March 2007 Archives

Big surprise here. From Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:

London, Mar. 31 – Iran’s main opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said on Saturday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had planned the recent capture of 15 British marines and naval personnel and are holding the group in an effort to gain concessions from the West.

A unit of the IRGC Navy’s 3rd regional command based in Khorramshahr Garrison executed the premeditated operation to capture the Britons on March 23, said Hossein Abedini, a member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, at a press conference in London. He said that the garrison was on a full state of alert.

“Rear Admiral Rashid Hosseini, the commander of the IRGC Navy’s third regional command, personally had command of the operation to arrest the British sailors”, he told reporters.

“A number of IRGC Navy commanders had previously been stationed in Khorramshahr. Colonel Badin was the operational commander based in Khorramshahr at the time of the arrests”.

He gave the names of three IRGC officers - Colonel Majidi, Colonel Abbas-Zadeh, and Colonel Isavi – who were involved in the seizure.

The provocations just keep coming. By Naser Karimi for AP, with thanks to Mackie:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's ambassador to Russia renewed a threat Iranian officials made earlier this week, saying 15 British sailors held by Iran could be tried for violating international law, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

Gholam-Reza Ansari told Russian television Vesti-24 on Friday that Iran had launched a legal investigation of the British sailors. "They will be tried if there is enough evidence of guilt," Ansari was quoted by IRNA as saying.

Britain's Foreign Office said it was checking the claim that the sailors were facing trial, but noted that the ambassador's comments didn't alter their view of what was needed to resolve the standoff.

"This doesn't change our position, we have made it perfectly clear that our personnel were in Iraqi waters and we continue to request immediate consular access to them and their immediate release," said a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office, speaking on customary condition of anonymity in line with government rules.

"We continue to request immediate consular access to them and their immediate release." Ahmadinejad must be shaking.

Sharia (Syaria) Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: you have to apply to leave Islam, and your application may not be accepted. "Woman fails in bid to renounce Islam," from New Straits Times, with thanks to Teri:

KOTA KINABALU: A 24-year-old Muslim woman yesterday failed in her application to renounce Islam on the grounds that she did not practise the religion and was never given religious education.

Syariah High Court judge Jasri @ Nasip Matjakir said the applicant did not submit any concrete evidence that she was no longer a Muslim in action, behaviour or deed that could expel her from Islam.

In her affidavit, read by counsel Hamid Ismail, the Sino-Kadazan said her non-Muslim lifestyle would cause society to look down on her and she would be subjected to the judgment of the syariah court.

The applicant’s father was a Muslim while her mother, a Sino-Kadazan, converted when the couple got married.

Hamid said the basis of her application was under Article 11 of the Federal Constitution — that she had the right to choose her religion and must not be prevented from doing so by anyone.

This is as held by the Su- preme Court in the case of Minister of Home Affairs, Malaysia and Anor v Jamaluddin bin Othman, 1989 1 MLJ 418.

The second basis was that Islamic law on apostasy is not applicable in Malaysia because there is no total application of Islamic law in Malaysia.

Jasri, in his judgment, said although the Federal Constitution did state that every individual deserved to choose his or her religion, it did not give authority to the syariah court to allow Muslims to renounce their religion. "The court can only decide whether one’s action is permissible according to Muslim laws.

"The reasons given by the applicant are based on fear of punishment which is against the teachings of Islam. Is fear a good enough reason?

"The court finds the reasons given are weak and not one that can be used as permissible to murtad (leave Islam)."

Muhammad Dawood (aka David Hicks) Update: a slap on the wrist. "Hicks gets nine-month sentence," from Australia's ABC News Online (thanks to JE):

A US military tribunal has sentenced confessed terrorism supporter David Hicks to seven years in jail but he will only have to serve nine months.

The tribunal judge accepted Hicks's guilty plea as part of an agreement that limited his sentence to seven years in prison, in addition to the five years he has been held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay.

The deal allowed all but nine months of the sentence to be be suspended.

Hicks will serve the sentence in Australia and the United States must send him home by May 29....

Lead prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Chenail had told the tribunal Hicks had knowingly sought out an organisation bent on attacking the United States and acquired dangerous skills.

The prosecutor, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Chenail, says Hicks freely joined a band of killers who slaughtered innocents.

"We are face to face with the enemy," he said.

First conviction

Hicks, who has become the first war crimes convict among the hundreds of foreign captives held for years at the Guantanamo prison camp, had pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism in an agreement with US military prosecutors.

Hicks, originally from Adelaide in South Australia, acknowledged he trained with Al Qaeda, fought against US allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee by taxi to Pakistan.

Jihad against retired teachers and elderly couples. This Associated Press , however, stays in passive voice as long as it can, before gingerly identifying the culprits as "suspected insurgents," who of course just happen to target Buddhists.

BANGKOK, Thailand: A retired teacher and an elderly couple were shot dead Saturday while four other civilians were wounded in a bomb explosion in Thailand's violent-ravaged south, police said.

Sawai Phrommani, a 62-year-old retired teacher, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he rode a motorcycle home in Pattani's Mayo district, said police Lt. Col. Narat Thepchalerm.

In Narathiwat, suspected insurgents posing as customers shot dead a Buddhist couple _Charin Ngaono, 70 and his 68-year-old wife Rabiep _in their grocery store in Rangae district, police said.

Four Buddhist civilians also were wounded in Yala province, when a roadside bomb exploded as their car passed over it, police said.

And the creeps are creeping fast. "The creeping coup," by Zaffar Abbas in Dawn, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

ISLAMABAD, March 30: The primary theatre of battle may still be North and South Waziristan, as evidenced by the Pakistani Taliban’s recent bloody assault on the settled town of Tank that borders the tribal areas. But the events of the last few days in Islamabad are more disturbing in some ways, suggesting as they do that creeping Talibanisation is now a reality across the country. Indeed the Lal Masjid brigade, as it has come to be known, has every right to celebrate. Tuesday’s showdown with the police was its second major success of the year. First its women’s wing, comprising hundreds of burqa-clad and baton-wielding students, occupied a children’s library in the federal capital in January.

Now both the men’s and women’s wings of this emerging brand of the Pakistani Taliban have started to impose new rules of morality by forcibly shutting down video and music shops in Islamabad, and by abducting women whom they believe are engaged in ‘immoral’ activities.

Situated in an area where the prime minister’s secretariat and seat of power is on one side, and the headquarters of the country’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI, on the other, Lal Masjid and its adjacent Hafsa madressah have not only managed to enforce the Taliban-style system of ‘moral policing’ in matters of ‘vice and virtue’, to date they remain in control of the situation.

But who are these people, and why are the government and the security services finding it so hard to enforce the rule of law? Is it that the government really wants to avoid bloodshed because hundreds, if not thousands, of women are part of this violent brigade? Or is it a reflection of some kind of infighting in the establishment where one faction still has a soft corner for their former Islamist allies?

Probably both.

The key part of this story is not that a 110-year-old is marrying, but that his present wife no longer "satisfies his needs." Of course, many in the West think of marriage in this selfish way also, but the traditional understanding of marriage -- for worse as well as for better -- is still alive. Under traditional Islamic law, however, a wife is just a servant to satisfy various needs, and that's all. Do genuine marriages exist among Muslims? Of course. But this is a manifestation of human nature that has no place in Islamic law. The fact that this ancient's new wife is 30 only underscores her place within the transaction as a commodity.

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

A 110-year-old Saudi man has taken a second wife because his first, 85-year-old wife no longer satisfies his needs, the English-language daily Arab News said. The report did not explain why the man considered his current wife to be unfulfilling, but it said that his new spouse is 30 years old.

"He felt that women are resorting to 'secret marriages' to escape from flogging or torture by their family members, or expulsion from their family homes."

"Parental opposition spawns secret marriages," by Mariam Al Hakeem in Gulfnews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Riyadh: Many young Saudi women are finding themselves in a knot after secretly marrying.

"Secret marriages" as they are known are held without the knowledge of the families of both the man and woman and the couple would be issued with a fake marriage contract - usually by corrupt officials after taking bribes.

Such marriages are illegal according to Sharia principles. Experts say such marriages are becoming popular because of repeated refusals by the fathers or other family members.

Secret marriage contracts in Saudi Arabia is estimated to account for 9 per cent of all marriages, Dr Hassan Bin Mohammad Safar, Professor of Judicial Systems and Procedures before the Sharia Courts at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, told Gulf News.

"The phenomenon is found to be popular among students and business community," Dr Safar said. He cited several cases where university students had secretly married and where young men had secretly married businesswoman to benefit from their wealth.

He added that 3 per cent of women who married secretly want to sue their husbands at courts after they refused to admit the marriage as legal. "But some women are hesitant to take this step due to fear of their family and scandal," he added.

Dr Safar said many officials who are authorised by the Ministry of Justice to finalise marriage contracts are violating their professional code of conduct.

He said many officials exploit the licence given to them by concluding marriage contracts that are not based on Islamic principles. He said the officials are merely looking for money regardless of whether the practise is legal or not. According to Islamic Sharia, a marriage contract is valid only if it is made in the presence of a guardian and witnesses. The wedding must also be made public.

Many women in Jeddah disclosed that they obtained marriage contracts without the knowledge of their families after paying 2,000 to 4,000 riyals.

"The marriages of two women were announced after they could no longer hide their pregnancies. In many other cases women have resorted to abortions to avoid their secrets being revealed," Dr Safar said.

He felt that women are resorting to "secret marriages" to escape from flogging or torture by their family members, or expulsion from their family homes. Fathers repeatedly refusing proposals to their daughters is cited as one of the key reasons. "Love and desire of the girls to marry the men they want after their father refused to do so is a main reason," he added.

Now we learn that they're only going after the "racist" passengers. And "there is no way Mr. Mohammedi can possibly determine whether the John Does 'knowingly made false reports' against his clients 'with the intent to discriminate against them' without taking their testimony under oath, at least during pretrial discovery." That in itself will discourage passengers from reporting suspicious activity in the future. And then it's open season for jihadist hijackers in airports.

By Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times (thanks to Sr. Soph):

A group of imams suing US Airways for discrimination amended their lawsuit this week to target only the "John Doe" passengers who they say are racist and falsely accused them of behaving suspiciously.

The six imams were removed from a flight in Minneapolis in November for disruptive behavior reported by passengers and members of the flight crew.

The lawsuit filed earlier this month targeted "passengers who contacted US Airways to report the alleged 'suspicious' behavior of plaintiffs performing their prayer at the airport terminal."

The amended lawsuit identifies possible John Does as individuals who "may have made false reports against plaintiffs solely with the intent to discriminate against them on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity and national origin."

"The only individuals against whom suit may be raised in this litigation are those who may have knowingly made false reports against the imams with the intent to discriminate against them," Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a letter this week to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm. The Becket Fund had publicly condemned CAIR for supporting the case.

"The imams will not sue any passengers who reported suspicious activity in good faith, even when the 'suspicious' behavior included the imams' constitutionally protected right to practice their religion without fear or intimidation," Mr. Nihad said. "When a person makes a false report with the intent to discriminate, he or she is not acting in good faith."

The imams are being represented by New York lawyer Omar Mohammedi in the lawsuit, which has triggered an outcry among lawyers who say they will defend the "John Does" for free.

Becket Fund Chairman Kevin Hasson criticized the amended changes in a letter to CAIR on Thursday.

"There is no way Mr. Mohammedi can possibly determine whether the John Does 'knowingly made false reports' against his clients 'with the intent to discriminate against them' without taking their testimony under oath, at least during pretrial discovery," Mr. Hasson said.

"That prospect alone, of being dragged into court proceedings, will certainly provide a great disincentive for other citizens to come forward with their own suspicions," he said.

In "Squinting at Extremists," David Thompson exposes the hollowness of Tariq Ramadan's claims to moderation:

“Those willing to trawl through Ramadan’s written and recorded output will find no shortage of material calling into question his supposedly liberal intent. It’s clear that what Ramadan wants isn’t a modernised, secular Islam, but an Islamised modernity.”

Over at Sign and Sight, Pascal Bruckner continues his multiculturalism debate with Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash. Bruckner makes a number of important points regarding competing assertions of difference and the loss of common values. He also argues, “It's not enough to condemn terrorism. The religion that engenders it and on which it is based, right or wrong, must also be reformed.” But of particular interest is Brukner’s criticism of those, like Buruma and Garton Ash, who endorse Tariq Ramadan as an “Islamic reformer” and a beacon of moderation. Bruckner reminds us that Ramadan is, in fact, far from liberal in his outlook, most obviously when addressing Muslim audiences rather than Western journalists. Even Buruma’s own generous portrait of Ramadan reveals less than progressive tendencies, of which Bruckner says:

“While propagating the feminine sense of shame and recommending that Muslim women should abstain from shaking men's hands and using mixed swimming pools if they wish, Ramadan states that for his part, he does shake women's hands. Yes, you read it right: in 2007, a self-styled ‘progressive’ Muslim… pushes audaciousness to the point of admitting that he shakes women's hands…

It seems to me a blatant error to start talking with conservatives just because they don't openly call for the holy war. This amounts to renouncing reform of Islam, provided Muslims renounce violence. But preferring modern fundamentalism to terrorism runs the risk of having both.”

Perhaps Buruma and Garton Ash have been distracted, even seduced, by Ramadan’s anti-capitalist noises and thus have failed to register the professor’s less reassuring assertions, as outlined in numerous books, pamphlets and recorded lectures. Ramadan has famously equated secularism with dictatorship and, rather crucially, he insists that the Qur’an and Sunnah should govern life today:

“I oppose… our spokespeople who say that one should no longer be faithful to the texts. That is not reasonable.” (L’Islam en Question, p283).

Those willing to trawl through Ramadan’s written and recorded output will find no shortage of material calling into question his supposedly liberal intent. It’s clear that what Ramadan wants isn’t a modernised, secular Islam, but an Islamised modernity. In Les Messages Musulmans d’Occident, Ramadan shares his vision of an Islamised Europe:

“The West will begin its new decline and the Arab-Islamic world its renewal… The Qur’an confirms, completes, and corrects the messages that preceded it.”

This triumphalist tone is continued in Islam, le Face à Face des Civilisations:

“References to Judaism and Christianity are being diluted, if not disappearing altogether… Only Islam can fill the spiritual void that afflicts the West.”

In Pouvoirs (164, 2003), Ramadan goes further:

“The revelation of the Qur’an is explicit: whoever engages in speculation or cultivates financial interests enters into war against the transcendent… Muslims who live in the West must unite themselves to the revolution… from the moment when the neo-liberal capitalist system becomes, for Islam, a theatre of war.”

And yet Garton Ash and Buruma maintain that Ramadan represents a moderate version of Islam that is “compatible with the fundamentals of a modern, liberal, and democratic Europe.” Ramadan’s ability to befuddle left-leaning commentators with practised ambiguity and elision has been noted. In her book, Frère Tariq, Caroline Fourest details the incongruities and contradictions of Ramadan’s statements, with particular attention to his 100 or so lectures to Muslim-only audiences, recordings of which are sold through Islamist bookshops.

Read it all.

I just found out that CSpan Book TV will be repeating my Heritage Foundation talk about my book The Truth About Muhammad this morning at 7:30AM PST, 10:30AM EST. You can watch online here.

Rally Against Islamofascism Day. All rallies will be held TODAY, Saturday, March 31st. For details, see the UAC site.

West Coast:

Southern California:
In front of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)'s Southern California Office
We will be hanging an effigy of bin Laden
Location: 2180 W. Crescent Ave. Anaheim, CA 92801
Time: 1:00 PM
Contact: losangeles@unitedamericancommittee.org

Hawaii - Kona
Location: Along the Queen K Hwy, near the Mormon Temple, just south of Henry St., in Kona, Hawaii
Time: Starting at 2:00pm and until 5:00pm
Contact: for more info or to confirm attendance email americandefender@yahoo.com

Washington State:
In front of CAIR's Seattle Office
Location: 9594 1st Avenue NE, Seattle WA
Time: 1:00 PM
Contact: washington@unitedamericancommittee.org

East Coast:

New York - NYC: GROUND ZERO
MAIN RALLY AGAINST ISLAMOFASCISM DAY RALLY
Location: Ground Zero - World Trade Center
S/E corner Liberty St and Trinity Pl (Church St).
Time: 12 Noon - 2 PM
Contact: newyork@unitedamericancommittee.org

Florida - Orlando:
Location: The corner of Hwy 50(Colonial Drive) and Bumby.
Time: 1:00 PM
Contact: florida@unitedamericancommittee.org

Massachusetts - Boston:
Location: Boston Common
Tremont St. in front of the Constitution memorial and across from Lowes movie theater.
Time: 1:00 - 3:00 PM
Contact: boston@unitedamericancommittee.org

Midwest:

Missouri - Columbia:
Location: Post Office on E 500 block of Walnut Street, across the street on the sidewalk.
Time: 9:45am to 11am.
Contact: ltw03y@hotmail.com

No word on whether he extended his right thumb and forefinger in the shape of an "L" and held it up to his forehead to drive the point home. "Gaddafi says only Islam a universal religion," by Salah Sarrar for Reuters:

AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Friday that it was a mistake to believe that Christianity was a universal faith alongside Islam.

"There are serious mistakes -- among them the one saying that Jesus came as a messenger for other people other than the sons of Israel," he told a mass prayer meeting in Niger.

"Christianity is not a faith for people in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Other people who are not sons of Israel have nothing to do with that religion," he said at the prayer meeting, held to mark the birth of the prophet Mohammed.

Gaddafi, who is seeking to expand his influence in Africa, said his arguments came from the Koran. He led similar prayers last year in Mali.

"It is a mistake that another religion exists alongside Islam. There is only one religion which is Islam after Mohammed," he said in the sermon, which was broadcast live on Libyan state television.

"All those believers who do not follow Islam are losers," he added. "We are here to correct the mistakes in the light of the teachings of the Koran."

Gaddafi also said it was a mistake to believe that Jesus had been crucified and killed. "It is not correct to say that. Another man resembling Jesus was crucified in his place."

Libya grants financial aid to Islamic communities in Africa and elsewhere to build mosques, Islamic schools and facilities.

Libyan state television often shows Gaddafi meeting groups of African men or women telling him they converted to Islam.

The mass prayers, chaired by Gaddafi, came a day after Arab leaders wrapped up a summit in Saudi Arabia. Libya was the only Arab state to shun the gathering.

Shunning Arab influence in North Africa is a good start, but one can't help but suspect Qaddafi is mainly concerned with their stealing his thunder as an influence in the region.

"Libya has turned its back on the Arabs ... Libya is an African nation. As for Arabs, may God keep them happy and far away," Gaddafi has said to explain his boycott of the summit.

Apparently they think that if they don't talk about it, it will go away. It doesn't seem to occur to them that while their governments are punctiliously refraining from linking Islam and terrorism, the Islamic terrorists will keep on doing so, right under their noses, and they will be powerless to stop it -- because after all, they can't even talk about it.

This reminds me of the abandonment of plans to translate my book Islam Unveiled into French a few years ago, because of death threats. Presumably if someone tried to undertake such a translation today, the threateners wouldn't have to bother: the government would shut down the enterprise. Soon Eurabia will resemble the old Soviet Union, in which dissidents furtively distributed samizdat literature and faced stiff penalties if the authorities discovered what they were doing. Europeans who care about what is happening to them will have to travel West, buy books that tell the truth about Islamic jihad, and distribute them at home away from the watchful eye of EU bureaucrats.

"Don't confuse terrorism with Islam, says EU," by Bruno Waterfield in the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The European Union has drawn up guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam and terrorism in their statements.

Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers "non-offensive" phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks.

Banned terms are said to include "jihad", "Islamic" or "fundamentalist".

The word "jihad" is to be avoided altogether, according to some sources, because for Muslims the word can mean a personal struggle to live a moral life.

One alternative, suggested publicly last year, is for the term "Islamic terrorism" to be replaced by "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam".

An EU official said that the secret guidebook, or, "common lexicon", is aimed at preventing the distortion of the Muslim faith and the alienation of Muslims in Europe.

If they're alienated by this use of words, why aren't they enraged by Osama et al? Why aren't there mass demonstrations by peaceful Muslims against this "hijacking" of Islam?

What else would you expect, given the state of news reporting in Eurabia?

"Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs," by Claus Christian Malzahn in Spiegel Online, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Forty-eight percent of Germans think the United States is more dangerous than Iran, a new survey shows, with only 31 percent believing the opposite. Germans' fundamental hypocrisy about the US suggests that it's high time for a new bout of re-education.

The Germans have believed in many things in the course of their recent history. They've believed in colonies in Africa and in the Kaiser. They even believed in the Kaiser when he told them that there would be no more political parties, only soldiers on the front.

Not too long afterwards, they believed that Jews should be placed into ghettos and concentration camps because they were the enemies of the people. Then they believed in the autobahn and that the Third Reich would ultimately be victorious. A few years later, they believed in the Deutsche mark. They believed that the Berlin Wall would be there forever and that their pensions were safe. They believed in recycling as well as in cheap jet travel. They even believed in a German victory at the soccer World Cup.

Now they believe that the United States is a greater threat to world peace than Iran. This was the by-no-means-surprising result of a Forsa opinion poll commissioned by Stern magazine. Young Germans in particular -- 57 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds, to be precise -- said they considered the United States more dangerous than the religious regime in Iran.

Read it all.

And mind you, they don't mean attempts to identify Islam with terrorism such as those perpetrated by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri, Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, and the rest. They meant non-Muslims who analyze those connections and try to alert people to their existence, so that non-Muslims and genuinely peaceful Muslims can take realistic and effective steps to keep these elements of Islam from being used to incite to violence and acts on behalf of Islamic supremacism.

"U.N. rights body condemns 'defamation' of religion," from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations top human rights body condemned "defamation" of religion on Friday and, in an apparent reference to the storm over the Prophet cartoons, said press freedom had its limits.

With the support of China, Russia and Cuba, Moslem and Arab states comfortably won a vote on the 47-state Human Rights Council to express concern at "negative stereotyping" of religions and "attempts to identify Islam with terrorism."

"The resolution is tabled in the expectation that it will compel the international community to acknowledge and address the disturbing phenomena of the defamation of religions, especially Islam," said Pakistan, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The resolution was opposed by Western states which said it focused too much on Islam. The job of the Council was to deal with the rights of individuals not religions, they said

Yes. Muslims concerned about the "defamation" of Islam should fight against violent jihad and Islamic supremacism. To point fingers at non-Muslims in this, when Muslims on virtually a daily basis commit acts of violence and justify them by Islamic precepts, is arrant hypocrisy.

Andre Traversa had me on his talk show yesterday to talk about my book, "Religion of Peace," and asked me to post the link for all Jihad Watchers. I understand the first ten minutes concern Rudy Giuliani, then Phyllis Chesler comes on, then me.

Grammatical errors and non-standard spelling join the the odd, stilted language of the previous letters that Iran claims were composed by Faye Turney. Iran can only hope that some of its own people buy into the propaganda, as their tactics are utterly transparent to the rest of the world.

"Text of 3rd letter allegedly written by Faye Turney in Iran," from Iran Focus:

To British People

I am writing to you as a British service person who has been sent to Iraq, sacrificed due to the intervening policies of the Bush and Blair governments.

We were arrested after entering Iranian waters by the Iranian forces. For this, I am deeply sorry. I understand that this has caused even more distrust for the people of Iran and the whole area in the British (sic).

The Iranian people have treated me well and have proved themselves to be caring, compassionate, hospitable and friendly. For this I am thankful.

I believe that for our countries to move forward we need to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and leave the people of Iraq to start re-building their lives. I have written a letter to the people of Iran apologising for our actions.

Whereas we hear and see on the news the way prisoners were treated in Abo-Ghrayb (sic) and other Iraqi jails by British and American personnel, I have received total respect and faced no harm.

It is now our time to ask our government to make a change to its oppressive behaviour towards other people.

Faye Turney, 27/03/07

Imagine the international upheaval if a Western country showed a detainee's face for a moment. It's simply not done. Meanwhile, in Iran...

From CNN:

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian Arabic language network Al Alam on Friday aired new video showing one of 15 British detainees apologizing to Iranians for "entering your waters without permission."

The British government responded by criticizing the treatment of the sailors and marines, with Prime Minister Tony Blair saying Iran faces "increasing isolation" for refusing to release the service personnel.

The video showed three UK personnel seated in front of a floral backdrop, with one of them later appearing on camera to read a confession to what Tehran claims was their illegal entry into Iranian territory a week ago.

"I deeply apologize for entering your waters," said the serviceman, identified as Nathan Thomas Summers of Hayle in Cornwall, southwest England.

"On the 23rd of March 2007 in Iranian waters we trespassed without permission," he said looking at someone or something off camera.

"I'd like to apologize for entering your waters without any permission. I know it happened back in 2004 and I know our government promised that it wouldn't happen again. Again I do apologize for entering your waters."

Summers added: "Since we've been arrested in Iran our treatment has been very friendly, we have not been harmed at all.

"They've looked after us really well. Basically the food they've been serving us has been good and I'm grateful no harm has come to us."

Blair, speaking to reporters a couple of hours after the video was aired, said: "All this does is enhance people's sense of disgust. Captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way doesn't fool anyone.

"What the Iranians have to realize is that if they continue in this way they will face continuing isolation."

Blair called for "patience" in dealing with the crisis, adding: "They most important thing is to ensure people are returned safe."

Earlier Friday, Britain's Foreign Office responded to the video, telling CNN that "using our servicemen in this way for propaganda reasons is outrageous."

Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers on Friday demanded Iran release 15 Britons, though some warned against escalating the dispute and said their diplomatic ties with Tehran would not be immediately affected, The Associated Press reported.

Friday's video was the second so-called confession by a British detainee to be aired by Al Alam this week.

More on this story. There is no way to be sure of what "Aunty Shamim" was involved with (she told the BBC she had only rented a room to a woman). In any event, her case highlights the lack of due process under Islamic clerical rule. There was certainly no presumption of innocence, and an angry, stick-wielding mob doesn't exactly count as a trial by jury. Sharia Alert. "Islamist vigilantes coerce Pakistanis," from the Washington Times:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A group of female seminary students in the Pakistani capital yesterday freed a woman they had accused of running a brothel after forcing her to wear a burqa and repent in public.

[...]

Students in black burqas seized the woman and several of her relatives from her home late Tuesday during an anti-vice campaign in the capital, taking the law into their own hands and embarrassing Gen. Musharraf's military-dominated government.

The students are disciples of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, vice principal of the Jamia Hafsa seminary and a cleric at the adjoining Lal Masjid mosque. The mosque has a reputation for preaching hard-line Islam as well as links to an outlawed militant group accused in sectarian attacks on Shi'ite Muslims.

With no sign of police intervention to force her release, the woman, known as Aunty Shamim, was presented to reporters at the Jamia Hafsa seminary in Islamabad to meet Sheik Ghazi's demand that she stop "spreading obscenity" in return for her freedom.

"I apologize for my past wrongdoing, and I promise in the name of God that in the future I will live like a pious person," said the woman, with only her eyes and part of her nose visible beneath an all-enveloping burqa.

However, she said she had "threatened to become a Christian" over her treatment by the students.

"I don't think Islam allows anyone to beat a woman and drag her through the streets like a dog," she said, shortly before she was driven home in a car along with her daughter, daughter-in-law and 6-month-old granddaughter.

All of whom, according to the BBC story linked above, were abducted with her.

Absolutely, but where is the political will to hold Syria to account? The deterrent posed by having the world's strongest and most advanced military is attenuated by the fact that U.S. military assets are stretched thin under the burden of holding together Iraq, a country with no inherent unity. Absent that, the U.S. would not only regain the deterrent power of being more ready, willing, and able, to address global threats, but Syria's Alawite regime (categorized as a Shi'ite group, but well removed from the mainstream) would find itself occupied with a Sunni-Shi'ite jihad next door that would embolden its own Sunni majority population against its enemies both across and within the border, leaving Damascus much less able to threaten Israel and do the bidding of Iran.

From the World Tribune:

WASHINGTON — A U.S. State Dept. official said about 90 percent of the suicide attackers in Iraq came from Syria.

"It has to stop," said David Satterfield, the chief State Department adviser on Iraq. Officials said that despite numerous appeals, Syria has failed to stop the flow of Sunni suicide bombers to Iraq. They said the lion's share of suicide bombers were foreign Arab nationals who entered Syria and made their way to Iraq.

"They [suicide bombers] see Syria as a more accommodating country through which to transit across the border to come into Iraq to perpetrate their terror," Satterfield.

Satterfield said the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that between 85 and 90 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq entered from Syria. In an address to the Washington Institute on March 27, Satterfield said 90 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq were foreigners.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert:

Officials said North Africans and Yemenis comprised the largest element among the foreign suicide bombers. But they said Saudi nationals have become an increasing factor in the Sunni insurgency war in Iraq.

In his address, Satterfield again warned Syria to stop the flow of would-be suicide bombers and other insurgents to Iraq. He said Iraq and the United States have sought to stem the flow of insurgents from Syria to Iraq's Al Anbar province.

"It has to stop," Satterfield said. "It is not in Syria's long term interests to let this violence continue. We and the Iraqi security forces have done our best. It is a long, long border."

Over the last month, the Bush administration has resumed high-level contacts with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad. Officials said that during the March 10 meeting in Baghdad, the U.S. delegation accused Iran and Syria of interfering in Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to attend the next meeting that included Syria in April.

"We would hope that the Syrian government understands as well that its rhetoric for a peaceful and stable Iraq has to be matched by actions," Satterfield said.

Stop the presses. By Ed Johnson for Bloomberg:

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- President Pervez Musharraf has failed to tackle Islamic extremism in Pakistan's religious schools, which continue to promote a holy war against the West and foment terrorism, the International Crisis Group said.

Five years after the government pledged a crackdown on the schools, known as madrassas, many still preach a violent ideology and train and dispatch fighters to Afghanistan and Indian-administered Kashmir, the Brussels-based advocacy group, which aims to resolve conflicts, said in a report yesterday.

``The Pakistani government has yet to take any of the overdue and necessary steps to control religious extremism,'' the group said. ``Musharraf's periodic declarations of tough action, given in response to international events and pressure, are invariably followed by retreat.''

[...]

The ICG said the government's ``reform program is in shambles'' and that banned extremist groups continue to operate openly in Pakistan, particularly in the port city of Karachi.

The group called on the government to introduce a law that ``bars jihadi and violent sectarian teachings'' in madrassas and close schools that fail to comply. Many madrassas remain unregistered and government attempts to introduce non-religious classes have been futile, according to the report.

A law that "bars jihadi and violent sectarian teachings" is highly unlikely, as Islamic teachings on jihad are part of the standard Pakistani curriculum, and are not at all limited to the notion of an "inner spiritual struggle."

The group recommended the government establish financial controls on the schools, to establish where they receive funding. Students should also be registered, the group said. Certificates issued by the schools shouldn't be treated as the equivalent of university degrees to encourage participation in mainstream education, it added.

Indeed.

More on the German Qur'an case: "Paving the Way for a Muslim Parallel Society," from Spiegel Online, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A recent ruling in Germany by a judge who cited the Koran underscores the dilemma the country faces in reconciling Western values with a growing immigrant population. A disturbing number of rulings are helping to create a parallel Muslim world in Germany that is welcoming to Islamic fundamentalists.

She didn't know it, nor did she even expect it. She had good intentions. Perhaps it was a mistake. In fact, it was most certainly a mistake. The best thing to do would be to wipe the slate clean.

Last week, in the middle of the storm, Christa Datz-Winter, a judge on Frankfurt's family court, was speechless. But Bernhard Olp, a spokesman for the city's municipal court, was quick to jump in. Olp reported that the judge had been under emotional stress stemming from a murder that had been committed in her office 10 years ago, and that she was now planning to take a break to recuperate. He also mentioned that she was "outraged" -- not about herself or her scandalous ruling, but over the reactions the case has triggered.

The reactions were so fierce that one could have been forgiven for mistakenly thinking that Germany's Muslims had won the headscarf dispute and the controversy over the Mohammed cartoons on a single day and, in one fell swoop, had taken a substantial bite out of the legal foundations of Western civilization.

Read it all.

Esposito says he's a "reformist"

"Appropriate statements must be made in the appropriate setting." Arafat was a master of that. From the MEMRI Blog :

At the fifth conference of the International Al-Quds Institute, held in Algeria, institute head Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi was asked whether his recent call for "civil jihad" in Palestine would influence people to give up the original jihad.

Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi answered, "We are not abolishing the military jihad with the civil jihad, but appropriate statements must be made in the appropriate setting. In another place I call for military jihad and even for martyrdom operations. In the eyes of some people, my blood is permitted because of this. But at the Al-Quds Institute, I call for civil jihad."

Christian proselytizing is a capital offense under Islamic law. "Ethiopian Evangelist Beaten to Death by Militant Muslims: Militant Wahabbi Islamists Drag Christian Evangelist into Mosque and Beat Him to Death," from Christian Newswire, with thanks to Tom:

WASHINGTON, Mar. 29 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) has just learned that an Ethiopian evangelist named Tedase was beaten to death by militant Muslims on Monday, March 26th, as he and two young women were on a street evangelism assignment in Jimma, Ethiopia. This marks the second time in six months that Christians residing in Southeast Ethiopia have been attacked and killed by extremist (Wahabbi) Muslims.

On Monday afternoon Tedase and two female coworkers were conducting street evangelism on Merkato Street in Jimma, Southern Ethiopia. Merkato Street runs by a Wahabbi Mosque. As the team was walking by the Mosque, a group of Muslims exited the Mosque and began to run after them to confront them. Tedase's female coworkers ran away from the mob but Tedase continued on. The Muslims caught up with Tedase, pulled him into the mosque, and savagely beat him to death. Sources from Jimma reported that Tedase was beaten with a calculated intention to kill him. This was no accident or case of mob frenzy getting out of control. His body was later taken to the hospital for an autopsy and he was buried Tuesday, March 27.

Our sources also reveal that Jimma Christians were conducting an evangelism campaign, and news of the outreach was spreading among Jimma residents as well as militant Muslim groups in the area. The Muslims that belonged to the Wahabbi sect purposefully beat Tedase to death as a message to Christians that they are ready to combat evangelism.

In the Iranian mythology, Great Britain -- "England" -- has a more prominent and more venerable role than those newcomers to Satanhood, the United States and Israel. The no-longer existent England of Palmerston and the Great Game, and manipulations by assorted Curzons, live on in the vivid oriental imaginations to be found both in fictional bulbuls-and-roses Gulistan, as well as in the all-too-real tanks-and-missiles Teheran of Khatami and Ahmadinejad.

That is why the Iranian mobs are so easily brought out to denounce England. Because for them, it was "England" that ruined Persia in the nineteenth century. It was England that severed the Shi'a of Persia from Karbala and Najaf. Of course, in reality it wasn't England at all. The 1847 Treaty of Erzerum was brokered by the Czar of Russia, and was made between the Ottoman Empire (that is, the Turks) and the Persian Empire. And even though it was the Soviet Union that seized a swath of northern Iran after World War II (an idea whose time may have come again), and "England" that was the ally of the Americans, and it was the Americans and the other Western powers that forced a Soviet retreat, still in the popular mind in Persia "England" was to blame. It is true that the English were partly responsible for the coup against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, for he had threatened the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's concessions – they responded by persuading the Americans to stage that coup.

This attitude is apparently fine

Iran scolds Britain for not adopting a posture of sufficiently abject dhimmitude. "Say sorry or we won't free mum, says Iran," from the Daily Mail, :

The release of kidnapped British sailor Faye Turney is on hold after Iran accused Britain of having an "incorrect attitude".

The hostage crisis also took a sinister new turn as a hate mob in Tehran demanded that the 15 captured British Navy personnel be hanged.

Protesters waved placards demanding "15 British aggressors must be executed" outside the foreign ministry.

The announcement Turney's release is on hold by the head of Iran's supreme national security council Ali Larijani dashed hopes that the 26-year-old mother would be released "very soon".

The u-turn came a day after Iran pledged to release Mrs Turney, who was detained along with 14 male colleagues, following their capture in Iraqi waters.

But Mr Larijani said on state television today: "It was announced that a woman in the group would be freed, but (this development) was met with an incorrect attitude. Naturally, (the release) will be suspended and it will not take place."

Britain has already frozen relations with Iran, and is seeking condemnation of the sailors' and marines' abduction at the United Nations.

Iran's initial "humanitarian" gesture of offering the early release of Faye Turney served to raise international hopes, which Iran can now exploit in using Turney as its main bargaining chip, as well as a propaganda trophy in defiance of the Geneva Convention. "Britain seeks U.N. condemnation of Iran," from Associated Press:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran may delay the release of the female British sailor if Britain takes the issue to the U.N. Security Council or freezes relations, the country's top negotiator Ali Larijani said Thursday. The Foreign Office in London, meanwhile, said Britain is seeking condemnation of Iran at the United Nations.

The seizure of 15 British sailors and marines, including Faye Turney, the only woman among them, took place during operations in Iraqi waters under a U.N. Security Council mandate, said the Foreign Office official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

"There are some plans to say something on behalf of the United Nations (about the seized troops) but they have not been finalized," said the official.

Speaking on Iranian state radio, Larijani said: "British leaders have miscalculated this issue." If Britain follows through with its policies on the British sailors and marines detained by Iran last week, Larijani said "this case may face a legal path" — a clear reference to Iran's prosecuting the sailors in court.

Britain asked the Security Council to support a call for the immediate release of the detainees, saying in a statement Wednesday they were operating in Iraqi waters under a mandate from the Security Council and at the request of Iraq, according to council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the text was not released.

Earlier Thursday, Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Britain wanted to resolve the crisis quickly and without having a "confrontation over this."

In a briefing to reporters, the spokesman said British officials had been angered by Tehran's decision to show captured the British sailors and marines on Iranian television.

"Nobody should be put in that position. It is an impossible position to be put in," he said. "It is wrong. It is wrong in terms of the usual conventions that cover this. It is wrong in terms of basic humanity."

"We are not seeking to put Iran in a corner," said the spokesman. "We are simply saying, 'Please release the personnel who should not have been seized in the first place.'"

On Wednesday, Britain announced it was freezing relations with Iran.

Oh, Oriana, how Italy misses you.

"Western definition of "jihad" must be corrected -- Italian expert," from the Kuwait National News Agency:

KUWAIT, March 29 (KUNA) -- The definitions of "jihad" and "holy war" as presented by Western media need to be corrected if a true and undistorted image of Islam is be presented to the world, said Italian professor of Islamic culture Valeria Paicentini on Thursday. Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), the visiting professor said, "Our media is distorting a lot Islam's aspects and features ... and this misunderstanding media has created can only be countered by looking closely at the true meanings of such terms as 'jihad' and 'holy war' in Islam." It is a common misconception that "jihad" means "military action", when in fact it translates to "effort" of which just one aspect is to do with taking action to defend oneself, she said.

The best way for Muslims to clear up this "misconception" would be for them to act upon the definition of jihad as spiritual struggle, and to take steps to counter actively the Muslims all over the world who are acting upon the "misconception" that jihad involves warfare against unbelievers.

Ironically, she said, "holy war" was a term introduced by the Vatican to "counter the Islamic wave" it feared would spread throughout Europe.

Sure. The Vatican invented those statements of Muhammad about fighting unbelievers until they convert or submit, and until Islam is dominant in the world.

As Robert Spencer says, there is no "effective theological response to Muslims" who take their Islam seriously. That is, there is no effective Islamic theological response to Muslims who take their Islam seriously enough to want to individually participate in the Jihad. But what is most troubling to the Pakistani authorities is not the fact of Jihad.

After all, Parvez Musharraf, the other generals, and the I.S.I. have all been waging Jihad in any way that they could. These many and various ways have included surreptitious support for terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir and India for many decades. They have also helped bring up the baby of the Taliban and then, when it was ready, sent it back to Afghanistan -- not on spring break but to stay and to bring "stability" through murder and mayhem, just the way that Hitler did, or to a lesser degree, Mussolini. Stability, stability.

No, what worries the Pakistani authorities about the jihad-preaching madrasa in Islamabad are two things:

Jihad Watch reader Mike has sent me a new article by Louay Safi, the Indianapolis ISNA op who is unhappy that plans are afoot for me to lead a seminar for the Joint Terrorism Task Force in that city. I have replied to his attacks before, albeit belatedly. Since he mostly rehashes what he said in his earlier piece here, and I'm tired of cherry-picking the Qur'an, I think I'll cherry-pick his article instead, and just point out a couple of things.

First, he repeats a 1997 definition of the trumped-up term "Islamophobia" that I think bears scrutiny.

In Britain, the term “Islamophobia” was not used in government policy until 1997, when the race relations think tank Runnymede Trust published the report “Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All." [1] In a section entitled The Nature of Islamophobia, the report itemizes eight features that Runnymede attributed to Islamophobia:

* Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.

The fact is that Islam is not a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change. There are innumerable variations in Muslim observance all around the world. There are innumerable variations in cultural traditions of Islamic observance. It is also true that all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers, and that this view is sealed by scholarly consensus (ijma) and the closing-off of new rulings on settled issues (see here about the gates of ijtihad). Jihadists are capitalizing upon these facts to make recruits among peaceful Muslims by calling them back to what they are able to represent on the basis of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and Islamic jurisprudence as "pure Islam."

So in other words, it is the jihadists who are portraying the traditional teachings on jihad warfare as incumbent upon all Muslims, and unable to be changed. But when Western non-Muslims take note of this, it's called "Islamophobia."

* Islam is seen as separate and “other”. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.

This one is silly. No one is claiming that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, or exists in a vacuum. However, it is not the values in common that are a cause for Infidel concern, it is the values that are held by non-Muslims that Islam does not teach in any of its orthodox manifestations: freedom of conscience, equality of rights of all people before the law, including women and religious minorities, and so on.

* Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist.

I am not going to apologize for saying that elements of traditional Islam are barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist. When Muslim clerics protest against a rape law that calls for forensic evidence to establish guilt, rather than disqualifying the victim's testimony and establishing guilt only on the testimony of four male witnesses (cf. Qur'an 24:13), yes, that is barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist. If Louay Safi and other Muslims want non-Muslims not to have this perception, let them go to Pakistan and Iran and elsewhere and take up their conflict with these clerics. But they don't. And they won't.

* Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a Clash of Civilizations [an idea enunciated by Prof. Samuel P. Huntington, with the publication of his book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” Simon & Schuster; 1998].

Here again: when 49.9% of Muslims affirm that they support Osama, and when jihadists worldwide explain and justify their actions by reference to the Qur'an and Sunnah, the problem of seeing Islam as aggressive does not lie with "Islamophobes," but with Muslims.

* Islam is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.

Yet again: "Islamophobes" did not invent the idea of Islam as a political ideology. The man who recently said that "Muslims will take over the world" was not an "Islamophobe." The Muslims who decided that the Year One of the Islamic calendar would not be the year of Muhammad's birth or death, or the beginning of his prophethood, but rather the year of his becoming a political and military leader, was not an "Islamophobe."

* Criticisms made of 'the West' by Islam are rejected out of hand.

What is this monolithic "Islam" that Safi envisions criticizing the West? But anyway, yes, they are dismissed, and should be, because while the West has many problems, Westerners would be deceiving themselves with D'Souza-like abandon if they imagined that addressing any of the Muslim grievances against the West would end the jihad. The jihad proceeds from Islam's supremacist imperative, which does not depend on anything non-Muslims do, but simply on the fact that they are non-Muslims. Qur'an 9:29 tells Muslims to fight the People of the Book, not just the evil or immoral People of the Book.

* Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. * Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural and normal.

Hogwash. Jihad actions and other Islamic supremacist activity calls for defensive action by non-Muslims. That's all.

Anyway, here's the unintended irony. Safi says about me:

Out of the hundreds of the Qur’anic verses left out of Spencer’s discussion are those that direct Muslims to initiate fighting only to repel aggression while urging them to seek peace when the other party seeks peace: “Fight in the way of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression, for God loves not aggressors. And fight them wherever you meet them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for persecution is worse than slaughter. But if they cease, God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no oppression and the religion is only for God, but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression.” (2:190-193)

Did you catch that? I supposedly ignore Qur'anic verses "that direct Muslims to initiate fighting only to repel aggression while urging them to seek peace when the other party seeks peace." In support of this Safi quotes 2:190-193, which I've actually discussed at some length in both The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. But here's the irony. That verse contains this: "fight them on until there is no oppression and the religion is only for God."

So Muslims are to fight until "the religion is only for God." They are to fight, in other words, until Islam reigns supreme, for Islam is the only religion acceptable to Allah (Qur'an 3:85). If Muslims must fight until "the religion is only for God," they must fight until Islam is the dominant religion all over the world. So in accusing me of cherry-picking the Qur'an to portray Islam as violent, Safi has inadvertently highlighted a verse that is one of the principal foundations of the Islamic supremacist imperative.

"We teach the students complete Islam...Jihad is a big pillar of Islam." And while putative Muslim reformers in the West self-righteously remind us that Islam is not a monolith and jihad is a spiritual struggle, these clerics and students in Islamabad teach jihad is warfare and peaceful Muslims have mounted no effective theological response to them.

From DPA, :

The hostage-taking of three police officers by students attached to Islamabad's notorious Red Mosque Wednesday again highlighted the rising strain of religious militancy in the very heart of the Pakistani capital.

If the police did not to release several of his students and teachers they would face a jihad, or holy war, warned cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, deputy head of the Lal Masjid, or red mosque, and adjacent madrassa religious school where Osama bin Laden is regarded as "our hero".

But their arrest and the seizure of the officers and an alleged manager of a local brothel during a morality dispute is a sideshow to more sinister activity inside the giant complex with 11,000 students.

"We encourage our people to go and fight (foreign troops in Afghanistan)," Ghazi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa during a recent visit.

Any means of stopping the "aggressors" was justified, including suicide bombings, and it was just a matter of time before the international contingents are forced to leave, he said.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in the war against terrorism, yet hatred towards the western "occupiers" in Afghanistan is openly preached a short distance from the offices of the prime minister, parliament and the Supreme Court.

Earlier attempts to take action against the complex were dropped amid fears of a broad backlash, leaving Ghazi free to impress the call to arms upon the 6,500 females and 4,500 males who take classes and worship on premises he jointly administers with his brother.

While a generation of young fighters appears to be taking shape under their tutelage, the state's authority now seems to end at the heavily guarded gates....

Foreign armies had no right to invade Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, says Ghazi, who in 1998 met al-Qaeda leader bin Laden in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

"They will never succeed, they will go, defeated like the Russians," he pronounces, before rhetorically asking how many of the 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan would be willing to carry out a suicide attack on the Taliban.

Hearing the answer "none", Ghazi says opposition among the masses to western intervention can produce "hundreds of thousands of suicide bombers" eager to sacrifice themselves....

"We teach the students complete Islam," Ghazi explains, but noting that, "Jihad is a big pillar of Islam."

"We teach them the concept of jihad, not how to fight," he clarifies, confident of the superior determination of those waging the armed struggle.

"For us this life does not matter," says Ghazi. "(The fighting) will continue for some time, there will be a lot of casualties on our side, no doubt, but finally (the foreign troops) will retreat."

A return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan is the only solution for the country, he believes, while claiming that his men have contacts with the militant resistance and al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar are alive and actively continuing the fight and neither their death or capture would not significantly weaken the effort, according to Ghazi.

"In our jihad a person is not important - another would just take over," he says.

As we have often noted here.

Moral equivalence alert: the only place where they could hold this meeting without being in imminent danger of death was in the one that features in jihadist rhetoric as the locus of all evil, Israel. From AP, with thanks to BN:

HAIFA, Israel - Arab lesbians quietly defied Islamist protesters and a social taboo to gather at a rare public event Wednesday in a northern Israeli city.

Many of the attendees said they were sad that the only place safe enough to hold a conference for gay Arab women was in a Jewish area of Haifa, which has a mixed Arab-Jewish population. Israel's Jewish majority is generally tolerant of homosexuality.

Ginnnah Muhammad, probably

"The lawsuit says that...others have either come before Paruk or will come before him. 'Thus, future harm is imminent.'" But in light of stories like this, I wonder who it is who is more likely to be harmed in the future. This kind of story calls for the response of General Sir Charles James Napier: you have your custom, and we have ours. Your custom is to cover your face before men who are not your relatives. Our custom is that those who testify in court do so with faces visible, in part so that the judge and others can determine their truthfulness. If you insist on following your custom, we will also follow ours, and dismiss your case.

By Jeff Karoub for The Associated Press, with thanks to all who sent this in:

DETROIT -- A Muslim woman whose small-claims court case was dismissed after she refused to remove her veil sued the judge Wednesday, saying her religious and civil rights were violated.

Ginnnah Muhammad, 42, of Detroit, says in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit that Judge Paul Paruk's request to remove her veil -- and his decision to dismiss her case when she didn't -- was unconstitutional based on her First Amendment right to practice her religion.

The claim against Paruk also cites a federal civil rights law in alleging that Muhammad was denied access to the courts because of her religion.

Muhammad wore a niqab -- a scarf and veil that covers her head and face, leaving only the eyes visible -- during the October hearing in Hamtramck, a city surrounded by Detroit.

She was contesting a $2,750 charge from a rental-car company to repair a vehicle that she said thieves had broken into.

Paruk told her he needed to see her face to judge her truthfulness and gave her a choice: take off the veil while testifying or have the case dismissed. She kept it on.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co. then filed a claim seeking a judgment of $2,000 against Muhammad....

Muhammad's attorney, Nabih Ayad, said that she unsuccessfully sought to get a different judge to hear the case and that she and her client plan to ask him to remove himself from the case....

Metropolitan Detroit has one of the country's largest Muslim and Arab populations. The lawsuit says that because of that, others have either come before Paruk or will come before him. "Thus, future harm is imminent."

"You should be able to be who you are as long as you're not a criminal or hurting other people," said Muhammad, who converted to Islam when she was 10 and runs an aromatherapy business in suburban Detroit. "I want to make sure everyone across the board is able to practice their religion freely in a democratic society."

Muhammad said she would have removed her veil before a female judge.

"The way I believe in Islam is that a woman is very virtuous," she said. "We should be covered when we come out. This protects me as well as other people. I believe that God wants me that way."

An update on this story, from AFP:

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Four young Muslims have been charged in Denmark with planning terrorist bombings in Denmark or abroad, the justice ministry said Wednesday.

The four men were accused of acquiring chemicals and laboratory instruments to make triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosives, often used by suicide bombers.

TATP bombs were used in the July 2005 London bombings.

The identities of the four were not disclosed. They are residents of Denmark but do not hold Danish citizenship.

The men were part of a group of nine people arrested in a September 2006 swoop in Odense in central Denmark.

Three of the nine had been remanded in custody, while the six others, including the fourth person indicted on Wednesday, were released.

At the time of the raid, Danish Justice Minister Lene Espersen said that the discovery of the alleged terrorist cell was "the most serious" such case Denmark has known.

If convicted, the four face life sentences.

A cautionary tale that virtually no one is heeding.

By Ruth King in Mideast Outpost:

It looks increasingly probable that Kosovo will gain its independence from Serbia, an outcome that should be of serious concern to Israel and its supporters. Ariel Sharon, to his credit, heard the alarm bells during the American bombing of Serbia in 1999, when he warned American Jewish leaders: "If Israel supports the type of action that's going on in Kosovo, it risks becoming the next victim. Brutal intervention must not be legitimized as a way to try to impose a solution in regional conflicts." And, it is no coincidence, as journalist Julia Gorin reminds us, that during the bombing of Serbia on behalf of Moslem Albanians in 1999 Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, commander of the allied Saudi troops during the first Gulf War, called on the US to do the same against Israel on behalf of Palestinians.

The fate of Jews and Serbs, which has intersected in the past, is doing so again. The jihadist effort to expunge Jews from Palestine mirrors the Moslem goal of incorporating Kosovo into a “greater Moslem Albania” while expelling Christian Serbs.

When Serbia became independent of Byzantine rule in the 12th century, its economic, cultural, social and religious institutions were among the most advanced in Europe. Serbia functioned as a bridge between Greco-Byzantine civilization and the developing Western Renaissance. The center of the Serbian Orthodox Church was in Kosovo where churches, monasteries and monastic communities were established. A form of census in 1330, the “Decani Charter,” detailed the list of chartered villages and households, of which only two percent were Albanian.

An illuminating piece by Mushtaq Yusufzai and Carol Grisanti for NBC News (thanks to all who sent this in):

"We were told to fight against Israel, America and non-Muslims," said Muhammed Bakhtiar, 17, explaining why he wanted to become a suicide bomber. "We are so unhappy with our lives here. We have nothing," he said.

Last month, Bakhtiar and his school friend, Miraj Ahmad, also 17, left their home, families, and boarding school in Buner, a district of the Malakand Division of the Northwest Frontier Province. Their destination was the Muridke madrassa right outside of Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city. The madrassa or religious school is run by the Jama’at-ud-Da’awah, the charity linked to the outlawed terrorist organization, Lashkar e Taiba. And Lashkar e Taiba has links to al-Qaida.

The grounds of this madrassa looks much like the campus of any exclusive boys boarding school – except for the bearded armed guards sporting Kalashnikovs checking all those who come and go. There is a cricket field, swimming pool, all sorts of sport activities, and horses too. In addition to religious instruction, the school offers computer sciences, engineering and pre-med classes for students ranging in age from six to 17.

It also offers jihad.

"We read about jihad in books and wanted to join," said Ahmad. "We wanted to go to the Muridke madrassa so we would have a better life in the hereafter."

Recruited at local high school

Ahmad said that he and his friend Bakhtiar were recruited at their high school in Buner. The recruiter offered to take the boys to Muridke for two weeks of training and then to Peshawar where they would be introduced to people and make contacts.

"We were told it is our choice to become a freedom fighter or a suicide bomber," explained Ahmad, who had a neat beard and wore a white Muslim prayer cap. "But we should never fight against Pakistan."

Every morning the students were taught Islamic studies; afternoons were reserved for sports. Jihadi training was given in the evenings; two classes a night.

Despite being rebuffed by the local bishop and the Vatican, Muslims are still trying to retake the Cordoba cathedral. "Catholic-Muslim turf war still resonates at Cordoba cathedral: The scuffle over La Mezquita is echoed throughout Spain these days as members of each faith tests the other's tolerance" is a weepy piece by Tracy Wilkinson in the Los Angeles Times (thanks to all who sent this in), lamenting that Muslims can't pray there. It never seems to occur to her that there are innumerable churches all over the Islamic world that were turned into mosques, and no one is agitating in Constantinople for the Hagia Sophia to be opened again for public Christian prayer, or in Damascus for the Umayyad Mosque, built atop a demolished church dedicated to St. John the Baptist, to be opened to Christians.

And why is that? What makes Cordoba different from Istanbul or Damascus? Does Tracy Wilkinson know? Does Tracy Wilkinson care?

CORDOBA, SPAIN — Mansur Escudero knew the answer before he asked.

Approaching the guard at Cordoba's majestic once-a-mosque, now-a-cathedral, Escudero posed the question: May I say Muslim prayers inside?

The slightly startled Spanish guard gave an emphatic no. This is a Catholic church, he said, and as such it is absolutely prohibited to pray in any other faith. Escudero persisted, but the guard was firm.

This is a cathedral, the guard repeated, growing more agitated: "A CA-THO-LIC CHURCH."

The 1,200-year-old architectural wonder that is one of Spain's most renowned landmarks is at the center of a turf war over religious space, cultural recognition and rivalries that are both ancient and contemporary.

Known as La Mezquita in Spanish and the Great Mosque in English, its spectacular forest of striped arches and jasper-and-marble columns constitutes one of ancient Islam's most iconic legacies. But La Mezquita has served as a consecrated Catholic church for nearly 800 years — ever since Spain's Catholic monarchs ejected Islamic forces that had ruled most of the Iberian Peninsula for more than five centuries.

The scuffle over La Mezquita is echoed throughout Spain these days as members of each faith tests the other's tolerance in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country with a fast-growing Muslim minority. Tensions were further inflamed when Islamic militants blew up commuter trains in Madrid three years ago, killing nearly 200 people.

The dispute has special resonance in Cordoba, an Andalusian crossroads that beginning more than a millennium ago was the capital of Moorish Spain and one of the Western world's greatest centers of intellectual and artistic culture.

Some of today's Muslims may long for Islam's glorious past, but Mansur Escudero insists he just wants a place to pray.

"We could be an example for the world," he said, "awakening the consciences of both Christians and Muslims and showing it's possible to put aside past conflicts."

Great. Restore the Hagia Sophia as a cathedral, and we'll talk about Cordoba.

And why is that?

From the Washington Post:

The retired general, who on his latest visit also interviewed a U.S. intelligence official and some Iraqi officers, is especially critical of the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It is "despised" by the Sunnis, he writes, is seen as "untrustworthy and incompetent" by the Kurds, and now enjoys "little credibility among the Shia populations from which it emerged."

The government lacks dominance in every province, he added. One result is that "no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO [nongovernmental organization], nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi, without heavily armed protection."

Militias and armed bands are "in some ways more capable of independent operations" than the Iraqi army, he added.

McCaffrey is gloomy about the continuing strength of the insurgency. At this point, he said, about 27,000 fighters are being held, and at least 20,000 others have been killed, yet enemy combatants continue to produce new leaders and foot soldiers. The result, five years into the war, he said, is that "their sophistication, numbers and lethality go up -- not down -- as they incur these staggering battle losses."

And why is that?

"Hopefully it won't be long till I'm home to get ready for Molly's birthday party and with a present from the Iranian people."

Oh, I am sure it will be a most memorable present.

"Paraded On Iranian TV," from SkyNews, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Footage of the 15 British sailors and marines being held in Iran has been aired by Iranian TV.

The pictures show the group being arrested, eating food in captivity and carries an interview with Leading Seaman Faye Turney.

Turney is seen looking worried, wearing Iranian clothes and smoking.

She says the group "trespassed" into Iranian waters.

"I was arrested on March 23 and obviously we tresspassed into their waters," she says.

"They were very friendly and very hospitable and nice people and explained to us why we were being arrested," she said.

"There was no hurt or no harm."

Turney is due to be released shortly, the Iranian government said, and will carry a letter to her parents "confessing" to what happened.

Turney said: "I have written a letter to the Iranian people to apologise for us entering their waters.

"Please don't worry about me. I'm staying strong. Hopefully it won't be long till I'm home to get ready for Molly's birthday party and with a present from the Iranian people."

Tal Afar Update. "Shiite cops reportedly rampage vs. Sunnis," by Sinan Salaheddin for Associated Press:

BAGHDAD - Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in the northwestern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there Wednesday, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

The gunmen began roaming Sunni neighborhoods in the city, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician.

Ali al-Talafari, a Sunni member of the local Turkomen Front Party, said the Iraqi army had arrested 18 policemen accused of being involved after they were identified by the Sunni families targeted. But he said the attackers included Shiite militiamen.

He said more than 60 Sunnis had been killed, but a senior hospital official in Tal Afar put the death toll at 45, with four wounded.

The hospital official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said the victims were men between the ages of 15 and 60, and they were killed with a shot to the back of the head.

Police said earlier dozens of Sunnis were killed or wounded, but they had no precise figures, and communications problems made it difficult to reach them for an update. The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

"The situation is under control now," said al-Hamdani. "The local Tal Afar police have been confined to their bases and policemen from Mosul are moving there to replace them."

A major victory for common sense. By Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times (thanks to Davida):

House Republicans tonight surprised Democrats with a procedural vote to protect public-transportation passengers from being sued if they report suspicious activity -- the first step by lawmakers to protect "John Doe" airline travelers already targeted in such a lawsuit.

After a heated debate and calls for order, the motion to recommit the Democrats' Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007 back to committee with instructions to add the protective language passed on a vote of 304-121.

Republicans said the lawsuit filed by six Muslim imams against US Airways and "John Does," passengers who reported suspicious behavior, could have a "chilling effect" on passengers who may fear being sued for acting vigilant.

Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, offered the motion saying all Americans -- airline passengers included -- must be protected from lawsuits if they report suspicious behavior that may foreshadow a terrorist attack.

"All of our lives changed after September 11, and one of the most important things we have done is ask local citizens to do what they can to avoid another terrorist attack, if you see something, say something," said Mr. King.

"We have to stand by our people and report suspicious activity," he said. "I cannot imagine anyone would be opposed to this."

Mr. King called it a "disgrace" that the suit seeks to identify "people who acted out of good faith and reported what they thought was suspicious activity."

Indeed.

So says the Russian News & Information Agency Novosti (thanks to Davida):

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost."

Iran follows its Hostage Crisis playbook, as the West reads out of the Jimmy Carter Hostage Crisis Response Handbook, at least so far. From SkyNews, with thanks to Mackie:

The British sailors and marines being held in Iran are to be paraded on television - but the female sailor who was captured could be released "today or tomorrow."

Turkish TV has quoted the Iranian foreign minister as saying Faye Turney could be freed within hours.

And an Arabic Iranian broadcaster says it will show footage of the captives on television.

The news comes after Tony Blair said the time had come to "ratchet up the pressure" on Iran.

Tal Afar Jihad Strike Update: "Iraq: Al-Qaeda Says It Struck In Talafar," from AKI, :

Baghdad, 28 March (AKI) - The 'Islamic State of Iraq' a name used by a group affiliated to al-Qaeda in Iraq has said it blew up two trucks - one in a crowded market - in the town of Talafar which killed some 60 people and injured scores more. In a statement posted on the Internet the group said it has carried out Tuesday's attack as part "of a noble plan called 'expeditions to avenge the honour' proclaimed by our emir Abu Omar al-Baghdadi."

The blasts marked one of the largest attacks in Talafar since US President Geroge W Bush used the town, which lies north of Baghdad near the Syrian border, to illustrate progress in Iraq.

According to witnesses one of the trucks stopped at the town's food market and the driver waited for hungry people - the town has experienced food shortages - to gather round the vehicle before detonating an explosive device.

Little more than a year ago, in Cleveland, President Bush delivered a speech, and at great length told the audience all about the "success" of his "strategy" in Tal Afar, a model city in what will be Iraq the Model (that's right -- Sunni Arab regimes everywhere will look on Shi'a dominated Iraq as a splendid model of what they can be, if only they get with the program).

Here is that speech. Read it, and weep, as a celebrated writer offhandedly wrote, "like a Babylonian willow":

President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom Renaissance Cleveland Hotel Cleveland, Ohio

12:25 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. (Applause.) Thank you all. Please be seated. Sanjiv, thanks for the introduction. He called me on the phone and said, listen, we believe in free speech, so you're going to come and give us a speech for free. (Laughter.) Thanks for the invitation, thanks for the warm welcome. It's good to be here at the City Club of Cleveland.

A magisterial column by Michelle Malkin (with video here):

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.

I am John Doe.

I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."

I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."

I am John Doe.

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

I am John Doe.

I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.

I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.

I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.

I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.

I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."

I will put my family's safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.

I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.

I am John Doe.

Friend and Ally Alert. By Lydia Georgi for AFP, with thanks to Mackie:

RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi King Abdullah, whose country is a close US ally, on Wednesday slammed the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq in an opening speech to the annual Arab summit in Riyadh.

"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah said.

He also said that Arab nations, which are planning to revive a five-year-old Middle East peace plan at the summit, would not allow any foreign force to decide the future of the region.

Really? What will they do to prevent this? Does this go for any attempt to stop Iran's genocidal nuclear ambitions also?

An email from Jihad Watch reader CS:

On Sunday 25 March, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported in its print edition (not available online) that the president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the communist Fausto Bertinotti, has had removed a painting showing a scene from the Battle of Lepanto from the hall in which he receives visitors to this lower house of parliament.

A letter from a reader of Giuliano Ferrara's daily Il Foglio first brought the news to public attention, after which the story has also been picked up by Il Giornale. According to the latter newspaper, the painting has been replaced by a picture of a roe deer.

Confronted with the matter, Bertinotti says it is a gesture of peace and dialogue, the painting's title being "Naval battle between Christians and barbarians", but an anonymous insider reveals it was done to avoid offending Muslims.

The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7, 1571. The Holy League, comprised of the Papal States, the Republic of Venice, Spain, Genoa, and others, defeated the Ottoman Turks in a decisive sea battle that significantly diminished the jihadists' chances to subdue all of Europe. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (before Pierre Menard wrote it, that is), lost a hand in the battle, earning him the sobriquet el manco de Lepanto.

Here's a story that would make Dinesh D'Souza proud: "traditional Muslims" standing up for traditional moral principles, in a big way. They kidnapped the alleged brothel operator, and then kidnapped two policemen who tried to intervene.

"Students raid Islamabad 'brothel,'" from the BBC, with thanks to Davida:

Dozens of young women from a religious school in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, have broken into an alleged brothel and kidnapped the owner.

The women, from the nearby Jamia Hafsa madrassa, burst in late on Tuesday, demanding the premises be shut down.

The women say they have a right to end immoral activity under Islamic law.

The BBC's Navdip Dhariwal in Islamabad says it is the first time such bold Taleban-style activity seen elsewhere in Pakistan has occurred in the city.

The Jamia Hafsa school has been at the centre of controversy in recent months.

In January, armed students prevented the authorities from demolishing an illegally constructed mosque and occupied a nearby children's library.

They have also demanded that local video owners close their stores....

When the alleged brothel's owner refused to shut the building, the raiding party forcibly shut it themselves and took the woman, her daughter and daughter-in-law back to the madrassa where they are still being held.

Initially the police were reluctant to step in to rescue the woman, but later registered a case and arrested two female teachers of the school.

But students then kidnapped two policemen from a nearby patrol. They too are being held in the madrassa and were allowed to speak to reporters.

"They have not mistreated us, they have served us tea and allowed us to keep our mobile phones," one of them, constable Hamad Raza said, the AFP news agency reports.

Tea. How nice.

Another indication of the fact that the Iraqi adventure was undertaken without sufficient understanding of the realities of Islam, much less of the Sunni/Shi'ite divide, which Condoleeza Rice recently asserted breezily that Middle Easterners would just have to "overcome." Yes, I'm sure they'll get right on that.

"45 Iraqis massacred in reprisal attacks," by Mujahid Mohammed for AFP, :

MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) - Gunmen massacred 45 men in an overnight rampage in apparent revenge for bombings that killed 75 people in a mixed Iraqi town once hailed by US President George W. Bush as a beacon hope.

"We received 45 bodies of handcuffed and blindfolded men from al-Wahada neighbourhood overnight. They were killed yesterday just after the bomb," said a doctor at Tal Afar hospital in northern Iraq on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The wanton shootings and lethal bombings underscore the raging Sunni-Shiite sectarian warfare that continues to grip the country, as well as a Sunni-led insurgency fighting against the Shiite-led government and its US backers.

Two bomb attacks in Tal Afar on Tuesday killed 75 people and wounded 190 in Shiite districts of the mixed town, which is witnessing its worst violence since Bush in March 2006 held up the onetime militant stronghold as a model for efforts to create a stable Iraq.

In the worst attack, a suicide bomber tricked soldiers into believing he was delivering food supplies to a Shiite area where he detonated his cargo of explosives within a crowd of waiting men and women.

And so the learned terrorism expert just can't quite figure out what might have been the common denominator among the London would-be suicide bombers. This is a funny clip, but it isn't quite so funny when you realize that it could just as easily be not a segment from a parody news show, but a verbatim transcript of real-life analyses by all too many real-life terrorism "experts." Remember when 17 jihadists were arrested in Toronto last summer: the Toronto Star in all seriousness said that authorities were searching for a common denominator. Investigate the jihad ideology and call the local mosques to account? Pah! Everybody knows Islam is a religion of peace!

From Fox's Half Hour News Hour via YouTube, with thanks to Jihad Watch News Editor Anne Crockett.

Our Friend And Ally threatens our real friend and ally. "Accept peace plan or face war, Israel told," by David Blair in the Telegraph, with thanks to Jay:

The "lords of war" will decide Israel's future if it rejects a blueprint for peace crafted by the entire Arab world, Saudi Arabia's veteran foreign minister warned yesterday.

As leaders began gathering in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for today's summit of the Arab League, Prince Saud al-Faisal told The Daily Telegraph that the Middle East risks perpetual conflict if the peace plan fails.

Under this Saudi-drafted proposal, every Arab country would formally recognise Israel in return for a withdrawal from all the land captured in the war of 1967.

This would entail a Palestinian state embracing the entire West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Every Arab country will almost certainly endorse this blueprint when the Riyadh summit concludes tomorrow. Prince Saud said Israel should accept or reject this final offer.

"What we have the power to do in the Arab world, we think we have done," he said. "So now it is up to the other side because if you want peace, it is not enough for one side only to want it. Both sides must want it equally."

The Moderate Mr. Islam shows his immoderation yet again. Rusty Shackleford has the story:

Cat Stevens, aka ‘Yusuf Islam', is back on the radar screen. This time, for refusing to talk to women who were unveiled. Apparently, he was at an awards ceremony in Germany where he was the honored guest for 'building bridges betwen the West and Muslim world', but he refused to talk to his unveiled hosts. Charles Johnson has the details.

Building bridges? Perhaps, but the only bridges being built by 'Mr. Islam' seem to lead back to the 15th century.

Cat Stevens is held up by the press and entertainment industry as a 'model Muslim'. In addition to the German award, this year he performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony!

Read it all.

In this Radio Netherlands interview (thanks to all who sent this in) by Michel Hoebink, the celebrated "apostate of Damascus," Sadiq al-Azm, says what I have been saying for years now: that genuine Islamic reform "requires a departure from the literal text of the Koran."

What is the difference between you and modernist reformers such as Fatima Mernissi and Abdolkarim Soroush?

People like Mernissi and Soroush pretend to reform Islam from the inside. They reform Islam as good Muslims. The group to which I belong does not do this. I want to reform the thinking of Muslims too, but I never pretended to do this from inside Islam or as a Muslim. I never made a concession on this matter.

So they are pretending?

Since the 19th Century, modernist thinkers have been haunted by rumours that they are not real believers, that they merely use religion as a means to mobilise people for reforms. And they even say so themselves: Until today, many of these reformers argue that, if you want to convince the people, you have to speak to them in their 'own language', that is to say: in religious terms.

This may be a valid argument, but it also reveals the instrumental way in which they think about religion.

I admit that it is easy for me to criticise them: I am a man of ideas, a public intellectual who is sometimes called upon to give his supposedly studied judgement on matters of public interest. I'm not involved in organising people and directing movements and so on.
Let me put it this way: In my view there is a division of labour in this effort of modernising Muslim societies.

Both approaches are valid. We need people who work on the inside and we also need people who work from the outside. But personally I think there is a certain intellectual dishonesty in this claim to reform Islam from the inside.

Can Islam be reformed at all?

I think so, but it requires a departure from the literal text of the Koran. That's a radical step, because the Muslim masses cling to the idea that the Koran is literally true. But it is obvious that the literal text of the Koran simply cannot be applied in modern society.
Take for instance the corporal punishments prescribed in the Koran. Radical Islamists want to impose them, but they are a minority.

The majority of Muslims have split personalities on this matter: They insist that this is the penal law of Islam and at the same time they admit that it is inapplicable. What I propose is to resolve this contradiction and officially state that the shari'a corporal punishments are obsolete.

The problem is that most of my colleagues who claim to reform Islam from the inside do not address this problem, probably because they fear it will alienate them from their audiences. Modernists such as Fatima Mernissi keep playing this game of quoting texts of Koran and Prophetic Traditions in support of their case, implicitly assuming the literal truth of these texts. And if they do not find anything that supports them, they twist and torture the meaning of the text until it suits their demands.

Read it all.

"Muslims will take over the world." An analysis by Steven Stalinsky in the New York Sun:

"I am confident that the siege will be partially broken, which will give our people an opportunity to be prepared for the forthcoming stage." — Khaled Meshaal, Asharq Al-Awsat, February 2

Has Hamas moderated? Or are the Palestinian Arab organization's leaders following in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat, discussing peaceful intentions in talks with the West while declaring jihad in Arabic?

During a press conference in Tehran with President Ahmadinejad on March 4, the political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said he supported the recently signed Mecca Accords for power sharing between Hamas and the Fatah Party of Arafat and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mr. Meshaal also spoke in favor of other Palestinian Arab objectives, such as the establishment of a state with the 1967 borders and Jerusalem as its capital, and the so-called right of return.

Mr. Meshaal reiterated Hamas's position against official recognition of Israel, and he promised to continue the group's resistance. With a smile on his face, Mr. Ahmadinejad told the Hamas leader: "The Zionist entity is in the worst period in its history, and is headed toward crumbling. … The divine victory … will soon be revealed."

At an address at Al-Murabit Mosque in Damascus on February 3, 2006, Mr. Meshaal said publicly what some Palestinian Arabs have been talking about for some time with their press outlets: They will be patient in their battle against Israel. He promised, "Muslims will take over the world," and he explicitly said his organization's plan is to deceive Israel with semantics.

In his speech, the Hamas leader explained that his people are willing to continue fighting Israel even if it takes 1000 years for victory. Mr. Meshaal also said one aspect of Hamas's current strategy is to rely on such tools as using statements like "we love peace" or "we have given up the option of war," while still planning Israel's destruction.

And the West -- media and government elites -- fall for it every time.

Paris "youths" are at it again. "Clashes Erupt at Paris Train Station," by Jamey Keaten for Associated Press, with thanks to Mackie:

PARIS (AP) - Riot police firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed Tuesday with bands of youths who shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station, officials said. Nine people were arrested.

Officials said about 100 people were involved in the melee at Gare du Nord, one of Paris' most important transport hubs. Officers and police dogs fired tear gas and charged at groups of marauding youths, some of them wearing hoods and swinging metal bars.

The youths responded by throwing trash cans and other objects at the officers. A group of youths smashed the windows of a sporting goods store and looted boxes of shoes. Others attacked automatic drink dispensers and set fire to an information booth.

Commuter Cyril Zidou, a 24-year-old electrician, said he was coming home from the gym "when I just got gassed." One woman was evacuated by paramedics for inhalation of tear gas....

The train lines from Gare du Nord radiate out to the same suburbs north of Paris where three weeks of rioting erupted in 2005. That violence was born of pent-up anger - especially among youths of Arab and African origin - over years of high unemployment and racial inequalities.

No doubt they are Arab and African Methodists. In any case, one wonders how long the media will continue to tell people that this is all about unemployment and inequality when the rioters are the recipients of some of the most lavish welfare benefits available anywhere.

Muhammad Dawood, aka David Hicks, whose case we have followed here for several years, has pled guilty to supporting terrorism. Hicks is one Muslim convert whose Muslim name has never been used in news reports about his case. Why is that? The media would never have stood for such treatment had its object been Cassius Clay or Lew Alcindor. Why is Muhammad Dawood different? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are cultural icons, while Muhammad Dawood is a would-be mass murderer?

In "Gun-toting jihadi was not an angel" in The Australian, Janet Albrechtsen sums up the Muhammad Dawood case, noting that the spin still goes on:

FINALLY David Hicks, also known as Abu Muslim al Australia, aka Abu Muslim Philippine, aka Muhammad Dawood, has pleaded guilty to the charge of providing material support for terrorism. And now watch as the real PR campaign goes into angelic overdrive. His vociferous cheer squad will proclaim his innocence, declaring the plea was the only way for Hicks to get out of Guantanamo Bay.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown was out in front. “His guilty plea is simply a plea for release, for exit from the inhumane Guantanamo Bay gulag,” he said. “And that’s a human response.” Spin doctors will bring up the rear, completing the sanitisation of a gun-toting Islamist revolutionary into an accidental, adventurous Australian tourist.

Before the book deals, chat shows, newspaper and television profiles get under way, it’s worth putting emotion to one side. Forget about the photos of an angelic nine-year-old with freckles and a crooked fringe. Forget about the ads where his father, Terry Hicks, declared his love for his son. Let’s come back to the inconvenient aspects of the Hicks saga, those that never make it on to a “Free Hicks” billboard: the law and the facts.

[...]

Now to the facts. Hicks has pleaded guilty to his extensive links to terrorist organisations and his activities in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden and completed al-Qa’ida training courses. The specification Hicks admits to sets out the extraordinary detail: he travelled to Afghanistan with the help of Lashkar-e-Toiba to attend al-Qa’ida terrorist training camps. He was schooled by al-Qa’ida in weapons familiarisation, landmines, tactics, basic explosives, guerilla warfare, ambush, camouflage and surveillance.

He then moved up the ladder to urban tactics training and surveillance of the US and British embassies in Kabul. The specification Hicks admits to traces how he went to Pakistan, only to return to Afghanistan after the September 11 terrorist attacks, joining al-Qa’ida forces at Kandahar airport, later travelling to the front lines in Kunduz to fight coalition forces. He was captured by the Northern Alliance in December 2001 while trying to flee to Pakistan.

Long before his admission yesterday, Hicks has made plenty of other, earlier admissions: training with the Kosovo Liberation Army in Albania and fighting with Lashkar-e-Toiba, where he “got to fire hundreds of rounds” into Indian-controlled Kashmir. In letters home to dad, he called himself a “well-trained and practical soldier”. He admitted to preparing for martyrdom because “the highest position in heaven” goes to those who “go fighting in the way of God against the friends of Satan”.

Hicks has called the Taliban regime “the best in the world” and congratulated the regime for running “the country by strict Islamic law”, making particular mention of the death sentence and “all Islamic punishments”. He urged “an Islamic revolution”, hoping that the Afghanistan model would “spread throughout the Muslim world” so that “Western-Jewish domination is finished, so we live under Muslim rule again”.

Read it all.

In today's Jihad Watch video at Hot Air, I discuss the citing of the Qur'an as an authority in a German court -- a harbinger of things to come.

Defiant in the face of a possible attack. They shout "Death to America," and we respond with renewed calls for negotiations. "Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Threatens to 'Strike at Them with All Our Capabilities' If Iran Is Attacked," from MEMRITV:

The following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Iranian Leader, Ali Khamenei, which aired on Khorasan TV on March 21, 2007.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1409

Ali Khamenei: "When the president of the Iranian people travels to countries in Asia, Africa, and South America, the peoples cry out slogans in his praise. They demonstrate in support of him. When the American president visits countries in South America, which is the backyard of the U.S.A, the peoples there welcome him by burning the American flag..."

Crowd chanting: "Death to America. Death to America. Death to America. Death to America. Death to America. Death to America. Death to America"

[...]

"They threaten to impose sanctions on us. Sanctions cannot harm us. Haven't they imposed sanctions on us before? We achieved nuclear energy despite sanctions. We achieved scientific progress despite sanctions. We achieved the building of our country despite the sanctions. Under certain circumstances, sanctions can benefit us, because they intensify our will for effort and activity."

[...]

Crowd chanting: "Allah Akbar Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Khamenei is the leader. Death to America. Oh noble leader, we are prepared. Oh noble leader, we are prepared. Oh noble leader, we are prepared. Oh noble leader, we are prepared."

Ali Khamenei: "Pay attention. If they want to use threats, impose [their will], and act aggressively, they should have no doubt that the Iranian people and officials will confront the enemies that want to attack us, and will strike at them with all our capabilities."

Russia lines up with the global jihad. But it doesn't look as if they are absolutely impervious to reason about this. "Russia slams U.S. global policy," by Vladimir Isachenkov for Associated Press:

MOSCOW - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday criticized the United States for what it called over-reliance on force and warned Washington against military action against Iran.

But in a major review of foreign policy priorities, the ministry said Russia was ready to cooperate to end global crises if Washington treats it as an equal partner.

The statement reflects Russia's growing confidence and economic clout, and appears to be a signal to Washington that, while the two nations can work together, Russia will not always follow the U.S. lead. It also plays to national pride in advance of parliamentary and presidential elections.

Russia criticized what it called "the creeping American strategy of dragging the global community into a large-scale crisis around Iran," saying that Iran helps maintain stability in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

At the same time, the ministry's paper assailed Iran for its "unconstructive" stance, reflecting growing Kremlin irritation with its ally's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment, as the U.N. demands.

In "Condi's embrace of jihadist 'peace,'" Caroline Glick discusses the activity of our appeasement-minded Secretary of State in light of Iran's kidnapping of British sailors:

...AGAINST THIS backdrop, and given the stakes involved, it could have been expected that the US and its allies would be concentrating their attention on how to weaken Iran and its terror proxies and curtail Iran's ability to acquire a nuclear arsenal. But, alas, the US is doing just the opposite.

The Iranians acted as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was en route to the region. Since Friday, Rice has shuttled between Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, and is on her way to Saudi Arabia. She is not working to coordinate moves to check Iran's increasing bellicosity. Rather, Rice is laboring to empower Teheran's terrorist allies in Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Fatah. This she does by promoting the so-called Arab peace plan, which demands that Israel agree to dangerous and strategically catastrophic concessions to the Palestinian terrorist government.

In behaving thus, Rice is walking in the well-worn footsteps of her predecessors. Indeed, it seems almost axiomatic that when the going gets tough for US administrations, administration officials get tough on Israel.

Read it all.

Memo to Ibrahim Hooper and other "moderate" Muslim leaders: Fathi Yakan, despite his clerical training, is clearly yet another misunderstander of Islam. Please dispatch a team of your best men to Lebanon immediately, to inform him of the true, peaceful teachings of the religion.

From MEMRITV, with thanks to Nicolei:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Sunni Cleric Fathi Yakan, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on March 16, 2007:

Fathi Yakan: There is no doubt that Sheik Osama bin Laden has a high level of faithfulness, trustworthiness, and transparency. He is faithful to his religion and to Jihad for the elevation of the word of Allah. Unfortunately, there have been many rumors that he is an American creation, and that all that is happening is the result of scenarios concocted by him and America, especially following the Russians withdrawal from Afghanistan. There were claims that these people were biased towards the Americans, and that America toyed with them, and so on. I believe this is all nonsense, and that this is totally untrue. This man has a pure, honest and believing personality. He defends all that belongs to Islam and who renounces anything that is not Islamic, and therefore, he is a man after my own heart....

[...]

Interviewer: But there was an operation, for which Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility - the bombing of the Twin Towers in America, and what was described as terrorist attacks against the Americans. In this case, for example, are you with him or against him? Were you happy when you saw the towers collapse?

Fathi Yakan: If we examine the ideology of Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden in depth, we see that he has become completely convinced that the only way to curb the disease that is afflicting the Islamic world... The only way to stop this octopus is to crush the serpent's head.

Interviewer: Do you share this opinion?

Fathi Yakan: It's fine with me. I might have crushed the serpent's head in a different way. I might have crushed it by means of the Islamic resistance in South Lebanon, by attacking Israel. But Bin Laden said: "No, I will strike it in its own home. I will strike it in the World Trade Center, and shake its economic status." This is his methodology, and he should bear responsibility for it, but I am not sad or depressed that this happened, and I do not condemn it. In all honestly, I have never condemned this. Just like it had negative ramifications, it had positive ones as well.

This brings to mind the point Hugh Fitzgerald has often made -- about how much more dangerous, difficult, expensive, and uncomfortable massive Muslim immigration has made life in the West. Yet no one dares to examine immigration policies in that light -- as a national security issue.

From Expatica, with thanks to Anna:

AMSTERDAM – Former MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now in danger in the US as well. Her security has been stepped up for the past three weeks. Because of concrete threats, she is now receiving the same level of protection as she previously needed in the Netherlands, the Volkskrant reports.

Hirsi Ali had more freedom of movement when she first arrived in the US last September. Her lack of freedom in the Netherlands was one of the reasons for her move.

The forced isolation made it impossible for her to continue in her position as MP at the time, she said. The Liberal VVD politician had to travel by armoured car in the Netherlands, accompanied by six bodyguards. In the US just two security workers, who kept an eye on her from a distance, sufficed.

1) Taqiyya as a doctrine of religiously-sanctioned dissimulation originates in Shi'a Islam. And that is something that Sunnis like tell Infidels: "It's a Shi'a doctrine." In fact, a good example of this can be found in one of Tariq Ramadan's soft-spoken (so soft one could barely detect the serpentine hiss underneath his words, unless one already understood, in the well-prepared manner of Magdi Allam or Caroline Fourest, just what Frere Tariq was all about) essentially sinister appearances on "On Point," with the terminally ignorant (yet briskly self-confident withal) Tom Ashbrook. When a skeptical caller mentioned "taqiyya" Ramadan said quickly, "it is a Shi'a doctrine."

But if "taqiyya" is a Shi'a doctrine, the same kind of religious dissimulation can and has been derived independently from the texts -- Qur'an and Hadith -- of Islam. Robert Spencer shows that here.

Smooth-talking Prince Hassan, patron and host of Bernard Lewis (a picture of Lewis in Hassan's tent can be found, placed with deliberate pride, on one of Lewis' recent books), likes to talk about the "Arabs" and "the Arab," in nicely-inflected British English. And he, rather than his thick-necked nephew, has become the true inheritor of the "moderate" mantle -- not to be confused with any immoderate keffiyeh -- of his brother, "plucky little king" Hussein. But from time to time the mantle, used as a mask (wrapped around the face, covering everything below those liquid brown eyes), drops, and Hassan appears, the real Hassan, defender of the Faith, and of the Sunni Faith.

Well, here he is. He wants, as do the rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Americans to stay and protect the Sunnis and prevent what the Americans, if they have any sense left, will not try to prevent. One piquant detail: Hassan tells us that the Kurds are Sunnis. Yes, they for the most part are. But so what? Their resentment and even hatred of the Arabs, and especially of the Sunni Arabs who have ruled over them, more than makes up for the fact that they share "Sunni" Islam with the Sunni Arabs.

"Many in the town believe that Mumtaz deserved it." But aren't they Dinesh D'Souza's "traditional Muslims" -- the ones he is exhorting American conservatives to establish an alliance with?

"In Tamil Nadu town, fundamentalists play moral cops, even kill to have way," by Jaya Menon in IndianExpress.com, with thanks to Looney Tunes:

Melapalayam (Tirunelveli), March 25 : Over a fortnight ago, 35-year-old Mumtaz was killed by a group of young men in Melapalayam in south Tamil Nadu.

They murdered her when she was returning from a local beedi company after collecting leaves and tobacco. They accosted her on the road, warned her against a affair she was allegedly having with a married man and the local manager of a beedi company.

She just told them to mind their own business.

They first threw stones at her. Then, some of them came closer and stabbed her. Mumtaz died on the spot.

In Melapalayam, which the police say has been a hotbed of fundamentalism with a strong presence of Al Umma, there has been little outrage.

“Many in the town believe that Mumtaz deserved it,” said Abdul Subahan (18), the district secretary of the student wing of Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazham, a political outfit which police think is linked to Al Umma.

Residents of the town say Mumtaz had been given “sufficient warning” to keep away from her “paramour.” But she had not.

Her sister Nabeena said: “People in the town are saying she deserved it. We don’t know what to think.”

Her mother, Zubeida Hussein, who had left her daughter a few months ago after she began receiving threats, said: “Our heads bow in shame.”

The mob murder on March 9 by the self-styled ‘moral police’ was not the first honour killing in this small town. Mumtaz is just the first woman victim.

In August 1997, Selvakumar, a homeopath doctor, was killed for having “relationships” with Muslim women. The same day, 16 Al Umma sympathizers hacked to death two RSS workers who were karsevaks in the Babri Masjid demolition.

• In 2001, Sathyaseelan was murdered by nine Al Umma members for “having contacts with a Muslim woman.”

• Two months ago, three youths, all Al Umma sympathizers, were arrested after they threatened another single woman in the town “on suspicion” that she was having an “illicit” relationship with a married man. “They snatched her mobile phone and extorted Rs. 1,000 from her and told her to behave herself,” says Inspector Stanley Jones, the investigating officer in the Mumtaz murder case.

The Melapalayam town chief, Khaludeen, felt the youths should have brought the case before the local Jamaat. “Only a year back we threw a woman out of the town with her seven-month-old baby boy whom she begot through an illicit relationship,” he said.

According to him, the married man accused of getting her pregnant, had “sworn” on Allah that he was not responsible. “Once a man swears on Allah, we believe him,” said Khaludeen. But the woman had to leave the town.

Eurabia Alert. "Four suspected Islamists held in France," from AFP:

PARIS, March 26, 2007 (AFP) - Four men of north African origin were arrested Monday in an investigation into a suspected Islamist underground network, police said.

The men, aged between 30 and 40, were detained in dawn raids at Trappes, in the southwestern Paris outskirts.

Police said they had links with an Islamist group that was dismantled in September 2005. Four of that group's members -- including suspected leader Safe Bourrada -- are under investigation on terrorist charges.

A call for reinforcements in the jihad against "the Abyssinian occupiers and their apostate lackeys." Somalia Jihad Update. "Al-Qaida urges jihadis to go to Somalia," by Shaun Waterman for UPI:

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida has urged Islamic extremists around the world, especially in the information sphere to aid Islamic militias in Somalia.

In a new video released at the weekend by the group's official media arm, the as-Sahab Institute, Abu Yahya al-Libi, a prominent al-Qaida leader called on "my Muslim brothers to stand with their brothers (in Somalia) and go forth to fight at their side."

"All the things which make jihad an individual duty are present in their battle against the Abyssinian occupiers and their apostate lackeys," he said about the situation in Somalia, a reference to the Ethiopian military that in December ousted the Islamic Courts Union, the Islamic militia coalition that had controlled most of the country.

Al-Libi's comments in Arabic were translated in English subtitles by as-Sahab. The material quoted came from a transcript provided by IntelCenter, a private sector consultancy that tracks Islamic web sites for U.S. government agencies.

Al-Libi said the mujahedin, or Muslim holy warriors, should not make distinctions based on the legal or strategic claims of the occupying forces.

"Light a fire and make a volcano erupt under the feet of the invading occupiers regardless of their creed and their cover, and whether they invaded your country on the back of tanks and with the power of iron and fire, as Nazarene Ethiopia did, or came to you under the cloak of international legitimacy, Security Council resolutions, peacekeeping forces, or the African Union," he said.

Al-Libi made what he called "a special request" of the mujahedin "on the information front-line," whose contribution, "incitement to fighting," was, he said, "among the most honorable of devotions and loftiest of acts of obedience."

That paragon of international impartiality, the UN, once again intervenes to help make the world safe for jihad. Not content with dismembering Yugoslavia and instigating civil war there, the international community is now intent on following up that disaster in another part of the Balkans.

By Julia Preston in the International Herald Tribune:

UNITED NATIONS, New York: A representative of the United Nations secretary general on Monday officially recommended independence for Kosovo, saying it was the only way the embattled province could become economically viable and politically stable.

WHAT? Carving up Serbia to set up a jihadist mini-state is the sine qua non of economic and political viability?

In a report formally submitted to the Security Council, the envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, said he had concluded that yearlong negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo had reached an insurmountable impasse. In a 61-page proposal, he recommended that Kosovo's independence be supervised for "an initial period" by the European Union with NATO military forces and the European police.

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said the recommendations had his full support.

Well, one assumes that the US will have the good sense not to support the break-up of a Christian nation for the benefit of jihadists.

The State Department embraced the proposals.

Thank you, Condi.

President Boris Tadic of Serbia said in a statement that any form of independence for Kosovo was "unacceptable for Serbia." Belgrade has called for Kosovo to become an autonomous province within Serbia. Serbia's opposition to independence has been supported by Russia, a permanent veto-bearing member of the Security Council.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia has called for extending the negotiations in a renewed effort at compromise.

United Nations officials said Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, will appear before the Council on April 3 to present his recommendations, opening the Council's debate on the issue.

Over a year of negotiations, Ahtisaari wrote, "both parties have reaffirmed their categorical, diametrically opposed positions," and he said that any possibility for an agreement had been "exhausted." After NATO forces intervened in a bombing campaign to block Serb attacks in Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, the territory has been administered since 1999 by the United Nations.

And why is it 90 percent Albanian? Because under the watchful eye of the UN Christian Serbs have been systematically driven out.

Ahtisaari said Kosovo would not accept a return of Serb rule. "This is a reality one cannot deny; it is irreversible," he wrote in the report.

Irreversible thanks to Ahitsaari and his ilk.

The envoy's proposal calls for Kosovo to become a democratic "multi-ethnic society," with two official languages - Albanian and Serbian - with other local languages also recognized. He called for a decentralized government in which Kosovo Serbs would have "a high degree of control" over their affairs. The settlement proposal includes provisions to ensure the operation of the Serbian Orthodox church.

One wonders if "jizya" is anywhere mentioned.

[...]

Kosovo leader lauds proposal

Well he would, wouldn't he?

President Fatmir Sejdiu of Kosovo welcomed the proposal as "a historic day for Kosovo" and said that independence would serve "peace, stability and prosperity" in the province, The Associated Press reported from Pristina.

Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett of Britain, meanwhile, said in a statement that Ahtisaari's proposals gave Kosovo clarity over its future, which "would enable the Balkan region as a whole to draw a line under the conflicts of the recent past."

"We look forward to working with our partners in the UN Security Council, on the basis of the UN special envoy's settlement proposals, to bring the status process through to completion."

The continued ill-treatment of Serbia paints a powerful picture for the rest of the world: resist jihad and the UN will cut you to pieces.

Senior Hamas leader and former PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar makes an open declaration of Islamic supremacism. Expect CAIR's Hooper and a host of others to condemn him forthwith for "Islamophobia."

"'Islam will enter every house and will spread over the entire world,' says Hamas leader Al-Zahar," by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for PMW, with thanks to Atlas Shrugs:

While the Hamas goal of destroying Israel is well known, its aspiration for Islamic subjugation of the entire world is just as basic to Hamas dogma. Both aims appear in the Hamas Charter as God's irrepressible will, and both aims were reiterated this week by senior Hamas leader and former PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar.

At a mass rally in memory of Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin, Al-Zahar said that the Quran promises the "liberation of all of Palestine," meaning the destruction of Israel. He went so far as to challenge the Islamic faith of those who deny this goal: "No one can deny it. One who denies it must check his faith and his Islam.”

Regarding the Hamas religious goal of Islamic world domination, he said: “Islam will enter every house and will spread over the entire world.”

Below is the translation of Al-Zahar’s speech:

[Mahmoud] Al-Zahhar spoke at the mass rally held on the memorial day for Sheikh Ahmad Yassin…

Al-Zahhar emphasized that the Islamic Movement’s [Hamas'] position concerning the problem of the liberation of Palestine is clear and known, and said: "We have two important foundations: One is Quranic and the other is prophetic. The Quranic: The divine promise made in the ‘Al-Israa Sura’ [Chapter 17] is that we will liberate the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, 'and we will enter it as we have entered it the first time.' [paraphrasing Sura 17 (The Night Journey), verse 7]. And the prophetic foundation is the message of the prophet Muhammad, that Islam will enter every house and will spread over the entire world."

And added: "Our position is the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine. This is the final and strategic solution for us. There is a Quranic message for us, that we will enter the Al-Aqsa mosque, and the entrance to the mosque means the entrance into all of Palestine. This is the message, no one can deny it. Anyone who denies it must check his faith and his Islam.” [Al-Ayyam, March 25, 2007]

Her husband was killed in the Madrid bombings. From Expatica, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

MADRID – The widow of a man killed in the Madrid bombings attended the trial of Islamic radicals with a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on her T-shirt....

The T-shirt was a copy of the cartoons showing Mohammed on top of a bomb which were first printed by a Danish magazine and which caused disturbances in Muslim countries around the world.

I suspect it is actually the one with a bomb on top of Muhammad, that is, a bomb in his turban.

The judge decided the woman was free to wear what she liked and could come back to the court if she wished.

The woman, who was not identified, is a member of the Association of those Affected by Terrorism.

"They wanted to speak with the boys and motivate them for jihad." Gimme a J!

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

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Police challenged a group of suspected militants Monday at a high school in northwestern Pakistan after hearing that they wanted to "motivate" students for holy war, sparking a gunbattle that left six people dead, police said.

Five militants and one police officer were killed in the shooting at the privately run Oxford Public School in Tank, a town about 60 miles from the Afghan border, said Javed Khan, a local police officer. It was unclear whether any students were hurt.

Khan said the militants told the administrators of the boys' school to assemble the students so the militants could address them.

"They wanted to speak with the boys and motivate them for jihad," Khan said by telephone from Tank.

He described the militants as "local Taliban," a term commonly used to describe militants in the tribal belt along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Robert Spencer has mentioned that someone with a reasonable knowledge of the worldview of Islam, of what Islam inculcates, would not have been a booster of the Iraq the Model (or Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations) Project. For one would have known that "democracy" in the Western sense is not possible -- that is, a democracy that would enshrine the rights of the individual (as expressed in the American Bill of Rights, or in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), insist upon legal equality for non-Muslims and for women, and, above all, be based on a system that would require the people in Iraq (not the "Iraqi people" in whom Bush so devoutly appears to believe) to locate political legitimacy in the expressed will of the people. (See the social-contract theories, see Hobbes, see Locke, see Rousseau, and go right up to Rawls, by which governments are legitimated by appeal to that will.)

The people in Iraq do not believe that it is the expressed will of the people that matters, but rather the will expressed by Allah in Qur'an (and glossed by the Sunnah). But Bush scarcely knew or knows a thing about Islam. His chief advisors on the subject have been, inter alios, a professor of law in Ohio. And how did Karen Hughes, our great expert in "reaching out" (something that in any case is completely contrary to what should be done) to the world of Islam, decide that this was just one more little topic, easily mastered, and that in no time at all, by meeting with Saudi ambassadors and suchlike, they'd get the hang of it?

A Florilegium of Quotes. Email them to friends, print them out and magnetically affix them to your refrigerator door, so that the contents become imprinted in your brain:

#1. The Commander of the British Forces that wrested Mesopotamia [Iraq] from the Turks, 1917:

"To the People of the Baghdad Vilayet... our armies have not come into your Cities and Lands as conquerors or enemies but as liberators. Since the days of Hulaku your citizens have been subject to the tyranny of Strangers, your palaces have fallen into ruins, your gardens have sunken into desolation and you yourselves have groaned in bondage. ...It is the wish not only of my King and his peoples, but it is also the wish of the great nations with whom he is in alliance that you should prosper ...But you, the people of Baghdad, ... are not to understand that it is the wish of the British Government to impose upon you alien institutions. It is the hope of the British Government that the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realised again. O! People of Baghdad. ... I am commanded to invite you, through your Nobles and Elders and Representatives to participate in the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the Political representatives of Great Britain who accompany the British Army so that you may unite with your kinsmen in the North, East, South and West in realising the aspirations of your race."

[Source: Atiyyah, Ghassan: Iraq : 1908 - 1921 : A Socio - Political Study. - Beirut : The Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1973 p. 151.]
___________________________________________

#2. Gertrude Bell, 1920:

“In the light of the events of the last two months there's no getting out of the conclusion that we have made an immense failure here. The system must have been far more at fault than anything that I or anyone else suspected. It will have to be fundamentally changed and what that may mean exactly I don't know. I suppose we have underestimated the fact that this country is really an inchoate mass of tribes which can't as yet be reduced to any system. The Turks didn't govern and we have tried to govern - and failed. I personally thought we tried to govern too much, but I hoped that things would hold out till Sir Percy came back and that the transition from British to native rule might be made peacefully, in which case much of what we have done might have been made use of. Now I fear that that will be impossible.”

[Source: Lady Gertrude Bell, 1920, The Letters of Gertrude Bell.]

Beyond parody. "At least 4 Yemenis, French man injured in clashes at gas plant," from The Associated Press, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

SANAA, Yemen: At least four Yemenis and a French man were injured in clashes Sunday between local and foreign workers at a gas plant in Yemen, prompting government troops to intervene to restore calm, security officials said.

The violence began when a French employee at a natural gas liquefaction plant being constructed by Yemen LNG in the coastal city of Balhaf threw a copy of the Koran, Islam's holy book, on the ground, a move that angered Yemeni workers at the plant site, the Yemeni officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The enraged Yemenis reacted by attacking the French employee and setting fire to a helicopter and a large number of vehicles inside the plant site, the officials said.

Four Yemeni workers and the French man were injured in the melee, the officials added.

The Yemenis also tried to attack expatriate workers in their camp inside the plant site but were pushed back by Yemeni troops who intervened with tanks and armored vehicles to contain the violence and restore calm.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: why isn't the vast majority of peaceful, moderate Muslims rising up and demanding the removal of the "uncovered meat" Sheikh?

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

CANBERRA: A meeting of Australia's imams has given the outspoken spiritual leader of the country's Muslims an extra three months in his job, angering the government.

A meeting of about 60 imams late decided against sacking the mufti of the nation's biggest mosque, Sheikh Taj El-Din Hilaly, who was accused of justifying rape last year when he compared immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat.

Imams council spokesman Mohamad Abdalla said the meeting voted to consult the country's 280,000 Muslims about Hilaly's future, angering Prime Minister John Howard who said the decision was out of touch with the views of the community.

"They're exercising their right. But I think they're doing their community damage," Howard told Sky television.

"The failure of the community to do something more decisive about this is damaging the image of Islamic Australians as part of our community. I think the impact of this decision will be extremely negative."

So can Sharia be far behind? But Sweden's consul general in Istanbul, Ingmar Karlsson, is not concerned about that. No, he is sure that a tolerant, Europeanized Islam will somehow magically appear. He is much more exercised about "xenophobia" than about the Islamization of Europe.

"Islam is and will be a European religion," from Today's Zaman:

The birthrate among Muslim immigrants in Europe is three times higher than that of the non-Muslim European population. According to Sweden's consul general in İstanbul, Ingmar Karlsson, if this trend continues, the Muslim population will be doubled by 2015, while Europe's non-Muslim population will decrease by 3.5 percent. Some estimates indicate that in 30 years the number of Muslims in Europe could be as high as 65 million.

The outspoken consul general, who is a doctor of divinity and the author of more than 10 books on the subjects of Europe's relationship with faith, terrorism, Islam and minorities, has said that the trend towards a multi-racial and multi-confessional Europe is unstoppable; therefore, Islam must be recognized and regarded as a "domestic" European religion.

Therefore? Domestic?

Karlsson, whose latest book will be available in Sweden today, titled "Europe and the Turk," said that Turkey's membership in the European Union would demonstrate the falsity of the argument that Islam and democracy cannot mix, also helping to bring about favorable changes in the Islamic world's attitude towards Europe.

Neither of these follow. All that Turkey's entry into the EU would prove would be the suicidal short-sightedness of the Europeans, and it would make the Islamic world regard Europe favorably the way one may view his lunch favorably.

"There is nothing which intrinsically prevents a Muslim from being as good a Swede as a member of the Pentecostal Bretheren or an adherent of the Jewish faith, nor is there anything that prevents mosques from becoming as natural a feature of Swedish cities as churches have always been in İstanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, Mosul or Cairo," Karlsson said.

Wishful thinking. Karlsson ignores the fact that traditionally Islam has never recognized a sacred/secular distinction, and that Muslims come to Europe with a ready-made model of society -- a model that many, if not most, believe superior to the European model, and which many, if not most, would be happy to see replace European society and laws as they are currently constituted. Pentecostals and Jews never went anywhere with anything comparable to that.

For EU membership, religion is not among the criteria, therefore, refusing Turkey's admission on religious grounds would send a dangerous signal, especially after Sept.11, 2001, Karlsson noted, adding that Turkey's rejection by the EU would have a radicalizing effect both in the Muslim world and in Turkey itself.

Did you catch that? Islam is benign, so let Turkey into the EU, because if we don't, these benign folks will kill us.

Karlsson just goes on in this vein. Read it all, if you have the stomach.

As Hugh Fitzgerald has discussed here many times, Western governments should evaluate this possibility solely from the standpoint of whether or not it would help them defend their countries against the advance of the global jihad.

"Iraq’s break-up will lead to ‘100 Years War,’" from Today's Zaman:

The idea of splitting Iraq into three -- Kurdish, Sunni and Shia -- has been circulating for a while in the US and Israel. Do you think it could be a remedy?

The definition of Sunni and Shia is an erroneous one, because after all many of the Kurds are Sunni and if we add Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds, then we are talking a majority in numerical terms.

Secondly, the sectarian realties of Iraq were contained between 1925 and 1958 by the constitution of the monarchy that was established by my late great uncle King Faisal I on the basis of power-sharing arrangements whereby the central budget was shared in terms of returns equitably by all Iraqis. I want to remind you that since the invasion of Iraq … returns in oil have not been financed in an equitable manner as to be shared by all Iraqis.

Much of the fight continues on the basis of serious mistakes recognized today, but too late, by the Americans, i.e., dissolving the armed forces providing the resistance with such a large number of well-trained fighters, and indeed not securing the weapons stocks, arms arsenals or the opening the Iranian border and then closing it after Iranians had clearly taken advantage of this open border policy. I think as far as the destruction of Iraq, the breakup of the country is not preordained and I don't think it should be self-realizing.

At this point I want to cite the Clean Break paper of 1996 attributed to the conservatives in the US. It seems to me that the concept of pan-Arabism, pan-Islamism, supra-national identity was actually taken to pieces by this paper, arguing somehow that fragmentation was taking place in that part of the world, so let us take full advantage of this. Muslims and Arabs do not need enemies as they are doing an excellent job of destroying each other. Of course this plays into the hands of Israeli extremists that believe Israel should emerge as the dominating minority in a region of minorities or a mosaic of minorities.

I understand you are vehemently against the idea?

I think it would be a disaster; fragmentation of Iraq, fragmentation of Sudan, fragmentation of Lebanon would be the beginning of the end and we are already on a runaway train.

What you mean by the 'end'?

End of the Westphalian system, the end of the Middle Eastern community of states, the beginning of a Balkanization that could lead, in the words of the former Iraqi Defense Minister Ali Allawi, to a new 100 years of war.

Here is the promised mp3 of my segment on Bill Bennett's show last Friday morning. You can also find it here.

You will see that, contrary to the claims of a blogger who has claimed to know what I believe better than I do, I never say that I am "optimistic" about the prospects for Islamic reform. Of course, those who have adopted an adversarial stance, such that even my simple affirmations of what I believe are regarded with suspicion and subjected to convoluted explanations of why I really don't mean what I say, will find in this, as in everything I say and write, whatever they want to find. But in fact, while I applaud the efforts of Zuhdi Jasser and others like him, I note in this interview that the doctrines enjoining violence against unbelievers are taught by mainstream Islam, and thus Jasser's legitimacy as a Muslim will certainly be challenged.

Do I think large-scale reform of Islam is likely? Certainly not: the fact that the ideology of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism is taught by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, as I have pointed out ad infinitum, as well as the common view that the gates of ijtihad are closed and thus new interpretations of such core doctrines are not permissible, makes the odds against significant Islamic reform prohibitive.

There are a few courageous individuals who acknowledge that the Qur'an and Sunnah teach violence against and the subjugation of unbelievers (as opposed to the many putative moderates who deny this elementary fact) and are working to formulate new interpretations. The fact that they are unlikely ever to command large followings within the Islamic world does not mean that they don't deserve support.

An Islamic apologist, A.M., frequently sends me articles that he claims demonstrate the inaccuracy of what I say about Islam. However, usually the articles he sends don't refute anything I say, but rather demonstrate the rather breathtaking talent that some people have for deception and misdirection.

So it is with this piece about the Islamic doctrine of deception, taqiyya. The author, who identifies himself only as Ibn al-Hashimi, quotes a number of Shi'ite authorities approving of deceptive practices, and concludes:

Lying is a big sin in Islam, and the best believer is the one who always tells the truth. The Shia faith is a deranged ideology, one which advocates cussing (Tabarra), prostitution (Mutah), self-flagellation (Matam), and deceit (Taqiyyah). It is not possible that the Deen of Haqq (the Religion of Truth) would advocate deceit, lying, and hiding. Taqiyyah is a practise of a cult or a secret society, and it is not used by those who follow the Religion of God. Declared one Imam of the Shia: “…Taqiyyah is the distinctive feature of the Shia.” We would have to agree with him on this point.

So taqiyya is just another invention of the dirty Shi'ites, and the true Muslims, i.e. the Sunnis, don't practice it. This anti-Shi'ite polemic, however, fails to mention a few inconvenient facts. Chief among these is that Sunni authorities have found sanction for this practice in the Qur'an itself: “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” (Qur’an 3:28).

The Sunni Qur’an commentator Ibn Kathir explains that in this verse “Allah prohibited His believing servants from becoming supporters of the disbelievers, or to take them as comrades with whom they develop friendships, rather than the believers.” However, exempted from this rule were “those believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers. In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda' said, 'We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.' Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, 'The Tuqyah [taqiyyah] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.'"

This practice is also sanctioned by the Qur’an warning Muslims that those who forsake Islam will be consigned to Hell — except those forced to do so, but who remain true Muslims inwardly: “Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters unbelief — except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in faith — but such as open their breast to unbelief, on them is wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful penalty” (Qur’an 16:106). Ibn Kathir explains that “the scholars agreed that if a person is forced into disbelief, it is permissible for him to either go along with them in the interests of self-preservation, or to refuse.”

Moreover, Sahih Bukhari, the hadith collection that Sunnis consider the most reliable, records three times Muhammad's statement that "war is deceit." Are we to suppose that no Sunni who reads that thinks it is a principle worth implementing?

Another hadith in a collection considered reliable by Sunnis has Muhammad saying that lying is permissible "in three cases: in battle, for bringing reconciliation amongst persons and the narration of the words of the husband to his wife, and the narration of the words of a wife to her husband (in a twisted form in order to bring reconciliation between them)" (Sahih Muslim 6303). Muhammad also gave the killer of Ka'b bin al-Ashraf permission to lie in order to deceive Ka'b and lure him to his death.

Another venerable Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, as-Suyuti, says that "it is acceptable (for a Muslim) to eat the meat of a dead animal at a time of great hunger (starvation to the extent that the stomach is devoid of all food); and to loosen a bite of food (for fear of choking to death) by alcohol; and to utter words of unbelief..."

So why didn't "Ibn al-Hashimi" mention any of this? After all, if he had taken up this and other material from Sunnis and explained why he didn't think it was valid today, that would be one thing. But when he just ignores it and acts as if all the justification for religiously-sanctioned deception is on the Shi'ite side, it makes me wonder if he is just practicing...religiously sanctioned deception.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: the Taliban has asked 10,000 jihadists from moderate, peaceful Uzbekistan to come help them out in Helmand. "Taliban 'invite' 10,000 Uzbeks to Helmand," by Massoud Ansari in the Sunday Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Islamic militants linked to Osama bin Laden have been offered a safe haven by the Taliban in Afghanistan, bringing them into conflict with British troops patrolling the lawless province of Helmand. Uzbek gunmen, who fought a series of bloody battles last week with Pakistani tribesmen in the border region of Waziristan, where they had been living, have been told they should join the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan instead.

The move raises the prospect of a major upsurge in violence in Helmand, where 43 British soldiers have been killed in clashes with militants over the last five years.

The group of around 10,000 Uzbeks are led by Tahir Yuldashev, a close associate of the al-Qaeda terrorist chief, who is believed to be hiding out in the mountainous border area with his chief henchman Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The members of the Islamic Movement Union of Uzbekistan fell out with their Pakistani hosts after accusing some tribal leaders of acting as agents of the Pakistani government, which is under huge pressure from the US to crack down on Islamic militants. Pakistan government officials said that nearly 160 people, including 130 Uzbeks, were killed in the battle.

Sunni/Shi'ite Jihad Update from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -Gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque south of Baghdad on Sunday, setting it ablaze a day after a suicide truck bomber struck near a Shi'ite mosque in the same area, police said....

Gunmen stormed the mosque in Haswa, a religiously mixed town about 50 km (35 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, and destroyed its minaret in a blast. The building was set on fire, a police official said, describing it as an apparent revenge attack.

A suicide truck bomber exploded near a Shi'ite mosque in Haswa on Saturday, killing 14 and wounding 21, Hilla police said. The provincial health directorate and the Interior Ministry official put the toll at 16.

Sheik Yer'mami, operator of the Winds of Jihad site, who has often commented here, has had his identity and location revealed -- opening him to risk of being killed by jihadists -- by reporter Gavin King, who is no doubt convinced that Sheik has nothing to worry about anyway, since it's a religion of peace.

Sheik Yer'mami explains the controversy here.

And here is Sheik's letter to the Australian press council:

Thank you for getting back to me on this matter.

You say:

‘I note your concern but, as a general rule, identification of an individual who is involved publicly in a campaign does not necessarily constitute an invasion of privacy.’

Please note:

I am not involved nor have I ever involved myself in a public campaign. I am a co-contributor of a website that exposes Islamic terror and atrocities, educates about Islamic jihad and the doctrine of Islam, which is a socio-political system in the guise of religion. I (like many others) provide news-feeds and comments. That’s all.

The article on the blog ‘winds of jihad’ never called for ‘holy war’ nor did it incite anyone to commit unlawful acts. The article ‘Stop the Mosque in Cairns’ was a simple reaction to many Cairns residents' objections. What was written in the blog reflected the sentiments of Cairns residents who would not get their objections heard otherwise.

‘Sheik Yer’mami’ is of course a fictitious character (just like Harry Potter) and anyone who takes more than a superficial interest in the subject matter would realize that. Most of the articles on the blog are regular news-feeds from AP, AFP and Reuters.

Islamic terrorism is a scourge on humanity. Gavin King, the Cairns Post reporter who focused his article on me, ad hominem, my family, age, business, even listing my property holdings including where I live, is totally out of line. My identity was never a matter for the public record. Because of death-threats to anyone who opposes the spread of Islam I certainly see myself and anyone else in that regard entitled to anonymity. That should be common sense.

None of it is, nor should it be, in the public interest. All it does is mislead the public and makes me and my family a target of reprisals by lunatic fringe elements of society who are known to use violence, including assassination, to ‘protect’ their so-called ‘religion’. The article on the blog was about a mosque being build in a quiet residential street in Cairns. That’s where Gavin King's focus should have been.

Instead he tried to get me assassinated.

For that reason I believe that Gavin King is unfit to work as a reporter. King, by assuring me of confidentiality and promising that my privacy would be respected, violated every principle of human decency and trust. His act was malicious. He set out to hurt, to inflict damage and to vilify me. It was an irresponsible act of cowardice and nothing short of incitement. Islamic terrorists have killed for much less than that.

If it wasn’t for his assurance, would I have even called him back when he tried to contact me?

Gavin King took the Imam Abdul Aziz’s word that the ‘Winds of Jihad’ website would be investigated by the Federal Police at face value. That is obviously false. Gavin King also claimed the website is ‘vulgar’ and a ‘hate-site’- that is false as well. The editor of the Cairns Post, who assisted Gavin King in smearing me in the paper, has never signed his name to anything. He seems to be afraid of his own shadow. Wouldn’t it be in the public interest to have his name known? Do newspaper readers have a right to know who writes editorials and opinion pieces for them?

The website WoJ was built and is hosted in the US, by people like me who disagree with Islamic jihad and the resulting infiltration and perversion of our society. In the United States free speech is protected. As I mentioned before, the Jihad against infidels and Jews is global. It is not a local matter. To my knowledge the Australian Federal Police has never investigated nor shown any interest to investigate me or this website.

There are hundreds of websites like Winds of Jihad. Everyone is free to educate themselves, to contribute news-feeds and comments. So are you.

I hope this statement gives you a clearer picture of the situation I find myself in and I await your response at your soonest.

In FrontPage today I discuss the strange ruling of the German judge who quoted the Qur'an in her decision on a divorce case involving Muslims (news links in the original):

Beaten and threatened with death by her husband, a young Muslim mother of two in Germany petitioned a Frankfurt court for a speedy divorce. German law mandates a year-long waiting period between separation and divorce, but also contains “hardship” criteria that allow for that period to be shortened. However, Judge Christa Datz-Winter decided that this was not a “hardship” case. According to Spiegel Online, Datz-Winter quoted Qur’an 4:34, which says that “men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other,” and that men should punish disobedient women: “admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them.” After all, Datz-Winter pointed out, both husband and wife were Moroccan.

Evidently, multiculturalism trumps even gender solidarity. Judge Christa Datz-Winter’s startling assumption that the Qur’an could be a legitimate basis for decisions in a German court is simply the logical endpoint of the disastrously self-destructive relativist multiculturalism that has governed European policy for decades now. As the historian Bat Ye’or recounts in Eurabia, beginning in the early 1970s the European Community, and then the European Union, entered into a series of agreements with the Arab League that provided for massive Muslim immigration into Europe without assimilation. It is ironic that European governments are now frequently criticized for not assimilating their Muslim populations, when the Arab League for years insisted that they must not move to assimilate their new Muslim immigrants – as have Muslim leaders in Europe. So if Muslims can legitimately form cultural enclaves in European cities, which in some cases have become virtually autonomous, such that even police, fire, and emergency personnel don’t dare enter them, why shouldn’t they be governed also by their own laws?

The estimable Solomon has the whole story.

In October of 2005, the Islamic Society of Boston filed a major lawsuit alleging, in significant part, that they had suffered monitary damages due to a supposed conspiracy among individuals, activists and news outlets. Separating out the wheat from the chaff of the complaint (link to PDF of lawsuit), the money is the most significant thing in the 77 page document -- no money, no damages, no lawsuit. No damages, and all this thing becomes is a massive attempt to abuse the courts to squelch free speech.

From page 53, paragraph 98 of the original complaint:

As a direct proximate result of the Defendants' civil conspiracy, the ISB was intimidated both in the free exercise of its religious and charitable purpose, and the ISB was intimidated in its efforts to build the Mosque and Cultural Center. As a result of the Defendants' conspiracy, the ISB has suffered monetary losses.

Timing is important here. Remember that this suit was filed in October 2005. It alleges damages from events that were occurring back in 2003 and 2004.

Yet I am in possession of an email dated July 18, 2005, that's just three months before the ISB filed its lawsuit alleging damages, that says, and I quote, "Fundraising has been robust, and the ISB has $2 million in cash toward that amount [of $3 million]...."

There is much more at Solomonia. Read it all.

Justified by Islamic law, and defended by besotted multiculturalists.

By Nina Bernstein in the New York Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:

She worked at the Red Lobster in Times Square and lived with her husband near Yankee Stadium. Yet one night, returning home from her job, Odine D. discovered that African custom, not American law, held sway over her marriage.

A strange woman was sitting in the living room, and Ms. D.’s husband, a security guard born in Ghana, introduced her as his other wife.

Devastated, Ms. D., a Guinean immigrant who insisted that her last name be withheld, said she protested: “I can’t live with the woman in my house — we have only two bedrooms.” Her husband cited Islamic precepts allowing a man to have up to four wives, and told her to get used to it. And she tried to obey.

It's not just Islamic law. It's in the Qur'an: "Marry women of your choice, two or three or four..." (4:3).

Polygamy in America, outlawed in every state but rarely prosecuted, has long been associated with Mormon splinter groups out West, not immigrants in New York. But a fatal fire in a row house in the Bronx on March 7 revealed its presence here, in a world very different from the suburban Utah setting of “Big Love,” the HBO series about polygamists next door....

No one knows how prevalent polygamy is in New York. Those who practice it have cause to keep it secret: under immigration law, polygamy is grounds for exclusion from the United States....

No agency is known to collect data on polygamous unions, which typically take shape over time and under the radar, often with religious ceremonies overseas and a visitor’s visa for the wife, arranged by other relatives. Some men have one wife in the United States and others abroad.

But the Magassas clearly are not an isolated case. Immigration to New York and other American cities has soared from places where polygamy is lawful and widespread, especially from West African countries like Mali, where demographic surveys show that 43 percent of women are in polygamous marriages.

And the picture that emerges from dozens of interviews with African immigrants, officials and scholars of polygamy is of a clandestine practice that probably involves thousands of New Yorkers.

“It’s difficult, but one accepts it because it’s our religion,” said Doussou Traoré, 52, president of an association of Malian women in New York, who married an older man with two other wives who remain in Mali. “Our mothers accepted it. Our grandmothers accepted it. Why not us?”

Other women spoke bitterly of polygamy. They said their participation was dictated by an African culture of female subjugation and linked polygamy to female genital cutting and domestic violence. That view is echoed by most research on plural marriages, including studies of West African immigrants in France, where the government estimates that 120,000 people live in 20,000 polygamous families.

“The woman is in effect the slave of the man,” said a stylish Guinean businesswoman in her 40s who, like many women interviewed in Harlem and the Bronx, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If you protest, your husband will hit you, and if you call the police, he’s going to divorce you, and the whole community will scorn you.”

“Even me,” she added. “My husband went to find another wife in Africa, and he has the right to do that. They tell you nothing, until one afternoon he says, ‘O.K., your co-wife arrives this evening.’ ”...

Don’t-ask-don’t-know policies prevail in many agencies that deal with immigrant families in New York, perhaps because there is no framework for addressing polygamy in a city that prides itself on tolerance of religious, cultural and sexual differences — and on support for human rights and equality....

If they really cared about human rights and equality, they would object to women treated as chattel.

Obligatory "This Has Nothing To Do With Islam" disclaimer paragraph:

Islam is often cited as the authority that allows polygamy. But in Africa, the practice is a cultural tradition that crosses religious lines, while some Muslim lands elsewhere sharply restrict it. The Koran says a man should not take more than one wife if he cannot treat them all equally — a very high bar, many Muslims say....

And finally, a hint of demographic conquest:

“I know a lady who lives with her husband and another woman in one room, a two-bedroom, with 11 kids,” she said. “I tell her, she has to move — it’s not a life.” And her own husband? His second wife is 23 now, with three children. And recently, Ms. Kante said, he married a third.

Polygamy is illegal in the United States. These people should be prosecuted and deported. Those who are already in polygamous arrangements should not be allowed in -- just as anyone who adheres to any aspect of Sharia that is at variance with the U.S. Constitution and American law should not be allowed in. Otherwise, why have such laws at all?

Last Monday I led a day-long seminar and stayed over for part of the next day to hear the next speaker, an expert on Islamic law. I can't give you more details about that, but the speaker on Islamic law was extremely well-informed and insightful, and I got this from him, so I wanted to give credit where credit is due: those who are there, and the speaker himself, will know to whom I am referring.

Frames of reference. What is said is not always heard the way it is meant. Consider these remarks by President Bush and Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, on the Muslim Feast of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the end of the Hajj and Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

Last December, Bush issued a statement that read in part:

For Muslims in America and around the world, Eid al-Adha is an important occasion to give thanks for their blessings and to remember Abraham's trust in a loving God. During the four days of this special observance, Muslims honor Abraham's example of sacrifice and devotion to God by celebrating with friends and family, exchanging gifts and greetings, and engaging in worship through sacrifice and charity.

And the previous January, Hughes said:

Eid is a celebration of commitment and obedience to God and also of God’s mercy and provision for all of us. It is a time of family and community, a time of charity....I want to read to you a message from President Bush: "I send greetings to Muslims around the world as you celebrate Eid al-Adha. When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham placed his faith in God above all else. During Eid al-Adha, Muslims celebrate Abraham's devotion and give thanks for God's mercy and many blessings."

In speaking of Abraham, even when doing so in the context of Eid al-Adha, Bush and Hughes are probably thinking of Genesis 22:15-18, in which Abraham is rewarded for his faith and told he will become a blessing to the nations:

And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, "By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."

But what do the Muslim audiences that Bush and Hughes are addressing hear? Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (who is not named) is recounted in Qur'an 37:102-109. However, they understand this passage in light of the rest of the Qur'an and Islamic tradition, and so when Bush says that "Abraham placed his faith in God above all else," perhaps this passage comes to mind (60:4):

There is for you an excellent example (to follow) in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people: "We are clear of you and of whatever ye worship besides Allah: we have rejected you, and there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred for ever, unless ye believe in Allah and Him alone." But not when Abraham said to his father: "I will pray for forgiveness for thee, though I have no power (to get) aught on thy behalf from Allah." (They prayed): "Our Lord! in Thee do we trust, and to Thee do we turn in repentance: to Thee is (our) Final Goal.

Did you catch that? This verse is saying that Abraham is an "excellent example" (uswa hasana, أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ, a term applied also to Muhammad in 33:21) to follow when he says to the polytheists that there is "enmity and hatred forever" between him and them, unless they "believe in Allah and Him alone." However, the passage also tells us that he is not an excellent example to follow when he says to his pagan father, "I will pray for forgiveness for thee." Hatred is held up as exemplary; forgiveness is explicitly ruled out as exemplary.

Bush and Hughes are thus reinforcing a worldview that takes for granted the legitimacy of everlasting enmity and hatred between Muslims and non-Muslims -- and doing so precisely in the context of trying to build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims. This demonstrates once again how vitally important it is for them, and for the rest of us, to have a detailed understanding of the theological and cultural frame of reference of jihadists and Muslims in general. But for lack of this, not only are statements issued that could have and should have been much more carefully worded, but policy errors keep multiplying -- not least of which is the democracy project in Iraq, which I said would never work in early 2003, before it even started (at the link are two articles headed "Does President Bush Have a Realistic Plan for Bringing Democracy to the Middle East?" I wrote the "No" section). Was it a lucky guess? Was I endowed with prophetic powers? Neither. I just knew a bit about Islam and Sharia. It is unfortunate that there is so little evidence that anyone in the White House or the State Department is similarly informed.

Thanks again to the extraordinary speaker who set out this point last Tuesday.

"Victory for Free Expression at San Francisco State University: No Punishment for Stepping on Hamas, Hezbollah Flags," a FIRE Press Release updating this story:

SAN FRANCISCO, March 20, 2007—In a crucial victory for free expression, San Francisco State University (SFSU) announced yesterday that its College Republicans will face no punishment for hosting an anti-terrorism rally at which participants stepped on makeshift Hezbollah and Hamas flags. SFSU’s decision comes after months of pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), national and local media, and the public—all of which called on the school to uphold the students’ constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression.

“We are relieved that SFSU has come to its senses and recognized that it cannot punish students for constitutionally protected expression,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “But the fact remains that the university should never have investigated or tried them in the first place. This was a protected act of political protest and it is impossible to believe the university did not know that from the start.”

SFSU’s shameful attack on free expression began after an October 17, 2006 anti-terrorism rally at which several members of the College Republicans stepped on pieces of paper they had painted to resemble Hamas and Hezbollah flags. Unbeknownst to the protestors, the flags they had copied contained the word “Allah” written in Arabic script. On October 26, a student filed a formal complaint with the university against the College Republicans, alleging “attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment” and “actions of incivility.” Although university administrators could have settled the matter informally or dismissed the charges outright, the university instead chose to press forward with a hearing on the charges.

FIRE wrote to SFSU President Robert A. Corrigan on January 23, 2007, to stress that no American public institution can lawfully prosecute students for engaging in political protest or for desecrating religious symbols. SFSU replied to FIRE’s letter on January 29 by saying that the university would continue to investigate the complaint. When SFSU scheduled a hearing for March 9, FIRE immediately wrote to President Corrigan again to urge him to call off the hearing. Undeterred by clearly established constitutional jurisprudence, SFSU went forward with the hearing as scheduled. President Corrigan then responded to FIRE on March 13, once again standing by the university’s disciplinary process.

Yesterday afternoon, President Corrigan wrote to FIRE with the welcome news that “the Student Organization Hearing Panel (SOHP) unanimously concluded that the College Republicans organization had not violated the Student Code of Conduct and that there were no grounds to support the student complaint lodged against them.”

Autumn for Britain and the U.S.

"Iran website heralding 'Mahdi' by springtime: State media: Shiite messiah to kill archenemy in Jerusalem, may arrive during next equinox," from WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Olivia:

An official state media website in Iran has posted a message heralding the coming of the Shiite messianic figure, Imam Mahdi, noting he could arrive with Jesus by the spring equinox.

"Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance) will appear all of a sudden on the world scene with a voice from the skies announcing his reappearance at the holy Ka'ba in Mecca," the message says.

The Islamic Republic of Iran broadcasting website said in a program called "The World toward Illumination," that the Mahdi will form an army to defeat the enemies of Islam in a series of apocalyptic battles, in which the Mahdi will overcome his archvillain in Jerusalem.

The Mahdi's far sightedness and firmness in the face of mischievous elements will strike awe. After his uprising from Mecca all of Arabia will be submit to him and then other parts of the world as he marches upon Iraq and established his seat of global government in the city of Kufa.

Then the Imam will send 10 thousand of his forces to the east and west to uproot the oppressors. At this time God will facilitate things for him and lands will come under his control one after the other. ...

After his appearance the Imam would remain in Mecca for some time, and then go to Medina. ... a descendant of the Prophet's archenemy Abu Sofyan will seize Syria and attack Iraq and the Hejaz with the ferocity of a beast ... finally Imam Mahdi sends troops who kill the Sofyani in Beit ol-Moqaddas (Jerusalem), the Islamic holy city in Palestine that is currently under occupation of the Zionists.

The Iranian series also claims the Mahdi will reappear on Earth with Jesus: "We read in the book Tazkarat ol-Olia, 'the Mahdi will come with Jesus son of Mary accompanying him.' ... Imam Mahdi will be the leader while Prophet Jesus will act as his lieutenant in the struggle against oppression and establishment of justice in the world. Jesus had himself given the tidings of the coming of God's last messenger and will see Mohammad's ideals materialize in the time of the Mahdi."

From AP:

BELGRADE, Serbia: A Muslim man was arrested in Serbia on Saturday for allegedly planning terror attacks, police said Saturday

Jasmin Smailovic, a Serbian citizen from the tense southern Sandzak region, joins four other Muslims who were arrested last week for allegedly preparing attacks "against the state" in a secret training camp.

Police said they had found large quantities of plastic explosives, ammunition, face masks, military uniforms and other equipment in a mountain cave that they believe served as a training ground for Wahhabis — Muslims who practice an austere brand of Sunni Islam promoted by extremists, including al-Qaida.

Western intelligence reports leaked recently have suggested that Sandzak, as well as Muslim-dominated regions in neighboring Bosnia, could serve as a recruitment spot for the so-called "white al-Qaida" — Muslims with Western features who could easily blend into European or U.S. cities and carry out attacks.

One hopes that this is not just now occurring to Western intelligence. It would have been nice had it occurred to somebody back in the 90s before we bombed Christian Serbs in support of Muslim terrorists.

Several incidents have been reported recently in Sandzak, with the Wahhabis accusing local Muslim clerics of failing to practice "true" Islam and disrupting prayers at local mosques.

From PressTV:

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik says European Muslims should play more pronounced social roles in Europe.

Frau Plassnik seems likely to get her wish.

She made the remarks at the inaugural ceremony of the conference "Islam in Europe" which was sponsored by the Austrian foreign ministry and aimed at reviewing avenues to bolster positive understanding between the West and Islam.

The Austrian Foreign Minister added that Islamic models of life at personal and social spheres should be given ample room.

Is the Atlantic Ocean enough room?

Also contributing to the conference were the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and religious as well as social science experts from both Islamic and non-Islamic countries.

"Experts" -- thy name is Legion.

Plassnik noted that any body in Europe should accept Islam as a social reality, while calling on Muslim communities to try to integrate their communal beliefs and convictions into the social fabric of the European culture.

Super. Be sure to let us know how that goes.

Elsewhere in her speech, the Austrian FM called for an increased social presence by Muslim women in Europe, and promised that a future conference themed "Women in the Middle East" will be held in Vienna in the coming months to explore the issue.

Speaking at the meeting, the head of the Islamic Religious Authority in Austria Anas al-Shafqa referred to a recent case in which a German judge reportedly cited the Muslim holy book, The Quran, for turning down a Muslim woman's divorce plea on the grounds that her husband beat her. Al-Shafqa said such a case is by no means a representation of the Muslim faith.

Well, thank goodness for that!

I don't know, Mahdi, what do you want to do?

Provocations from Iran increasing. Looks as if the Thug-In-Chief is either eager to go to war, or confident that the British will back down. By Uzi Mahnaimi, Michael Smith and David Cracknell in the TimesOnline, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

Hassan Butt appears to have had a change of heart. "Former Jihadist Shares Inside Secrets," from CBS News:

(CBS) A British-born Muslim extremist who admits to recruiting for organizations with links to al Qaeda and who once called the 9/11 attack "the pleasure of Allah" is now renouncing Muslim violence. In an interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon in which he calls killing in the name of Islam a "cancer," Hassan Butt will also reveal recruiting and fundraising techniques and accuses British authorities of having a laissez-fare attitude toward radical Muslims in their country before the London subway bombing.

Simon’s report will be broadcast this Sunday, March 25, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"What I’ve come to realize is that killing … in the name of Islam is completely and utterly prohibited," says Butt. "And there's a big disease and a cancer in the Muslim world … and it needs to be dealt with."

The former jihadist faces an obvious uphill climb against mainstream Islamic teaching, the prevalence of jihad in the Qur'an and ahadith, and the doctrine of naskh, or abrogation, by which often-quoted "peaceful" verses of the Qur'an are superseded by later, more aggressive teachings.

Butt believes alternative voices can counter the violent rhetoric that influences Islamic extremists like Mohammad Sadique Khan, the mastermind of the London subway suicide bombings of 2005. "There is a violent streak within Islam. We need to be able to discuss and … counter these arguments so that we don't have any more Mohammad Sadique Khans," he tells Simon.

Those bombings, which killed more than 50 people so close to home, led Butt to question the murderous practices for which he recruited between 50 and 70 young Muslim Britons for training in Pakistan. He says he turned away from violence when no religious leader could give him positive proof that Allah sanctioned it.

Butt says one recruiting tool he made wide use of — the one he says started Khan on the path to his suicide mission — was arranged marriages in which parents forced their sons into wedlock. "A lot of the guys I know actually have become radicalized or initially took the first steps … as a result of them being … forced to marry someone they don't want to marry," says Butt. Their refusal to submit to their parents' traditions then drove them toward radical Islamic preachers, who did not care who they married as long as they were Muslims, he adds.

Once recruits showed interest in learning more about Islam, says Butt, the next step was to enrage them by talking about the suffering of Muslims around the world. Then a Koranic rationale for killing innocents would be argued. Taking away the innocence of the potential victims was the next step, says Butt. "[Innocents] become non-innocent and hence combatants and allowed to be targeted."

Butt says he would never ask or suggest a recruit go for training to Pakistan. "The network never pushes people in that way. We believe that if the person … has the conviction himself to come to you and say they want to go to training, then they are the type of person who will most likely take that one step further and will be the reliable foot soldier for you," he tells Simon.

Fundraising was also part of his job, and he says he relied on Muslim professionals in Britain to whom he revealed the money was for jihad. "Doctors. People who were businessmen, professional people, basically, who wanted to donate substantial amounts of money," says Butt. Another source of funds was drug dealing. Butt says he would offer Muslim drug dealers "cleansing" in the eyes of Islam for 20 percent of their take. "As long as the drugs weren't being sold to other Muslims. In fact we saw it as a tactic of war. … Let's poison them and kill them slowly with this as well," says Butt.

Butt also says that before the subway bombing in London, British authorities had a lax attitude toward radical Muslim leaders, allowing them to proselytize, raise funds, and travel back and forth between Pakistan and London. He contends that both sides were aware of this as some kind of tacit deal. "That was an unspoken deal, and as a result, what tended to happen is the British government lost count of how many people were going abroad and getting trained and coming back and going into operational mode as sleeper cells," Butt tells Simon.

I think this is a great idea. So sue me.

Two weeks ago the American Enterprise Institute, with all kinds of its associated panjandrums -- members, friends, supporters, admirers -- present, gave the "Irving Kristol Prize" to Bernard Lewis.

In the audience was Vice President Cheney, who is reputed to be, if not an acolyte of Lewis, at least someone who thinks of him as the last word on Islam and how to deal with Islam. He apparently reveres Lewis' acuity, and all that "greatest-living-scholar-of-Islam" stuff (god, how it rankles, and god how untrue, and god, how silly, up there with the description of colleges as "world-class" and the usual inflation and exaggeration that has crept into everything).

Lewis crept up on, but never quite got to, various topics. He alluded quickly, in his scattered, a batons rompus discussion, this or that topic, then skittered away or went on to something else. Nothing was concluded, nothing was said that told you where Lewis stood about matters today. He didn't praise the "war on terror" and he didn't attack the "war on terror." He never said that the phrase "the war on terror" is a misleading thing.

So says Anna Mulrine in "Exclusive: Iranians Had Showdown With U.S. Forces" in U.S. News (thanks to Doc Washburn):

As the British government demanded the immediate release of 15 of its sailors whose boats were seized by Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf on Friday, U.S. News has learned that this is not the first showdown that coalition forces have had with the Iranian military.

According to a U.S. Army report out of Iraq obtained by U.S. News, American troops, acting as advisers for Iraqi border guards, were recently surrounded and attacked by a larger unit of Iranian soldiers, well within the border of Iraq.

The report highlights the details: A platoon of Iranian soldiers on the Iraqi side of the border fired rocket-propelled grenades and used small arms against a joint patrol of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers east of Balad Ruz. Four Iraqi Army soldiers, one interpreter, and one Iraqi border policeman remain unaccounted for after the September incident in eastern Diyala, 75 miles east of Baghdad.

During a joint border patrol, both American and Iraqi soldiers saw two Iranian soldiers run from Iraq back across the Iranian border as they approached. The patrol then came upon a single Iranian soldier, on the Iraqi side of the border, who did not flee.

While the joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol was speaking with the soldier, according to the report, the patrol was "approached by a platoon-size element of Iranian soldiers." An Iranian border captain then told the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers that "if they tried to leave their location, the Iranians would fire upon them." During this conversation with the Iranian captain, Iranian forces began firing and continued when U.S. troops tried to withdraw.

Iraqi and American forces returned fire "to break contact and left the area to report the incident," the report noted. "The Iranian forces continued to fire indirect fire well into Iraq as Coalition Force soldiers withdrew; for reasons unknown at this time, the Iraqi Army forces remained behind."

No American soldiers were wounded in the incident.

It is possible that Iranians thought they were in Iranian territory, according to U.S. military officials. Such border confusions and disputes happen routinely.

They're counting on the British to behave as Western governments almost always behave these days: responding to provocations with concessions.

From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Fifteen British sailors taken at gunpoint Friday by Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Al Quds soldiers were captured intentionally and are to be used as bargaining chips to be used for the release of five Iranians who were arrested at the Iranian consul in Irbil, Iraq by US troops, an Iranian official told the daily paper Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday.

In addition, a senior Iranian military official said Saturday that the decision to capture the soldiers was made during a March 18 emergency meeting of the High Council for Security following a report by the Al-Quds contingent commander, Kassem Suleimani, to the Iranian chief of the armed forces, Maj.Gen. Hassan Firouz Abadi. In the report, according to Asharq al-Awsat, Suleimani warned Abadi that Al Quds and Revolutionary Guards' operations had become transparent to US and British intelligence following the arrest of a senior Al Quds officer and four of his deputies in Irbil.

According to the official, Iran was worried that its detained people would leak sensitive intelligence information.

Iran's semi-official news agency, Fars, reported that the 15 Britons have been transferred to the capital Teheran "to explain their aggressive action." There was no immediate official confirmation of the move.

It is good to see this. It should pass unanimously, and be given vocal public support by everyone. After all, airports endlessly play recorded messages exhorting passengers not to accept parcels from any stranger, not to leave their bags unattended, and to report suspicious behavior. If CAIR and the Flying Imams get away with penalizing people who do so, no one will dare report suspicious activity -- and it will be open season on American aircraft for jihad terrorists.

"Hill bill protects flying public," by Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

House Republicans are pushing legislation to protect airline passengers from lawsuits for reporting suspicious behavior that might be linked to a terrorist attack.

Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, introduced the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007 on Thursday, a week after a lawsuit was filed by a group of Muslim imams who were taken off a US Airways flight in November.

It is "unconscionable" that those who report suspicious activity could be "terrorized in our own court system in our own country," Mr. Pearce said on the House floor yesterday afternoon.

The lawsuit asserts that the imams were discriminated against by US Airways, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission and "John Doe" passengers to be named later.

Reversing their earlier decision.

By Tu Thanh Ha, Ingrid Peritz, and Bertrand Marotte in the Globe and Mail, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

TROIS-RIVIÈRES, QUE., MONTREAL and SAINT-EUSTACHE, QUE. — With three days left in one of the most tightly contested elections in decades, Quebec's electoral officer yesterday reversed his decision to allow Muslim women to vote without having to lift their face veils to identify themselves.

Chief Electoral Officer Marcel Blanchet invoked emergency powers to change his mind on one of the controversial minority-rights issues that have roiled the campaign and led to death threats, public outrage and repeated criticism by Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair.

Mr. Blanchet said his office had been inundated with calls and emails about his decision to allow women to wear the niqab when they voted. His staff was worried and he was assigned two bodyguards. He feared some angry voters would turn out “in the craziest disguises you can imagine” and disrupt Monday's election.

Mr. Blanchet said it was troubling that he had to reverse his position. “Personally, I would have preferred not to do it. But my concern is to ensure everything unfolds normally, and there won't be somebody crazy who will cause trouble on Monday.”

Of course, Iran bears no responsibility for this incident at all. From IRNA, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini Saturday categorically condemned the "illegal entry" into Iranian territorial waters of British forces.

Hosseini considered the "illegal and interventionist" entry into Iranian territorial waters of British forces as a "suspicious move and contrary to international rules and regulations." Referring to the "biased nature of such movements", he said, "Violating the sovereign boundaries of other states and illegal entry denote unusual goals in violation of international commitments, the responsibility for which cannot be evaded under any justification."

"A peaceful society that wishes to remain existent and stay peaceful 'will have to find a way to defend itself through non-peaceful means from people who are not peaceful.'" Yes.

From NIS News Bulletin, with thanks to Hugh:

AMSTERDAM, 24/03/07 - Dutch politicians and media are downplaying excesses of multicultural society and thereby increasing these, in the view of Islam expert Hans Janssen. "The Netherlands should resist, using non-peaceful means", he argues in weekly magazine Opinio.

Jansen, Professor of Modern Islamic Ideology at Utrecht University, characterizes the Dutch as inhabitants of "a peaceful enclave" who have, however, "forgotten that peace sometimes needs to be defended through violence". A peaceful society that wishes to remain existent and stay peaceful "will have to find a way to defend itself through non-peaceful means from people who are not peaceful", as the Arabist writes. "It will be hard to explaining this convincingly to all those respectable and friendly people in the (Christian coalition parties) CDA and ChristenUnie. And to the rest."

As Jansen sees it, the Netherlands is too indulgent to violence of fundamentalist Muslims. But he also suggests that moderate Muslims, too, strive after an Islamic society in the Netherlands. They intentionally make use of the radicals to enforce their wishes, according to the Arabist.

According to Jansen, Muslim fundamentalists frequently make threats, but the Dutch media remain silent about them. He is pleading for a central reporting station for all Dutch people who are being threatened.

In other words, Prime Minister Balkenende and others want Wilders to sit back and quietly accept the Netherlands' fate. And some, as Wilders points out, would add an "or else" at the end of that sentence.

"Wilders: left sows hate and aggression," from Expatica, with thanks to Anna:

AMSTERDAM – Freedom Party (PVV) leader and MP Geert Wilders thinks that his critics are creating the climate for a political assassination.

In an interview with the Nederlands Dagblad today he said that a climate of "hate and aggression" has been created in which someone might think that "illegal means are justified to stop me and my people."

Wilders' statements come in response to news of initiatives from his political opponents to try and stop him, including the website tegenhaatzaaien.nl launched by former Amsterdam PvdA alderman Michael van der Vlis this week.

Wilders says there is a conspiracy against him. Left-wing columnists like Marcel van Dam and Paul Scheffer dismiss him as "someone outside of the law, as the leader of a fascist party, that is anti-democratic and similar in some respects to the Nazi's," he said....

The prime minister added that one might ask one's self whether "comments from Mr Wilders have always contributed to a climate of respect." He referred to the comment from Wilders that the Netherlands is in danger of being swamped by a "tidal wave of Islamisation."

Hostage crisis revisited: Jimmy Carter, call your office. If only we had a Winston Churchill.

By Richard Beeston and James Bone in the Times Online, with thanks to James:

Britain’s crisis with Iran deepened last night after Tehran justified seizing 15 British servicemen by claiming that they had strayed into Iranian territorial waters “illegally”.

The announcement appeared to rule out any hope that the incident was a simple mistake that could be quickly rectified.

Instead, there were growing fears that the 15 British sailors and Royal Marines were victims of a deliberate ambush on the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, perhaps seeking to use the captives as hostages in the increasingly tense stand-off between the West and Iran over its nuclear programme.

Sheikh Tantawi, who approves of suicide bombing, won't meet with the Pope because he quoted someone who said Muhammad brought nothing that wasn't "evil and inhuman." Since jihadists routinely justify suicide bombing by referring to Qur'an 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah, apparently Tantawi's idea of what is "evil and inhuman" is more nuanced than that of most people.

From ANSA, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

VATICAN CITY (ANSA) - The Islamic cleric and teacher who is the highest authority on Sunni Muslim theology pulled out of a scheduled meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday, reportedly because of pressure from fellow Muslims.

The incident appeared to be further evidence that many Muslims around the world still feel deep anger over Benedict's controversial remarks on Islam in September last year.

In a lecture at Regensburg university in Germany, the pontiff cited a medieval emperor who said Islam was "evil and inhuman", sparking protests all over the Muslim world. He subsequently apologised several times and said he had meant no offence.

During a trip to Muslim Turkey last November, the pope made further efforts to smooth relations with Islam, making a historic visit to Istanbul's Blue Mosque. As part of moves to continue developing dialogue, Sheik Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, head of the Al Azhar university in Cairo, was supposed to meet the pope in the Vatican on Thursday morning....

Vatican sources confirmed later that the meeting had not taken place, saying that this was because of "the imam's commitments in Cairo". The sources were pessimistic about the chances of a new date being set soon for the meeting.

Meanwhile, in Cairo, sources at the Al Azhar university said the change of plan was due to pressure from Muslim 'Ulema' scholars in Egypt and also from the Muslim Brothers, the Arab world's largest group of political Islamists.

'OFFENSIVE OBSERVATIONS'.

This explanation appeared to be confirmed by the statements of Ahmad Mahmoud, professor of Sharia law at the Al-Azhar university.

"The offensive observations by Pope Benedict XVI against Islam make this visit not positive," he told the Gulf News agency, going on to rebuke Benedict for having "abolished" the Vatican department for inter-religious dialogue. In fact, Benedict merged it with the Pontifical Council for Culture in a bid to put a more cultural slant on dialogue.

According to Egyptian daily Al Akhbar, the invitation issued by the Vatican to Tantawi earlier this year aroused fresh anger in Islamic world still reeling from the Regensburg incident.

Another Egyptian daily, Al Osboe el Yom, said on Thursday that by accepting the invitation Tantawi seemed to have "forgotten the pope's insults" and was therefore "offending all Muslims".

Tantawi should be offended about the suicide bombings, not about the Pope.

I was on the William Bennett show this morning following Zuhdi Jasser, the Muslim leader who has offered to help the passengers who are being sued by the Flying Imams.

Now several people have written to me about an allegation by a blogger that on the show I said I was "optimistic" about the prospects for Islamic reform. This is false. I am not optimistic about the prospects for Islamic reform, although I support the efforts of individual reformers who are sincere. I did not say on the Bennett Show or anywhere else that I was "optimistic" about the prospects for Islamic reform. I have written about Islamic reform quite extensively here at Jihad Watch and in my books, explaining why it will be prohibitively difficult because of the nature and entrenched character of Qur'anic literalism, the violent response reformers receive, and more. As I have said many times, there are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. That fact must be faced by both reformers and those who place high hopes upon them. And in fact, on the Bennett show this morning I explained why Islamic reform faced monumental obstacles, and said that we should not kid ourselves about its prospects for large-scale success.

Anyone listening with any attention would have realized that on this question I was just the opposite of optimistic.

If a transcript or mp3 of the Bennett show becomes available, I will post it.

About three-quarters of a million people (okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little) today have sent me a Reuters story, "Woman re-interprets Koran with feminist view" by Manuela Badawy.

In it, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, formerly of the University of Chicago, offers an alternative translation of Qur'an 4:34, the notorious "wife-beating verse." The article says:

In the new book, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, a former lecturer on Islam at the University of Chicago, challenges the translation of the Arab word "idrib," traditionally translated as "beat," which feminists say has been used to justify abuse of women.

"Why choose to interpret the word as 'to beat' when it can also mean 'to go away'," she writes in the introduction to the new book.

I was just contacted by Dziennik, the largest daily newspaper in Poland (where apparently political correctness doesn't have the stranglehold it has over the American media) for comment. Here is my reply:

Any new interpretation that mitigates the elements of the Qur'an that are used by jihadists today to foster violence and fanaticism is welcome. Accordingly I wish Laleh Bakhtiar well with her new translation. Unfortunately, she faces formidable obstacles: in 1400 years of Qur'anic exegesis by Muslims, no one of any significance has ever disputed that Qur'an 4:34 sanctioned wife-beating.

Those who were uncomfortable with this in the past focused their efforts not on alternative understandings of Qur'anic Arabic, but on ahadith that purported to depict Muhammad discouraging wife-beating in various ways. Unfortunately also, such ahadith have not prevented all too many Muslim men worldwide from understanding Qur'an 4:34 in a way that sanctions wife-beating. A Saudi television program has even featured a discussion of acceptable instruments for this beating, and books have appeared in Turkey and Spain in the last few years in which Islamic imams explain the circumstances in which wife-beating is acceptable.

All this illustrates that Laleh Bakhtiar faces an uphill battle and will encounter fierce and possibly violent opposition. In that I wish her all success.

He was a Sunni who was working within the Shi'ite government. "We announce to the Islamic nation, to our people and expecially al-Zubayi's tribe, that the soldiers of Iraqi Islam have with Allah's permission struck the so-called vice premier close to his home." From AKI, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Baghdad, 23 March (AKI) - Al-Qaeda in Iraq has claimed reponsibility for Friday's suicide attack that injured Iraqi deputy premier Salam al-Zubayi. "We announce to the Islamic nation, to our people and expecially al-Zubayi's tribe, that the soldiers of Iraqi Islam have with Allah's permission struck the so-called vice premier close to his home," said a message posted to the Internet, signed by by the 'Iraqi Islamic state', the jihadi formation with which al-Qaeda in Iraq has now merged.

Al-Qaeda received information from its followers that al-Zubayi was seriously injured in the attack - the message said. It concludes with fresh threats directed at all the members Nouri al-Maliki's government, and with a prayer by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Abu Hamza al-Muhajiri, invoking al-Zubayi's death.

A subsequent message will disclose the details of the suicide attack on al-Zubayi's compound, the 'Iraqi Islamic state' said.

A press release from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty:

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm renowned for defending all faiths, today offered to defend for free any individual citizens sued by the Muslim plaintiffs in what has become known as “the case of the flying imams.” “The Flying Imams” lawsuit was announced on March 13 by Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The suit was filed by a New York attorney, Mr. Omar T. Mohammedi, on behalf of six Muslim leaders who were taken off a US Airways flight under disputed circumstances in November, 2006.

The lawsuit targets the airline, Minnesota’s Metropolitan Airports Commission, (a government agency) and – significantly – several “John Does.” The complaint makes clear that at least some of these John Does are placeholders for ordinary citizens who are alleged to have reported their concerns about the conduct of the imams to the airlines.

In a stinging open letter to Mr. Awad, Becket Fund president Kevin J. Hasson denounced the targeting of private citizens as far outside the scope of legitimate civil rights test cases.

In its 12 year history the Becket Fund has represented clients from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and other traditions. This is, however, the first time they’ve ever opposed someone’s claim of religious discrimination. The Becket Fund will also promptly seek leave to file a brief in the case urging the trial court to keep secret the identity of the John Does. Hasson said they were driven to such action by the outrageousness of the Flying Imams’ tactics. “We know religious liberty. Religious liberty is a client of ours,” Hasson says in the letter. “And this claim is not about religious liberty.”

The always perceptive David Thompson discusses the implications of the Charlie Hebdo verdict. Be sure to go to David's site and follow the links, which I have not included here.

Further to this piece, and this and this, the BBC reports that the editor of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, has been acquitted. A French court rejected accusations by the Grand Mosque of Paris and other Islamic groups who claimed the magazine had “insulted Muslims” and had incited “hatred” against them by reprinting cartoons of Muhammad. Of the blog posts I've seen reporting this news, Oliver Kamm makes the strongest point, and one that's all too rarely heard:

“Note, however, one aspect of the judgement, according to the BBC report, that troubles me: ‘The cartoons were covered by freedom of expression laws and were not an attack on Islam, but fundamentalists, it said.’ Do freedom of expression laws not cover an attack on Islam? It is essential that they should. There is nothing wrong with an attack on Islam (or any other sacred belief). There is nothing wrong with giving offence to religious groups. The judgement appears implicitly to reject these principles. Defenders of a free society must assert them militantly.”

Let me repeat some of that, because it bears repeating, and probably more than once:

“There is nothing wrong with an attack on Islam (or any other sacred belief).”

One of the creeping, unanalysed myths of our time is that it is somehow wrong to dislike Islam, or any part thereof, and wrong to take a dim view of its tenets and demands, and wrong to take a still dimmer view of the figure who founded it. I can practically hear the distant tutting and grunts of disapproval. Poor Islam. Poor Muslims. Their beliefs are being mocked. How hurtful. How 'racist.' How terribly unfair.

No. It's not unfair at all. What's unfair is a demand for unearned deference and a unilateral exemption from the testing of ideas. What's unfair, indeed despicable, are efforts by Islamic groups to cow dissent and stifle criticism with a well-rehearsed pantomime of victimhood and the projection of false motives. Pretending to be hurt in order to assert one's will over others, even violently, or to gain unreciprocated favours, or to exert control over what others may say and think, is cowardly and malign. Let me say that once again. It's cowardly and malign.

Bravo. Read it all.

Covering their dhimmi tracks. By Paul Revoir in the Daily Mail, with thanks to Rudi:

The BBC has been accused of "shameful hypocrisy" over its decision to spend £200,000 blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East.

The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.

BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public.

The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias.

The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent.

Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible".

Indeed.

Here's the story, from the Daily Mail.

I hope that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, law enforcement officials, and liberal and conservative media figures will soon be lining up for this surgery.

Since "anti-Muslim bias" all too often means "having a realistic and informed awareness of the elements of the Qur'an and Sunnah that jihadists use to justify their actions," this is an attempt to stack the jury with witless naifs who will be more likely to buy the assertion that these men were just acting upon their sincerely held religious beliefs, and what could possibly be wrong with that, since we all know that religious beliefs are always and in every case benign, except when they are held by Christian fundamentalists?

"Jurors to be screened for anti-Muslim bias," by Evan S. Benn in the Miami Herald (thanks to Ruth King):

Potential jurors in the upcoming trial of a Boca Raton doctor and three other men accused of conspiring to help terrorists will be screened for anti-Muslim biases.

A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that attorneys for Dr. Rafiq A. Sabir, Tarik Shah, Abdulrahman Farhane and Mahmud Faruq Brent can ask possible jurors to fill out questionnaires before jury selection begins.

The questions cannot ask potential jurors about their religious beliefs, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said.

The men, all U.S. citizens who are Muslim, are scheduled to stand trial April 24. They have pleaded not guilty.

Sabir, 52, was arrested at his Palm Beach County home in May 2005, days after investigators claim he recited an oath of loyalty to al Qaeda in front of an undercover FBI agent.

Prosecutors say Sabir agreed to use his medical training to treat injured terrorists in Saudi Arabia. But his attorney, Ed Wilford, has said Sabir never stated or implied a desire to harm Americans.

Shah, a New York musician and martial arts expert, is accused of taking the same oath as Sabir and agreeing to train terrorists in hand-to-hand combat.

Farhane, a Brooklyn bookstore owner, allegedly discussed a plan with Shah in December 2001 to send money to terrorist fighters in Afghanistan so they could hurt U.S. troops.

Brent, a Washington, D.C., cab driver, is accused of conspiring to support Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based terror group.

More information on this story. One of those who sent this in said, "I guess this is will be a September 1, 1939 Alert." Maybe. But I suspect more varieties of appeasement will be in the offing first.

"Iran nabs British sailors in Iraq waters," by Robert Barr for Associated Press (thanks to all those who sent this in):

LONDON -- Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors who had boarded a ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf off the Iraqi coast on Friday, officials said.

The British government demanded "the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

The British Navy personnel were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, Britain's Defense Ministry said.

"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and ... the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office," the ministry said.

Afghanistan is often held out as the "success" (as opposed to what even Bush loyalists cannot deny is the mess in Tarbaby Iraq) story. It is true that al Qaeda was attacked and the Taliban driven out. But Islam wasn't driven out – Sharia was enshrined in the new Afghan Constitution. Islam wasn't driven out of Afghanistan or Pakistan. And the Taliban, who are simply the Truest Believers in Islam as the Answer to Everything, found refuge and support and were re-supplied in Pakistan. Pakistan is not the same thing, though the Americans keep confusing the two, as General Pervez Musharraf, and he is meretricious in his dealings with the Americans, whose money and military equipment he wants to keep on receiving in such fantastic quantities.

Meanwhile, Karzai is amiable and weak. His government, and all the local governments, are as corrupt as they can be -- and will remain corrupt. If you are an American taxpayer, you might not exactly wish to have your money flowing into the abyss of Afghanistan, enriching this or that local Muslim crook, just as so many Iraqis made off with a grand total of billions in American taxpayers' money and are now living the high life in Beirut, or more likely, Paris and London.

Iran recently threatened to kidnap American soldiers and feed them to roosters.

Roosters? Feed American soldiers to the roosters?

These days I am often led to think of Senator Foghorn Leghorn.

But thinking of Senator Foghorn Leghorn is not a result only of the Iranians threatening to throw our soldiers to those roosters. No, there are other reasons for such a thought.

Look at Congress.

An update on this story. "Mardan barbers warned not to shave beards," from the Daily Times:

MARDAN: After Dir and Bajaur, barbers in Mardan have also received letters from a purported jihadi outfit to stop shaving beards. Sana hairdresser, a barbershop in the Par Hoti area, has received a letter from an organisation called Tanzeemul Mujahideen NWFP, warning barbers that they should stop shaving beards, otherwise their shops would be set on fire or bombed. The letter reads: “Our beloved Muslim brothers, listen and listen attentively and then think over it that shaving off beards is a great sin.