewis’ influence in the Islamic world, and of the power of that influence when he claims that “suicide bombing” is un-Islamic. But in reality, Bernard Lewis has no influence among the Muslim masses. Prince Hassan, Halil Inalcik, Fouad Ajami, and others of that ilk are hardly the Muslim masses who need to be persuaded that Lewis’ position on "suicide bombing" is correct from an Islamic point of view.

Lewis's real and only audience, at this point, are intelligent Infidels. The effect of his enthusiasm for the Oslo Accords, and for the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project which he now claims was "mishandled," has been disastrous. He has contended that it was merely a matter of botched execution, and not of something that was always messianic, silly, and missing-the-point. The point in fact was not to make a Muslim state a splendid example of what could be done if only an entire Infidel army came in, overturned the regime, and spent a few hundred billion dollars. Rather, it was, or should have been, to create the conditions in which the camp of Jihad would be divided and demoralized. Instead, as of now, the camp of Infidels is divided and demoralized. And the warriors of Jihad are successfully exploiting, in Western Europe, the pre-existing mental conditions of antisemitism and anti-Americanism in order to divide the two parts of the Western Alliance, America and Europe.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the larger issues involved in the Azeri destruction of an Armenian cemetery:

Islam, like other religions, was ruthlessly suppressed in the Soviet Union. For some this suppression apparently took. This forcible break with Islam was something that only a regime such as the Soviet Union could allow itself to enforce. But there were many – in Azerbaijan as well as elsewhere – among whom it did not take. And so now Islam is at work again in Azerbaijan, with the destruction of the ancient Christian cemetery. The destruction of one or two graves might be the work of vandals. If an entire ancient cemetery disappears -- the way the Jewish tombstones on the Mount of Olives were pulled up by British-led, British-trained and supposedly well-behaved Jordanians, and used to line the floors of their army latrines -- then something else is at work: complete disrespect, even hatred, for those who are not Muslim, and for everything that might conceivably be sacred or important to those non-Muslims.

Of course in the mists of time, when no one was looking, no doubt Muslims destroyed monuments, churches, temples, cemeteries, statuary and artifacts of every kind.

In my younger days I used to look forward eagerly to the next John Updike novel, until he became little more than an upscale pornographer. I haven't read anything he has written in years, and this one looks supremely missable -- unless one wants an insight into how wealthy postmodern Americans view with careful, studied generosity and understanding the mujahedin who have vowed to destroy their comforts. Updike may indeed be the harbinger of a new radical chic that focuses not on the Black Panther Leonard Bernstein celebrated in Tom Wolfe's memorable piece, but on the mujahedin.

"In 'Terrorist,' a Cautious Novelist Takes On a New Fear," from the New Duranty Times (aka New York Times), with thanks to David:

John Updike's 22nd novel, "Terrorist," about a Muslim in a city that is much like Paterson, N.J., will go on sale next week.

For his new novel, "Terrorist," however, he ventured onto the Web to research bomb detonators. He was fairly certain, he remarked recently during an interview in Boston, that the only detonator he could recall — the one that Gary Cooper plunges in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" — must be out of date, but he was also reassured to discover, as he put it, that "the Internet doesn't like you to learn too much about explosives."...

And he hired a car and a driver to take him around some of the seedier neighborhoods in Paterson, N.J., and to show him some churches and storefronts that had been converted into mosques. "He did his best, but I think I puzzled him as a tour customer," Mr. Updike said.

"Terrorist," which comes out from Alfred A. Knopf next week, is set in Paterson — or, rather, in a slightly smaller, tidier version of the city, called New Prospect — and is about just what the title says. Its protagonist is an 18-year-old named Ahmad, the son of a hippie-ish American mother and an Egyptian exchange student, now absent, who embraces Islam and is eventually recruited to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel.

The new novel is Mr. Updike's 22nd and in some ways a departure....Originally, though, he imagined the protagonist as a young Christian, an extension of the troubled teenage character in his early story "Pigeon Feathers," who comes to feel betrayed by a clergyman. "I imagined a young seminarian who sees everyone around him as a devil trying to take away his faith," he said. "The 21st century does look like that, I think, to a great many people in the Arab world."

When Mr. Updike switched the protagonist's religion to Islam, he explained, it was because he "thought he had something to say from the standpoint of a terrorist."

He went on: "I think I felt I could understand the animosity and hatred which an Islamic believer would have for our system. Nobody's trying to see it from that point of view. I guess I have stuck my neck out here in a number of ways, but that's what writers are for, maybe."

And we do need to understand this. We do not need to sympathize with it.

He laughed and added: "I sometimes think, 'Why did I do this?' I'm delving into what can be a very sore subject for some people. But when those shadows would cross my mind, I'd say, 'They can't ask for a more sympathetic and, in a way, more loving portrait of a terrorist.' "

Ahmad is lovable, or at least appealing; he's in many ways the most moral and thoughtful character in the entire book, and he gains in vividness from being pictured in that familiar Updikean setting, the American high school....

When he was in high school, Mr. Updike added, his own head was "in The New Yorker instead of the Koran," and so while working on "Terrorist" he again picked up that religious text, a book he first read when learning how to impersonate Colonel Ellelloû, the narrator of Mr. Updike's 1978 novel, "The Coup."

"A lot of the Koran does not speak very eloquently to a Westerner," he said. "Much of it is either legalistic or opaquely poetic. There's a lot of hellfire — descriptions of making unbelievers drink molten metal occur more than once. It's not a fuzzy, lovable book, although in the very next verse there can be something quite generous."

"Terrorist" even includes some Koran passages in Arabic transliteration; Shady Nasser, a graduate student, helped Mr. Updike on those sections. "My conscience was pricked by the notion that I was putting into the book something that I can't pronounce," he said, but he added: "Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot. My feeling was, 'This is God's language, and the fact that you don't understand it means you don't know enough about God.' "

If Updike really means that, he should convert to Islam. But of course a hallmark of his set is that they never quite mean what they say.

For all its theological concerns, "Terrorist" is also an authentic Updike novel, and, thankfully, includes some sheet-rumpled, love-flushed sex scenes between Ahmad's mother, Teresa, and Jack Levy, a guidance counselor at the high school.

Ah. So it will not be all that much of a departure after all -- it is starting to sound like a standard Updike novel.

"I was happy — because there was so much shaky ground in the writing of this novel — when Jack began to hit on Terry Mulloy," Mr. Updike said. "I felt I was in a scene I could handle. That little romance was very real — to me, at least. I liked those two because they're normal, godless, cynical but amiable modern people."

Which, of course, describes Updike himself, and his audience, to a T: normal, godless, cynical and amiable. Such people believe they are being broadminded and generous when they paint sympathetic, loving portraits of terrorists. In fact, of course, they're just being suicidal.

Forced conversion is forbidden by Islamic law. However, it has been a constant of Islamic history, and continues today. "Around 600 people a year are forcely converted to Islam," from AsiaNews, with thanks to Liberal Muslim:

Lahore (AsiaNews) – The same Islam that pronounces death for conversion to another religion, forces women married to Muslims to become Muslims too. Forced conversions figures reach between 500 to 600 people a year in Pakistan, although “national media report only 100 such cases” that police and the courts “treat prejudicially”. This was the most significant conclusion of a meeting on “Forced Conversion of Women and Minorities Rights in Pakistan” held on 26 May in a hotel in Lahore.

More than 50 human rights activists, lawyers and representatives of religious minorities from four provinces of Pakistan participated in the consultation organized by the Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan (MRC).

Khaliq Shah – MRC member – outlined the aims of the meeting: to highlight this important issue at national level; to launch a campaign against forced conversions; to analyze the causes and to review the law. Shah, who has been researching the topic for a long time, said: “The problem is especially present among poorer and marginalized social groups”.

I.A. Rehman, member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said that according to the Universal declaration of Human Rights, every individual can join any faith of his choice and practice that faith freely, and no one can force him to change his belief. “From this perspective, free conversion is no problem but forced conversions should be banned; this issue must be debated,” he said.

“In Pakistan we do not have any law against forced conversion and converting from Islam to any other religion means death. To change this state of affairs, we must consider the issue as a struggle for democracy and invite Muslims as well to these meetings, so they can help us to better understand all points of view of the argument”.

Mgr Joseph Coutts, bishop of Faisalabad, was also present at the meeting. “This is a delicate problem and each of us should contribute towards resolving it. At the root of the problem are factors like feudalism and the country’s socio-economic structure. When we discuss forced conversions, we must talk about these aspects too.”

Kalyan Singh, a Sikh participant said one of the toughest challenges to overcome was the “subjection of judges to Islamic clerics. Judges do not manage to deal with such cases neutrally because they are scared of the revenge of religious extremists.”

I repeat: in what way is Saudi Arabia actually an ally of the United States? "Saudis flout vow to end Israel boycott," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Michael:

Despite renewed assurances given to Washington that it is no longer enforcing a trade boycott against the Jewish state, Saudi Arabia continues to prohibit Israeli-made goods from entering its territory, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

And while a senior US trade official sought to assure Congress last week that the embargo had in fact been removed, the Post found ample evidence to indicate that it remains in place.

"If a product is made in Israel, then it is a problem. It is not allowed here," Muhammad al-Matrafi, a spokesman for the Director's Office of the King Khalid Airport in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, said by phone on Monday.

"That is the law here in Saudi Arabia, and we do not allow those kinds of things into the kingdom," he said, adding, "If there is any mention of Israel on the container or on the product, then it can not enter Saudi Arabia."

Why can't or won't the Saudis stop the flow of mujahedin into Iraq? Because if they do so, it will be one more sign to Al-Qaeda and its allies that they have abandoned Islam for alliance with the Great Satan. But since they can't or won't do this, is that alliance viable in any way? Friend and Ally Update from the Telegraph, with thanks to Anon:

Foreign terrorists, led by fighters from Saudi Arabia, are behind an upsurge in attacks against British troops in Basra, military sources said yesterday.

As the Army suffered the highest number of fatal attacks in a month since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, commanders on the ground are concerned at the level of sophistication and ferocity of the assaults....

The Saudi influence on terrorism in Shia-dominated Basra has not been previously reported but has caused concern among military commanders because of their training, technology and finance.

Although the majority of Saudi Arabians are Sunni, the minority Shia have taken part in terrorist attacks....

Commanders are concerned that Saudi and other foreign fighters are co-ordinating the attacks in a "consensual environment", in which the locals will not tell the military where roadside bombs have been planted. "The concern is that support for our presence is going down," a defence source said.

From The Khaleej Times:

AMMAN - A Jordanian court Tuesday sentenced to prison two newspaper editors for "attacking religious sentiment" by reprinting cartoons deemed offensive to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), their lawyer said.

Jihad Momani, former editor of the weekly Shihane tabloid, and Hisham Al Khalidi, editor-in-chief of the tabloid Al Mehwar, were each sentenced to two months in prison, attorney Mohammed Kteishat told AFP.

[...]

Momeni and Khalidi both pleaded not guilty.

Their arrests have been condemned by international press watchdogs, who say journalists should not be jailed for what they publish.

Early in February, King Abdullah II said insulting the prophet was "an unjustifiable crime ... that could not be justified on the pretext of freedom of expression."

Though he later recanted, it is worth recalling Momani's comments that accompanied the cartoons:

"Muslims of the world, be reasonable... what brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

From Haaretz:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, declaring that the United States was too tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan to be able to mount an attack on Iran, said Tuesday that "there is no such country" as Israel.

The comments were made at a ministerial meeting of the Nonaligned Movement held in the city of Putrajaya. The group appears set to support Tehran's right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Asked to comment on Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's call for imposing economic sanctions on Iran, Mottaki replied sarcastically: "What country is that? There is no such country." Iran refuses to recognize Israel.

Most rogue states will at least acknowledge the countries they wish to harm. Seems like a basic courtesy, Mr. Mottaki.

For background on these "youths," see here and here. "Police injured as violence flares in suburbs of Paris," from the Telegraph, with thanks to Tim:

At least 100 youths, many brandishing baseball bats, clashed with police in a new outbreak of violence in the same Parisian suburbs in which nationwide rioting started last autumn.

The disturbances, which were described as "violent and intense" and left several policemen injured, extended from late on Monday night into the early hours yesterday.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets after coming under attack, while Xavier Lemoine, the centre-Right mayor of Montfermeil, one of two affected suburbs, was left fearing for the lives of his wife and seven children after a stone-throwing mob gathered outside his home.

The disorder was a worrying reminder of last year's violence. France is anxious to avoid a long, hot and troubled summer on run-down estates populated by families of African and Arab origin who feel alienated from society.

And they feel alienated from society by the express design of their own leaders.

In my 2003 book Onward Muslim Soldiers, I skewer Chomsky and the Left's general eagerness to unite with the jihadists who will, if given the chance, happily subjugate their allies along with the rest of us. Here is more evidence.

From MEMRITV, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Following are excerpts from an interview with the American linguist Noam Chomsky, which aired on LBC TV on May 23, 2006.

Interviewer: Do you consider Hizbullah to be a terrorist organization?

Chomsky: The United States considers Hizbullah a terrorist organization, but the term terrorism is used by the great powers simply to refer to forms of violence of which they disapprove. So the U.S. was of course supporting the Israeli invasions and occupation of southern Lebanon. Hizbullah was instrumental in driving them out, so for that reason they are a terrorist organization.

[...]

It's an interesting dilemma. Personally I'm very much opposed to Hamas' policies in almost every respect. However, we should recognize that the policies of Hamas are more forthcoming and more conducive to a peaceful settlement than those of the United States or Israel. So to repeat: the policies, in my view, are unacceptable, but preferable to the policies of the United States and Israel.

So, for example, Hamas has called for a long-term indefinite truce on the international border. There is a long-standing international consensus that goes back over thirty years that there should be a two-state political settlement on the international border, the pre-June 1967 border, with minor and mutual modifications. That's the official phrase. Hamas is willing to accept that as a long-term truce. The United States and Israel are unwilling even to consider it.

The Hamas is being... The demand on Hamas by the United States and the European Union and Israel... The demand is first that they recognize the State of Israel. Actually, that they recognize its right to exist. Well, Israel and the U.S. certainly don't recognize the right of Palestine to exist, nor recognize any state of Palestine. In fact, they have been acting consistently to undermine any such possibility.

This is so contrary to fact it is astounding. The U.S. and Israel agreed to the Oslo accords and to so much else dedicated to helping "Palestine" exist. And what did the Palestinians do in response? Stepped up the jihad attacks.

The second condition is that Hamas must renounce violence. Israel and the United States certainly do not renounce violence.

Sure. It would be foolhardy to renounce violence unilaterally while the other side pursues it. But Hamas need have no such concerns; it is abundantly clear that the U.S. and Israel would abide by peace accords. It is only one side that has broken them.

The third condition is that Hamas accept international agreements. The United States and Israel reject international agreements.

International agreements issued by the UN at the behest of the OIC bloc? Sure. And they should reject them.

So, though the policies of Hamas are, again in my view, unacceptable, they happen to be closer to the international consensus on a political peaceful settlement than those of their antagonists, and it's a reflection of the power of the imperial states - the United States and Europe - that they are able to shift the framework, so that the problem appears to be Hamas' policies, and not the more extreme policies of the United States and Israel.

In this, of course, he ignores Hamas' repeatedly stated vow to destroy Israel altogether.

They have "close contacts to the Islamist scene in Germany and at least one...has converted to Islam." The phenomenon of white European converts to Islam, and like-minded fellow travelers, underscores that this is not a problem of race, but of ideology. Even if Europe's immigration crisis were solved tomorrow, the jihad ideology would not be eradicated from the continent -- particularly in view of the close ties between the Left and the jihad. From Spiegel Online, with thanks to all who sent this in:

SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that German intelligence agencies have prevented three German women from travelling to Iraq in recent weeks. The women, who have close contacts to the Islamist scene in Germany and at least one whom has converted to Islam, came to the attention of intelligence agencies after one of them had announced on an Internet site that she intended to blow herself and her child up in Iraq.

After the Web posting were spotted, Germany's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies mounted an intense search for the three women. One of them was located in Berlin, the other two are believed to come from southern Germany. The Berlin woman's child was taken away from her and she has been put in a psychiatric clinic. The two other women were also prevented from leaving Germany. One of them is also believed to have a child....

There have been several such cases in the past and German security officials have long been worried that Islamic militants are increasingly recruiting young Muslims with German passports for suicide attacks....

Since Iran funds Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and they are dedicated to continuing their jihad as a "holy religious obligation" until the last Israeli is "removed from the holy Palestinian land," it should be obvious that Iran is already at war with Israel. A nuclear attack would just be a continuation of that war. And those at State who are hoping to negotiate with the Thug-In-Chief should remember that he is already at war with an American ally.

Of course, the situation is impossibly confused by the fact that Western states also fund the PA, and hence Hamas. The suicidal short-sightedness of this should be clear to them, but of course it isn't.

Note also once again the complete abdication of responsibility: any future attacks will be revenge for Israel's killing of three mujahedin. The fact that that was a defensive move following innumerable previous jihad attacks will never, ever be acknowledged by the mujahedin. They know how to manipulate the world media.

"Islamic Jihad Threatens More Katyushas and Suicide Bombers," from Israel National News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Following the deaths of three Islamic Jihad terrorists in an IDF operation in Gaza early Tuesday morning, the group has vowed to fire Katyushas and send suicide bombers to blow up Israeli targets.

Shortly after the IDF successfully completed its first ground operation in Gaza since last August’s unilateral withdrawal, Islamic Jihad terrorists fired a Katyusha rocket in the direction of Ashkelon. The rocket missed its target, landing near Zikim without causing any damage or injuries.

The group issued a statement saying the Katyusha was in retaliation for Israel’s “acts of slaughter and occupation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

The announcement threatened that Islamic Jihad would “continue its struggle against the occupation of the Zionist enemy until the last one is removed from the holy Palestinian land.”

A spokesman for the terrorist organization, using the name “Abu Ahmad,” told the Palestinian Authority’s news agency, Ma’an, that Israel’s “crime” of killing the three terrorists would be met with attacks “deep in the heart of Israel.”...

Thousands of enraged Arabs called for Israel’s destruction as they attended funerals for the three men. Abdullah Shami, a leader of the Islamic Jihad spoke at the funeral, promising eternal life for suicide bombers.

He said that Jihad or holy war against Israel was a “holy religious obligation that we will not abandon.” He declared, “We will not stop the struggle. We will not give up or sell our principles. The enemy will get whatever he is afraid of.”

Beltway Sniper Jihad Update. "Jury Finds Sniper Guilty of Six Murders," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) -- John Allen Muhammad was convicted of six of the Washington-area sniper killings Tuesday after the prosecution's star witness, Muhammad's young protege, portrayed him as the mastermind of an audacious terror scheme in which phase two would have been bombings against children.

Muhammad, 45, is already under a death sentence in Virginia for a killing there. The most he can get for the six murders committed in Maryland is life in prison without parole.

The jury took slightly more than four hours to convict him after a four-week trial in which he acted as his own attorney.

As the verdict was read, Muhammad sat grim-faced, his arms folded across chest. He was led out of the courtroom, pausing to ask the judge, ''Your honor, may I speak?'' The judge answered, ''No, sir,'' and Muhammad was taken away.

Ten people in all were killed and three were wounded in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., in the string of shootings that gripped the metropolitan area with fear.

The trial marked the first time Lee Boyd Malvo testified against the man prosecutors say was his mentor and manipulator. And Muhammad's cross-examination of Malvo marked one of the most dramatic moments.

During two days of testimony last week, Malvo, 21, gave the first inside account of the shootings and described Muhammad's elaborate plans for a reign of terror.

According to Malvo, Muhammad had a two-phase plan -- six shootings a day for a month, followed by a wave of bombings of schools, school buses and children's hospitals. Malvo said that when he asked Muhammad why, the older man replied: ''For the sheer terror of it -- the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children.''

A new essay by the European writer Fjordman:

Bertolt Brecht wrote a satirical poem after the 1953 East German risings:

"The solution
After the uprising of 17 June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the People
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

At the beginning of the 21st century, electing a new people seems to be exactly what Socialist parties in Europe are doing. Perhaps the greatest idea of the Leftist parties after the Cold War was to re-invent themselves as Multicultural immigration parties and start importing voters from abroad. In addition to this, they have managed to denounce the opposition as racists, bigots and extremists. A new alliance of convenience between Leftists and Muslim immigrants is taking shape in Europe. I think the deal is that the Leftist parties get a number of new clients, I mean voters, in return for giving Muslims privileges and subsidies, as well as keeping the borders more or less open for new Muslims to enter. As one Muslim put it: "I vote for the Socialists because they give me more money." The Leftists are, in essence, electing a new people, replacing the one already there with one more supportive of their agenda.

There is, of course, nothing new in buying votes and "clients" by promising them access to other people's money. This was the essence of Leftism in the first place. However, although this is probably a flaw in the democratic system, democracy has still functioned within the borders of stable nation states. This flaw gets a lot more dangerous when combined with massive immigration, where certain political parties simply import people from other nations, even vocal enemies of their country, to shore up their own short-term support in elections. This will in the longer term breed resentment among the native population, who will in this way be forced to fund their own colonization. In the context of Europe, Muslim immigration could turn democracy into a self-defeating system that will eventually break down because native Europeans no longer feel that it serves their interests.

Abu Hamza should have been expelled from Britain twenty-five years ago.

Think about that. Twenty-five years of jihad recruitment. Think of how many he preached to in (and later, outside) the Finsbury Park Mosque.

How many believed him? How many took his words to heart? Where are they now? What are they doing?

Why have Western governments not taken a single step to screen prospective immigrants for jihadist sentiments? Why have they not taken a single step to declare those sentiments unwelcome in their countries?

From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

ABU HAMZA, the militant cleric jailed for inciting murder, should have been removed from Britain 25 years ago after being caught flouting immigration laws.

The Home Office missed several chances to deport him, and he was granted British citizenship, even though he had married bigamously, made bogus claims about fathering a child here and been arrested as an illegal immigrant.

The disclosure in The Times today is likely to intensify demands by MPs for an inquiry into why no action was taken against the Egyptian-born extremist before his conviction at the Old Bailey this year.

A new investigation has revealed how the former Finsbury Park mosque imam falsely claimed on a birth certificate in October 1980 that he was the father of a daughter born to his first wife, Valerie Traverso.

Earlier the same year the couple had married bigamously, barely ten months after Abu Hamza arrived in Britain to dodge national service in Egypt. Documents seen by The Times show that Mrs Traverso had not divorced Michael Macias, her first husband, when she married Abu Hamza at Westminster Register Office in May 1980. Ms Traverso also told The Times she was already pregnant when they met. She insists that she had not realised the couple were committing bigamy.

Separated from her first husband when she met and married Abu Hamza, she describes it as “a mix-up, a simple confusion”.

Details of her daughter’s birth certificate are published in a new book The Suicide Factory, which is serialised in The Times today. They show that Abu Hamza — then using his real name of Mostafa Kamel Mostafa — claimed to be her father. The book also reveals that four days after the child was born, Abu Hamza instructed his lawyers to write to the Home Office to apply for permission to remain. He was later arrested as an illegal immigrant and went on to plead guilty at a magistrates’ court to overstaying his visitor’s visa. He was given a conditional discharge, but, had his immigration status been investigated, he could have been deported. Instead, six months later, he was given permission to remain.

This is interesting advice, since our chief criticism of the Administration over the last few years at Jihad Watch has been centered on the apparent fact that the key players don't seem to understand the enemy, and that this is leading to policy mistakes of an increasingly disastrous type.

Naval Academy grads: congratulations. Contact me at director@jihadwatch.org. I'd be happy to help you understand the enemy. Mr. Cheney, I'm available if you would like to discuss this as well.

From the American Forces Press Service, with thanks to DFS:

ANNAPOLIS, Md., May 26, 2006 – Vice President Dick Cheney today urged the U.S. Naval Academy's graduating class to understand the nature of the enemy in the global war on terror as they enter the military services as commissioned officers.

Cheney addressed 980 graduating midshipmen and about 27,000 family, friends and staff members at the academy's 156th commencement ceremony.

"You are the first class to enter the academy following the attacks of 9/11," he told the graduating midshipmen. "And I'm guessing that more than a few of you were inspired to military service by that attack on our country. In these four years, the war on terror has influenced the course of study at our service academies, and it will define much of your career leading American sailors and Marines."

The nation's newest officers need to understand the enemy that threatens the United States and the rest of the civilized world, Cheney told the audience.

"It is as brutal and heartless as any we have ever faced," he said. "This enemy wears no uniform, has no regard for the rules of warfare, and is unconstrained by any standard of decency or morality. They plot and plan in secret, target the defenseless, and rejoice at the death of innocent, unsuspecting human beings."

He cited the period of Taliban rule in Afghanistan as an example of the enemy's beliefs. "They seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman and child lives in total obedience to a narrow and hateful ideology," he said. "This ideology rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. Such beliefs can be imposed only through force and intimidation, so those who refuse to bow to the tyrants will be brutalized or killed -- and no person or group is exempt."

The vice president told the audience at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium that terrorists want to end all American and Western influence in the Middle East.

"Their goal in that region is to seize control of a country, so they have a base from which to launch attacks and wage war against governments that do not meet their demands," he said. "The terrorists believe that by controlling one country, they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, ultimately to establish a totalitarian empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia."

Why does he echo Bush in not mentioning America? It isn't as if they really don't want their totalitarian empire to be global. They have made their intentions abundantly clear.

When I spoke in late April at the America's Truth Forum Symposium in Washington, I had the honor of meeting Dick Sartain. I had corresponded with him for some time; he kindly kept me informed about his quiet activities exposing jihadist activity in the Dallas, Texas area.

People often ask me: What can I do, as a private citizen, to aid in the Resistance to the jihad? What I would answer would always be a summation of the kinds of things that Dick Sartain was doing. He frequently went to open houses and other public meetings at Dallas-area mosques, quietly collected information, and made that information available to people who could use it best. He always knew who was speaking in Dallas mosques -- and more importantly, he did the necessary research and knew their backgrounds, the organizations they belonged to, the sentiments they espoused, and the associations they had maintained.

If a mujahid or a smiling dissembler was coming to a Dallas mosque, Dick Sartain knew it. If a mosque in his area was distributing hate literature, Dick Sartain knew it. He didn't have to resort to any clandestine or underground efforts to amass this information. All he did was pay attention, and inform himself about the identities of the major players in the American Muslim community today, and their histories. And forthwith many others would know what he knew as well, and be able to plan accordingly.

I never would have written this message, as it would have prevented Mr. Sartain from continuing his work, were it not for the fact that recently Dick Sartain was killed by a drunk driver.

This is an immense loss. Dick Sartain was a hero in the defense of the West against the global jihad. I hope, however, that in the wake of his death many more like him will begin to do his work, and to expose, in the quiet and unobtrusive way that he did, the quiet and unobtrusive spread of the jihadist message in the U.S.

May his memory be eternal.

In "Omani dissident promises to keep speaking out" from Agence France Presse (thanks to DFS), Taiba al-Mawali is called both an "Islamist" and a "human rights activist." And, apparently with abundant justification, a "very unusual woman."

It would be interesting to know whether she thinks general equality of rights should be accorded to women in Oman, or to non-Muslims, and if Amnesty International knew or cared about her positions on these matters before floating her name for the Nobel Peace Prize. It seems from her statement about changes in Islam that she opposes any attempt at softening Sharia provisions. But the Sharia-inspired violations of human rights are so far off the radar screen for most people that I think it is highly doubtful that these matters came up at all.

MUSCAT: For an Omani, Taiba al-Mawali is a very unusual woman. She is a militant human rights activist, unafraid to say what she thinks in a country where any criticism of the authorities is considered heresy. "I always say what I think is good for the country - and they don't like it," the former teacher and official radio journalist told AFP in an interview.

A fervent Islamist, Mawali, 42, has paid dearly for her beliefs - she spent six months in prison for criticizing the trial last year of 31 Islamists for having "plotted the overthrow of the government by force of arms ... by forming an illegal underground organization."

They were sentenced in May 2005 to prison terms ranging between one and 20 years but pardoned a month later.

The Islamist affair has left its marks on Mawali, a mother of six who is married to a policeman, turning her life upside down. Mawali says she has been under surveillance by the security services since her membership in the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council) from 1994-2000....

Then, at the beginning of 2005, dozens of people suspected of being part of an Islamist plot were interrogated, and 31 were later charged.

"I knew them personally. I had read their books and visited them in their homes. They love their country and His Majesty," she said of Sultan Qabous bin Saeed, whom she says is misled by his advisers. Her friends, she said, had merely been trying "to teach religion to people as it should be taught." Mawali claims the Omani authorities have changed "many things" in the teaching of Islam "in the cause of the Americans."...

Last July, Mawali was sentenced to 18 months for her Internet articles and criticizing the authorities. She appealed. But she was afraid of being thrown in jail before this was heard, and fled to a friend's house where she hid for 17 days. The day before the appeal hearing, she returned home "disguised as a man."

Six months in prison was the verdict, and she was immediately taken into custody. She was freed a few days before the full term of her sentence, and believes this was done to avoid any public demonstration of support upon her release.

According to Amnesty International, which called her a "prisoner of conscience," Mawali's name has been put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mawali says prison made her more determined.

"We want proper and free elections," she said, "[and] we have to have an independent judiciary. Because I know my religion, I fight for the rights of man and for justice."

Man, yes. But woman?

The Azeris deny that they have destroyed the site. But everyone is just going to have to take their word for it; no one can go look for himself.

To destroy the site, of course, would be in keeping with the Islamic concept of jahiliyya, pre-Islamic ignorance. This site has no value: it is not Islamic.

From the Independent, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Fears that Azerbaijan has systematically destroyed hundreds of 500-year-old Christian artefacts have exploded into a diplomatic row, after Euro MPs were barred from inspecting an ancient Armenian burial site.

The predominantly Muslim country's government has been accused of "flagrant vandalism" similar to the Taliban's demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.

The claims centre on the fate of rare "khachkars", stone crosses carved with intricate floral designs, at the burial ground of Djulfa in the Nakhichevan region of Azerbaijan, an enclave separated from the rest of the country by Armenia.

The works - some of the most important examples of Armenian heritage - are said to have been smashed with sledgehammers last December as the site was concreted over.

The Azerbaijan government, which denies the claims, is now at the centre of a row with MEPs, some of whom it accused of a "biased and hysterical approach". Its ambassador to the EU also says the European Parliament has ignored damage to Muslim sites in Armenia. Azerbaijan has refused to allow a delegation of Euro MPs permission to visit the 1,500-year-old Djulfa cemetery during their trip to the region last month.

Most of original 10,000 khachkars, most of which date from the 15th and 16th century, were destroyed by the early 20th century, leaving probably fewer than 3,000 by the late 1970s.

According to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos), the Azerbaijan government removed 800 khachkars in 1998. Though the destruction was halted following protests from Unesco, it resumed four years later. By January 2003 "the 1,500-year-old cemetery had completely been flattened," Icomos says.

Witnesses, quoted in the Armenian press, say the final round of vandalism was unleashed in December last year by Azerbaijani soldiers wielding sledgehammers....

Hannes Swoboda, an Austrian socialist MEP and member of the committee barred from examining the site, said he hopes a visit can be arranged in the autumn. He added: "If they do not allow us to go, we have a clear hint that something bad has happened. If something is hidden we want to ask why. It can only be because some of the allegations are true."

And he warned: "One of the major elements of any country that wants to come close to Europe is that the cultural heritage of neighbours is respected."

Mmm hmm.

On Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II entered Constantinople, breaking through the defenses of a vastly outnumbered and indomitably courageous Byzantine force. Historian Steven Runciman notes what happened next: the Muslim soldiers "slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn. But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit." (The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 145.)

It has come to be known as Black Tuesday, the Last Day of the World.

Some jihadists "made for the small but splendid churches by the walls, Saint George by the Charisian Gate, Saint John in Petra, and the lovely church of the monastery of the Holy Saviour in Chora, to strip them of their stores of plate and their vestments and everything else that could be torn from them. In the Chora they left the mosaics and frescoes, but they destroyed the icon of the Mother of God, the Hodigitria, the holiest picture in all Byzantium, painted, so men said, by Saint Luke himself. It had been taken there from its own church beside the Palace at the beginning of the siege, that its beneficient presence might be at hand to inspire the defenders on the walls. It was taken from its setting and hacked into four pieces." (P. 146.)

The jihadists also entered the Hagia Sophia, which for nearly a thousand years had been the grandest church in Christendom. The faithful had gathered within its hallowed walls to pray during the city’s last agony. The Muslims, according to Runciman, halted the celebration of Orthros (morning prayer); the priests, according to legend, took the sacred vessels and disappeared into the cathedral’s eastern wall, through which they shall return to complete the divine service one day. Muslim men then killed the elderly and weak and led the rest off into slavery.

Once the Muslims had thoroughly subdued Constantinople, they set out to Islamize it. According to the Muslim chronicler Hoca Sa’deddin, tutor of the sixteenth-century Sultans Murad III and Mehmed III, "churches which were within the city were emptied of their vile idols and cleansed from the filthy and idolatrous impurities and by the defacement of their images and the erection of Islamic prayer niches and pulpits many monasteries and chapels became the envy of the gardens of Paradise."

Tuesday has been regarded as unlucky by superstitious Greeks ever since.

Why did this happen?

It had been a long time coming. The once-great Empire had been by the time of this last siege of Constantinople reduced to little more than the city itself. But a few chief causes can be isolated:

1. Realpolitik. Short-sighted Byzantine Emperors such as John VI Cantacuzenes made ill-advised alliances with the Ottomans; in 1347 he invited them into Europe to aid them in a dynastic dispute, and they haven't left yet.

2. Disunity. The Western European powers were themselves disunited and preoccupied with their own affairs. Compounding that was the fact that they couldn't rally much support for a bailout of the Byzantines without an ecclesiastical unity that, when it was affected on paper by the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Emperor, was rejected by the people of the Empire. The force the West finally sent was too small, and it was annihilated by the Muslims at Varna in Bulgaria in 1444. Far too many Westerners didn't see the peril of Constantinople as their peril, and far too many Easterners subscribed to the Byzantine official Lukas Notaras' quip: "Better the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the Pope."

Yes, well, Notaras found out otherwise when the Sultan took a liking to the official's teenage boys ("like pearls," Qur'an 52:24) and had them beheaded before his eyes when Notaras refused to give his blessing to the Sultan's taking them for his pleasure. The Pope, for all his enormities, was not likely to have done that.

Meanwhile, the world has forgotten what happened on Black Tuesday, and so many other days like it from India to Spain, and persists in the fantasy that Islam does not contain an imperialist impulse and that Muslims can be admitted without limit into Western countries without any attempt to determine how many would like ultimately to subjugate and Islamize their new countries, the way their forefathers did to Constantinople so long ago.

And today we see the same ill-informed games of realpolitik, pragmatic alliances made with those who would conquer and subjugate us, and the same disunity and finger-pointing at each other instead of unity in the face of this threat to our common survival. It is the same sentiment Pastor Niemöller bewailed in his famous poem -- may we be spared from discovering when they come for us that there is no one left to speak for us, for they have all already been taken.

I know that may be too much to ask. After all, you are a _____. What possible accord could you have with ______s? Fill in the blanks yourself. And remember when you do, that both groups you filled the blanks in with are on the list of those the mujahedin wish to subjugate.

It is fitting that Black Tuesday coincides this year with Memorial Day. For only a strong defense -- not just military, but cultural and spiritual, a civilizational defense -- will conquer the forces of jihad and keep there from being many more Black Tuesdays, many more Last Days of the World. May we mount that defense, and speedily.

How silly of Iyaz Ali. He should have known that individual British nationals and Britain-based private organizations shouldn't aid Hamas; they should leave that up to their government.

From IMRA:

The Israel Security Agency (ISA) and the Israel Police, on 10.5.06, arrested Iyaz Ali, a Pakistani-born British national, born in 1970. He admitted to being a member of the UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), which is suspected of supporting Hamas. He admitted to working for IRW's Gaza branch as a project director since December 2005; he worked to transfer funds and assistance to various Hamas institutions and organizations, including the Al Wafa and Al Tzalah associations, which have been outlawed in Israel. He also admitted that he worked in Jordan and cooperated with local Hamas operatives.

Incriminating files were found on Ali's computer, including documents that attested to the organization's ties with illegal Hamas funds abroad (in the UK and in Saudi Arabia) and in Nablus. Also found were photographs of swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols, of senior Nazi German officials, of Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as many photographs of Hamas military activities.

The IRW was established in 1984 in the British city of Birmingham. It has branches in Gaza and Ramallah. The IRW provides support and assistance to Hamas's infrastructure. The IRW's activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives. The intensive activities of these associations are designed to further Hamas's ideology among the Palestinian population.

None of us in America would be here, living in safety and prosperity, were it not for the sacrifices of our troops defending our lands in conflicts dating from the time of the American Revolution and before that.

For that any gratitude expressed in words would be insufficient, but I nevertheless tender it on this Memorial Day to all those who wear and have worn the uniform.

And I hope that political correctness and short-sighted self-interest will not long continue to keep our noble fighting forces tied up unnecessarily in quixotic Wilsonian adventures, and that those forces will be freed up, sooner rather than later, to defend us more effectively against the global jihad.

Here is a vivid illustration of the correctness of today's Daily Hugh. From AP, with thanks to Mackie:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - To Iran's west lies a natural ally and perhaps its most potent weapon in the international fray over its nuclear program. While Iran and Iraq were arch enemies during the rule of Saddam Hussein, all signs point to an increasingly robust relationship now that Shiites have achieved a dominant role in the Iraqi leadership.

It's a bond that has yet to reach its potential - in large part because the U.S.-led invasion is responsible for Iraqi Shiites being at the top of the political heap for the first time in modern history. Iraqi Shiites are not looking the gift horse in the mouth.

But Iran and Iraq share a Shiite Muslim majority and deep cultural and historic ties, and Tehran's influence over its neighbor is growing. Iran will likely try to use Iraq as a battleground if the United States punishes Tehran economically or militarily, analysts say.

Many key positions in the Iraqi government now are occupied by men who took refuge in Iran to avoid oppression by the Saddam's former Sunni Muslim-dominated Baathist regime.

Iraq's powerful militias, meanwhile, have strong ties to Iran and have deeply infiltrated Iraqi security forces. They can be expected to side with Iran if the West should attack, said Paul Ingram of the British American Security Information Council.

"Iran has ties with Iraq which have not been mobilized as they could have been," Ingram said. "The militias based in Iraq received much of their training from Iran and they have not taken any instructions yet."

The Mahdi Army, loyal to firebrand anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, both have significant links to Iran....

So does Sistani.

If Iran is attacked, "Iraqi Shiites will not take this lightly. They will not sit and watch," said Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based analyst....

"The Shiite political class in Iraq believes that if they generally cooperate with the U.S. and Britain, eventually they will withdraw and leave the Shiites in power," asked Juan Cole, a Middle East political analyst at the University of Michigan. "So far things have worked out wonderfully. Why rock the boat?"

For once, Juan Cole is right.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses George W. Bush is doing, and what he should be doing:

On May 27 George W. Bush gave a half-hour speech at West Point's Commencement. He spoke of Truman, and Truman's acting against the "fanatic faith" of Communism. But Communism was seldom as "fanatic" a faith as Islam so often has been, and Truman, unlike Bush, knew the importance of using all the instruments of warfare, and not merely combat, in the initial years of the Cold War.

And the other thing that Truman, and successive governments did, was to use propaganda to undercut the appeal of Communism, both to those in the West (in the late 1940s, the largest political parties in Western Europe were the Communist parties of Italy and France) and to those in the Communist bloc nations. Truman and others knew that defectors from Communism would be the surest guides as to what the Soviet government was up to, and also how to counter its appeal, its schemes, its plans. What use does the Bush Administration make of defectors from Islam -- that is, ex-Muslims, who know exactly the tricks and wiles of taqiyya, know exactly what Muslims say behind the backs of Infidels, or what appeals can be made to encourage division within the camp of Jihad?

Here is yet another moral equivalence argument, the likes of which we have seen many times before, from a professor in New York State. I continue to point out the weaknesses in these arguments because the idea that Christianity and Islam are equal in their capacity to incite violence is not only false, but it distracts from the reality and magnitude of the global jihad -- and weakens our ability to resist that jihad, since if all religions are equally likely to inspire this sort of thing, we can not legimately do anything to limit the spread of the jihad ideology in the West.

"Bible, Koran are violent, but 'read between lines,'" from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to Mathew:

THE Bible has as many invocations to violence as the Koran, if not more, says an American biblical scholar and peace activist. There is a darker side to the sacred text that many Christians will not admit.

"If not more"? Please tell me more about this, Dr. Stanley. You only quote four below. Here, on the other hand, are eighteen invocations to violence from the Qur'an: 9:5, 9:29, 2:190-193, 2:244, 3:125-126, 3:169, 3:195, 4:71, 4:74-77, 4:84, 4:89-91, 5:33, 5:35, 8:9-10, 8:15-17, 8:39-40, 9:123, and 47:4. Now, I am fully aware that a single newspaper article cannot possibly contain the entire substance of your argument. So please send me the other Bible verses you have in mind (I can be reached at director@jihadwatch.org), and I will then post the more than 100 other Qur'an verses that incite or encourage violence. And then we'll tally them up. I look forward to hearing from you.

Alongside passages exhorting believers to love their neighbour and turn the other cheek are verses that refer to hellfire, encourage acts of violence or call for God to carry out acts of vengeance against sinners.

If you want to add in hellfire verses or calls to God to carry out acts of vengeance, the Qur'an has plenty of those as well. I'll add them to my list

Even the Book of Psalms, generally regarded by Christians as uplifting and comforting, referred to the dashing of "little ones" against rock, said Chris Stanley, a professor of theology at St Bonaventure University in western New York state.

This is the point at which those in Stanley's audience should have asked him, "Where are the Jewish and Christian terror groups that dash little ones against rock and point to this verse as their inspiration and justification? What, there aren't any? What about in history? No, Jews and Christians never took this verse as a mandate for violence? Why is that, exactly? You mean it's always been understood as rhetorical excess, not as a call to action? Then how does it compare to verses of the Qur'an that exhort Muslims to 'slay the unbelievers,' (9:5), a verse for which Osama bin Laden praised Allah?"

"There is the angry violent god of the Old Testament, but there is plenty of language in the New Testament that portrays God as a violent judge, and some that can be taken that human violence is something that God would ordain," Dr Stanley said.

"Can be taken"? Possibly. "Have been taken or are being taken"? No.

Dr Stanley spoke at a two-day seminar hosted by the United Theological College that explored how religious texts have been used to validate violence - and can be reinterpreted to encourage dialogue between faiths.

This month, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, was criticised by Islamic leaders when he said the Koran was riddled with invocations to violence and described the central challenge of Islam as the struggle between moderate and extremist forces.

Dr Stanley said religious violence was not distinctively a Muslim problem and those who engage in violence and claim support from scripture are not necessarily twisting words, but picking up on past elements.

False opposition. To say that religious violence is distinctively a Muslim problem would be asinine, and unsupported by history. But to suggest that all traditions have this problem equally would be also asinine, and unsupported either by history or the situation of the present day.

Christians and Jews each had to face up to, not paper over, their violent antecedents, and no religion could claim the moral high ground.

That's true as far as it goes: Muslims need to face up to, not paper over, the violence in their theology and history. But here again, the equivalence is faulty. Christians and Jews and everyone else have done evil things. But there is no doctrine of warfare against and subjugation of unbelievers in Christianity or Judaism. In Islam there is. This is a matter of fact, abundantly established by the texts not just of the Qur'an, but of Hadith and fiqh.

It was, however, sometimes harder for Muslims to deal critically with the violent statements in the Koran because of the belief that every word of the Koran is spoken by God.

The challenge, he said, was to have people follow those parts of the scriptures that espouse non-violence....

Indeed. But then there are people such as the Chief Justice of Saudi Arabia arguing that the elements of the Qur'an that espouse non-violence, such as the 109th sura, have been superseded by the violent verses. Nor is he the originator or sole proponent of this concept. This kind of exegesis is what needs to be addressed by people like Stanley and self-professed Muslim moderates. The world is still waiting.

The things that you're liable to read in the Bible …

Psalms 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

See above.

Matthew 10: 34-36 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Uh-oh. Get ready for the Christian jihad against mothers-in-law!

Seriously, here we have no command to violence, nothing like "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29). We have, instead, a verse that has been traditionally interpreted by all Christian sects as referring to differences between people that would be created by the Christianity of one and the non-Christianity of the other. Nothing to do with fighting or killing people at all.

Deuteronomy 7:2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.

This one would be frightening indeed if it were an open-ended, universal command for all believers to wage war against all unbelievers, such as is found in the Qur'an (9:5, 9:29, etc.). But in fact, it refers to the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And it is not in force for all time, but only until the Israelites take possession of the land God gave them. Evidence for this is found in the fact that no Jewish or Christian group that committed acts of violence in any context ever invoked Deuteronomy 7:2 to justify their actions. The contrast with the Qur'an and contemporary jihad groups couldn't be more stark.

Psalms 58:10 : The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked

Here again: when we see Jewish and Christian terror groups washing their feet in the blood of the wicked, we may have something to be concerned about. Until then, we can rest on the assurance that Jewish and Christian interpretative traditions -- mainstream traditions -- mitigate the force of the literal understanding of this in various ways. Again, the contrast with mainstream Qur'anic interpretation couldn't be more stark.

The images comes from Internet Haganah (thanks to Sr. Soph). It appears that this is some kind of World Cup soccer ball, with the flags of the various participating nations -- including Saudi Arabia.

So what? Well, as you can see, the Saudi flag prominently features the Shahada, the Islamic profession of faith: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger."

And...people are going to kick that?

This one could rival the Cartoon Jihad. But of course, it is never possible to guess about what will be chosen as the next pretext to stoke the sense of grievance and rage that the jihadists need to garner support and recruits.

"Lewis backs Bush: Suicide terror a perversion of Islam," from the World Tribune, with thanks to Mathew:

Princeton historian Bernard Lewis, a foremost authority on Islam and the West, said recently that the Bush administration needs to better identify its global campaign against terrorism.

“I feel that while we are indeed engaged in a war against terror, it is inadequate and even misleading,” Lewis said recently at a forum. “If Churchill had informed the country in 1940, we are engaged in a war against bomber aircraft and submarines, that would have been an accurate statement but not a very helpful one. To say we are engaged in a war against terror is of the same order. Terror is a tactic. It's a method of waging war. It is not a cause, it is not an adversary, it is not anything that one can identify as an opponent, and I think we need to be more specific in fighting a war. It's useful to know who the enemy is.”

That part is great. In fact, it sounds as if Bernard Lewis has been reading my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) in which I make precisely this point.

(Note for the literal-minded: no, of course I don't think Lewis has read any of my books.)

Lewis, speaking at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last month, agreed with President Bush that Islamist extremism is a perversion of Islam.

“Take, for example, the suicide bomber. Classical Islamic legal and religious texts are quite clear on the subject of suicide. Suicide is what Christians would call a mortal sin. Even if a man or a woman had lived a life of unremitting virtue, by committing suicide they forfeit paradise and go straight to hell, where, according to the sacred texts, the eternal punishment of the suicide consists of the eternal repetition of the act of suicide," he said.

Under Islam, a person who poisons himself will experience “an eternity of bellyache.”

Suicide terrorism is a recent development that has come in stages. Islamic jurists recently ruled that throwing oneself to death against a superior enemy was permissible.

“And that was where it stood for centuries and centuries,” Lewis said. “Even the famous Assassins of the Middle Ages never died by their own hands and never killed anyone but the marked target.”

Recently, however, Islamist extremists were able to change the law to allow taking one’s life while taking a sufficient number of the enemy as well. Lewis called it a “radical departure” from past Islamic practice and theology.

Suicide terrorism emanated from Wahabism, in Najd, part of Saudi Arabia in the 18th Century.

All right. Just a couple of points here, Professor Lewis. As I have noted before, John Paul Jones encountered suicide attacks by Muslim Turks in 1788 -- a time when Wahhabism was an Arabian movement opposed by the Ottomans. Jones described a naval encounter between the Turks and the Russians that took place when Jones served in the Russian Navy:

“…for it was the intention of the Turks to attack us and board us, and if we had been only three versts further the attempt would have been made on the 16th [June 1788] (before the vessel of the Captain Pacha ran aground in advancing before the wind with all his forces to attack us,), God only knows what would have been the result…The Turks had a very large force, and we have been informed by our prisoners that they were resolved to destroy us, even by burning themselves, (in setting fire to their own vessels after having grappled with ours.) [note added by Jones: Before their departure from Constantinople, they swore by the beard of the Sultan to execute this horrible plan…if Providence had not caused its failure from two circumstances which no man could forsee.”]

That's from John Paul Jones’ Letter to Prince Potemkin, June 20, 1788, from Life and Character of John Paul Jones-A Captain in the Navy of the United States, John H. Sherburne, 1825, p. 308 (thanks to Andrew Bostom).

Now why would these almost certainly non-Wahhabi Muslim sailors do such a thing? Could it be because At-Tauba 111, chapter 9 verse 111 of the Qur'an, is in their Qur'ans as well as in Wahhabi Qur'ans? That verse promises Paradise to one who "kills and is killed" for Allah. Such a death is not considered suicide, and so Lewis is noting Islamic prohibitions of suicide even though they simply don't apply to jihad/martyrdom attacks.

Here and here are Hugh Fitzgerald's tributes to Bernard Lewis.

UPDATE: Andrew Bostom has alerted me to the fact that Professor Franz Rosenthal, the great American scholar of Islam who 50 years ago translated Ibn Khaldun's classic Muqaddimah, wrote this in his 1946 essay "On Suicide in Islam":

While the Qur'anic attitude toward suicide remains uncertain, the great authorities of the hadith leave no doubt as to the official attitude of Islam. In their opinion suicide is an unlawful act....On the other hand, death as the result of "suicidal" missions and of the desire of martyrdom occurs not infrequently, since death is considered highly commendable according to Muslim religious concepts. However, such cases are no[t] suicides in the proper sense of the term. (Rosenthal, Franz, "On Suicide in Islam," Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 66, pp. 243, 256.)

What would Lewis say to Rosenthal? Would he consider that an accurate or an inaccurate summation?

Bostom himself notes what has often been noted here, about Qaradawi and others:

That is why even clerics such as the popular Al-Jazeera personality Yusuf Al Qaradawi openly sanction murderous Palestinian homicide bomber "martyrdom" operations against innocent Israeli citizens (all of whom are considered "combatants" who obstruct the "call to Islam") during fatwa councils convened in the heart of Europe.

(UPDATE: I took out my quip about Edward Said and Lewis. It was a little attempt at a joke, based on Lewis' strange wobbliness on key issues in recent years. I think the wobbliness is well attested, but nobody liked the joke, so I have removed it. For the record: Lewis is in many areas a great scholar, a hero of scholarship, and his work should be read by all -- especially The Political Language of Islam.)

This story contains much of the information that I posted here: these plotters were planning jihad attacks against a British nightclub and other targets. But this story adds some important new details -- particularly about how these plotters, like Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, believed that what they were doing was in accord with the Qur'an, and quoted particular verses to support this. Yet all too many Muslims in the West continue to spend their time convincing gullible non-Muslims that the verses in question don't mean what to these plotters is "just clear" that they do mean -- instead of trying to combat the iunfluence of the plotters' interpretation among Muslims, which of course would be much more difficult, but would be immensely more worthwhile in combating the jihad these Muslims profess to oppose.

"Gang 'plotted to blow up Ministry of Sound,'" from The Telegraph, with thanks to David:

An alleged al-Qa'eda terrorist cell discussed blowing up the Ministry of Sound nightclub to take revenge on "those slags dancing around", a jury heard yesterday....

Akbar, then 20 and studying at Brunel University, suggested targeting bars and added: "The biggest nightclub in central London where no one can even turn around and say 'oh they were innocent', those slags dancing around and other things."

Apparently referring to the September 11 2001 attacks on America, he added: "Trust me, then you will get the public talking 'cause they targeted economics, yeah, but if you went for the social structure where every Tom, Dick and Harry goes on a Saturday night, yeah, that would be crazy, crazy thing."...

Akbar said: "Our purpose is to defend the honour of the Muslim, yeah, and bring the Islamic state back because if the Islamic state were here then the problems would not be there."

The two men, both from Crawley, West Sussex, were discussing leaving their wives and families behind and whether Akbar was ready to join Khyam fighting Jihad in Pakistan.

Khyam said he believed Britain was a kufr [heathen] country and added: "You see things different, but me, it's just nothing, they just need to be killed and blood spilled. To me this is clear.

''The verse says lay in ambush for them, besiege them and kill them when you find them, to me that's just clear, kill them."

Quoting the Koran, Akbar said: "The best thing you can do is put terror in their hearts, there is no doubt, there is nothing better than that. We put fear in their hearts."

Khyam warned him to talk to those "running the Jihad [Holy War]" at the top in Pakistan and added: "So now in England, imagine you do something and there's brothers here you could jeopardise them, so it's better to consult those who are running the Jihad. There's a structure so work within the structure."

He added: "It's waiting bro. . . everyone's ready now, innit."

Here are some of the Qur'an verses Akbar probably quoted about terror:

"Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority: their abode will be the Fire: And evil is the home of the wrong-doers!" (Qur'an 3:151)

"How many a township have We destroyed! As a raid by night, or while they slept at noon, Our terror came unto them. No plea had they, when Our terror came unto them, save that they said: Lo! We were wrong-doers." (Qur'an 7:4-5)

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.'" (Qur'an 8:12)

"Against them 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." (Qur'an 8:60)

Horror upon horror. "Dissident tells of assaults and threats against children during 66 days in jail run by Iran's clerical regime," from the Telegraph, with thanks to Schoolraider:

A leading Iranian pro-democracy and women's activist, who was jailed on trumped-up charges last year, has revealed how the clerical regime cynically deploys systemic sexual violence against female dissidents in the name of Islam.

Roya Tolouee, 40, was beaten up by Iranian intelligence agents and subjected to a horrific sexual assault when she refused to sign forced confessions. It was only when they threatened to burn her two children to death in front of her that she agreed to put her name to the documents.

Perhaps just as shocking as the physical abuse were the chilling words of the man who led the attack. "When I asked how he could do this to me, he said that he believed in only two things - Islam and the rule of the clerics," Miss Tolouee told The Sunday Telegraph last week in an interview in Washington after she fled Iran.

"But I know of no religious morality that can justify what they did to me, or other women. For these people, religion is only a tool for dictatorship and abuse. It is a regime of prejudice against women, against other regimes, against other ethnic groups, against anybody who thinks differently from them."

Miss Tolouee's account of her ordeal confirms recent reports from opposition groups that Iranian intelligence officials use sexual abuse against female prisoners as an interrogation technique and even rape young women before execution so that they cannot reach heaven as virgins.

Few women from the Islamic world are willing to discuss such matters, even with each other, but Miss Tolouee said that the regime routinely committed sexual attacks against female detainees....

"Four armed men and three armed women barged into my house at night and took me away," she said. "My kids were terrified and crying. I was questioned all night by different interrogators and then thrown alone into a cell."

She was held in solitary confinement in the prison of the feared internal intelligence service, with only a blanket and a cup that often had to serve as a lavatory.

For the first six nights, she was taken to a basement where interrogators demanded that she admit to organising the protests, and also that she identify co-conspirators on a list of names they put to her.

"When I wouldn't do what they wanted, they slapped me. But after the sixth night, the routine changed. I was left alone in a small dark room with two men. One was the assistant prosecutor and called himself Amiri. The other had a filthy mouth and said terrible things. They started slapping me again. For the rest of the night they did to me what no woman should ever experience. Amiri said, 'I'm going to hang you, but before I hang you, I will make an example of you so that no woman will dare to open her mouth here again'." He then sexually assaulted her.

When she asked Amiri how he could act like that, he told her that only Islam and clerical rule were important to him. The attack left her badly bruised and bleeding internally, but she refused to sign the papers they put before her. To her assailants' fury, she demanded to see a lawyer and cited international treaties on human rights.

The following night they did not sexually molest her again as she was still bleeding - and hence "unclean". Instead, they told her that they would kill her children by setting them on fire before her eyes.

Finally, she admits, she cracked. "I threw myself at Amiri's feet and begged him not to harm my children. I said I'd do anything they wanted. Whatever they wanted, I would sign." She admitted to conspiring against the regime by giving interviews to the foreign media and leading the protests, but said that she did not implicate others....

"Sometimes the regime seems a bit better, sometimes a bit worse, but for the people of Iran, the suffering continues," she said.

And for the rest of us, it is just about to begin.

The courageous and insightful Ali Sina has written a book, and he needs people to show interest in buying it in order to encourage his publisher. Please take a look here and support Ali by signing up.

And here are some of the endorsements the book has received (there are more here):

The book is prefaced by the celebrated scholar [and Jihad Watch Board member] Ibn Warraq.

[...]

1- A blisteringly honest, thoroughly documented, and piercingly insightful investigation of the root causes within Islam of the fanaticism and violence that today threatens the entire world. Should be required reading at the State Department and the White House. -- Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades (Regnery)

2- A powerful, no holds barred look at an ideology of hate and what must be done to eradicate it. This book pulls no punches. A must read for anyone seeking to understand Islamist terrorism" Professor Kim Ezra Shienbaum, Ph.D Dept. of Political Science, Rutgers University Camden, NJ. Chief Editor of Beyond Jihad.

3- With great courage, perspicacity, and trenchant wit, Ali Sina demolishes a host of politically correct myths about Islam, and its founder. One wishes policymaking elites would avail themselves of his insights which shatter the dangerous delusions of their own invented Islam. Andrew G. Bostom, MD, author of The Legacy of Jihad

[...]

9- The war against jihad can and must be won, in spite of the Western elite class that is instinctively prone to appeasement and betrayal. The first task is to analyze frankly the identity and character of the enemy and the nature of the threat. It is essential to discard the taboos and to discuss Islam without fear or guilt, or the shackles of mandated thinking. Ali Sina's new book makes an important contribution to that objective.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles,” says Sun Tzu. Thanks to this book we know the jihadist enemy a little better -- his core beliefs, his role models, his track-record, his mindset, his modus operandi, and his intentions. We also know his weaknesses, which are many, above all his inability to develop a prosperous economy or a functional, harmonious and good society.

The main problem remains with ourselves, however, with those among us who have the power to make policy and shape opinions, and who will reject and condemn Ali Sina's diagnosis. Our own elite class treats the jihadist mindset as a pathology that can and should be treated by treating causes external to Islam itself. The result is a plethora of proposed multiculturalist “cures” that are as likely to succeed in making us safe from terrorism as snake oil is likely to cure leukemia. Dr. S. Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor CHRONICLES

As Charles Johnson says, "Uh. I think that’s supposed to be the idea." And if it isn't, it should be: there should be clear legislation that specifies that teaching jihad -- which traditionally and primarily has meant warfare against unbelievers in order to establish the hegemony of the Islamic social order -- is unacceptable.

"Muslims targeted by glorification legislation," from The Muslim News, with thanks to LGF:

The Government was condemned last month on its glorification antiterrorism legislation at an event to celebrate Prophet Muhammad (p)’s birthday held on April 18. “The Government is spending more time on anti terror legislation and is taking away Muslims’ civil liberties and freedom,” said Secretary General of Union of Muslim Organisations (UMO), Syed Aziz Pasha. He was responding to Home Office Minister, Fiona Mactaggart, who told the guests that the anti terror legislation was meant “to make us safer” and that the outlawing of glorification of terrorism “does not prevent reasonable speeches.”

Mactaggart said the Government was “looking forward to continuing collaboration with the Muslim community.” It is “this relationship that helps policing work,” she said. But Pasha said anti terror legislation was targeted at the Muslims and the new addition of glorification would prevent them from speaking about jihad as this would be considered as terrorism.

The Tiny Minority of Extremists has been Extremely busy in Britain. Yet no one seems to get the bright idea to start checking for jihadist sentiments among those wishing to enter the country. "MI5 at full stretch as 20 Islamist terror plots revealed," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to DP:

TWENTY “major conspiracies” by Islamist terrorists in Britain have been uncovered by the security services, John Reid, the home secretary, has disclosed.

Reid said that the existence of so many plots means that the police and MI5 are fully stretched and cannot divert their precious counter-terrorism resources to a lengthy public inquiry into last year’s London suicide bombings.

Reid revealed the existence of the plots — far more than have previously been reported — at a meeting with some of the victims’ relatives and survivors of the attacks last week.

He failed to give further details but the claim appears to fit in with briefings by MI5 which suggest that as many as 1,200 potential terrorist suspects may now be in the UK.

1938 Alert: "Israel bombs bases in Lebanon," from Reuters, with thanks to JE:

Military officials say Israeli jets have fired missiles at two Palestinian militant bases in Lebanon.

The attack has come hours after rockets fired into northern Israel wounded an Israeli soldier.

Witnesses say they have seen columns of black smoke rising from a military base just outside Beirut and another in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Both bases are run by the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian-General Command (PFLP-GC)....

Palestinian militants at Luci have fired automatic rifles and anti-aircraft guns at the Israeli planes.

The Lebanese army says its anti-aircraft units have responded at the PFLP-GC's large Naameh bunker near Beirut.

Israel says one of the bunkers was used as an arms store.

"Following the attack today, we responded with air strikes against two terrorist targets in Lebanon," an Israeli army spokesman said.

"One of the targets was used to store weapons and ammunition."
Revenge sworn

The exchange has come two days after a senior Islamic Jihad official and his brother were killed in a car bombing in southern Lebanon that the Palestinian group has blamed on Israel.

Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group, which controls the Lebanese side of the border, also blamed Israel for the assassination.

Islamic Jihad officials swore revenge after the car bombing.

It is unclear who fired the rockets into northern Israel.

Hizbollah has had no immediate comment on that attack or the subsequent Israeli air strikes.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Ekklesia, with thanks to Mathew:

A bill proposed by lawmakers in the Indonesian province of Aceh would impose Shariah law on all non-Muslims, the armed forces and law enforcement officers, a local police official has announced.

The news comes two months after the Deutsche Presse-Agentur warned of “Taliban-style Islamic police terrorizing Indonesia's Aceh”.

Shariah took effect in 2005 in Aceh, a predominantly Muslim region on the northernmost tip of Sumatra. But it only applied to Muslims....

Alyasa Abubakar, head of the relevant local government office, declared recently: "Based on equality in law, Acehnese people have formally proposed ... to apply the Islamic Shariah Law to all those residing in Aceh, including military, police and non-Muslims."

The provincial Islamic law department has called a further crackdown on 'immorality' - alcohol, gambling, women appearing in public without headscarves or venturing out at night without a male escort.

Recently a young Acehnese woman was allegedly publicly flogged for kissing her boyfriend in public, while another 23-year-old has been locked up in Acehnese jail for more than two weeks without access to an attorney after being caught drinking beer.

Shariah police are said to have barged into the lobby of a leading Banda Aceh hotel to arrest three women attending an international conference because they were not wearing headscarves.

Garbo talks! Dean Esmay has finally responded to my post here. His reply, as I might have expected, is nasty, mean-spirited, and full of ad hominem attacks and misrepresentations of my work and views.

Here is the substance:

Still, let's try to get to the meat of this: Spencer's ultimate argument is based on a red herring: I (and others) are supposed to point to any mainstream school of Islamic thought that completely rejects holy war (violent jihad). Well, none of them do. So what? I never thought they did.

Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong! Sure you say that some mainstream Christian groups have changed their ways on this, but their Bible and the vast majority of the faith's history do not agree! Prove me wrong, prove me wrong!

Well, obviously this is a false analogy. If there were a global movement of Christian slavers today, justifying their actions by the Bible, it would be a workable analogy. But there isn't.

Also, I am not saying that the Bible and the Qur'an are the only sources. Far from it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that the Seventh Commandment forbids slavery. I frequently mention Islamic sources other than the Qur'an that only buttress the message of violence in it, rather than mitigating that message -- see, for example, here.

In other words, the jihadists are working from a broad, mainstream tradition within Islam, not just from a few Qur'an verses. There are many implications of this. But above all, any genuine Islamic reformer needs to confront this entire jurisprudential tradition -- not just ignore its existence.

Esmay also explains why he is so good and I am so evil:

Ditto his bizarre request that someone provide him with Islamic texts sufficient to make violent radicals put down their weapons--which I think any sane person would view as an outright impossibility.

Now here's the thing: I knew this was impossible before I'd ever heard of Robert Spencer, and so did Robert Spencer. So what is the purpose of this argument? Well one of us, apparently, finds the fact far more significant than the other one does. And one of us apparantly makes a living selling books and on speaking engagements to explain how violent jihadism is to be found in Islamic scholarship. The other goes out of his way to befriend muslims who are anti-terrorism, and to highlight writings by muslims who reject terrorism. One of us obviously wants to help muslims, while the other insists that no he doesn't hate muslims he just doesn't trust any of them who object to violence on religious grounds.

I have explained this again and again, and he ignores it: I am for moderate Muslims who reject terrorism. I am not for those who try to sell me a bill of goods about how there is no basis in the Qur'an or Sunnah for religiously-based violence. That is not reform; it is deception. I love the former, but I will not put up with the latter. Esmay shows no sign of caring about the distinction. He says this:

What also troubles me, Robert, is that you claim you want to defeat jihadist terrorism, and you also claim you want to help muslims who work toward examining troubling aspects within their faith, but you accuse muslims who disagree with you of lying to you--they apparently can't just be wrong, or draw different conclusions from you.

The difference is actually this: if a Lutheran preacher in 1520 said, "the Church teaches transubstantiation, and that is wrong," he would have been a reformer (leaving aside the question of the legitimacy of the reform, which has nothing to do with my point). If he had said, "the Church has never taught transubstantiation," he would not have been a reformer. He would have been a deceiver.

Anyway, for Esmay it is all because I have a tiny readership, and he has a huge one:

Spencer says he doesn't do anything like this, but in fact this is exactly what he's doing here. Apparently, from what I can see, he does it for a living, which is probably why he's calling out high-traffic bloggers to pick fights with; it's an absolute certainty that I have a lot more readers than he does, and he probably knows it despite his obsessively repeated claims that nobody reads me and that I am utterly unimportant to him (yes, so unimportant he feels the need to send me obsessive, juvenile emails and repeated taunts from his blog).

This is false in a number of ways. In the first place, I didn't pick a fight with him; he was attacking me and my work before I had ever heard his name. As for readership, I was told by some people after my first response to him that he had a tiny readership, and that was borne out by this, which is what I base my assessment of readership on; it could be wrong for all I know. Actually it doesn't matter, because I was actually referring to the impossibility of convincing him of anything, but the possibility of convincing people of good will. But anyway, it looks from that as if Jihad Watch has a much larger readership than Dean's World. You tell me if I am reading that wrong and that the lower line actually somehow signifies a larger readership. But I don't think it does.

And as for those "juvenile" emails, Esmay is no doubt referring to my reference to Matoko Kusanagi as "dodgy company" and my sarcastic reference to his calling me a traitor, when I said I was late for a flag-burning. I confess to being acerbic. But he ignores the substantive points I made in those emails, as he has breezed by virtually all the substantive points I have made. Here is a portion of one -- which answers his point that it is absurd for me to call on moderate Muslims to refute the mujahedin. Juvenile? Taunting? You be the judge. Esmay's statements are double indented, mine are single indented:

Most of the muslims I know say you're incredibly duplicitous and malicious and engage in circular logic and straw man arguments

I wish you or they would provide an example of this duplicity and malice. The fact is that only I know what is in my heart, and whether I am doing this out of malice, and only I can know such a thing -- just as only you know your own motives for anything. Their case would be aided considerably by specific examples of these alleged crimes. But all I can tell you is that I am doing my best to report honestly about Islamic theology and the Islamic world, and that the fact that I constantly meet with such charges -- bereft as always of examples -- makes me in turn doubt the good faith of those who make them.

--the most laughable being your demand that someone provide sufficient references to make the violent jihadis put down their arms, which any idiot knows is completely impossible.

This isn't laughable in the least. Nor should it be impossible if what you and people like Matoko are saying about Islam were true. If the broad mainstream of peaceful Muslims really had the Qur'an and Islamic theology on their side, and they were just as appalled as anyone else by the global activity of the jihadists, they would be doing things like holding classes in every mosque, teaching Muslims the true peaceful Islam and inoculating them against recruitment by the mujahedin, which proceeds along the self-professed assumption that they represent "true Islam" and "pure Islam." If this is not the case, as the moderates insist it isn't, then they could do a great service to the Muslim community worldwide, and to the world at large, if they began a large-scale campaign to discredit the mujahedin on Islamic grounds.

I don't think this is unreasonable at all, and I think it's telling that it doesn't exist. I speak of making violent jihadis lay down their arms in that context -- assuming that someone who believes he is carrying out the will of Allah, as they undeniably do, will change his behavior if he comes to see the will of Allah in a different light. But ultimately what I am calling for in that way is the kind of campaign to which I refer above.

Thank you for your very first reasoned response, almost entirely free of insults and abuse. I can see from your site that you have good intentions, and have been stunned by your boiling and uninformed hostility toward me and my work. That hostility may continue, but I am going to keep giving you reasoned responses to your points, as I think ultimately we are working in the same direction -- although I am aware you may indignantly reject such an idea.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Anyway, Esmay has entangled himself in an insuperable contradiction: he has admitted that no "mainstream school of Islamic thought...completely rejects holy war (violent jihad)." Then he renews his accusation that I am taking "the most tendentious and pernicious interpretations" of Islamic scholarship and declaring "that these are the inescapably correct views." Well, if no mainstream school of Islamic jurisprudence rejects violent jihad, then violent jihad is the Islamic mainstream -- and it is not I who am cherry-picking among Islamic texts to create my own private Islam.

The exchange between Dean Esmay and me is available for everyone to see. He accused me of misrepresenting peaceful Islam, and has now acknowledged that peaceful Islam is not mainstream. He did not respond to my request to demonstrate that mainstream Islamic teaching is peaceful and tolerant, which was his initial objection to my work -- and of course, he cannot do so. As soon as his Muslim foes of terror are willing to acknowledge that as well, and to work among Muslims to mitigate the power of the Qur'an and Sunnah to recruit and motivate terrorists, I'll be happy to give them all support. But as long as they continue to deny that that power exists at all, I respectfully decline to play along.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses official Washington's continuing misapprehension and dhimmitude:

The army is full of officers and men who, even if they once were sturdily willing to do what they saw as their duty, after their second or third tour in Iraq have come away, despite their best efforts at times to remain quiet about it, disgusted with the waste and the stupidity of the effort. They are now full of justified loathing not only for the Sunni insurgents or the Mahdi army boys, but also for so many in the general population who clearly are collaborating with those trying to kill the Americans, and who do so little, so unwillingly, to defend their own "Iraq." So as the army becomes demoralized, more and more people are realizing that the Administration did not commit a few "mistakes" in the execution of the war, but rather misconceived the entire war as "a war on terror" -- rather than as a war of self-defense against Islamic jihad. To understand this would mean to understand that no Muslim state can be permitted to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq was, despite all this "secularist" business, a Muslim state, its not unrepresentative regime infused with the attitudes and atmospherics of Islam in the version that we all "Pan-Arabism."

And so now many of the best young officers leave, and soldiers do not re-enlist, and the recruitment standards are dangerously lowered, and those who signed up for the Reserves or the National Guard in a burst of patriotism in 2002 and 2003 are disgusted by the behavior of so many of the generals who "do not get it" and keep prating about "winning hearts and minds" in Iraq, or Afghanistan. They are disgusted by leaders who are afraid to state clearly that not only did the Administration fail to identify the enemy, it also got Iraq entirely wrong. Those leaders miscomprehended the depth of the Shi'a resentment of Sunnis, which is not merely a result of Saddam Hussein, nor of the past 50 years (i.e., since the coup that overthrew the monarchy and Nuri as-Said) of Iraq's history, but of 1300 years of Sunnis and Shi'a being at each other's throats. They failed as well to realize that the Sunni Arabs will never reconcile themselves, whether in or out of Iraq, to the Land of the Two Rivers being dominated by Shi’ites. The Sunni Arabs will never be disabused of their crazed conviction that they constitute 42%, and not 19%, of the population.

Jihad In America Alert: "Lebanese man gets 5-year sentence for helping Hezbollah," from AP, with thanks to Joe:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A federal judge sentenced a Lebanese man to the maximum five years in prison for conspiring to help the group Hezbollah, turning aside his plea for mercy "if not for me, then for my kids."

U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger imposed the maximum sentence, plus five years' probation, Thursday for Fadl Mohammad Maatouk.

Maatouk, who came to the United States on a temporary visa in 1999, pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to help Hezbollah, which is on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

He admitted that in a 2003 telephone call with his brother, he agreed to lend a machine gun to a Hezbollah member, who planned to use it to protect one of the group's leaders in southern Lebanon. He also said he gave Hezbollah members camouflage fatigues while visiting Lebanon in 2003.

Maatouk was arrested in March 2005 on unrelated charges of selling drug paraphernalia and sending money made from criminal activity to Lebanon.

He told the judge Thursday that he had not meant to break any laws.

Of course not. That drug paraphernalia? For kids, to play water games! Those fatigues? More water-gun fun! That machine gun? Uh...

1938 Alert from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to LGF, where the first commenter aptly summed it up: "Let us nuke you, or we'll nuke you."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Europe that it should support his country's nuclear program or "suffer the consequences."

In an interview to be published in the German Der Spiegel on Sunday, Ahmadinejad also expressed his doubt regarding the Holocaust, saying that even if it had occurred, the Jewish state should have been established in Europe, not in Palestine.

"I only accept something as the truth if I am truly convinced of it," he asserted.

But don't worry. Despite this Holocaust denial (repeated yet again), he is still welcome among the Eurodhimmis in Germany:

The Iranian president, who previously stated his intention to travel to Germany for the World Cup games that will take place there this summer, said that he had not yet decided on the matter. Iran is one of the 32 nations participating in the world-wide sporting event.

"My decision depends on a lot of different things," Ahmadinejad said.

Danish dhimmitude from IslamOnline, with thanks to Inexion:

COPENHAGEN, May 26, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Denmark was condemned Thursday, May 25, in an official report for its mishandling of the cartoon crisis sparked by the publication of 12 caricatures that lampooned Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) in Danish mass-circulation Jyllands Posten in September.

"The government's management of the Muhammad (cartoon) affair was a bigger problem than the caricatures themselves and the prime minister ... should have entered into dialogue with the Muslim ambassadors," said the government-sanctioned study, a copy of which was obtained by Jyllands Posten, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP)....

What absurdity. Fogh Rasmussen, you may recall, refused to meet with the ambassadors because he said, correctly, that it was not his province to limit freedom of the speech or freedom of the press. But for this "official report," evidently, those freedoms matter less than appeasing those whose reaction to these cartoons was so insanely disproportionate as to include multiple murders of innocent people.

The study said that the Danish government has not proved forthcoming and responded negatively to Muslim bids to break the standoff.

"Denmark, in practice, did not want dialogue," said the Danish university researchers who wrote the study.

"It did not acknowledge the points of view of the other party (Muslim nations) and ... saw being open to dialogue as compromising its own values."

Danish Muslim leaders had taken pains to settle the crisis, but they were given the could shoulder by the government.

This is nonsense. They didn't want to settle it. They wanted to stir it up -- remember the three more incendiary cartoons, which did not appear in the newspaper, that somehow made it into the dossier they circulated in the Islamic world.

They would only have wanted Fogh Rasmussen to kowtow and demands that the newspaper and cartoonists kowtow also.

They then took their case to the Muslim world, embarking on a multi-leg Arab tour that outraged the government which accused them of "internationalizing" the issue and inciting anti-Danish hatred.

No mention in IslamOnline, you'll notice, of the three additional cartoons.

More Cartoon Dhimmitude. "Indigo pulls controversial Harper's off the shelves," from the Globe and Mail, with thanks to m3:

Canada's largest retail bookseller has removed all copies of the June issue of Harper's Magazine from its 260 stores, claiming an article by New York cartoonist Art Spiegelman could foment protests similar to those that occurred this year in reaction to the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Indigo Books and Music took the action this week when its executives noticed that the 10-page Harper's article, titled Drawing Blood, reproduced all 12 cartoons first published last September by Jyllands-Posten (The Morning Newspaper).

The article also contains five cartoons, including one by Mr. Spiegelman and two by Israelis, “inspired” by an Iranian newspaper's call in February for an international Holocaust cartoon contest “to test the limits of Western tolerance of free speech.”...

In a memo obtained by The Globe and Mail that was e-mailed to Indigo managers yesterday about “what to do if customers question Indigo's censorship” of Harper's, employees are told to say that “the decision was made based on the fact that the content about to be published has been known to ignite demonstrations around the world. Indigo [and its subsidiaries] Chapters and Coles will not carry this particular issue of the magazine but will continue to carry other issues of this publication in the future.”...

“I'd expect an American company to do this, not a Canadian,” Mr. MacArthur said yesterday. “Even though you have tougher libel laws than us and your own versions of political correctness, to my mind [Canada] has always been a freer place for political discourse.”

The U.S. news media have become “terribly prone to self-censorship,” especially after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, he said. “There's a more wide open debate [in Canada] than in America.”

That is, there was.

We Won! Alert from Knight Ridder Newspapers, with thanks to Mackie:

BASRA, Iraq - Southern Iraq, long touted as a peaceful region that's likely to be among the first areas returned to Iraqi control, is now dominated by Shiite Muslim warlords and militiamen who are laying the groundwork for an Islamic fundamentalist government, say senior British and Iraqi officials in the area.

The militias appear to be supported by Iranian intelligence or military units that are shipping weapons to the militias in Iraq and providing training for them in Iran.

Some British officials believe the Iranians want to hasten the withdrawal of U.S.-backed coalition forces to pave the way for Iran-friendly clerical rule.

Iranian influence is evident throughout the area. In one government office, an aide approached a Knight Ridder reporter and, mistaking him for an Iranian, said, "Don't be afraid to speak Farsi in Basra. We are a branch of Iran."

"We get an idea that (military training) courses are being run" in Iran, said Lt. Col. David Labouchere, who commands British units in the province of Maysan, north of Basra. "People are training on the other side of the border and then coming back."

Lawrence Auster has just noticed my post about his attacks on me and the false charges they're based on. In case anyone is interested, he and I are mud wrestling in the comments field there.

It seems I am a "neocon," and I don't value Western civilization, and I don't even know it. I guess that as long as I am involved in things without even knowing it myself, in that case I must also be a Jesuit temporal coadjutor and a Sephardic Jew.

But Larry, God bless him, is sticking to the high road.

UPDATE: Auster is, quite simply, misrepresenting my positions and beliefs, and persisting to do so after I explained them. He has abundantly established that he was not worth all this time.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Auster continues to insist I am a "liberal," which to him is worse than a "mujahid," although his only evidence for this is that I don't hesitate to ally with Hirsi Ali. Auster evidently believes that to ally with someone means to agree with them on all points. Churchill might have found that amusing as he sat next to Stalin at those Big Three meetings.

In any case, he claims that I have failed to grasp his distinction between not valuing the West and valuing the West only for liberal reasons. This is in fact a distinction without a difference, for he considers the liberals worse enemies of the West than the jihadists.
Unfortunately, it is he who has glossed over key distinctions and jumped to innumerable erroneous conclusions, and he who gave the discussion a nasty personal cast by presuming to speak of my motives and values, of which he actually knows nothing.

In fact, I value the Judeo-Christian West, the culture and the people -- which is what he accuses me of not doing. Anyone who reads what I write knows this. He has not read the chapter of my book Onward Muslim Soldiers in which I take real liberals to task for their short-sighted hatred of America and the West and willingness to side with the mujahedin, or the passages in my books Islam Unveiled and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam which warn that we will never prevail in this struggle unless we recover a sense of pride in who we are and who our forefathers were. But he doesn't know that material exists.

But I will still ally with people on the Left against the mujahedin, for if the mujahedin prevail, Larry and I will not be free to have these delightful exchanges.

His imperviousness to the facts is clearest in our last exchange, in which he claimed that I denied calling him a racist. In fact, I never called him a racist in the first place. I said the statements that a commenter had posted were racist, and expressed no certainty that Auster had actually made them. The second, supposedly self-contradictory message from me denied none of this.

What he says about me as a liberal is not true, and is contradicted by my writings, in which I repeatedly call on the West to recover its own spiritual and cultural resources. But Auster acknowledges that he hasn't read what I have actually written. That makes him particularly irresponsible in launching this attack.

Finally, he says I am "not a thinker," although here again this is based only upon what he assumes I believe and say, not what I actually believe and say. Very well. If a "thinker" is one who launches a sustained smear attack based on an erroneous and baseless judgment of what someone else actually says and believes, sweeping aside all evidence presented to the contrary, then I would prefer not to be one.

Anyway, I am aware that nobody in this world cares this much about Lawrence Auster and Robert Spencer to read all this. But in any case it is here now, on the record, for anyone of good will who comes across his attacks and would like to see the other side, and for anyone who wonders where I actually stand on alliances with those I may oppose on other issues, or on the enduring value of Western civilization and the importance of defending it. All those who are quick to praise Auster for his "intellectual honesty" should ask him for actual material from my writings that establishes that I have no regard for Western civilization except insofar as it preserves and allows for relativism and multiculturalism. And then be prepared for a long wait.

Misunderstanders of Islam Garrison Update.

"Terrorism: Europe A Target of Iranian Suicide Bombers," from AKI, :

Tehran, 26 May (AKI) - (Ahmad Rafat) - On Thursday afternoon in Tehran's cemetery of Behesht Zahra a group of 100 aspiring suicide bombers was sworn in at a ceremony also attended by a group of Hezbollah militants from Lebanon. The would-be terrorists are the new recruits of a movement which claims to have 50,000 members and is called Setad Pasdasht Shohadaye Nehzat Jahani Islam (Headquarters for the Commemoration of the Martyrs of the International Islamic Movement).

A day after the ceremony, Mohammad Ali Samadi, the organisation's spokesman, told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone conversation that "Each Israeli, soldier or civilian, must not feel safe wherever he or she is."

How is it that this devout Muslim doesn't know that Islam forbids the killing of civilians, as we are tirelessly told in the West?

Samadi said Israel is a target of the group along with the US and European Union countries where the group has allegedly recruited militants. "We have brothers who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the triumph of Islam in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and also the United States," he said.

Samadi's organisation was created two years ago and is led by a woman, Forouz Rajaifar.

According to Samadi, there are over 50,000 members of the group who are ready to become suicide bombers. Sources in Tehran say the number is widely exagerated though they claim the group can still count on 25.000 would-be attackers.

"A fatwa from a leading cleric is enough to set off these madmen," said a political analyst and reformist, who asked that his name be withheld.

Why would a leading cleric, who has devoted his life to the study of Islam, issue such a fatwa if it were really so patently un-Islamic as Islamic apologists in the West would have us believe (without a shred of evidence)?

Samadi said aspiring organisation members must fill in forms asking them, among other things, which enemy they want to fight against. The options ain the form are three: "Americans who desacrated the sites of Shiite Islam occupying Iraq and Afghanistan"; "Jews who occupy Jerusalem"; and the "British who gave protection to [Indian writer] Salman Rushdie" against whom Iranian clerics have issued a fatwa for his 1988 book Satanic Verses.

However, Samadi said his group is thinking to "widen the list" of targets in the membership forms and include the Netherlands, Italy and France.

"We have learnt that they want to make a follow up to the trash movie 'Submission'," by Theo Van Gogh, who was killed in 2004 by a Dutch-Moroccan Islamic militant, he said. Submission highlighted the repression of women in some Islamic cultures.

France will reportedly be a target "for greatly offending Islam after it prohibited to young women to go to school with the hijab."

Why does he think that violence is a legitimate response to those who offend Islam?

Italy was included in the potential list of new entries for granting political asylum in March to an Afghan man who risked the death penalty for converting to Christianity from Islam.

"Giving political asylum to an idiot who defied Islam is a very serious offense which cannot be ignored," said Samadi. "We will make Italians pay for this offence."

Why doesn't he know what Abdurrahman Wahid assured us, that Islam actually allows for freedom of conscience?

Samadi's group, Setad Pasdasht Shohadaye Nehzat Jahani Islam, is registered in Iran as a non-governmental organisation and is supported by leading members of the religious elite.

Why would leading members of the religious elite support something that is so obviously un-Islamic -- or at least not in accord with the view of Islam that we must accept in the West or else risk being denounced as "Islamophobes"?

Many Ayatollahs in the holy city of Qom support it along with members of Abadgaran, the main political force supporting the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Its meetings are attended by well known clerics such as hojjatolislam Heidar Mosalahi, who represents within the armed forces Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme guide.

Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani, a mujtahed - a cleric with the authority to interpret the Koran and Sharia, and who can issue a fatwa - is another supporter of the movement.

Recently Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, who heads the secretary's office of Ayatollah Khamenei, also gave his blessing to the group.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khameni has still not issued a fatwa supporting suicide attacks but he has recently said that "should the United States or the Zionist entity [Israel] attack nuclear power plants in Iran, the Islamic Republic would respond without hesitation and would strike the aggressor's interests worldwide."

Suicide attacks were also blessed by the head of the office of Iran's spiritual guide.

"Our leader [Seyyed Ali Khamenei] has volunteers ready to take action everywhere, also in the United States and Israel," said hojjatolislam Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani.

What has gotten into all these clerics? Don't they know the Qur'an teaches peace?

Members of parliament such as Mehdi Kuchekzadeh, Marzieh Dabbagh, Fatemeh Alia, Eshrat Shayegh and Mohammad Hossein Rahimian regularly attend the group's meetings.

The man who is believed to be the group's strategist is Hassan Abbasi, a professor at the University Imam Hossein in Tehran and an advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

How is it that Professor Abbasi has also so completely misunderstood the Qur'an's message of peace?

"Our youths who are ready for martyrdom will be more effective in striking the enemy than any missiles system," Abbasi allegedly vowed to the would-be suicide bombers at the cemetery Behesht Zahra in Tehran on Thursday night.

In my book Onward Muslim Soldiers I discuss the phenomenon of mujahedin traveling the world, going from jihad to jihad. From the looks of this report by Kathryn Haahr for The Jamestown Foundation, the next battleground is Europe. "Foreign fighters allegedly returning to Europe," from the International Relations and Security Network, with thanks to Ixnay:

Recent pronouncements by a Spanish judge who has led high-level inquiries into al-Qaida in Spain, Baltazar Garzon, and the head of France's domestic security service, Pierre de Bousquet, imply that Iraqi foreign fighters are already returning to Europe to re-establish or establish new networks to support terrorist operations in Europe (AFP, 9 May). While Garzon's and Bousquet's official comments provide no concrete details about the number of European Islamists returning from Iraq nor their nationalities, it is apparent that there is terrorist activity. With Iraq being the new center of gravity for jihad, Europe has become the de facto center of gravity for recruitment, weapons and financial activities, all critical to ensuring the continuation of jihad in Iraq and, increasingly, in Europe.

The return of jihadists from Iraq and Afghanistan would transform European states from logistical platforms (support infrastructure) to "battle front stations" (operational structures). After their experiences in Iraq, jihadists are probably returning infused with the intention to engage in jihad in their respective European countries and to make Europe the new front in the international jihad. These jihadists will bring back ideological concepts and recruitment and fighting techniques that can assist their efforts in radicalizing and mobilizing segments of the Muslim populations in Spain, Italy and France. Of particular concern is training they may have received in fighting techniques (such as IED's and suicide bombings) and the use of chemicals for unconventional attacks. Several jihadi personalities, including Abu Musab al-Suri, have legitimized the use of chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological weapons as a tool in jihad.

Attention Jihad Watch insomniacs!

On Sunday, May 28 at 4:30 am and Tuesday, May 30 at 2:00 am The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims Andrew Bostom, ed.

Description: Andrew Bostom discusses the history of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle East, a subject he takes up in his new book, "The Legacy of Jihad." Dr. Bostom also talks about the treatment of non-Muslims living in Islamic countries, the threat to Israel posed by fundamentalists in the region, and the war on terror. Commentary is provided by Laurent Murawiec of the Hudson Institute and Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation.

Author Bio: Andrew Bostom is an associate professor of medicine at Brown University Medical School and a contributor to Frontpage magazine (www.frontpagemag.com). For more information on Dr. Bostom and his work, visit www.andrewbostom.org.

Dhimmitude at State. A press release from the Armenian National Committee of America (thanks to Andrew Bostom):

REP. MARKEY LEADS CONGRESSIONAL OPPOSITION TO WHITE HOUSE RECALL OF U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA

ANCA Calls for Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Hold Hearing on Firing

WASHINGTON, DC – Over 60 Members of Congress, led by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking for clarification on reports of U.S. Ambassador to Armenian John Evans’ recall over his forthright remarks about the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The letter was sent on the eve of a May 23rd White House announcement nominating Richard Hoagland to serve as the new Ambassador to Armenia. Amb. Evans will be relieved of his duties as soon as Hoagland's Senate confirmation process is completed.

The Administration has recalled Amb. Evans over his February 2005 statements at Armenian American community functions, during which he properly characterized the Armenian Genocide as ‘genocide.’ Following his statements, Amb. Evans was apparently forced to issue a statement clarifying that his references to the Armenian Genocide were his personal views and did not represent a change in US policy. He subsequently issued a correction to this statement, replacing a reference to the genocide with the word “tragedy.” The American Foreign Service Association, which had planned to honor Amb. Evans with the “Christian A. Herter Award,” recognizing creative thinking and intellectual courage within the Foreign Service, reportedly rescinded the award following pressure from the State Department a few days before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to Washington, DC to meet with President Bush.

“Ambassador Evans has been recalled for doing nothing more than honoring the forsaken pledge of his president,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “We want to thank Congressman Markey and his 59 colleagues for calling for a clarification and rejecting the Armenian Genocide ‘gag-rule’ imposed by the Turkish government and, sadly, enforced by our own State Department.”

"Armenian Americans truly regret that the Administration lacks the courage to speak honestly about its reasons for firing Ambassador Evans," added Hamparian. "We call upon the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - the Congressional panel constitutionally charged with oversight of diplomatic appointments - to hold a hearing thoroughly examining the reasons behind this firing, the role of the Turkish government, and the broader implications for the future of the Foreign Service that a senior American diplomat's career has been ended simply for speaking the truth."

One of the most common responses to my work that I have encountered since I have been doing it publicly is a sweeping assertion that I am ignorant, and/or maliciously ignoring the broad mainstream of peaceful Islam. Of course I do not ignore in the least the broad mainstream of peaceful Muslims, but I have repeatedly pointed out that within the various theological and legal traditions of Islam, they do not have much of a case. All the schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) teach violent jihad and Sharia supremacism, with some minor variations. Accordingly, Ibn Warraq is correct when he says that there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.

This bears repeating: there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.

What I have encountered again and again, however, has been the flat assertion that peaceful Islam (not just peaceful Muslims) exists and is the Islamic mainstream, and that I am dishonest or malicious for denying this. But no evidence is ever presented for the existence of this Islam, and in all the years that I have been studying Islamic texts and Islamic history, I have never found it. Again and again and again people throw up to me the assertion without evidence.

"...archeologists believe that illegal diggers cannot be held responsible for destroying of this palace by bulldozers, and it was a deliberate act by an unknown person or group of people who intended to devastate this place for a reason that is not clear for archeologists."

Since some of the archeologists are apparently Muslims, they should not be so puzzled about this. They would find the mystery cleared up by the traditional Islamic idea that all artifacts of pre-Islamic civilization are manifestations of jahiliyya, the pre-Islamic period of ignorance, and as such are so much trash. They are not to be valued, venerated, respected in any way. It is likely that the people who did this damage in Iran believe these things.

"Palace of Darius the Great Discovered in Bolaghi Gorge," from the Cultural Heritage News Agency, with thanks to Dafydd:

Tehran, 15 May 2006 (CHN) -- Iran-French joint archeology team at Bolaghi Gorge succeeded in discovering and identifying the remains of a gigantic palace, believed to be from the Achaemenid era (648 BC–330 BC), during their second season of excavations in the area.

“Before the start of this season of excavations, our geophysical tests in area number 33 of Bolaghi Gorge had revealed to us the possible existence of a huge building near the Sivand Dam. Clay artifacts found in this area showed that this building used to be the residential palace of the Achaemenid kings. With the start of the new excavation season, we resumed our excavations in area number 33 with this attitude,” said Mohammad Taghi Ataee, head of the Iran-French joint archeology team at Bolaghi Gorge.

“After we started our excavations in the historic hill where this monument is located, we realized that it consisted of one historic layer only. Since no other layers were constructed on top of this layer, archeologists were hoping to unearth the entire palace intact. However, after they made their trenches they got to a number of wells which had been dug by illegal smugglers and also traces of bulldozers which had caused serious damage to this ancient Achaemenid palace,” said Ataee.

Plundering of archeological sites by the smugglers has become a common issue in archeology. However, according to Ataee, archeologists believe that illegal diggers cannot be held responsible for destroying of this palace by bulldozers, and it was a deliberate act by an unknown person or group of people who intended to devastate this place for a reason that is not clear for archeologists.

1938 Alert from AP, :

ANKARA, Turkey — An Iranian-owned company, based in Turkey, has illegally shipped alleged guided missile parts as well as "dual use" nuclear-related material to Iran, including high-strength aluminum tubes, according to a recent Turkish government report obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

The company imported the material to Turkey, the supposed end-user, from dozens of firms around the world, including the United States, and then shipped them to Iran apparently after falsifying documents to hide the nature of the material, customs inspectors said in the report dated May 12.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald assesses the costs of the jihad for Western governments and taxpayers:

What is the actual expense caused by the large-scale presence of Muslims in the Lands of the Infidels, which so many are taught to believe are enemy lands, so that they are now settling deep within those enemy lines? And once there, they are entrusted with the task of transforming it, slowly or quickly, and making it a place where, eventually, Islam can dominate and Muslims rule. What is the cost this has entailed for Western governments?

What is the cost of guarding every subway train and station, every bus station, every railroad station, every airport, and many planes? What is the cost of guarding synagogues and Jewish day schools, churches and Christian schools, Hindu temples? What is the cost of guarding the outspoken -- from Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders to Carl I. Hagen in Norway? What is the cost to protect pipelines, water-treatment plants, nuclear reactors? What is the cost to search for, or to keep under surveillance, known or suspected supporters of terrorism, whose support may be anything from active participation and planning, to giving refuge, to fundraising, to propaganda?

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald wonders why recent revelations about Saudi textbooks actually surprise some people:

In the three decades plus since the quadrupling of oil prices, the 10 Arab or Muslim member-states of OPEC (which is to say, all the members of OPEC, save Venezuela) have received about $9-10 trillion dollars. The figure I have previously used of $5-6 trillion was too low. For more on this, google "OPEC" and "annual revenues" and do your own calculations.

Some of that money could all along have been saved, through the recapture of oligopolistic rents, simply by taxing ourselves. At any point, Saudi Arabia has an "ideal" price -- i.e., the price at which the value of its reserves, by its own calculation, is maximized. This is based on the energy market, at present and in the future, including the development of other oil fields, or of alternative sources of energy, or of elasticity of demand. Whatever that "ideal" price X, at any one time, the addition by the consuming nations of a tax Y will force the Saudis either to lower their own prices (up to the full amount of "Y" if they wish to keep their ideal price "X" for consumers), or to see the market shift away from oil too rapidly.

Sharia Alert from the Brave New Liberated Iraq. "Iraqis shot 'for wearing shorts,'" from the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The coach of Iraq's tennis team and two players were shot dead in Baghdad on Thursday, said Iraqi Olympic officials.

Coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and players Nasser Ali Hatem and Wissam Adel Auda were killed in the al-Saidiya district of the capital.

Witnesses said the three were dressed in shorts and were killed days after militants issued a warning forbidding the wearing of shorts.

Other Iraqi athletes have been targeted in recent incidents.

In this case, according to accounts, the men dropped off laundry and were then stopped in their vehicle by gunmen.

Leaflets

Two of the athletes stepped out of the car and were shot in the head, said one witness. The third was shot dead in the vehicle.

"The gunman took the body out of the car and threw it on top of the other two bodies before stealing the car," said the witness, who requested anonymity.

He said leaflets had been recently distributed in the area warning residents not to wear shorts.

A special service for German-speaking visitors. Translation by Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:

Douce France, eine treffend scharfsinnige Betrachtung unserer Freunde im Lande Lafayettes:

Stell Dir vor Du wärest ein verwöhntes Mitglied der französischen Elite. Ein Kind macht gerade die khâgne, und peilt rue d’Ulm an. Ein anderes ist derzeit politechnicien. Du geniesst ein gutes Auskommen und bist verbeamtet. Du und Deine Gattin, ihr seid Journalisten oder Schriftsteller oder einer aus den grossen Heeresscharen die “recherches” ausführen, und das Leben ist gut, kommod, wie es sein sollte. Ja nun, Du bemerkst zunehmend mehr Muslime um Dich herum wo immer Du umher gehst, nicht länger auf den banlieues, aber im Zentrum von Paris, oder Toulouse, oder Lyon. Und weist Du noch wie unbehaglich Dir zumute wahr, vor vier Jahren als Du zufällig über die Cannebière in Marseille spazieren gingst. Du hast sogleich einen Entschluss gefasst dann und damals, Du würdest nie dorthin zurückkehren.
Und Du hast Freunde die im Süden wohnen. Und sie erzählen Dir, dass die beurs – einige nennen sie die maghrébins – allen das Leben zur Hölle machen. Sie greifen französische Kinder auf dem Schulweg an. Sie zerstören mutwillig Personenwagen. Sie bedrohen, und noch mehr viel mehr als zu bedrohen sie jeden der noch immer so töricht ist mit einer Kippa oder einem Kreuz herauszugehen. Ganze Bezirke von Städten im Süden wie auch im Norden und Osten und Westen, wurden zu Tabuzonen für nicht–Muslime. In den Schulen ist den Lehrern die Autorität abhanden gekommen. Sie können sogar die Spezialgebiete des Zweiten Weltkrieges, der Resitance und der Ermordung der Juden nicht behandeln, wie vom Staat verordnet; mit Recht befürchten sie die gewalttätige Reaktion der mohammedanischen Schüler.

According to USAID, "the United States and Egypt have collaborated closely in economic development and regional stability... U.S. economic assistance through USAID has totaled almost $26 billion since 1975."

And here's $1.7 billion more. From AP: "House committee approves foreign aid bill"

WASHINGTON - A House committee approved a bill Thursday that would give Egypt $1.7 billion after rejecting a Democratic lawmaker's effort to withhold some of the aid until the country makes political reforms.

[...]

On Egypt, the bill fully funds President Bush's request, including $50 million for programs encouraging democratic reforms and $50 million for education. Money would be withheld until Egypt reformed certain parts of its financial sector.

Administration officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill call Egypt an important ally in the Middle East. Nevertheless, they have called for greater democracy in the Arab nation and have raised concerns about Egypt's human rights record.

[...]

Rep. David Obey, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, sought to send a message about Egypt's record on democracy. His amendment would have withheld $200 million intended for new weapons and equipment for the Egyptian military until Congress determined progress has been made on political reforms.

Democracy is not the panacea that Obey may believe it is, as demonstrated by Islamist exploitation of the democratic process, but there are plenty of reasons to withhold aid from Egypt.

"It is absolutely urgent that we send some signal to the Egyptian government that they've got to change ... before it's too late to matter," Obey, D-Wis., said.

Indeed.

But Kolbe called Obey's amendment "the wrong approach" and said that Egypt would just get the money for new weapons and equipment from other countries. "That means China, that means Russia," Kolbe said.

That means their money, not ours.

Misunderstanders of Islam Garrison Update. One wonders if these people enter into President Bush's calculus.

From Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:

Tehran, Iran, May 26 – More than 100 radical Islamists affiliated to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) gathered on Thursday in Tehran’s most famous cemetery vowing to blow themselves up in suicide attacks to kill Americans, Britons, and Israelis.

The “martyrdom-seeking volunteers”, most of whom had covered their faces with a chafieh, issued a warning to Washington that they would blow up United States interests around the world if Iran’s nuclear installations came under attack.

Mohammad-Ali Samadi, spokesman for the Headquarters to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, a government-orchestrated campaign to recruit suicide bombers, repeated a claim made earlier in the week that more than 55,000 “volunteers for martyrdom-seeking operations” had been registered so far by the organisation, which also calls itself “Estesh’hadioun”, or martyrdom-seekers.

A huge banner was displayed at the event, depicting the coffins of American and British troops in Iraq.

Contradicting Rice. "Bush to talk incentives if Iran halts nuclear moves," from Reuters, with thanks to JE:

WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would consider providing incentives to Iran if it agreed to abandon nuclear enrichment activities that the United States believes is aimed at producing a nuclear bomb.

Bush called a recent letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- the first publicly announced official Tehran-Washington communication since the 1979 Islamic revolution -- "interesting."

But Bush, at a White House news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, stressed that the Iranian leader "didn't address the issue of whether or not they're going to continue to press for a nuclear weapon. That's the issue at hand."...

Bush said he and Blair spent a lot of time discussing strategy on the nuclear crisis and how to persuade partners like Russia that the issue must be acted on by the U.N. Security Council if Iran remains defiant.

"The Iranians walked away from the table. They're the ones who made the decision, and the choice is theirs. If they would like to see an enhanced package, the first thing they've got to do is suspend their operations, for the good of the world," Bush said.

Meanwhile, "we've got to continue to work to convince them that we're serious, that if they want to be isolated from the world, we will work to ... achieve that," Bush said....

The package would offer Iran a light-water reactor, nuclear fuel from abroad, a regional security dialogue that includes the United States and other inducements if Iran abandons weapons-related activities, diplomats said.

Good news indeed. "'Good news' from northern Iraq," from the Washington Times, with thanks to DFS:

Retired Iraqi Gen. Georges Sada, a former fighter pilot-turned-Christian evangelist, says Kurds are converting to Christianity "by the hundreds" in northern Iraq.

Gen. Sada earlier reported that he had been told that Iraqi pilots, flying private planes, took weapons of mass destruction to undisclosed locations in Syria in 2002.

The "good news" from Iraq's turbulent religious scene, consisting mainly of Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim militias battling each other, is from the Kurds, he said. Kurds are creating a constitution that does away with Shariah, or Islamic law, a move counter to trends in other Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, where leaving Islam is a capital offense and Christian converts are often killed.

"No Christians in the Kurdish territory are persecuted," he said yesterday in an interview.

Gen. Sada, 66, who lives in Baghdad, cited growing numbers of evangelical Christians in the Kurdish city of Irbil and a recent church conference of 854 Christians at the city's Salahaddin University as demonstrations of the Kurds' willingness to protect religious freedom.

An update in the ongoing Australia jihad book follies. "Hate books seized," from the Daily Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BOOKS that glorify suicide bombings, jihad and anti-Australian conspiracies, collected by The Daily Telegraph, were again seized by federal authorities yesterday.

Australian Federal Police officers took the books of hate just days after two ministers -- Acting Prime Minister Mark Vaile and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock -- expressed dismay that the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions found the books did not breach the new sedition laws by inciting violence.

It is the second time federal police have seized the books, first discovered by The Daily Telegraph in Lakemba and Auburn book stores last year.

More surrendering to terror. For these arms will almost certainly not just be used against Hamas, but against Israeli civilians. From the BBC, with thanks to Mackie:

Israel says it will allow security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to be supplied with weapons from third countries.

The announcement follows clashes between Mr Abbas's supporters and rivals from the Hamas militant group.

But Mr Abbas's office denied the story. A BBC correspondent said he might not want to be seen accepting Israeli help.

Earlier, Mr Abbas challenged Hamas to accept a joint political programme with his Fatah faction or face a referendum.

The plan, drawn up by jailed Palestinian leaders from all the main factions, says attacks on Israel should be limited to the land occupied by it since 1967 - implying recognition of Israel within its pre-1967 borders.

The Zionist Organization of America points out Olmert's inconsistency:

New York -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in his speech before a joint session of the United States Congress yesterday that, "we will not surrender to terror, we will not yield to terror…we will never capitulate to terrorists or terrorism."

But then Olmert stated, "we will remove most of the settlements which are not part of the major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria."

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein said, "We are a little perplexed. How can Israel claim on the one hand that they will never surrender to terror, then on the other hand announce the unilateral surrender of over 90% of Judea & Samaria to the Hamas terror regime while forcibly removing at least 60,000 Jewish men, women, and children from their homes and schools. Isn't surrendering all this land to the terrorist Hamas/Palestinian Authority nothing less than capitulation and surrender. Would Olmert be doing this if there were no Palestinian Arab terrorism. Of course not. Olmert is rewarding terror, and making clear that terrorism pays and pays well. This policy also harms the international war against Islamic terrorism. And Olmert's demographic argument simply doesn't make sense. The 42% of Judea and Samaria and 100% of Gaza already given away by Israel is where 98% of all Palestinian Arabs live. The 58% of the land still under Israeli control is virtually free of Palestinian Arabs. Also, if there really is going to be peace, why can't Jews live under Palestinian rule. One million Arabs live peacefully under Israeli rule."...

Meanwhile, Bush also wants to reward terror. "Bush Promises To Back Israel, Yet Stated No Deal Without Agreement By Palestinians," again from the ZOA:

President Bush said, "We reaffirm the deep and abiding ties between Israel and the US, which include growing trade and economic relationships…Israel is a close friend and ally of the US, and in the event of any attack on Israel, the US will come to Israel's aid. The US is strongly committed and I'm strongly committed to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state."

Nevertheless, ZOA is concerned about a report in Agence France-Presse (5-22-06) that said, "Israel and the US are locked in disagreement over the warplane of the future after Washington refused to let Israel upgrade the aircraft with its own technology. The US is refusing to allow Israel to install any more advanced systems in their batch of the F-35 planes - no navigation, sighting or fire control systems, or Israel-developed missiles…This could diminish the qualitative advantage of the (Israeli) air force over its regional rivals."

The ZOA was also concerned that despite Israel's apparent goal of retaining a small portion of Judea and Samaria while forcibly evacuating tens of thousands of innocent Jewish men, women and children, President Bush stated that "no party should prejudice the outcome of negotiating on a final status agreement." And that "agreement will be only achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes, "meaning that President Bush will not be supporting even this final huge Israeli concession unless Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) support the Israeli policy of keeping only minimal parts of Judea and Samaria."

President Bush also stated that "Hamas must accept all previous agreements between the PA and Israel."

But, the ZOA pointed out, this implies that Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas accepted and fulfilled their agreements with Israel. The fact is that Arafat and Abbas fulfilled none of their Oslo or Wye or Road Map agreements. Bush should be demanding a full and complete fulfillment of all the agreements by the PA, before there can be any negotiations or concessions by Israel.

Another statement by President Bush was not accurate. He stated that "the Palestinians want to live in peace." and that "our beef is not with Palestinian people but with the government." We must understand that the Palestinians knew that Hamas was a terrorist group devoted to Israel's destruction when they voted them into power. If the people really wanted peace with Israel, they never would have voted for Hamas. It's like saying all the white people who voted for David Duke in Louisiana several years ago have nothing against black people. In addition, polls show that 75% of the Palestinians support acts of terror against Israel, while 65% of Palestinians support al-Quaeda attacks against Europe and the US.

Another recent poll by Bir Zeit Palestinian University showed that 85% of Palestinians said they would want conflict against Israel to continue even if a Palestinian State was created with Israel as its capitol as long as Israel still existed in any form. In addition, different polls show that between 45% to 80% of Palestinians don't support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State. (Source: Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, FAFO Norwegian polls)

ZOA President Morton A. Klein said, "Clearly, the Palestinian people are not much better than their Hamas terrorist government and must be held accountable for their votes and their views, and do not deserve President Bush's praise."

Tourist Jihad in Jammu and Kashmir -- the mujahedin may be taking a page from the Egyptian jihad playbook. "Grenade kills three Indian tourists in Kashmir," from Reuters, :

SRINAGAR, India - At least three Indian tourists, including a child, were killed on Thursday when suspected Islamist militants threw a grenade at their bus in Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar, police and witnesses said.

The attack, which also wounded seven tourists, came as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wound up two days of talks in the city with local political leaders over the fate of the Himalayan region, split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both.

How could they be anything but guilty and deserving of death, those "slags dancing around"? From the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

An alleged British terror cell talked of blowing up London's Ministry of Sound nightclub, the Old Bailey heard.

Accused Jawad Akbar said no-one could "turn round and say 'oh they were innocent' those "slags dancing around?".

He and another member of the alleged cell linked to al-Qaeda appeared to discuss targets in surveillance tapes.

Seven of the men deny conspiring with a Canadian to cause explosions. Four of the men also deny having chemicals suitable for bomb-making.

In the secret security surveillance recordings, Omar Khyam, 24, of Crawley, West Sussex, is heard apparently discussing targeting utility companies with the help of recruits with inside knowledge, to cut off essential supplies around the country.

But another of the alleged plotters, Jawad Akbar, 22, also of Crawley, says the well-known central London nightclub was a softer target for a terror attack, according to the prosecution.

'Easy stuff'

The prosecution claimed the recording was made at Akbar's then home in Uxbridge, west London, on 22 February, 2004.

On the tape Jawad Akbar: "What about easy stuff where you don't need no experience and nothing and you could get a job, yeah, like for example the biggest nightclub in central London where no-one can even turn round and say "oh they were innocent" those slags dancing around?

Omar Khyam: "If you get a job in a bar, yeah, or a club, say the Ministry of Sound, what are you planning to do there then?"

Jawad Akbar: "Blow the whole thing up."

Omar Khyam: "That's what I'm saying."

Jawad Akbar: "I think the club thing you could do, but the gas would be much harder. There's people who even get in with their searching stuff but it's only bouncers that search you."

Omar Khyam said: "The explosion in the clubs, yeah, that's fine, bro, that's not a problem. The training for that is available. To get them into the Ministry of Sound really isn't difficult."

Courtroom Jihad Update: Moussaoui tried to appeal. Sami Al-Arian is appealing. These paintball mujahedin are appealing. Thus the mujahedin tie up astronomical amounts of money and time that could otherwise be devoted by the infidels to more worthwhile pursuits. This is a byproduct of the Western sense of justice and the system that has resulted from that sense. I am not saying that these men should be automatically denied the right to appeal. But make no mistake: this is part of their overall jihad effort.

"Court Hears Appeal in 'Jihad Network' Cases," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Three U.S. Muslims convicted in a conspiracy that began with paintball games to train for a holy war against the United States were improperly denied a jury trial, their lawyers told a federal appeals court Thursday.

A federal prosecutor, however, argued that the three had to live with their "tactical decision" to entrust their fate to a judge.

"They got exactly what they wanted," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg told a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Masoud Khan of Gaithersburg, Md., Seifullah Chapman of Alexandria and Hammad Abdur-Raheem of Falls Church were part of what prosecutors called a "Virginia jihad network" that prepared to join the Taliban by playing paintball games in the woods near Fredericksburg in 2000 and 2001.

In all, the government charged 11 men. Six entered plea bargains and two were acquitted.

Khan was convicted of the most serious charges, including conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to contribute services to the Taliban. He trained with the militant, anti-American group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the government later designated a terrorist organization....

Lawyers for Chapman and Khan also are appealing their clients' sentences. Khan was originally sentenced to life plus 65 years in prison, but that was reduced to life plus 45 years. Chapman's original 85-year sentence was reduced to 65 years.

The government is appealing Abdur-Raheem's sentence reduction from eight years and a month to four years and four months.

Malaysian textbooks advocate the death penalty for apostasy -- which should not really come as a surprise to anyone who knows how mainstream this idea is in the Islamic world. "School textbooks advocating murder," a letter from "Very Concerned Mother," in Malaysiakini, with thanks to Nicolei:

I wonder if the present government is aware that violence and murder is being preached through its own curricula and textbooks. This is not an exaggeration. I urge the government to seriously consider if its curriculum for Islamic Education is what it wants to feed young minds.

I was shocked and disturbed to find out that the secondary school syllabus for Islamic Education (Pendidikan Islam) includes learning how to deal with apostates and that one of the prescriptions is to kill them off.

In many widely-used Pendidikan Islam workbooks (which base their texts on the Ministry of Education’s syllabus), imposing a death sentence on apostates is offered as a religious duty. Allow me to extract some of what is written (and the original Malay version for readers to check on context and accuracy).

For example, under the heading ‘Ways of Dealing with Apostates’ (Cara menangani orang murtad), the following precepts are given:

1. Advise and persuade the offender to repent and return to Islam (menasihati dan memintanya supaya bertaubat dan kembali kepada Islam)

2. To impose a death sentence (melaksanakan hukuman bunuh)

The text also has a heading which reads: ‘The death sentence against an apostate who refuses to repent and return to Islam has several virtues’. (Hukuman bunuh terhadap orang murtad yang tidak mahu kembali kepada ajaran Islam mempunyai beberapa hikmah).

Among which are:

1. To show to others at large that Islam is not a religion to be mocked at will (menunjukkan kepada orang ramai bahawa Islam bukanlah agama yang boleh dipersenda dengan sewenang-wenangnya).

2. So that no one will dare to denigrate the Islamic religion (supaya tidak ada orang yang berani memburuk-burukkan agama Islam).

Charles Johnson at LGF got an email saying, "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut...." Nothing much unusual in that, but the more he investigates the sender, the more it points to...Inayat Bunglawala, a leading British moderate Muslim (although one who has already been established to be a slightly immoderate moderate). Of course, maybe the unhinged hired help is using Bunglawala's personal computer after hours. Here is Charles' account of the unfolding tale. "We Got Mail from Reuters (Bumped)":

Early this morning at about 3:00 am on the West Coast, someone in Sweden Britain connected to the Internet and browsed over to this article at the Guardian by Inayat Bunglawala, media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain: This code could open doors.

Bunglawala’s piece (about the Da Vinci Code) is in the section of the Guardian site where readers can comment, and someone posted a link to LGF as a rebuttal to Bunglawala. Our Swedish British visitor clicked that link, leading him/her/it to this post: Swedish Muslims Demand Shari’a.

At 3:23 am, this creature used our contact form to send the following email with the obviously phony Hotmail address ‘zionistpig@hotmail.com’ and the subject line, “You bunch of wankers.”

I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut....

Well, isn’t that tolerant.

But this particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News: RIPE Whois Database: 192.165.213.18. (Please note: the name and address below are those of Reuters’ technical contact, not the name of the freak responsible for our hate mail. Please do not send him email.)

[...]

UPDATE at 5/25/06 5:16:44 pm:

NOTE: things just got much more interesting with this post from Inayat Bunglawala himself, shortly after the post containing the link to LGF: Comment is free: This code could open doors.

Nick223: No, neither applied nor implemented. I am a little worried about your reference to the LGF website though. Many on that site seem to be to be clearly anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. As for ‘jetting to and forth between London and Stockholm’ - no, it is an illusion created by the way the CiF site tracks the posters. When I post from work it comes up as Sweden for some reason, when I do so from home, it correctly lists London. I have never been to Sweden unfortunately.

UPDATE at 5/25/06 5:41:06 pm:

Note Bunglawala’s comment above: the Guardian’s comment system thinks he’s posting from Sweden, but he’s actually in London.

The IP address of our hate mailer traces to a Reuters (news service) account hosted in Sweden. Chances are, that’s how the Guardian’s comment system decides where someone is posting from.

But this ‘where is’ lookup at Geobytes shows the physical location of our emailer as ... London.

Did I mention this is a Reuters account?

UPDATE at 5/25/06 5:50:50 pm:

Inayat Bunglawala was selected as one of seven “conveners” for a Home Office task force with responsibilities for tackling extremism among young Muslims—despite a history of extremist statements.

UPDATE at 5/25/06 6:09:49 pm:

The Guardian, of course, has a history of hiring extremists: The Guardian’s Pet Islamofascist.

UPDATE at 5/25/06 7:07:05 pm:

Do I need to point out that it would be extremely unlikely for a person who does not work for a news agency (say, the Guardian) to have access to a Reuters account?

UPDATE 6:22AM Friday: Inayat Bunglawala has denied involvement in this in a colorful way over at Comment Is Free: "Hey, that was not me! Let the police deal with it. Methinks some Zionists are up to mischief."

Eurabian dhimmitude alert: "Muhammad Takes Over Protestant Church," from Brussels Journal, with thanks to Laurence:

A German reader informs us that it is not just the Catholic Church that has its quislings selling out to the Muslims. On Palm Sunday (9 April) a Protestant church in Bochum/Germany celebrated Muhammad’s birthday. The church invited the local Turkish community and the Turkish Consul, Munis Dirik, to attend the service. A Turkish music band played sufi music during the service, in which Protestants and Muslims joined together in honour of Muhammad.

In his sermon, Fred Sobiech, the protestant vicar, tried to link the figures of Muhammad and Jesus, saying: “Today we remember the birth and life of Muhammad and the beginning of the week of the passion of Christ, leading to Good Friday, the day Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.”

Muhammad himself might not have been so happy to see his "birth and life" celebrated in conjunction with the crucifixion of Christ, since "they slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them" (Qur'an 4:157).

Why? Because such measures could "reinforce prejudices and stigmatise the affected social groups in the perception of the public." Horror of horrors! Better to have another jihad terror attack in Europe than...the perception of Islamophobia!

From Reuters, with thanks to Romy:

BERLIN (Reuters) - A Moroccan man won a landmark legal victory on Tuesday when Germany's highest court set strict limits on the ability of police to trawl electronic databases at random in search of possible terrorists.

The Constitutional Court said such data trawling, for example to identify foreign male Muslim students, was only lawful if there was a concrete threat to Germany or one of its regions, or a danger to human life or freedom.

"A general threat situation, of the kind that has existed continuously in regard to terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001, or external political tensions, are not sufficient," the court said.

"The pre-condition is, rather, the existence of further facts pointing to a concrete danger, such as the preparation or commission of terrorist attacks."

The case arose from a complaint brought by a Moroccan student after the September 11 attacks on the United States, when German police began scanning local authority and university databases to identify Muslim men aged 18 to 40 who were current or former students.

Men who met that description were then subjected to further police checks in an attempt to uncover more al Qaeda "sleepers" like the three Hamburg-based Arab students who led the suicide hijack attacks on America. None were actually found....

The German court ruling said general police trawling of electronic records exposed the people concerned to an increased risk of further investigation.

It added that if such measures became publicly known, they could "reinforce prejudices and stigmatise the affected social groups in the perception of the public".

The dreaded blasphemous ice cream

Harper's Magazine (thanks to scaramouche) recently posted "I'm Hatin' It," a September 2005 interview with Rashad Akhtar, "a twenty-seven-year-old British Muslim, who alleges that the graphic used on the lid of Burger King ice-cream cones resembles the Arabic spelling of 'Allah.'"

The Enlightenment happened at half past 12 a.m. in Burger King, Park Royal. I had ordered my food, and a French guy got talking to me and asked, “Are you Muslim?” He said, “Look at this,” and he showed me the cone. I saw it and I thought, “Wow,” like anyone would. He said, “Turn it around.”

I was thinking of my stomach. I was hungry. I would have loved to eat an ice cream. When I saw it, my mouth fell open. I dropped the ice cream. I canceled my order. That was the defining moment of my life.

The Burger King logo is there in Arabic. “Allah” is spelled exactly how it is there, and the Burger King logo is where the ominah should be. Why, there is no way it could be a coincidence. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? How does it spin on something that is static? You cannot spin it around unless you have a mechanical device. You spin it one direction, to the right, and it is offending a billion people.

I’m not talking about Muslims in the Park Royal vicinity, or in the U.K. I’m talking about globally. Everyone who sees this is going to be offended. If you put a different symbol on there, you’re offending Jews, Christians, Sikhs, or Hindus. I am going to try my best in life, so that these people do not operate in a single Muslim country again, so that we get an apology to every single Muslim on this planet in their language, in their country, on a national TV station: “Sorry. We, as an American company, are sorry. We didn’t mean to offend you.”

What angers me most is that most people, once they have finished with it, they look at it and say, “Nice cone. Nice design. Nice cone design.” They chuck it away. That is disrespectful. Don’t throw it away. Keep it as evidence. A reminder of what these people are doing every single day of our lives.

We showed this to Muslim customers in Burger King and they were disgusted. We went to the manager. “Is this true?” we asked. He said, “Yes, my brother. It is true.” I spoke to two other Pakistani Muslim guys there and they said, “We are sickened.” They were cussing Burger King.

I feel humiliated. I want to humiliate the person who did this to an extent that he never works again. I’m going to make him see that it was the biggest mistake in his life. I want to meet the guy. I want to ask the guy, “What does this mean to you?” then never see his face again.

In a way, I’m glad he did this to me. It has opened my eyes. The fear of God, the love of God, the love of not letting anyone disrespect God. Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down.

I trust Rashad Akhtar will forthwith be arrested and prosecuted.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald recalls an apposite quote by A. Carlebach and its use by the deceased and egregious Christian dhimmi and Islamic apologist Edward Said:

The relentless Jihad against Israel -- against, rather, any Infidel sovereign state within the Dar al-Islam -- always included imposition of the Shari'a as part of its intended goal. Imposition of the Shari'a was, in fact, demanded as early as 1920 by a group of Arab notables in the former Ottoman territories that were quite properly assigned to Mandatory Palestine (i.e. all of Western Palestine, while Eastern Palestine went to form part of the Emirate of Transjordan).

Nor was there any doubt that the attempt to keep Jews out of the area was a Jihad directed at Infidels throughout the Mandatory period; curiously, it was some British officers, rather than the Palestinian Jews, who recognized the Islamic grounds for opposition to the Jews and the restoration of a Jewish Commonwealth. It is also true that a few Israelis, early in the history of the state, had the wit to recognize the problem. One of these was Dr. A. Carlebach, whose analysis published in Ma'ariv (Oct. 7, 1955) would have been lost to history, one suspects, but for the fact that it is reprinted, amusingly and quite uncomprehendingly, in Edward Said's preposterous "The Question of Palestine."

Jihad Watch readers knew in late 2003 that the Beltway Sniper murders were jihad killings. Here is more evidence. Above is one of Lee Malvo's jailhouse drawings. Another says, "I, Lee, will die for the revolution, jihad." Michelle Malkin has a good number of them posted today, and they are all illuminating.

Malkin quotes a New York Sun report:

Malvo also said Muhammad devised a two-phase plan to shoot as many as six random people each day for 30 days in the Washington area and then target children and police officers with explosives. They planned to place explosives on school buses in Baltimore, kill a Baltimore police officer, and then set off explosives packed with ball bearings at the officer's funeral.

When Malvo asked Muhammad why, he said, "For the sheer terror of it - the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."

Here is some of the "guidance" Muhammad and Malvo were evidently following:

"Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority: their abode will be the Fire: And evil is the home of the wrong-doers!" (Qur'an 3:151)

"How many a township have We destroyed! As a raid by night, or while they slept at noon, Our terror came unto them. No plea had they, when Our terror came unto them, save that they said: Lo! We were wrong-doers." (Qur'an 7:4-5)

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.'" (Qur'an 8:12)

"Against them 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." (Qur'an 8:60)

Islam has a negative image all because of American ignorance, you see. "Is Islam Misunderstood in America?," from the VOA, with thanks to LGF:

A new survey of U.S. public attitudes toward Muslim-Americans and Islam finds that a majority of Americans -- 55 percent -- regard Muslim-Americans favorably, but that smaller numbers - only 41 percent -- have favorable impressions of Islam as a religion. The study by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center indicates that many Americans perceive a link between Islam and violence, with more than one in three saying Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. Experts on Islamic-American relations believe such negative views stem from American ignorance of Islamic culture.

Muslims and Islamic culture have long been an integral part of American society. But today, almost years after the 9/11 attacks by radical Islamists and the start of America's war on terror, many Americans associate Islam with violence and extremism....

The Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center did a more scientific survey. Gregory Smith, who co-authored the study say, "Only about four in 10 say they have favorable views of Islam, and there is also a minority of the public - but a substantial minority, about one third in our survey last summer - who say that they are concerned that Islam encourages violence among its believers."

American Muslim leaders blame the US news media for generating what Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council for American Islamic Relations calls "Islamophobia".

"The kind of coverage that the American audience has been receiving about Islam and Muslims leads one to just one conclusion, that Islam is bad and Muslims are violent," he said. "The media has failed to capture the reality of the Muslim world and only focused on the actions of the few."

Charles Johnson puts it well:

The “actions of the few” include those of CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad himself, who during a 1994 speech at Florida’s Barry University stated, “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”

This Voice of America article, like almost all mainstream media pieces that cite the Council on American-Islamic Relations, doesn’t bother to mention Nihad Awad’s statement supporting a genocidal terrorist group. Mainstream media also think you don’t need to know that at least five of CAIR’s employees and board members have been arrested, convicted, deported, or otherwise linked to terrorism-related charges and activities.

But oddly enough, even though the media are keeping us ignorant of these facts, Americans seem to have increasingly negative opinions about Islam. Go figure!

Same media obfuscation in the original headline that I noted here. He didn't do all this because he is a Pakistani immigrant, or a high school dropout. He did all this because he believed that it was a proper response for him to make as a Muslim to the perceived injustice of Abu Ghraib. "Pakistani immigrant convicted in NYC plot," from AP, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

NEW YORK - A high school dropout who drew the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after Sept. 11 was convicted Wednesday of plotting to blow up one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

A federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before convicting Shahawar Matin Siraj of conspiracy and other charges in a case that cast a spotlight on how authorities sought to monitor radical Muslims after the 2001 terrorist attacks. He faces up to life in prison.

Siraj, 23, listened to the verdict with downcast eyes. The defense had sought to portray him as an impressionable simpleton who was lured into a phony plot by a paid informant eager to earn his keep. Prosecutors disputed that claim, arguing that even if it was not the defendant's idea to bomb a subway station, no law-abiding citizen would have gone along with it....

Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams of their target — the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government.

Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations. Instead, he caught the attention of the informant, Osama Eldawoody, and an undercover police officer with his anti-American rants at an Islamic bookstore where he worked....

"He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America," the officer said.

Inside the bookstore, Eldawoody wore a wire and chatted up Siraj. When the topic turned to the war in Iraq, the defendant recounted rumors among radicals that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls.

"That was enough for me," he said in one of a series of secretly recorded conversations played for the jury. "I'm ready to do anything. I don't care about my life."...

Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he fell under the spell of the 50-year-old Eldawoody. He said the older man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.

Eldawoody had himself talked about "blowing up the buildings and blowing up the Wall Street places," the defendant said. He admitted taking steps to attack the subway station, but only after the informant inflamed him by showing him photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"I used to just listen to him, but I never said 'Yes, I was going to do it,' or 'no' until the Abu Ghraib thing came up," he said.

Back on New Year's Eve I posted a few comments on a Wall Street Journal piece by the former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid. My point at that time was that despite the full-throated enthusiasm that greeted Wahid's piece, it was not in fact the heartening indication of Islamic moderation that many took it to be.

I have repeated many times a point that evidently is nearly impossible for some people to grasp: that while it is easy to convince Westerners who know nothing of Islam that Islam is peaceful, it is ultimately a fruitless exercise to do so. What peaceful Muslims like Wahid need to do is not spend their time writing articles in Western media outlets, but convincing the mujahedin. I am all for real moderate Muslims, but if I can see that a moderate's account of Islamic teaching is inaccurate, a mujahid will certainly be able to also. And if that moderate's moderation won't convince Muslims, what's the point of it? To make non-Muslims feel better? I would rather have the truth than feel better on the basis of half-truths, thank you.

Reform isn't accomplished by deception or self-deception. Reform is accomplished by acknowledging the problem and coming up with ways to deal with it. Let Wahid confront the specific Qur'anic passages, Hadith passages, examples from the life of Muhammad, and rulings of the madhahib that the mujahedin use to recruit and motivate Muslims to commit violence and attempt to subvert Western societies, and find new ways to understand those passages that will be convincing to Muslims. He didn't do that in the Journal, and he doesn't do it in this WaPo (Bandar Beacon) piece (thanks to all who sent it in), "Extremism Isn't Islamic Law":

...Does Islam truly require the death penalty for apostasy, and, if not, why is there so little freedom of religion in the so-called Muslim world?

The Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad do not definitively address this issue. In fact, during the early history of Islam, the Agreement of Hudaibiyah between Muhammad and his rivals stipulated that any Muslim who converted out of Islam would be allowed to depart freely to join the non-Muslim community. Nevertheless, throughout much of Islamic history, Muslim governments have embraced an interpretation of Islamic law that imposes the death penalty for apostasy.

Wahid ignores, of course, evidence that both the Qur'an and Muhammad do address this issue. Qur'an 4:89 says: "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): but take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks..." The verse is clear: those who "turn renegades" and "reject Faith" are to be killed by the believers.

Meanwhile, Muhammad's statement Baddala deenahu, faqtuluhu -- if anyone changes his religion, kill him -- is amply attested in the Hadith, and is accepted as authentic by all except the most disingenuous Islamic scholars. It appears in various forms in Bukhari, Ibn Majah, An-Nasai, Tayalisi, Malik, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, and other authorities.

Nor does Muhammad make any exception when enunciating the principle in this way: "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims" (Bukhari, vol. 9, bk. 83, no. 17).

But Wahid gives his readers no hint that this material exists, and in fact leads them to believe that it doesn't, and that somehow "Muslim governments have embraced an interpretation of Islamic law that imposes the death penalty for apostasy" in defiance of the Qur'an and Muhammad.

It is vital that we differentiate between the Koran, from which much of the raw material for producing Islamic law is derived, and the law itself. While its revelatory inspiration is divine, Islamic law is man-made and thus subject to human interpretation and revision. For example, in the course of Islamic history, non-Muslims have been allowed to enter Mecca and Medina. Since the time of the caliphs, however, Islamic law has been interpreted to forbid non-Muslims from entering these holy cities. The prohibition against non-Muslims entering Mecca and Medina is thus politically motivated and has no basis in the Koran or Islamic law.

Here again, Wahid breezily ignores contrary evidence. The prohibition of non-Muslims entering Mecca is based on Qur'an 9:28: "O ye who believe! Truly the Pagans are unclean; so let them not, after this year of theirs, approach the Sacred Mosque." Only the Hanafi school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence interpret this verse as referring only to the pre-Islamic Arabian pagans, and not to all unbelievers.

In the case of Rahman, two key principles of Islamic jurisprudence come into play. First, al-umuru bi maqashidiha ("Every problem [should be addressed] in accordance with its purpose"). If a legal ordinance truly protects citizens, then it is valid and may become law. From this perspective, Rahman did not violate any law, Islamic or otherwise. Indeed, he should be protected under Islamic law, rather than threatened with death or imprisonment. The second key principle is al-hukm-u yadullu ma'a illatihi wujudan wa adaman ("The law is formulated in accordance with circumstances"). Not only can Islamic law be changed -- it must be changed due to the ever-shifting circumstances of human life. Rather than take at face value assertions by extremists that their interpretation of Islamic law is eternal and unchanging, Muslims and Westerners must reject these false claims and join in the struggle to support a pluralistic and tolerant understanding of Islam.

Great. But al-hukm-u yadullu ma'a illatihi wujudan wa adaman is not absolute, and no Muslim would take it to be so. There could never be a circumstance, for example, that would allow a Muslim to set aside tauhid, or Islamic monotheism. The principle must in the case of apostasy law compete with the proposition that Muhammad must be obeyed -- "He who obeys the Messenger, obeys Allah" (Qur'an 4:80, and there are many, many other verses enjoining this obedience). And the Messenger who must be obeyed said that someone who leaves Islam should be killed.

I am glad that Wahid disagrees with the Muslim Prophet Muhammad on this. His case would be stronger if he stated this clearly, explaining why Muhammad's words must be set aside today. But by pretending that these words of Muhammad don't exist, he opens himself to suspicions that he is engaged more in deception than in actual reform. For nothing can be repaired that one does not admit is broken, and Islamic law cannot be reformed simply by pretending that it is other than what it is.

All of humanity, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, is threatened by the forces of Islamist extremism. It is these extremists, masquerading as traditional Muslims, who angrily call for the death of Abdul Rahman or the beheading of Danish cartoonists.

Great, Wahid. Prove that their traditionalism is indeed a masquerade, please. Show us the traditional Islam that rejects their position. Claiming that the Qur'an and Muhammad don't say what they say isn't enough.

Their objective is raw political power and the eventual radicalization of all 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide. Western involvement in this "struggle for the soul of Islam" is a matter of self-preservation for the West and is critical given the violent tactics and strength of radical elements in Muslim societies worldwide.

Indeed. I totally agree. That's why I am writing this. You must realize, Wahid, that any young "extremist" who reads your piece will know that what you say about Muhammad and the Qur'an isn't accurate. What will you say to him then?

Muslim theologians must revise their understanding of Islamic law, and recognize that punishment for apostasy is merely the legacy of historical circumstances and political calculations stretching back to the early days of Islam. Such punishments run counter to the clear Koranic injunction "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256).

There are many Muslim interpretations of 2:256 that harmonize it with the death penalty for apostasy. Therefore, merely invoking 2:256 isn't enough. Those interpretations must be confronted and refuted.

People of goodwill of every faith and nation must unite to ensure the triumph of religious freedom and of the "right" understanding of Islam, to avert global catastrophe and spare millions of others the fate of Sudan's great religious and political leader, Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, who was executed on a false charge of apostasy. The millions of victims of "jihadist" violence in Sudan -- whose numbers continue to rise every day -- would have been spared if Taha's vision of Islam had triumphed instead of that of the extremists.

Yes. People of good will must unite. Yes. Good will. Please show your good will by addressing the inaccuracies I noted above.

The greatest challenge facing the contemporary Muslim world is to bring our limited, human understanding of Islamic law into harmony with its divine spirit -- in order to reflect God's mercy and compassion, and to bring the blessings of peace, justice and tolerance to a suffering world.

I wonder if that last sentence is a veiled statement of Islamic supremacism. After all, the mujahedin are fighting to impose Sharia on the world, a struggle which they envision as bringing peace, justice, and tolerance to the world. It is a pity that Wahid doesn't further clarify exactly where he stands.

So great is the thirst for Islamic moderation in the West that even FrontPage Magazine has posted this piece by Wahid. And so more non-Muslims will be comforted and reassured. But not a thing has been accomplished that would actually make mujahedin peaceful.

Ibrahim Hooper, I think you should call this Ahmadinejad fellow. He and many others in Iran seem to have the crazy idea that Allah promises Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (cf. Qur'an 9:111).

"Iran to launch a new suicide bombers garrison on Thursday," from IranFocus, with thanks to Mackie:

Tehran, Iran, May 24 – Iran will launch a new suicide-bombers garrison on Thursday, according to the head of a group affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Mohammad-Ali Samadi, spokesman for the Headquarters to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, a government-orchestrated campaign to recruit suicide bombers, told the state-run news agency Mehr on Tuesday that the group planned to officially announce the existence of the new garrison in a ceremony in Tehran’s largest cemetery on Thursday afternoon.

The new garrison will be named after Nader Mahdavi, an IRGC naval commander who died in a suicide attack on an American naval vessel in 1987, Samadi said.

The report said that more that 55,000 “volunteers for martyrdom-seeking operations” had been registered so far by the organisation, which also calls itself “Estesh’hadioun”, or martyrdom-seekers.

In February, the group launched a new recruitment drive for suicide bombers in Tehran to fight against “Global Blasphemy”.

The group was set up by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 2004. Those who join have three choices: To carry out suicide attacks against “the infidels occupying Iraq”, against Israel, or against Salman Rushdie.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains why the primary jihad we should be concerned about is not the one that comes to us with guns and bombs:

The main weapons of Jihad, to spread Islam so that it will dominate and Muslims will rule, are not those of military combat (qital), and "terrorism" is not the main or most effective instrument of Jihad.

The main or most effective instruments of Jihad are:

1) Demographic conquest.

This can take several forms. One is merely outbreeding the Infidels both in

a) The dar al-Islam (where excess population then finds its inexorable way, or has over the past forty years, into the Lands of the Infidels); as well as

b) Within the Lands of the Infidels. For in Western societies, advanced education, the need or desire or inculcated desire to work, as well as sexual freedom, have all contributed to a decline in the birthrate of the indigenous Infidels. Meanwhile, Muslims exploit to the full the structure of generous state support (free education, free health care, subsidized housing, family allowances) with in some cases polygamous relationships hidden from or silently ignored by Western governments. And women’s function for all too many Muslim households is to breed; they are able to do so by that very exploitation of Infidel taxpayers (just as Muslim states were supported by the Jizyah taxes on Infidels).

Charles Johnson at LGF has outrageous but unsurprising news from the Catholic Information Center in Washington DC. "Catholic Group Invites Radical Islamic Speaker":

Wednesday, May 24th

“Revering Mary: Islamic & Catholic Perspectives in Dialogue”
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm (two 20-25 minute presentations, followed by Q&A, and a light non-alcoholic reception)

Speakers:
Fr. Francis Tiso works on interfaith dialogue in the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the USCCB and is responsible for representing the American bishops in dialogue sessions with Muslims.

Khaled Troudi will be the speaker from The International Institute of Islamic Thought. IIIT is located in Herndon, VA.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought has figured in several posts at LGF and was one of the North Virginia radical Islamic front groups raided by the Treasury Department in March 2002. An article about the raids from the Wall Street Journal links the group to Islamic Jihad kingpin Sami al-Arian and Osama bin Laden.

Hmmm. Tiso. I wonder if Fr. Francis Tiso is any relation to Fr. Jozef Tiso.

Sameeh Hammoudeh is gone from the U.S. That's good (although he is free to continue the jihad in the Palestinian Authority). When immigration officials have formulated a way to keep people who are pursuing his agenda from entering the country in the first place, that will be even better. "Palestinian deported after Florida Jihad trial," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - A co-defendant who was acquitted of all charges in the Florida terrorism trial of ex-college professor Sami al-Arian has been deported to the Palestinian territories, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Federal agents took Sameeh Hammoudeh from a prison near Tampa on Monday and escorted him to Ramallah in the West Bank. He had agreed to be deported after pleading guilty to a separate tax fraud charge.

Hammoudeh's wife and six children were taken to Ramallah in February.

I have just arrived back in Secure Undisclosed Locationville on the mid-afternoon stagecoach. Yesterday I had a very fruitful day-long consultation at the United States Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

And now it is time to get to writing again. Waiting for me on my return to the Jihad Watch Towers was a contract from Regnery Publishing for a new book -- a biography of the Prophet of Islam called The Truth About Muhammad.

For this book I will work strictly from Islamic sources in order to provide a portrayal of Muhammad the way mainstream Muslims regard him today. Of course, there are many worthy biographies of Muhammad available today. I don't intend to duplicate or replace them. What I hope to do is address how the idea of the imitation of Muhammad affects Muslim behavior today, and what this reveals about the prospects for Islamic moderation and reform -- the hope for which guides so much public policy nowadays.

I also have decided to write the book, despite the obvious risk, precisely because of that risk. I don't want to live in a society in which people are afraid to state some obvious and simple truths for fear of violent retaliation.

Look for the book this fall.

Here is my FrontPage article on the hate speech that continues to be taught and propagated by the Saudis (news links in the original):

A recent article in the Washington Post, written by Nina Shea of Freedom House, laid bare Saudi hypocrisy in claiming to have removed hateful material from textbooks, when in fact that material remains in abundance. This is not just an issue within the Kingdom, for the Saudis export such material in large quantities to Muslims in other countries. But the article points to a deeper problem – one that Western authorities sooner or later will have to deal with: much of the objectionable material is actually derived from the Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, and from Hadith (traditions of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad considered authentic by Muslims and for them second only to the Qur’an in importance).

To shy away from pointing out the deep Islamic roots of the material leads one to the impression that this material originates with the Saudi Wahhabis, when in fact it is a much broader problem within the Islamic community worldwide. If Freedom House and its allies were somehow to succeed in getting the Saudis to stop teaching this sort of thing in Saudi Arabia and around the world (and I hope they do succeed), they will be surprised to find that the problem hasn’t thereby disappeared.

Despite our differences with the New Duranty Times, they are documenting the Iraqi situation quite well. Here is another detailed report on the growing chaos.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 23 — Even in a country beset by murder and death, the 16th Brigade represented a new frontier.

The brigade, a 1,000-man force set up by Iraq's Ministry of Defense in early 2005, was charged with guarding a stretch of oil pipeline that ran through the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dawra. Heavily armed and lightly supervised, some members of the largely Sunni brigade transformed themselves into a death squad, cooperating with insurgents and executing government collaborators, Iraqi officials say.

"They were killing innocent people, anyone who was affiliated with the government," said Hassan Thuwaini, the director of the Iraqi Oil Ministry's protection force.

Forty-two members of the brigade were arrested in January, according to officials at the Ministry of the Interior and the police department in Dawra.

Since then, Iraqi officials say, individual gunmen have confessed to carrying out dozens of assassinations, including the killing of their own commander, Col. Mohsin Najdi, when he threatened to turn them in...

Read it all.

Plots, plots everywhere according to Iran's newly elected President Ahmadinejad, from AP:

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's president accused the United States and its allies on Wednesday of "hatching plots" to provoke ethnic tensions and destabilize Iran, a day after the government closed a state-run newspaper for publishing a cartoon that sparked riots by ethnic Azeris.

"They (the U.S. and its allies) must know that they will not be able to provoke divisions and differences, through desperate attempts, among the dear Iranian nation," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state-run television.

Iran closed the state-run Farsi language newspaper Iran and detained its chief editor and cartoonist on Tuesday for publishing a cartoon that showed a cockroach speaking Azeri and suggested Azeris are stupid.

It was the first closure of a newspaper since Ahmadinejad came to office last year — and the heavy response, along with public apologies by Iranian officials, suggested the government is concerned the United States may try to stir up trouble among Iran's ethnic minorities.

"Today, they (the U.S. and its allies) are hatching plots. They want to provoke differences, divisions, disappointment ... to prevent the Iranian nation from achieving all of its rights," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Khorramshahr in southwestern Iran...

More from AP:

The Press Supervisory Body closed the state-owned paper indefinitely, the first time a newspaper has been banned since President Ahmadinejad took office last year.

“Those responsible, the cartoonist and the chief editor, were summoned and the charges were read to them. The two were taken to Evin prison,” said the Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi Mortazavi.

Saffar Harrandi, the Culture Minister, apologised on state television and promised to punish the editor and cartoonist for the publication of “divisive and provocative materials”...

From AP:

MANCHESTER, England — Police on Wednesday arrested nine people suspected of giving support to terrorism outside Britain, Greater Manchester Police said.

Police served warrants at a number of addresses beginning at 3 a.m. local time, the force said. About 500 officers were involved in the operation, and searches were continuing at several locations, police said.

Greater Manchester Police said those arrested were "suspected of facilitating terrorism abroad," but gave no details of the suspected offenses. One suspect was released within hours.

"We are not talking today about a direct threat to the U.K.," said Michael Todd, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police.

"We are talking about the facilitation of terrorism overseas. That could include funding, providing support and encouragement to terrorists," he said.

Police would not comment on a report by Press Association, the British news agency, that said the arrests were related to terrorism in Iraq...

From the Boston Globe:

CAIRO -- Osama bin Laden allegedly said in an audiotape yesterday that Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks -- had nothing to do with the operation.

``He had no connection at all with Sept. 11," the speaker, claiming to be bin Laden, said in the tape posted on the Internet.

``I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers, and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.

The Al Qaeda chief said the Sept. 11 hijackers were divided into two groups, ``pilots and assistants."

``Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed," bin Laden said. ``It knows this very well."

Bin Laden said Moussaoui was not a security risk for Al Qaeda, because he did not have knowledge of the plot.

``Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events, and if he had known something -- even very little -- about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others . . . to leave America before being discovered," bin Laden said.

Bin Laden said Moussaoui's confession -- that he helped plan the attacks -- was ``void," calling it the result of ``pressures exercised against him during 4 1/2 years" in US prison.

It was not clear which confession bin Laden was referring to by Moussaoui, who frequently trumpeted his claim that he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But his defense lawyers cast doubt on his claims, saying he only wanted to be sentenced to death to become a martyr...

Just a Power Station Tourist, no doubt. "Suspicious recording in Yonkers handed over to terrorist task force," from the Journal News, with thanks to Cindy:

YONKERS — A 34-year-old employee of the Moroccan Consulate and his wife drew the suspicions of two police officers after they spotted the woman videotaping a wooded area near a Consolidated Edison facility and Ridge Hill near the New York State Thruway, police said.

No charges were filed, but state police did confiscate the camera. The driver is a security officer with the Moroccan Consulate, and his wife is unemployed.

Yonkers Police Officers David Cenelli and Ruperto Medina of the 1st Precinct were on the Thruway when they saw the red Honda Prelude parked on the side of the road at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

The officers became suspicious because the 30-year-old woman in the back seat was videotaping a quarter of a mile south of the entrance ramp where the power facility is located.

1938 Alert from the Jerusalem Post:

Iran conducted a test launch Tuesday night of the Shihab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile, which is capable of reaching Israel and US targets in the region, Israel Radio reported. The test came hours before Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with US President George W Bush in Washington to discuss the Iranian threat.

Military officials said it was not clear if this most recent test indicated an advance in the capabilities of the Shihab 3. They said the test was likely timed to coincide with the Washington summit and with comments made by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah during celebrations in Beirut marking the 6th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Here again, one who tries to call attention to a hatemonger is vilified for "hate speech," while the real culprit gets a pass. In FrontPage, Patrick Poole details some shameful but unsurprising behavior by the Columbus Dispatch regarding local 9/11 conspiracy theorist Salah Sultan (news links in the original):

Last month FrontPageMag.com published my article, Hometown Jihad, concerning my return to my hometown, Hilliard, Ohio, following a decade-long absence, only to find that one of my new neighbors was none other than Salah Sultan, a well-known international terror apologist and anti-Semite, and that he was a regular speaker at the local Islamic school here in Hilliard, Sunrise Academy.

When the article came out, I harbored no illusions that I would be offered the key to the city, have a public school named in my honor, or be invited to be grand marshal of the July 4th parade for the public service I had rendered to our community by exposing this immediate terrorist threat. Thus far, none of that has happened, nor do I expect such to be forthcoming.

What I couldn’t anticipate, however, was that Salah Sultan’s supporters in the Islamic and “interfaith community” here in the Columbus area would enlist the services of the local paper, the Columbus Dispatch, to airbrush Sultan’s record and defend the Islamic school he is associated with, while simultaneously launching an attack on FrontPage Magazine and myself, likening us to neo-Nazis, and accusing me of “inciting violence against the children of the school” and engaging in “hate speech”.

Saudi School Bus Joyride Update. I'm glad this turned out to be a simple mistake and nothing more sinister. I just hope that those who made that determination made it with a full awareness of the fact that even people who are here legally can sometimes mean to do harm, and with a clear and convincing explanation for all the curious aspects of this, including the trench coat in Florida in May, which is not mentioned in the report below.

"Saudi Men Mistakenly Board Fla. School Bus," from AP, with thanks to Cindy:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Two Saudi men who boarded a school bus full of students were released from jail Tuesday after federal officials determined they do not pose a security threat.

Through an interpreter, Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, told investigators they got on the bus Friday morning because they wanted to visit a high school and didn't know it was just for students.

At the time, the men gave conflicting reasons why they boarded the bus. But detectives later determined they meant no harm, and immigration agents found that they were here legally.

This comes in spite of the fact that Iran has already rejected incentives.

From AP: "European nations draw up Iran compromise"

LONDON - Key European nations put finishing touches Tuesday on a proposal meant to enlist the support of Russia and China for possible U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran should Tehran refuse to abandon uranium enrichment, diplomats said.

The compromise — which would drop the automatic threat of military action if Iran remains defiant — is part of a proposed basket of incentives meant to entice Iran to give up enrichment, a possible pathway to nuclear arms. It also spells out the penalties if it does not.

The Incentive Basket: Order now for Ayatollah Appreciation Day (every day in Iran)!

France, Britain and Germany discussed the final form of the package Tuesday ahead of submission for hoped-for approval Wednesday at a formal meeting of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany.

The Taliban originally gained popularity as a force against crime and corruption (alongside their strict enforcement of Sharia, of course). Will the Afghan populace again look to a more openly hardline Islamic regime to restore a semblance of order at the expense of the few freedoms the mullahs haven't yet revoked in the name of the Sharia constitution? The rising chaos in southern Afghanistan is certainly playing into the hands of the Taliban and like-minded warlords.

From the Christian Science Monitor: "Security slipping around Kandahar"

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - Last summer, Shahida Hussain was pounding the dusty streets of Kandahar campaigning for Parliament in defiance of Taliban threats. Now this outspoken woman rarely leaves her house for fear of getting caught up in the violence engulfing Afghanistan's southern city.

[...]

Her family is no longer sending her granddaughter to school because they are afraid she will be attacked en route, if not by the Taliban then by criminals who are in league with an increasingly corrupt government that is profiting from the country's rampant drug trade. "Corruption is the number one reason behind the rising violence," says Hussain.

As violence in southern Afghanistan reaches its worst levels since 2001, a chorus of Afghan officials, security experts, and Coalition commanders share Hussain's basic assessment. While the Taliban are fighting with greater vigor, the violence ultimately has more to do with the failures of government, they say.

[...]

NATO commanders say the Taliban are stepping up the offensive in a bid to break popular support in troop- contributing nations.

Foreign troops can still draw upon reservoirs of goodwill here. In many parts of southern Afghanistan, memories of the civil war and the hard-line Taliban rule that followed are still fresh, and many residents remain willing to support the deployment of foreign troops.

But those memories are dimming.

"When the communist government was not good, the mujahideen came; when they failed, the Taliban came. I don't know who will come after this government, but it is losing the trust of the people," says Hussain.

Search giant axes another news page, calls terrorism discussion 'hate content' from WND, with thanks to AD.

Search engine giant Google has cut off its news relationship with a number of online news publications that include frank discussions of radical Islam – the New Media Journal becoming the latest termination, as its owner just discovered.

Frank Salvato, who began the agreement with Google News last September, said he received a reply from the company's help desk Friday indicating there had been complaints of "hate speech" on his site, as first reported by media watchdog Newsbusters.org.

The e-mail, which cited three articles that dealt with radical Islam and its relationship to terrorism, read:

Hi Frank,
Thanks for writing. We received numerous reports about hate content on your site, and after reviewing these reports, decided to remove your site from Google News. We do not allow articles and sources expressly promoting hate speech viewpoints in Google News (although referencing hate speech for commentary and analysis is acceptable).

For example, a number of the complaints we looked at on your site were found to be hate content:

http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/peck/05102006.htm
http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/stock/05082006.htm
http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/imani/04222006.htm

We hope this helps you understand our position.

Regards,
The Google Team

We hope you will click on these articles and decide for yourselves whether or not these pieces constitute "hate speech." New Media Journal joins The Jawa Report and MichNews.com in being removed from Google's search engine.

Why, exactly, will Iran play a role? On what basis does Rice think that Iran could ever be a "good neighbor"? To what extent will the U.S. tolerate Iranian activity in Iraq in exchange for assurances of "neighborliness"?

From AP, :

The US recognizes that Iran has a role to play in Iraq, but wants Teheran to help stabilize the country, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview aired Tuesday on Arab television.

Rice's comments came ahead of planned talks between the United States and Iran over the situation in Iraq.

"Iran will clearly play a role," Rice told the Al-Arabiya satellite channel. "The question is: Will it be a positive role? Will it be a role that is befitting a good neighbor?"

"If Iran chooses to play a stabilizing role, chooses to play a transparent role, chooses to play a neighborly role, that would be a very good thing for Iraq," Rice said.

UPDATE: Iran closes the paper in a damage control effort. (Never mind that it's a state-run paper.)

A frequent component of da'wa sales pitches is the notion of Islam as an egalitarian religion, where ethnic differences do not matter. Tell that to the mullah-controlled press in Iran, which, of course, cannot really afford to make any more enemies at the moment, particularly within its own borders.

It is worth noting that, like the rest of Iran, the Azeri minority is predominantly Shia Muslim. But in a projection of the Arab-supremacist mentality that pervades Islam-- particularly Sunni Islam-- apparently the Azeris, by not being Persian, are second-class Shia as well.

From Reuters: "Iran's Azeri minority protests mocking cartoon"

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Members of Iran's Azeri minority hurled stones in violent protests on Monday, enraged by a newspaper cartoon they said insulted them, a semi-official news agency and a witness said.

The ILNA labor news agency said thousands protested in the northwestern city of Tabriz and that police used teargas to try to disperse the crowd. The exact number of demonstrators could not be confirmed.

A resident said furious protesters threw stones at banks and smashed windows.

"They are angry because ... we (Azeris) are insulted by a cartoon," Soraya, a 40-year-old mother, told Reuters by telephone from Tabriz.

I suppose there's ample precedent for this sort of reaction to a cartoon.

The cartoon, which appeared in Friday's edition of the official Iran newspaper, showed a boy repeating the Persian word for cockroach in different ways, while a cockroach in front of the boy asked "What?" in Azeri.

Eurabia Alert: "EU 'regrets' Israeli snub of racism conference," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Fjordman:

European officials responded with "regret" Monday to Israel ambassador to Austria Dan Ashbel's decision to boycott a conference on racism in the media in Vienna Monday because of concern in Jerusalem that anti-Semitism was getting short shrift at the meeting.

"The European Commission regrets the decision of Israel's ambassador to Austria not to attend the public session of the conference since it would have been an opportunity to raise the concerns of the Government of Israel as regards manifestations of anti-Semitism in the media both in Europe and in the region," one European Commission official said.

The official said that anti-Semitism was not taken off the agenda of the conference, entitled "Racism, Xenophobia and the Media: Towards respect and understanding of all religions and cultures," and that the meeting was "primarily a dialogue between the media representatives of all the Euro-Med partners on the problems that beset their profession. These include xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. All these issues will be discussed freely and openly.

The Euro-Med partners include all the 25 EU countries plus Israel, the Palestinian Authority and eight Arab countries in the region.

The official said that Monday's keynote speech by European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner made "repeated specific references to the need to battle anti-Semitism alongside other forms of religious and ethnic bias."

Israel was angered that while the description of the conference it received in March said the conference would deal with various forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, a later description sent to Jerusalem in May eliminated references to anti-Semitism, while the program still included a report on Islamophobia.

I was an expert witness in this case. The ruling, of course, is unconscionable, and completely inconsistent with the general anti-religious fanaticism of American courts over the last few decades. But of course that fanaticism has been directed toward Christianity.

From Investors Business Daily, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Education: In our brave new schools, Johnny can't say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.

In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:

Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."

Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.

Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."

Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

Read it all.

As I noted here, there is nothing implausible about the Iranian badge story -- not because they are imitating Hitler's Germany, but because the Iranian regime is clearly interested in implementing Islamic law in its fullness, and special clothing for dhimmis has been a recurring, if not absolutely constant, feature of that law.

Andrew Bostom amplifies that point in this article, and now Melanie Phillips has provided a useful summation of all the strange zigs and zags this story has taken. The Iranians are now vehemently denying that the story is true, and that may well be the case -- but as Phillips shows, it seems to be very hard to get to the truth about this one.

What's that? Don't they long for "freedom"? And what's this about their urging worshippers to "pick up a gun"? Don't they know that Islam is a religion of peace? What are they, some kind of Islamophobes?

Notice also how they present themselves as the exponents of "real" Islam. As I have pointed out here ad infinitum, this is an appeal to which Muslims who would be regarded as moderates by most Western analysts have as yet formulated no effective response. Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Kabul clerics rally behind Taliban: Urge worshippers to `pick up a gun' against government: Death toll from surge in violence surpasses 190 over 5 days," from the Toronto Star, with thanks to RGF:

KABUL—Clerics in Kabul mosques are urging worshippers to join the Taliban's fight against the Afghan government and international troops.

Insurgency has spread recently, with many provinces falling under control of Islamists intent on driving out foreign forces. Encouraged by this growing militancy, some imams here believe the time is right to call for holy war.

"The only thing (people) can do is fight against the government and I am telling them they can do that. They can pick up a gun and fight against the government," said Abdullah, a 52-year-old imam wary of giving his full name for fear of reprisals....

The Taliban now control many rural areas south of the capital and their increasing success is finding favour with fundamentalists here.

"It's a reality, the fighters are getting stronger and stronger because the government is alienating the community and the people," Abdullah said.

"Real mullahs, imams and anyone with a knowledge of Islam has to say it's time for jihad. Those people who are fighting against the Americans and the government are doing good, but the government and the Americans say they are terrorists just because they want to give them a bad name."

Joe Kaufman explains how CAIR has defamed LGF, and why Ibrahim Hooper should clean his own house. From FrontPage (news links in the original):

Last week, I attended the funeral for Daniel Wultz, the young boy from Weston, Florida, who was the unfortunate victim of a suicide bombing that took place in Tel Aviv, Israel, one month ago. I stood there, amongst hundreds of people, to pay my respects to the friends and family of this beautiful boy. Sadness and anger welled up inside me – sadness for what Daniel’s loved ones had to go through and anger for the event that took this 16-year-old’s life and for the powerful who allow those responsible – both directly and indirectly – to walk free on this earth, including within the United States. One organization, in particular, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), demands attention for its past and current history connecting it to the main group involved in the attack – Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Two Sundays ago, an e-mail was sent out by CAIR denouncing the website, Little Green Footballs (LGF), for what CAIR said were two threats aimed at Muslims found in the comments section of a blog entry on the site. One of the comments was no doubt a threat. It stated, “The next time someone in a truckstop or a Starbucks or a library or any public place says ANYTHING even resembling support for the Muslim ‘cause’ WILL be sent to either the hospital or worse. . .just waiting to bash someones face in. no more games.” To the website’s credit, the dangerous comment was removed. The other quote, which was a strongly worded statement against the religion of Islam and those the author referred to as “Muslim savages,” was allowed to stay and was later debated.

Covassi, a convert to Islam, now says that he was forced by his superiors to frame the brother of the famous and notorious Tariq Ramadan, Hani. It is interesting that he believes that he is required to shift his loyalties now that he has become a Muslim. It is also interesting that Hani Ramadan really doesn't need any framing; he was quite clear about his loyalties and intentions when he wrote an article a few years ago in a French magazine, advocating stoning for adultery.

"Swiss Spy in a War of Words," from the LA Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:

GENEVA — Along with banks and chocolates, this placid lakefront city has another claim to fame: It is full of spies.

Claude Covassi, a broad-shouldered, gray-eyed martial arts expert, was one of them. He became an informant for Swiss intelligence in early 2004, converted to Islam and infiltrated fundamentalist circles here in his hometown. He followed the trail of holy warriors all the way to mosques in Syria where aspiring foreign "martyrs" are groomed for Iraq.

But in February, the secret agent went explosively public. He revealed his mission to its prime target, a Muslim scholar here who has been periodically accused of extremism, and gave newspaper interviews accusing his handlers of trying to frame the cleric. Since then, Covassi has unleashed everything from confidential documents to details of clandestine operations.

The former spy insists that he abandoned his masquerade because he found faith.

"It is not great speeches that convinced me but the force of prayer and understanding of the Koran," Covassi, 36, said in a recent interview by e-mail from his refuge in Egypt. "Islam transformed my existence."

But Swiss anti-terrorism officials reject his allegations and accuse him of a personal vendetta. It's unclear who was manipulating whom.

[...]

The intelligence oversight committee of the Swiss congress is investigating the case. But doubts persist, especially regarding Covassi's allegation that spymasters plotted to smear the controversial Islamic scholar Hani Ramadan by linking him to Iraq-bound militants. Ramadan's brother, Tariq, is an internationally known Islamic intellectual.

It is good to see this article about jihadist material in the textbooks of our Friend and Ally in the Bandar Beacon, aka the Washington Post. But like all Freedom House material, this piece shies away from pointing out the deep Islamic roots of the material, and leads the reader to the impression that this is all something cooked up by the wicked Saudi Wahhabis, instead of a much broader problem within the Islamic umma.

Well, it would be very nice if that were true. But it isn't. And the folks at Freedom House, if they succeed in getting the Saudis to stop teaching this sort of thing in Saudi Arabia and around the world (and I hope they do succeed) will be surprised to find that the problem hasn't thereby disappeared.

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.

[...]

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").

[...]

FIRST GRADE

"Every religion other than Islam is false."

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."

This is straight from the Qur'an: "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good)" (3:85).

FOURTH GRADE

"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."

Again, straight from the Qur'an: "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves" (48:29). "Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures" (98:6).

FIFTH GRADE

"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."

"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."

"Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah." (Qur'an 3:28)

"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." (Qur'an 5:51)

"It is never the wish of those without Faith among the People of the Book, nor of the Pagans, that anything good should come down to you from your Lord." (Qur'an 2:105)

SIXTH GRADE

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."

"Verily Allah will defend (from ill) those who believe: verily, Allah loveth not any that is a traitor to faith, or show ingratitude." (Qur'an 22:38)

"There has already been for you a Sign in the two armies that met (in combat): One was fighting in the cause of Allah, the other resisting Allah; these saw with their own eyes Twice their number. But Allah doth support with His aid whom He pleaseth. In this is a warning for such as have eyes to see." (Qur'an 3:13)

EIGHTH GRADE

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

"Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians -- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness -- shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. And remember We took your covenant and We raised above you (the towering height) of Mount (Sinai),: (saying): "Hold firmly to what We have given you and bring (ever) to remembrance what is therein: Perchance ye may fear Allah." But ye turned back thereafter: Had it not been for the Grace and Mercy of Allah to you, ye had surely been among the lost. And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath. We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected." (Qur'an 2:62-65)

This verse makes it clear that the apes and swine are Jews and Christians, the "People of the Book":

"Say: 'O people of the Book! Do ye disapprove of us for no other reason than that we believe in Allah, and the revelation that hath come to us and that which came before (us), and (perhaps) that most of you are rebellious and disobedient?'Say: 'Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as judged) by the treatment it received from Allah? those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, 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!'" (Qur'an 5:59-60)

"God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God's book [the Torah and the Gospels] that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil. They prefer the people of falsehood to the people of the truth out of envy and hostility. This earns them condemnation and is a warning to us not to do as they did."

"The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so." (Qur'an 5:64)

"They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them]."

"The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!" (Qur'an 9:30)

"Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil, and not God, through consecration, sacrifice, prayer, appeals for help, and other types of worship. Some of the Jews worship the devil. Likewise, some members of this nation worship the devil, and not God."

See the verses quoted above, which establish the apes and pigs reference and show that Allah's curse is on Jews and Christians.

"Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels."

Clearly if one is not to take them as friends and protectors (3:28, 5:51), and if they are the worst of creatures (98:6), and are under Allah's curse (9:30), they should not be imitated.

NINTH GRADE

"The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."

"And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." (2:193)

"It is reported on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah." (Sahih Muslim book 1, no. 30; there are many similar ahadith)

"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment]."

"Allah's Apostle said, 'The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."'" (Sahih Bukhari, vol. 4, bk. 52, no. 177; there are many similar ahadith)

"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."

That one sounds reasonable to me; I believe that ultimately those who are right will triumph also. I don't see that as hate speech.

TENTH GRADE

The 10th-grade text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a "free Muslim male." Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or the victim's heirs for murder or injury:

"Blood money for a free infidel. [Its quantity] is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is 'of the book' or not 'of the book' (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).

"Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel."

"Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim...then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain." -- The Iranian Sufi Sheikh Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, London, 1970, p. 18; Iranian Sufis are not Wahhabis.)

ELEVENTH GRADE

"The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."

"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."

"Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect."

"Such non-Muslim subjects are obliged to compy with Islamic rules...In addition, they...are not greeted with 'as-Salamu 'alaykum'; ...must keep to the side of the street..." ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.5 (3-4); this manual of Shafi'i law was endorsed in 1991 by Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which is not a Wahhabi institution, as conforming "to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community.")

TWELFTH GRADE

"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."

"A man came to Allah's Apostle and said, "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." He replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Sahih Bukhari, vol. 4, bk. 52, no. 44)

The implications of this will sooner or later have to be faced.

1938 Alert from AFP, :

TEHERAN - Iran’s hardline government said on Monday it would not negotiate on its controversial uranium enrichment programme and vowed the country would continue to work towards an industrial-scale capacity.

“The right to enrichment within the framework of the NPT and under the surveillance of the IAEA is an absolute right,” government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

“This right and its implementation must be guaranteed. This is not something on which we can back down, whether for research or industrial purposes. This is not something on which we can negotiate or back down,” he said.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the state of scholarship about Islam and jihad in American universities today:

Asked about his experience after a year of teaching in America, a famous Russian scholar of my acquaintance said: "A strange place. In America, the best Russian scholars are spread out at very small schools. They are not in the big famous schools." I leave it to others to judge the accuracy of that remark, or its possible applicability to other fields.

Particularly to the field of Middle East Studies. Of course, it is well known that some professors in American universities regularly intimidate, mock, and otherwise make life most unpleasant for their students who do not accept their propaganda. Several of them teach in the Middle Eastern and Asian Languages Program (MEALAC). There are numerous complaints about their behavior: start by googling "George Saliba" and "Hamid Dabahi" or "Joseph Massad". Don't think you can conceivably take a course on Islam, or anything to do with Muslim history, and dare to raise in class or anywhere else, such subjects as the dhimmi, and Muslim subjugation of non-Muslims. Nor should you show too great a knowledge of certain events in the life of Muhammad, or of the sayings of Muhammad. Best to stick to the Qur'an; better still, to the Michael Sells bowdlerized version, "Approaching the Qur'an: The Lyrical Suras."

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers more pedagogical exercises:

A second workshop on Islam. Instructors are again Hugh Fitzgerald and Robert Spencer. There is a bit of overlap with the first course. This is intentional. Some points have to be repeated, and repeated again, and repeated yet again from different angles, in order to be driven home.

This course would be dedicated to answering a series of questions.

Day One:

1) What does recent scholarship on the origins of Islam – Ibn Warraq, John Wansbrough, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, Yehuda Nevo, Gerd Puin, Christoph Luxenburg et al -- tell us about those origins, and why is it relevant to jihad terrorism today?

The "tributes" published at Jihad Watch by Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald (you can find them in the articles list here) have up to this point been of the deconstructive variety. Not this one.

Ibn Warraq is one of the most meticulous, articulate, amusing and altogether delightful writers of the present age. It is a privilege to have him on the Jihad Watch Board. His books are at last selling widely (Why I Am Not a Muslim is a best-seller in Denmark). At least one or two of them should be assigned in any course on Islam that purports to be something other than the usual apologetics, with the sanitized-by-Sells-Qur'an and the rest of it. Indeed, students -- and faculty, and administrators -- should be wary indeed of anyone offering instruction on Islam who deliberately leaves Ibn Warraq or Bat Ye'or off the syllabus entirely.

Why I Am Not a Muslim is one of the most acute analyses available of Islam as an intellectual system. It also discusses the misdeeds that are committed in its name (misdeeds which logically follow from its teachings); the variety of apologetics made on its behalf (including that of Montgomery Watt, the Anglican clergyman, who believed that faith in Islam was better than no religion at all); the exaggerated claims made for the achievements of "Islamic civilization"; the baleful model of Muhammad (whether he existed or not); the real significance of those figures who, routinely invoked as representatives of Islamic achievement, in fact were often skeptics, close to apostasy themselves -- Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Al Razi. And there is much more.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers a one-week course for all those engaged in combatting the efforts of Islamic jihadists. (And yes, he and I really are available to teach it, and more.)

Islam for Infidels. A one-week course. Instructors: Hugh Fitzgerald and Robert Spencer.

Day One:

Sura 9.29. Read it. Now read all of Sura 9. Now reread all of Sura 9. Let's discuss. What is an "Unbeliever"? What are "People of the Book"? What is the difference in the treatment of Hindus under Muslim rule and of Christians and Jews? What is a "dhimmi"? Name six disabilities to which dhimmis were subject under Muslim rule. Describe any changes over time in the Qur'an and the Hadith that would lead one to believe that Islam now offers a different view of the non-Muslim than the one that has been filling Muslim minds for the past 1350 years. Remember that Sura 9 has not been abrogated in whole or in part. It is the immutable word of God. Nothing about it can be questioned. How would you attempt to get around what it says?

Day Two:

You will spend today, and tomorrow, reading the Qur'an. Notes have been supplied for particular linguistic difficulties. You have at each desk a sheet which explains the doctrine of "naskh" or abrogation. Read all the Jihad verses assembled in the Calcutta Qur'an Petition.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains why corruption in states like Egypt is unlikely to result in larger-scale reform, and why Muslims who may oppose attacks on tourists and pre-Islamic monuments seem powerless to stop them:

Islam simplifies the Universe for the Believers: it reduces the world to Islam and nothing but Islam. The ongoing attacks on tourists in Egypt are not merely attacks on Infidels, and Infidel ways. They are also attacks on the Infidel state.

Why is the state "Infidel"? Because Mubarak and his Friends-and-Family plan are corrupt. And for Muslims, everything must be reduced to Islamic terms. In India, a corrupt state governor might simply be called "corrupt"' and not "un-Hindu." A corrupt big-city machine in the United States might be called "corrupt" but there would be no need to identify the corrupt politician as "un-Christian." But in the world of Islam, everything must be reduced in the end to Islamic terms: Islamic and non-Islamic, Believer and Infidel. It is what neatly and simply divides the universe. That is why all rage at government corruption will, in Muslim states and for Muslim minds, unfortunately end up connected to the answer: the answer is even more Islam.

If he really intends to use maximum force against terrorism, does he intend to move against the dissemination of the jihad ideology, which legitimizes violent acts? Will he encourage a national discussion about the "role of Islam" in the Iraqi government as it relates to jihad violence? "Iraqi PM vows "maximum force" as bombs kill 19," from Reuters, with thanks to JE:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki vowed to use "maximum force against terrorism" on Sunday, as bombs killed at least 19 people in Baghdad during the first meeting of his national unity cabinet.

In a reminder of the task Maliki faces in stemming bloodshed and drawing angry, fearful Iraqis back from the brink of civil war, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 18 in a crowded restaurant popular with police.

A day after parliament approved the cabinet of Shi'ites, minority Sunnis and Kurds and its programme to combat violence and consolidate the U.S.-sponsored transition to democracy, U.S. President George W. Bush said the new government marked a "new day for the millions of Iraqis who want to live in freedom."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was too early to commit to sending home some of the 130,000 U.S. troops and said top U.S. military commanders will meet the Iraqi government over the coming weeks to discuss the roles of Iraqi and U.S. forces.

"It is premature before we've even had this discussion with the Iraqi government to start giving firm commitments on what the drawdown will look like," Rice told Fox television.

Maliki said in the programme he read to parliament he will work to complete rebuilding Iraq's U.S.-trained armed forces so that foreign troops could leave within an "objective timetable."

Bush, who is eager to show signs of progress in a war he launched three years ago to remove Saddam Hussein and is costing almost daily casualties to American troops, also said the new government marked a "new chapter" in Iraqi-U.S. relations. He called Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to congratulate them.

"MAXIMUM FORCE"

Briefing reporters after the cabinet met in Baghdad, Maliki, a tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, said his government would hold out the offer of dialogue to Sunni rebels who lay down weapons and finish off militias -- a tall order given the attachment his Shi'ite and Kurdish allies maintain to their own armed groups.

"We will use maximum force against terrorism, but we also need a national initiative" for reconciliation, he said. "Militias, death squads, terrorism, killings and assassinations are not normal and we should put an end to the militias."...

Despite Maliki's efforts to forge consensus among Iraq's rival communities, partisan wrangling over jobs and differences over the role of Islam, the sharing of Iraq's natural resources and the structure of the Iraqi state highlight the problems he will face in holding his colleagues to a common policy.

Contrary to what the EU is likely to do. "No Assurances for Iran, Say US," from AFP, with thanks to JE:

The United States will not offer security guarantees to Iran to end its nuclear program, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

"Iran is a troublemaker in the international system, a central banker of terrorism. Security assurances are not on the table," she told a US TV station on Sunday (local time).

The top US diplomat spoke as Iran again said it would not suspend uranium enrichment despite European Union plans to offer incentives to the Islamic republic if it halts the sensitive nuclear work.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claimed Iran could obtain a nuclear bomb in "months" and vowed that Israel would take the "necessary measures" to stop this from occurring.

This is unusual: the illustrious Markos Moulitsos Zuniga has been showing up on my Referrers list. He (or to be precise, a "Dave Johnson" from another site, quoted at Kos) is making fun of all of us silly anti-jihad sites for taking note of the Saudi bus story.

The Kos original is filled with links to various anti-jihad sites. Jihad Watch is linked at "OH MY GOD!!!!" I think that's somewhat ironic, given that there is nothing hysterical or ranting about my original post. I just asked a few questions. Here is what I said:

I think it's plausible that someone who doesn't know America very well might mistake a school bus for a public bus. But why was one of them wearing a trench coat, in May, in Tampa, Florida? Why did they keep changing their story about why they wanted to go to the school? And why did they originally say they were from Morocco instead of admitting they were Saudis? And why has their bail been revoked (which detail comes from the Rottweiler, not the Trib story) if this were just a case of boarding the wrong bus?

And here's Kos:

OH MY GOD! by davej Sun May 21, 2006 at 12:48:07 PM PDT

You're just notgoing to believe this outrage!!! Two men got on a school bus!!!!! This is just incredible!!!!!

OH MY GOD!!!!

[...]

It's a good thing the sentries are on duty, keeping watch to guard and protect us!!!!!!!!!

Imagine the widespread alarm and outrage that we would see all over the right-wing blogosphere if they looked like Timothy McVeigh!!!!!!!!!!!

Ooooh, that McVeigh ref really hurts, Dave. Yes, it's all about racism. It's racism that makes me suspicious when two men well past high school age get on a high school bus. It's racism that makes me wonder why one of them was wearing a trench coat in May in Florida. It's racism that makes me wonder why they lied about where they were from, and why they gave three different stories about why they boarded the bus, and why they were arrested and their bail revoked instead of being sent off with a handy explanation of how to distinguish a public bus from a school bus.

By dragging in McVeigh, the Left's all-purpose Christian terrorist (even though he was an avowed atheist at the time of his terrorist acts), Dave (and Kos) are trying to drive home exactly that point: that we wouldn't be concerned if these had been a couple of white Christians on the bus, and to be concerned about it is anti-Arab or anti-Muslim.

Wrong on both counts. I would be concerned if anyone, white or black or red or green, boarded a school bus he had no business riding and behaved the way these two Saudi men behaved. And to dismiss concern about it as racism is dangerously short-sighted -- after all, can Dave or Kos guarantee that it is impossible that two mujahedin might try to cause some mayhem on a school bus or in a school? Of course they can't. Can they guarantee that there are no mujahedin in the United States who would very much like to cause that mayhem? Of course they can't.

And this is how we could very well end up with another catastrophic attack on American soil sometime in the future, or more than one: the we will all be so concerned about not appearing racist or bigoted that we will be afraid to raise legitimate concerns -- for fear of drawing the ire of Kos and his minions, or people who share their point of view. In fact, all too many people in media and law enforcement are in precisely that position today.

Well, bring it on, Markos. Until you can show me evidence proving that there are no mujahedin plotting anything in the U.S., I am going to continue to raise questions -- not jump to conclusions, but raise questions -- about stories like this. With no apologies, and no retreats.

No, this isn't a story about pirate raids from the 18th century. This is the here and now. It sounds just too impossibly lurid to be true, but the staid London Times is the source of the story: "Reunited: boys saved from slavers," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Christopher:

A SENIOR member of an Islamic organisation linked to Al-Qaeda is funding his activities through the kidnapping of Christian children who are sold into slavery in Pakistan.

The Sunday Times has established that Gul Khan, a wealthy militant who uses the base of Jamaat-ud Daawa (JUD) near Lahore, is behind a cruel trade in boys aged six to 12.

They are abducted from remote Christian villages in the Punjab and fetch nearly £1,000 each from buyers who consign them to a life of misery in domestic servitude or in the sex trade.

Khan was exposed in a sting organised by American and Pakistani missionaries who decided to save 20 such boys and return them to their homes. Using a secret camera, they filmed him accepting $28,500 (£15,000) from a Pakistani missionary posing as a businessman who said he wanted to set up an operation in which the boys would beg for cash on the streets.

Khan was observed driving from the meeting with a knapsack full of cash to the JUD headquarters at Muridke, near Lahore.

The base was funded by Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, in the late 1990s and the JUD’s assets were frozen last month by the US Treasury after it was designated a terrorist organisation.

Read it all.

UPDATE: Greetings, Kos readers! I have a message for you here.

I think it's plausible that someone who doesn't know America very well might mistake a school bus for a public bus. But why was one of them wearing a trench coat, in May, in Tampa, Florida? Why did they keep changing their story about why they wanted to go to the school? And why did they originally say they were from Morocco instead of admitting they were Saudis? And why has their bail been revoked (which detail comes from the Rottweiler, not the Trib story) if this were just a case of boarding the wrong bus?

"Saudi Men Who Rode School Bus Arrested," from the Tampa Tribune, with thanks to The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, who suspects this was a test run for Beslan-in-America:

TAMPA - Two Saudi men were arrested Friday after they boarded a school bus and rode to Wharton High School in New Tampa.

Students on the bus became alarmed, as did the bus driver, who called ahead. Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies met the bus at the school and detained the men. No one was injured and nothing out of line occurred on the bus, deputies said.

Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, who lives in Apt. 302 in The Point apartments, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20 Monticello Gardens, Apt. 304-A, each were charged with trespassing on school property. Both remained in Orient Road Jail on Friday evening. Bail for each was set at $250.

"Both defendants gave several versions of the reason they took a school bus to a high school," said Hillsborough County sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway.

"They said they wanted to go to Wharton to look around, and then they said they wanted to go there to have some fun, and then they said they wanted to enroll in the English classes there," Callaway said.

"We're not sure if this was a situation of them just being new to this country, or if they were confused or what it was," Callaway said. "We were unsure as to exactly what the final reason was, but it did cause great concern for the students on the bus and for us. One of the guys was wearing shorts with a black trench coat."

While on the bus, the men laughed and spoke in Arabic, Callaway said.

Ahmed Bedier, Tampa director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the men likely meant no harm and that because "they were from Saudi Arabia, that escalated the situation."

He blamed the incident on cultural differences.

"They didn't differentiate between a school bus and public transportation," he said.

The bus picked up the students and the men at about 7 a.m. Friday at the corner of Fletcher Avenue and 42nd Street, deputies said.

The bus driver, a substitute, reached her supervisors by telephone. They relayed the information to Wharton High resource Deputy Mike Eastman, who met the bus when it arrived at school at about 7:30 a.m., and detained the men.

The sheriff's Homeland Security Division, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Regional Domestic Security Task Force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI all were notified.

Almanajam and Alsidran at first told deputies they were from Morocco, but later admitted being from Saudi Arabia, deputies said. They said they were enrolled at the English Language Institute at the University of South Florida.

Both arrived in the United States about six months ago and have student visas that require them to be enrolled at the English Language Institute, Callaway said.

Authorities searched the apartments of the two men and found nothing of concern, he said.

Do they know what to look for?

An Australian judge recently ruled that books that teach Sharia supremacism, the subjugation of Jews and Christians, and the ultimate replacement of Australian law with Islamic law are not "hate books" and can be sold freely in Australia.

Now more such books have been found, and they raise some important questions.

From the Herald Sun, with thanks to Rosie:

ISLAMIC hate books that advocate jihad have been found in Melbourne bookstores.

The Federal Government wants to create an offence to outlaw the glorification of suicide bombing, the Sunday Herald Sun said.

Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock said the Government "did not want people encouraged to go out and think about suicide bombing on the basis that it's going to benefit them in the afterlife".

Will he then outlaw the Qur'an, since it promises Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111)?

The books were found at the Islamic Clothing and Book Store in Coburg and Brunswick's Michael Street mosque.

World Arrogance, a book written by Professor Ahmad Zidan, is anti-Semitic and said Western culture bred venereal disease, broken homes, suicide and homosexuality.

Another book, Jihad in the Qu'ran [sic] and Sunnah, encouraged the use of force.

"When you meet those who disbelieve, smite at their necks `til when you have killed and wounded many of them, then take them as captives," the book said.

"The book" said that, eh? Does Ruddock, and does the Herald Sun, believe that such expressions originate with whoever wrote Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah? Well, in fact, this one is in the Qur'an also: "Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them)" (47:4).

This is a nettle that Western governments sooner or later will have to grasp -- that what they persist in assuming is a benign book teaching high-minded spiritual principles has been shown again and again to incite to violence. Will they ban it?

Mr Ruddock said censorship laws could allow a loophole to be closed, which would effectively ban the books.

"We may not want to prosecute publishers or book stockists for having books of this sort, if we can have matters of glorification of suicide bombing looked at in the context of whether or not a book should be allowed to be sold under the classification regime," Mr Ruddock said.

We'll be watching this one closely.

We have noted here on many occasions the deep affinity betw