While the knee-jerk response is still to brand as "bigots" all those who call upon Muslims to confront and work against the violence engendered by Islamic teaching, Youssef Ibrahim is not afraid to stand up and speak the truth.
From the New York Sun (thanks to all who sent this in):
The latest batch of attacks by Islamic terrorists raised fresh concerns among Muslims over what they fear may be "heinous attempts" to link terror with Islam.British Muslims, who number 1.6 million, are reportedly funding advertising campaigns across Britain that proclaim Islam is "the religion of peace" — in the process also implicitly warning fellow Britons against criticizing their faith.
Yet a year ago, a weighty Muslim writer and pundit, Abdelrahman Al Rashed, manager of the pan-Arab TV network Al-Arabiya Television, famously launched a stormy debate when he opined, "While all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are now Muslims."
Ever since, the question among Muslim scholars and activists is precisely how much of the terror inspired by Islam is due to the faith itself — and how much is due to the way it is being preached.
Clearly, the issue is enormously delicate, fraught with the pitfalls of prejudice and all sorts of other sensitivities.
But as hundreds of thousands of people from New York to Baghdad are butchered under Islam's banners, failing to tackle it head-on is unacceptable.
Read it all.
Yet a year ago, a weighty Muslim writer and pundit, Abdelrahman Al Rashed, manager of the pan-Arab TV network Al-Arabiya Television, famously launched a stormy debate when he opined, "While all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are now Muslims."
As written, his statement makes no sense. "All muslims are not terrorists" is the logical equivalent of "No muslim is a terrorist". I imagine he meant "Not all muslims are terrorists"
While I guess any such statement from a Muslim might be worth a lukewarm praise, even he avoids the major issue with the following statement further down the article:
Why blame the clerics? Why not concede that throughout Islamic history, it has been spread by a combination of the sword and institutionalized discrimination against non-Muslims to the point that the bulk of Christians in the Middle-East & North Africa, Zoroastrians in Iran and a third of Hindus in India converted? It wasn't something that the clerics did - everybody - from Caliph Umar I down did that, and it's a factor common to Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Farsis, Afghans and Moghuls.If one is going to criticize this aspect of Islamic rule, there isn't a way to go about it without criticizing Islam itself. If Youssef Ibrahim is unwilling to do that, his calls are unlikely to achieve a solution.
"Could it be that their version of Islam is also the problem?"
Could it be that any conceivable version of Islam is necessarily the problem?
Islam is still the Enemy.
From the article: "Ever since, the question among Muslim scholars and activists is precisely how much of the terror inspired by Islam is due to the faith itself — and how much is due to the way it is being preached."
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
The only questions I see being widely discussed are 1) how the infidels can be re-educated through dawa (propaganda) to accept the assumed "perfection" of Islam--that is, how to better implement the "slow jihad," and 2) how to limit PR damage to the image of Islam from the "fast jihad" types who are blowing their cover.
Yes, indeed, read it all, including the last sentence.
Ibrahim writes as if Islamic terror has just become manifest in the last 40 years.
He is like Daniel Pipes in that he (seems) to think that there is some benign, even good, Islam that exists. It is just the preaching that is the problem! Islam has veered off course! These preachers have "weaponized" the text! Al Qaeda are charlatans!
As Robert himself, Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, Andrew Bostom, Bat Ye'or, Serge Trifkovic and Hugh have shown in excrutiating detail is that Islam has ALWAYS been murderous, following the example of Muhammad himself.
Play a mind game and imagine yourself a Hindu living in western India in the 11th century. Now watch as tens of millions of your country are simply slaughtered by Muslims following the example of Muhammad.
How many times do we have to say that an Islam that speaks of REAL brotherhood, tolerance, etc would have to do away with much of the Koran, the Hadith and Muhammad himself, and that this WOULD NOT BE ISLAM.
I say our only hope of survival is to expel Islam from our midst and hit back many, many times harder every time Muslims attack us, and then, and only then, wait and watch until Islam reforms itself.
Ibrahim is either a fool, trying to fool himself or trying to fool us.
"Reasonable Muslims now agree that when a religion veers so far off course, it loses immunity to inquisition. "We ought to go through very serious questioning and soul-searching," a founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Dr. Maher Hathout, wrote on "The American Muslim" Web site Thursday. "How did we, as a group, fail to nip this ugly phenomenon in the bud?" he asks. "How did we indulge in the luxury of theoretical debates, and craft all kinds of euphemisms to let this go on, spill out, and grow?""
This kind of gibberish is just one end of the jihad spectrum , anyone who thinks this is a phenomenon, or that Islam can withstand any scrutiny is a liar or ignorant, Im going with the former I used to fall in with the later but after this late date. Its jihad now.
Muslims are fairly peaceful, provided that their demands are complied with (however unreasonable those demands may be).
"KLA threaten fresh fighting in Kosovo
PRISTINA Veterans of Kosovo’s 1998-99 guerrilla war said they were prepared to take up arms again if deadlock between the West and Russia continued to block the province’s independence from Serbia.
The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army veterans warned the international bodies running the territory, primarily the United Nations, not to block the process. A statement said that if their demand for independence was not met they would be “forced to act as KLA soldiers to fulfill the oath of our national heroes”. Talks between Serbs and Albanians ended in stalemate in March." (Reuters)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2045917.ece
With the attack by Muslim doctors in the UK, I've seen a number of people who tended to be on the "protect minorities at all costs" start to question whether Muslims are different from your normal immigrant group. And more importantly whether their theology/ideology is dangerous to the common good.
I sometimes shock people with my position that Islam is a parasitical supremacist religion that generates an inferior culture which then is highly reactive and violent towards truly superior cultures which will naturally criticize the belligerent new Muslims. Muslim offensive reactions are part of the religion's constructed method of spreading. Muslims enter a new culture & declare themselves superior. They do not advance economically due to their belief that their god wills everything (Muslims in business rarely plan, family planning is also rare) and they naturally invite criticism of their troublesome behaviours. The host culture reacts with criticism which is then interpreted as great offensive (Blasphemy) by the Muslim population (how dare inferiors criticize us ... we are superior therefore we must not be advancing economically because they hate us.) and functions as a method in which in order to advance Islam through intimidation and violence.
The Islamic advancement formula is simple:
Move in, invite criticism by acting belligerently superior, make religious/cultural choices which invite poverty, use external criticism to justify jihad against the host population's "blasphemy", subdue the host population in dhimmitude, repeat with new host population.
If this is not true, look at how Muslims have related to Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and most any other culture they move into with any significant numbers. Never allow Muslims to introduce blasphemy laws ... it is the death of your own culture.
Foehammer:
“Islam is still the Enemy.”
Well said and precisely so in quite the same manner as the scorpion explained “its my nature” after fatally stinging the trusting frog who had carried him a crossed the river.
The article said there were advertising campaigns run by British Muslims. I have seen no such advertising. Does anyone have any examples?
I belivie thair can be decent Muslims. But It is getting to the point ware it is clear we can not live with them. 'Moderate Muslims' need to understand Western Multicultural dilution will last only so long. The tipping point will be an evil day.
I don't presume to tell Islam how to run their rel
pigion, but I believe it is time to quarantine them until they have this little quirk of killing us worked out. We don't have to allow 7th Day Adventists inside, so why Muslims?
James Martel: Fine analysis. My compliments. I would only add that any achievements in the Islamic world early on were really Arab or Persian contributions within a still loosely structured Islamic framework. Once Islamic authorities really began to get control by around 1200 A.D., intellectual achievements in the Muslim world began to dry up rather quickly. And even before that, the most impressive minds of medieval Islam, individuals like Avicenna and Averroes, were still in trouble on a regular basis with the guardians of the infallible faith. Since the High Middle Ages, and especially since around 1500, what has the Islamic world as a whole achieved? Some interesting art here and there and that's about it. For centuries now Muslims have languished and have lived off the accomplishments of others who passed them by long ago.
Each time Muslims suicide bomb the West, the West wakes up a little bit more each time. The question is though: How many suicide bombings is it going to take, for the West to wake-up completely?
I'm thinking a briefcase nuke would do the job, but then, knowing Islamic apologists as I do, I suspect that even that may not be enough.
Personally, I'd rather it was suicide bombs that woke up the West, rather than 60-80 years down the line, after the West's population has massively declined, whilst the Muslim population has sky-rocketed into double digit percentages throughout the West.
Mark Steyn called a 10% Muslim population "The Point Of No Return", and I am inclined to agree with him, because such a population percentage, could only be resolved through a massive civil war.
Luckily, in my country (UK), the Muslim population is around 3-4%, so it's not double digits yet, but there are other EU countries like Sweden, which have reached 10%. One only need look at the riots in Malmo (Sweden), to see the results of said population numbers.
When I first started finding out about islam I figured that it was indeed the "the religion of peace", but it was misspelled.
"the religion of piece's of body parts" is more like it.
Rogster, I am afraid you are right. Look at what it takes to get safety on a street from drivers that are usually speeding - at least one death and usually more - before something is done to deal with the speeders. And usually you will find that people have asked that something be done well before someone died.
I think it has to do with the psychology of the masses. It is why islam has been so successful in its attacks in the past - it depends on the masses tiring out, or trying to deal for peace, or some such thing. Islam's first battles is where most of the tactics of battle were drawn up and they follow to this day - and as the big Mo said himself - 'war is deception'. Tell them anything they want to hear - and do what you have to do to win. And if one must do a peace treaty - make sure it is no longer than 10 years and it can be broken at anytime if the muslim feels they are regrouped and rearmed sufficiently.
Peace defined by Islam: Kill, Mame, Destroy for allah.
So in that sense, it is a "religion of peace". They have everything else backwards, why should peace be treated any differently.
Sorry, I meant France had 10% population. I should have checked the demographics before saying Sweden.
My Swedish associate informs me that the Muslim populations there, generally live in Rosengård, which is 95% non-swedes. Almost like a giant ghetto.
The 10% Muslim population (Accurate to 2006 statistics) of France, explains why France had really violent suburban rioting.
At least they got a decent guy in charge now (Sarkozy), but we still have to see whether he will do anything to lower that percentage..
"British Muslims, who number 1.6 million, are reportedly funding advertising campaigns across Britain that proclaim Islam is "the religion of peace" — in the process also implicitly warning fellow Britons against criticizing their faith."
..........according to recent polls taken in UK in the Muslim communities, the PRO JIHAD endearment is quite strong....their implicit warnings are the same as the warnings given to many Muslims murder victims just before they are slain....
..ban Muslim Immigration..
Ruebacca:
Sample of Muslim advertising campaign:
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/07/07/fitzgerald-nonsense-and-lies-and-those-who-fall-for-them/
Folks, I have the feeling we are coming to a crossroads very soon.
While the West's leaders will not even name the enemy, will not fight with all the might we possess, the islamic nation is rising.
Musharraf is hanging on by a thread. When he falls, the nuclear arsenal Pakistan has will be in the hands of moslems who, like Iran, have no compunction in using them against us or anyone who dares utter insults to their "prophet".
Will we act in time to save the civilized world? I'm beginning to wonder if our leaders care.
Wholesale condemnation of the act of first degree murder does NOT constitute "bigotry"; even the most egregious knee-jerk character assassins on the left will agree to that.
Now that we've found somethng we can ALL agree on, we can go on to prove that the Kuran teaches first degree murder against the "unbelievers" in its verses, as in its sword passage contained in Surah 9.5. So far, so good.
These are simple facts. First degree murder is ostensibly an integral part of the Islamic religious institution.
Muslims generally accept and believe what the Kuran teaches including its violent commands to harm the 'unbelievers'. Muslims often form exclusively Islamic groups to masscre non-Muslims believing that they are doing good work in carrying out the violent acts against "kaffir" so commanded by al-lah in the Kuran. Such attacks on non-Muslims by Muslim cadres are perceived as and routinely referred to in the western democracies as "terrorism."
Islam has taken hundreds of millions of innocent human lives over the centuries; it continues to slaughter innocent humans around the world in the name of al-lah each day, has caused vast human suffering in many ways (millions more have been maimed for life, countless millions live under brutal Islamo-fascist dictatorships that have yet to comprehend that life itself has value in itself, viable civilizations have been obliterated without justification), etc.
As long as Muslims continue to believe the Kuran's deadly diatribes against the 'unbelievers' they will continue acting out such demented episodes as 9-11, the destruction of Smyrna, Greece in 1922, the Final Solution, etc. And Islam will continue harming our world unspeakably. These are legitimate grounds for taking action against Islam, no matter what leftist hacks like the ACLU and others tell us.
In fact, those people in the western democracies and elsewhere who do KNOW Islam teaches first degree murder against the "unbelievers" and stop non-Muslims from defending themselves from Islamic terror groups on the grounds that doing so is "bigotry" are misusing the term 'bigotry' and are making themselves accessories of first degree murder en masse. And they make enemies of themselves while defending Islam's "right" to commit murder against the "unbelievers."
The ACLU and others on the left might be interested in knowing that they are not earning themselves any points with Islam through their defending it. They are "kaffir" too according to the Kuran and are targeted for destruction as a result despite their pro-Islam efforts!
I could imagine the UK government giving a public address to the people, and in it they declare: "In the interests of national security, all Muslim immigration has been banned...indefinitely".
Oh the uproar that would ensue...
Those 1.6~ million Muslims would take to the streets and do some serious damage. I mean, the police can deal with maybe a thousand protesters, but it can't deal with millions, who may in turn become violent and literally overwhelm the police, and then turn this country upside down.
This is why the government is so scared of admitting that Islam itself is the problem, because they are scared of those 1.6~ million Muslims rioting on a truly massive civil-war scale. Instead, they are relying on hoping for 'reform' -_- Hell will freeze over before that happens...
A more important question is "Is it a religion at all?". I am posing this question because Islam is using the face of religion to take over the world. With most of the public thinking of Islam as a religion it plays into their hands of the PC treatment of religion. Is Communism a religion of peace? Is Nazism a religion of peace?
Just trying to stretch the topic so people can get there heads around who the enemy is.
by Rogster, "...Instead, they are relying on hoping for 'reform'"
and the muslims smile because they know that 'hoping' only gives them time to grow and take the advantage when the time comes for a true escalation in their violence against us. What we have now is only a few pockets of violence which looks like just bad people which the muslims use in their propoganda. Just like the used the ones who died in the Lebanon/Israeli (and probably every single other war/battle) as propaganda so they could proclaim they were the victims (while they were the ones who not only started the violence, but do it on a daily basis).
ImmadasHELL --
I completely agree with you! Islam is not a religion, and in my opinion, it's more like an organized crime group and Muhammad is their crime boss.
"Religion" is Islams facade -- designed to deceive people into thinking that it has a legitimate place amoung other faiths; but beneath that false exterior lies the Truth, and it ain't pretty.
Islam feeds on hate -- hardly the sort of thing other religions subscribe to.
Islam is a state-manufactured ideology whose origins and underpinnings actually are pre-Muhammadan. Islam has strong Mesopotamian roots which include human sacrifice and fertility rites. It has paganistic evil written all over it.
I think it borders on a cult.
"British Muslims, who number 1.6 million, are reportedly funding advertising campaigns across Britain that proclaim Islam is "the religion of peace" — in the process also implicitly warning fellow Britons against criticizing their faith."
Why are they allowed to get away with this kind of one-sided propaganda? So long as they're allowed to have their say, without anyone presenting a counter view of Islam, millions will be fooled into believing that the propagandist are presenting the real Islam.
Surely there are people in Britain who would be glad to contribute to an advertising campaign to present an oppossing view.
It wouldn't take anything more than buying full page ads in newspapers, listing all the murderous verses from the Koran and Adieth, and then demanding that the Muslim establishment explain there meaning, one by one.
It's my guess the Muslim establishment will dismiss them as being "taken out of contect", but at least the British public will get some idea of whst they're dealing with.
Im.mad.as.HELL, I wrote to AJ Whitehead once - Islam is a political movement that uses religion as a front and god as a weapon.
No, it is not a religion as we know it. It doesn't give the individual the motive to attain a higher being, in fact, it craves on the basest of a human's being - sex, hate, lying, cheating, killing, etc.
But they will get away with it as being a religion because the West hasn't got a clue. Individuals have a clue and we try to give the others a clue, or incentive, to look further into this 'religion'. But, we have groups that have agendas and their own hatred of their own peoples. Some might not hate, but others have their heads up their behinds and are 'hoping' and are anti-war which means they have their heads up their behinds. They might be anti-death/anti-war - but the enemy is not. It doesn't matter what we think it is what the enemy thinks. They are the ones who want us dead - not vice versa.
islam is a merge of religion and politics. That is why the active thrust of claiming land, or dominions, for themselves.
What makes me sick are the 'moderate' muslims who behave as if they are oh, so holy. They behave as if they are lily white while following a mass murdering thug like mohammed?! How can they even think in terms of islam as being a religion?!
This is where I have to go and take a mixer to my brains to try to comprehend muslims/islam.
British Muslims, who number 1.6 million, are reportedly funding advertising campaigns across Britain that proclaim Islam is "the religion of peace"
Meh, let them waste their money advertising it. All the posters in the world saying that Islam is the ROP won't make it true. What are the Brits more likely to believe--an advertising campaign sans proof that Islam is indeed peaceful, or the daily news reports of Islamic violence around the world, and thwarted terror plots in their own country?
Making sense one step at the time. Perhaps too late, but better late than never. ‘Human rights’ laws that seem to be written in stone in civilized nations don’t count for much in Islamistan, and never will. So what is the point of upholding such laws if they protect terrorists who want to destroy us and flock to our countries to bomb us into submission?
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/07/09/%e2%80%98change-human-rights-laws-to-stop-encouraging-terrorists%e2%80%99/
Brilliant points James Martel and Wellington.
I still beg to point out that Muslims clearly base their culture on faithful theology with little regard for factual philosophy (outside the realms of Islamic philosophy).
Being that Allah and the existence of Allah is the supreme centrality to Islam as a belief system, a task which so few are willing to undertake currently is to directly challenge the existence of Allah. And why not do so as yet another column against jihad ideology? If Jihadis wish to eviscerate our most innocent civilians in suicide attacks in the modern world, is it not rational to challenge the moral legitimacy of their god/deity?
If Allah is the creator of ALL life does Allah love all his creation without condition?
Hmmm.
If the existence of Allah is questionable, the faith collapses and Islamic jihad desolves into the bookmarks of human history. This, if I am not mistaken, achieves what we all wish would happen - Islam either shares unending peace with all faiths and all people or that Islam becomes extinct as a world faith. The greatest side effect would be the progression over the next few generations of Muslim children to begin rational inquiry into Islam at the most personal level. True modern ijitihad.
If Allah does not exist or is found to be morally objectionable as an entity, it would be as prudent to confront Muslims on this point as it would be to confront occultists who practice human sacrifice...would it not? Aside from the most simple minds, most modern thinkers reject Islamic thought is perfect and all encompassing but so few are willing to directly grab the bull by the horns and confront Islam everywhere and at anytime.
Once again I wonder when we are going to wake up and stop splitting hairs over this issue and instead focus on the common denominator to this global psychosis - Allah. Remember, Muslims have no proof, they have only faith.
Is this god Allah worthy of worship or is this god worthy of the oblivion of myth?
Islam is a CULT of hate and oppression and war.
End of Story.
P.S. There is no "allah." Doesn't exist.
Rogster:
The article said there were advertising campaigns run by British Muslims. I have seen no such advertising. Does anyone have any examples?/i>
I do. It was in Friday's 6th July issue of the Metro - which I have. (For the benefit of those living outside the UK - the Metro is freebie Newspaper that appears Monday - Friday around London train stations and vast number of copies are on the Tube, Buses and other trains left over every day).
See www.metro.co.uk
But as hundreds of thousands of people from New York to Baghdad are butchered under Islam's banners, failing to tackle it head-on is unacceptable.
This is the new Boeing 787. It cruises around 500 mph, can carry up to 330 passengers, and can go non-stop from the United States to pretty much anywhere in the world. There are 677 firm orders. It is a work of art.
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN0825071220070709?feedType=RSS&rpc=23&sp=true
Given:
- 677 Boeing 787s with an average seating capacity of 300 people.
- The flying distance to Saudi Arabia is 5,000 miles.
- 2/3s of the 3 million American Muslims decline to become Apostates.
- Ground maintenance time is 1/3 of in flight time.
Find:
How long would it take for the new 787s to repatriate those who choose to retain their allegiance to Mohammed?
Answer:
- (1-1/3) * 3,000,000 = 2,000,000 passengers.
- Flight time = 5,000 m / 500 mph = 10 hours.
- Turn around time = 10 hours * 1.3333 = 13 hours, 20 minutes
- Number of trips = 2,000,000 Muslims / 300 passengers = 6,667 trips
- Number of ‘fleet trips’ = 6,667 trips / 677 787s = 9.84 ‘fleet trips’
- Total time = 9.84 fleet trips * 13.33 hours = 130 hours
= 5 days, twelve hours.
Anybody who focuses on telling outsiders and infidels that mohammedanism is "the religion of peace" -- as opposed to proselytizing that message among the mohammedans themselves -- is engaged in a propaganda effort to cover for the jihaddis.
We are getting past the point where it is easy to dismiss such behavior as innocent self-delusion.
There is just too much evidence, too frequently in the public eye, that great numbers of mohammedans simply don't agree, and are prepared to act on their destructive convictions.
At a certain point taking responsibility for one's own awareness -- the willingness to look at the facts and accept the truth -- becomes a moral issue.
And people who default have to be told!
Deluding yourself for the sake of comfort while people are being killed is not excusable.
I am certain Islam falls under the category of "religion" for First Amendment purposes and so I would caution anyone who thinks that listing Islam as a cult or a poltical ideology will solve anything respecting possible prohibition of Islam in America. It won't. Besides, cults and political ideologies are also protected by the First Amendment. Actually, Islam is a religion, albeit the one major religion which is horribly flawed, a cult and a political ideology. But, once again, all are protected by the First Amendment. I take no joy in saying this because I detest Mohammed's creed, but here advise anyone that renaming Islam anything isn't going to work constitutionally and legally. That's why we may very well need a new constitutional amendment making Islam the exception to the First Amendment. Start planning your strategies now.
Wellington, I don't see that happening - at least with the batch of politicians in office now and the ones that are wannabees. The left wing has some pretty strong organizations that will pick up the bat for the muslims too while Saudi Arabia will make sure everyone is funded (bribed/extorted) to vote against such a thing.
How embarrassing, I forgot the return trip. Make that eleven days. Need new batteries for the calculator.
If you can show me a true “Moderate” Mohammedan that isn’t an apostate hiding behind the Najis Kafur or a Kittman performing an excellent act of Taqqiya. Then I shall show you a Carnivorous Unicorn.
Sorry for the rather inane catchy phrase or anti-quotation (something we expect and “love” all so much from “Progressive the Regressive”), but I must head to work and can not expound further.
If you desire a greater in depth examination of the subject, I highly suggest The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades or The Truth about Muhammad both by Robert Spencer.
I also suggest this article, I believe I’ve seen this link here before though.
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/editions/i45/17.pdf
Wellington,
The key is not in getting declared as a non-religion, but to remove its protections guaranteed religion.
America outlawed polygamy, and Mormonism (whatever else one might think about it) had to adjust.
Islam must just become religio-non-grata.
There's something puzzling me. What happens when they succeed, and all religion is for Allah -- and there's no-one left to rob?
Simple. They'll turn on each other.
Wellington:
You seem to forget that US citizens are protected by laws that not only outlaw first degree murder but make this a capital crime.
The Kuran ummistakably teaches first degree murder. Islam equally unmistakably institutionalizes first degree murder ("terrorism" which we are supposedly at war with). In addition, Islam teaches Muslims to collude to commit murder (another capital crime) and teaching that is also sedition another crime.
Since the USA does not practice absolute religious rights, there IS legal justification for outlawing Islam.
Furthermore, Islam practices i its legal system such forms of cruel and unusual punishments as beheadings, stonings, disembowelments, immolations, and amputations. These are UNCONSTITUTIONAL as they are cruel and unusual punishments (if ever there were any).
Sooo, we have to prove that Islamic teaching incites endangerment to American lives.
We need good legal minds and money to make this a go.
"I am certain Islam falls under the category of "religion" for First Amendment purposes and so I would caution anyone who thinks that listing Islam as a cult or a poltical ideology will solve anything respecting possible prohibition of Islam in America. It won't. Besides, cults and political ideologies are also protected by the First Amendment. Actually, Islam is a religion, albeit the one major religion which is horribly flawed, a cult and a political ideology. But, once again, all are protected by the First Amendment. I take no joy in saying this because I detest Mohammed's creed, but here advise anyone that renaming Islam anything isn't going to work constitutionally and legally. That's why we may very well need a new constitutional amendment making Islam the exception to the First Amendment. Start planning your strategies now.
Wellington,
I know we're comming from, and you make some very valid points, but I don't agree that Islam is necessarily protected by the first amendment. The first amendment guarantees freedom of religion, but it doesn't define what a religion is. It's always been pretty much assumed that not every group that wants to call itself a religion will necessarily be recognized as one by the government. I seriously doubt that the Mafia would be recognized as a religion should they declare themselves one. On the contrary, they are recognized as a criminal organization, and no court's going to change that designation. Their criminal activities show themselves for what they really are.
If Islams teachings and activities were judged by the same standardards as the Mafia, it's more than plausable that they could legitimatly and legally be designated something other than a religion.
Considering the actions done in the name of allah, I believe it is a hate driven movement. Everyone seems to be a self proclaimed something or other, when I see a 19 yr old "Imam" on T.V. who is preachin hate, I find it hard to call that a religion. I'll call it islamic pop culture.
Interesting points here made by R_not, rational, pythagoras and ethelred. This is the kind of debate we need when planning how to stifle the spread of Islam in America. I would only point out here that the Constitution will supercede any statutes and the First Amendment is generally understood by American courts of law as superceding any other Amendment with the possible exception of the Fourteenth. So, for instance, the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment will be very difficult to use for banning Islam in America (even though the Koran is a paradigm for action for all time and the Old Testament is not)when weighed agaisnt the First Amendment's protection of religion. But I applaud these efforts to find any loophole or argument which would disallow Islam without violating the First Amendment. And remember, Muslims will hire very clever lawyers to make their case for their creed remaining legal in America. Muslims will also deny their religion says what it really does and that will be a problem too. Hell, it already is. Just trying to outline some of the difficulties we're going to face in dealing with that lovely faith called Islam.
Well the Koran is quite clear in what it compels its followers to do... Can we base our case on that?
How many suicide bombings is it going to take, for the West to wake-up completely?Rogster you would think the size of 9-11 would of woke up more people, but then you have the far off looney lefties blaming the gov't and Bush for this. so many conspiracy theories, and then you have liberal regular loonies saying the US/West in general deserved this, l mean you need just wake up those in West first before we can effectiviely fight islam.
Islam is an evil cult, and has decieved the rest of the world with their lies about being a ROP!
Off Topic, l heard today on Rush's show truly made me sick and enraged, the AlQaeda are going to iraqi people and bullying them into joining their fight, one example truly sent me over the edge, ALQaueda
islamists go to a family , invite them for lunch, and bring in one of the family's son, a ten year old, was baked and presented with an apple in his mouth! How gruesome! and despictable these truly low life evil bastards! The ACLU keeps on harping about the abuses of "Gitmo" etc.. and there is not much talk about the abuses that ALQaedd monsters do to the Iraqi people! Where are those #!$!#$ pictures of abuse by AlQaeda on the pages of NYT!!! where are those !#$!@##$ ACLU lawyers who want help out those #$@$!#$ terrorists? Where is the MUSLIM rage about these killings of truly innocents!! ISLAM needs to be destroyed, as it is truly evil!
I posted a couple of days ago what I thought would be a possible way of getting the government on the offensive. Islam is basically advocating the overthrow of our constitutional form of government. It seems to me that should be grounds enough to shut down Islam in the US.
I also stated I would be inline to sign a constitutional amendment banning Islam and its teaching from this country. I don't think these are extreme views BTW. Because they have made it perfectly clear they would ban all other forms of belief given half the chance.
Quantum Infidel, the quran is clear allahs 'love' is limited to those who fight , what he love not is an extenstive list.
OT:
Anyone go over to Hot Air & are familiar with a poster named logis?
The teachings of Mohammed are incompatible with the Constitution of the United States of America. Therefore, First Amendment protections shall not be extended to Islam. Congress may pass laws as it sees fit to regulate Islam and Muslims up to and including the removal of Citizenship for Americans unwilling to elect Apostasy from Islam.
ZenaWarriorPrincess,
I heard that too...it was just abhorrent that these a*holes stoop to so low a level.
When the MSM will cover, who can say...
I say NEVER.
You Brits are cool .... this brought me to tears of Joy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzN7IxdhrA&NR=1
Pez: First Amendment protections shall not be extended to Islam? They are now and mosques keep rising in America.
Precicely KAOSKTRL,
The Qur'an is crystal clear as to whom Allah loves and loves not.
It's not a moral stretch to establish that Allah is as unworthy of worship based on the obvious sentiments written within the perfect word of the Qur'an.
Philosophically, a parent of flesh and blood can love it's creation with greater empathy than can Allah and not one Muslim can state otherwise.
So the question to any brave Muslim is simple: Does Allah, the creator of ALL life, love all his creation without condition?
Using rape as a weapon - Diane E. King, cultural anthropologist, fellow with the Howard Foundation of Brown University and a researcher at Washington State University.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/08/opinion/edking.php
This is an important article with academic credibilty. It explains the behaviour of Muslim men in war and peace, and as immigrants in non-Muslim countries.
It explains
1. Honour killings
2. The increasing incidence of rapes in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries by Muslims.
3. When there is difficulty in a marriage between a Muslim man and a Western woman, the man kidnaps the children and flees to a Muslim nation
4. Why Muslim courts almost invariably hand custody of the children to the father – another reason why shari’a must never be recognised in the West, and especially not for family matters.
5. The Pakistani Muslims who gang raped girls in Australia asked the court to consider “cultural” factors in mitigation.
Interesting points here made by R_not, rational, pythagoras and ethelred. This is the kind of debate we need when planning how to stifle the spread of Islam in America. I would only point out here that the Constitution will supercede any statutes and the First Amendment is generally understood by American courts of law as superceding any other Amendment with the possible exception of the Fourteenth.
Posted by: Wellington at July 9, 2007 3:57 PM
***
Wellington, I wonder if the starting point isn't with the IRS. I can't see the US government readily accepting a redefinition of Islam as political entity without a catastrophic event. Even then I'm not sure it would happen.
However, the IRS has specific rules pertaining to the tax exempt status of religious organizations. In election years past, they've sent friendly "love letters" to churches warning them of all the things that cannot be said or done if the churches want to maintain their tax exempt status. I have to wonder if some of the jihadist literature and sermons in mosques don't cross that line.
Removing the tax exempt status of mosques will make them very expensive to operate. Think property taxes, income taxes, the loss of the tax deduction for donors.
Graphics for ‘Boycott Islam’ Campaign
What about treason? How many American Muslims or Muslim immigrants can say they don't want to see our Consititution-based secular government replaced with an Islamic caliphate/theocracy?
As the only religion whose adherents are currently calling for the overthrow of our government (as opposed to the defeat of certain candidates), every mosque should be monitored and no Muslims should be allowed into the country as long as this tenet of Islamic theology remains in place.
CJ: Well, my compliments to you for thinking innovatively. I would point out, though, that urban and southern black Christian churches in this country have been politicizing things form the pulpit for decades without the IRS getting too worked up about it. And I think that PC and multiculturalism will make it even harder to go after mosques, where hate and political ideology are preached on a weekly basis in New Jersey, Michigan and across America. But, hey, yours is an idea to keep in mind.
Muslims declare sovereignty over U.S., UK
Hear Islamic leaders in London: 'Queen Elizabeth, go to hell!'
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56503
Making sense one step at the time. Perhaps too late, but better late than never. ‘Human rights’ laws that seem to be written in stone in civilized nations don’t count for much in Islamistan, and never will. So what is the point of upholding such laws if they protect terrorists who want to destroy us and flock to our countries to bomb us into submission?
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/07/09/%e2%80%98change-human-rights-laws-to-stop-encouraging-terrorists%e2%80%99/
http://www.nysun.com/article/8565
Democracy is considered a FOREIGN IDEOLOGY.
What Muslim will tell us that this isn't true?
Saudi works on Islamic theology also preach the incompatibility of liberal democracy and Islam.
One book published by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, also found at the Al-Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn, even authorizes Muslims to kill converts to Islam who tolerate homosexuality.
More threatening is the danger of "foreign ideologies," such as human rights and democracy. "The freedom to which the enemies of the religious laws call us requires a coup against Islam and a revolution against the Prophet Mohammed,"
explains a publication of the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, which was at one time sponsored by the Saudi government.
One of the only times I've seen my site, JW and MEMRI mentioned in the same article:
Kooky Jim Sutter: Good News on Spreading Ban of Hate Speech Site
America's a democratic country. If Americans want to ban Islam and/or stop Muslim immigration, then it's a simple matter of a referendum. Let the people decide. This will take all responsibility away from government, for circumventing any laws which may be in conflict.
I know that I would personally vote a big fat YES, to banning both Islam and Muslim immigration. A poll for the general public, asking the question: "Is Islam a Religion of Peace, Yes or No?" and deciding based upon that, would be a good first step. If the majority of Americans said Yes, then it's pretty certain that they will also vote Yes in a referendum on the above.
Whaddya think? ;)
What happens when they succeed, and all religion is for Allah -- and there's no-one left to rob?
Posted by: Marwan'sDaughter
That seems to be the situation in Islamistan right now. They are imploding and exploding from Egypt to Indonesia, they produce nothing of value except heeps of children and live on the jiziyah. Their clerics encourage them to migrate and conquer our countries, and they believe they will be successful doing that....
The Church of Satan is financed by the government as long as they call it church.
Financed by the government? Which government?
This represents a good argument against the mythical belief that Islam is a religion of peace.
http://www.islam-watch.org/Amber/Islam-Trial-Prosecution-Case.htm
Rogster: Even if some referendum banning Islam in America was passed (and I am virtually certain that couldn't happen yet), all that would have to occur then to negate it would be a court challenge (which I assure you would come) and a decision by some court that the referendum is unconstitutional. After all, even Congressional acts are sometimes declared unconstituional by the courts. What makes you think a referendum couldn't be? So, we're back to square one, i.e., the First Amendment. I esteem the First Amendment but in the case of Islam I can envision only too clearly how it will be used against us.
Pez: First Amendment protections shall not be extended to Islam? They are now and mosques keep rising in America.
-Wellington
Yes, but when the American people (37% of which had a negative view of Islam in 2002, 46% in 2006, better than half today, and well over 75% when lives really begin to be impacted) pass this Constitutional Amendment:
The teachings of Mohammed are incompatible with the Constitution of the United States of America. Therefore, First Amendment protections shall not be extended to Islam. Congress may pass laws as it sees fit to regulate Islam and Muslims up to and including the removal of Citizenship for Americans unwilling to elect Apostasy from Islam.
…that game ends.
The next step is the 787s (or pick a plane of your choice, maybe jump seats in C-5s) with halal in-flight meal service.
About immigration: In NZ we have a points system, letting in only people we deem useful to this country. The questionnaire for applicants does include questions regarding assimilation, including attitudes to women etc and an explanation of our laws about gender equality and homosexuality. Also, English skills come into the points. Of course there is taqiyya in such situations, but it's a starting point.
My point is that countries need to get over the idea that immigration is a 'right'. It's a privilege, only for those a country actually needs and wants.
I think doing anything explicitly against islam would be difficult in most western political systems. Our best bet is picking the worst aspects of islam and making sure that they are illegal and strongly controlled. And we need points systems that make it hard for the wrong people to get in and *easy* to get rid one the wrong people who do get through.
This doesn't solve the problem of second/third generation radicals with immigrant muslim parents/grandparents who were quite peacful or even secular when they came in...
He speaks with more courage and veracity than our three Amigos in the White House: George, Condi, and Karen. They are about as clueless as the Three Stooges.
While Muslims like Youssef Ibrahim come quite a distance, they still show us that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not read the Qur'an, because they are not encouraged to. Besides, it's not in their native languages.
Well, pez, I like that draft of yours for an addition to our Constitution. I wish such an amendment wasn't necessary but I'm afraid it eventually will be because, let's face it, Islam poses a threat to our way of life in sundry ways. For anyone out there who thinks First Amendment protections should not extend to Islam, ask yourself this question: what percentage of the American judiciary today would be prepared to hold that Islam is not protected by the First Amendment? I doubt if it would reach even 10%. And it is the American judiciary where the focus must be first and foremost. That's why I have concluded that an additional amendment to the Constitution explicitly banning Islam from America will eventually be required. Of course, perhaps after we lose Chicago or New York, the First Amendment may be seen in a different light respecting protection of that ultimate religion of peace and tolerance, Islam, but even then I could not be certain and I never want to be guilty of underestimating the capacity for idiocy of liberal judges, of whom we have a veritable plethora across the land.
This isn't anything to do with limiting freedom of speech. It's to do with putting a stop to a violent death cult, which will eventually bring America to it's knees, where America will be summarily beheaded, to the cries of "Allahu Akbar"
Question about Youssef Ibrahim:
Did his views change over the past five years?
In 2002, he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, giving the type of Saudi apologist views so common in the Washington foreign policy establishment and the oil industry. He was also employed by a British oil company around 2000 or 2001.
These days his articles have a decidedly anti-Saudi and anti-jihadist bent. Far from insisting that Saudi Arabia is a good friend of the U.S., a moderating force against Anti-Americanism and far better than any other likely option to rule Arabia, Ibrahim has gone so far as to write that we would be better off if the guys with the guns and the beards took over as it would give us clarity. At least then we would accept the idea the the rulers in Arabia are jihadists and enemies. He also has taken a more pro-Israel, pro-Infidel stance in recent years. He called Pakistan, Iraq and Egypt countries that pretend to be allies of the U.S.
What accounts for such a drastic change of heart? Did the Saudis not come through with their payments? Was he "consulting" for the oil industry during the early part of the decade and just mouthing the expected views? Is he just playing to his audience by taking more anti-jihad position now that the NY Sun is paying the bills?
I hate to question Mr. Ibrahim's integrity, but you don't see many people--especially ex-journalists--with his level of experience undergo such a drastic change in their view of the world. I have enjoyed many of his articles the past few years and consider him one of the strongest anti-jihad colomnists outside of websites like Jihad Watch. I'm just really confused as it is hard to believe his comments on the Charlie Rose show in 2002 (transcript available online) came from the same guy.
Does anyone know more about this?
"Tiny minority" revisionism @ Berkeley;
Recall Muslim post-9/11 "solidarity".The author is infamous for bringing Sami al-Arian into the White House (among other things).
Daily Berkeley invites your comments here.
I must admit the posters on jihadwatch are much more wise than the posters on LGF. You bring up banning Islam in the West and you are vilified. Much more deep thinkers here who see the repercussions of allowing Islam to be practiced in the West. Islam is set up to be them or us, no middle ground. Im not about to feel guilty because their "religion" is incompatible with democracy and freedom.
Islam, as a "religion", is the "prophet"'s "beard" to disguise its true nature from the naive infidel dogs.
Islam is an extortion and murder racket.
With robes.
Striping a religion of it tax-exempt status is no problem at all. Remember that Bob Jones university in North Carolina had its tax-exempt status revoked because it offended the Congressional Black caucus by teaching that the Bible did not permit the mixing of races, and therefore interacial dating was not permitted on the university campus.
One could plausably argue that Bob Jones university had every right under the first amendment to believe and practice its faith, free of government interference.
But that did not stop Congress from passing legislation telling the university, in effect, that its theology was all wrong, and therefore, it was not protected by the first amendment. And no Federal court stood by Bob Jones.
If Congress wanted to strip Mosques in the U.S. of their tax exempt status because of what they teach, it could do it. The problem is, they don't want to do it. It wouldn't fit the politically correct ideology that says that Christians are intollerant, and that Islam is a peaceful religion that needs to be protected from persecution by ignorant and intollerant Christians. Period.
Rational: Bob Jones University is a conservative Christian college, therefore it would not elicit any sympathy from government authorities for its theological and societal positions (many of which I personally disagree with). There's a double standard out there big time. Surely you know this. Bob Jones was not PC. Therefore it could be attacked with impunity. But mosques, and Islam in general, are an entirely different matter, protected by layers and layers of PC and multiculturalism. After all, have you ever heard the term Christianphobe? No way. But Islamaphobe is a term heard all over the place. Respectfully, I submit to you that you should reconsider. In a larger context, I would strongly urge all those who properly see the threat to Western Civilization which the Islamic religion really is to be at least as cunning, prepared and resolved as are our enemies, i.e., Muslims and useful infidel apologists here in the West.
From Greg Sheridan...
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/gregsheridan/index.php/theaustralian/comments/we_are_losing_this_war/
How nice to know in Australia we're not that far behind the UK...
"Here is another dilemma. In 2005-06 we took 6500 immigrants from the Middle East, 5000 from North Africa, 2000 from Pakistan and Bangladesh, 2700 from Central Asia and 10,000 from sub-Saharan Africa, about half from mainly Muslim countries. That means probably 20,000 Muslims. They are all absolutely welcome if they want to live according to the basic compacts of Western liberal societies. I have campaigned all my life for non-discriminatory immigration.
But statistically it’s likely that, say, 10 per cent will be attracted to Wahhabi-style Islam or Iranian clericalism, or some other version of extremism. That doesn’t make them terrorists but it means there is a big hinterland of the terrorist precursor, the same soup of the “paranoid and apocalyptic world view” from which it is a short step to active support of al-Qa’ida style activities.
How does a liberal society reconcile the contradiction between its liberalism and its national security?
Senior figures in our national security establishment believe we are drifting into a situation like London, in which our security agencies simply cannot cope. And all the while the capabilities of terrorists are growing. I have no answers to these dilemmas, but it is foolish to think our enemies are not doing very well indeed. "
hat happens when they succeed, and all religion is for Allah -- and there's no-one left to rob?
Posted by: Marwan'sDaughter
I am convinced that the Saudis' began an active campaign in the late 1960's to eventually take over the United States. They figured that by the time their oil resources were depleted they would have established Wahabbism in the U.S. through conversions, immigration, and infiltration of our institutions. Since they have no other natural or human resources, they planned their conquest of America to occur concomitantly with the termination of their gravy train--oil. Think about it; what will the "royal" Saudis do when they no longer have an endless supply of money? They can't remain in Saudi Arabia; the people would lynch them. They already own large chunks of America and I guess their investments would support some of them in luxury for a while, but not forever. And there are thousands of them.
They're planning to rob us; that is their MASTER PLAN. Of course, elaborate schemes like the NWO and Wahabbi America seldom materialize as planned or on schedule; the North American Union was supposed to be a done deal by the year 2000. The Saudis are behind schedule too, but don't think for a moment that they have given up. It's like someone, Frank Gaffney I think, wrote several years ago. There are three competing parties for world domination: the socialists/communists; the muslims/islam; and the Americans/defenders of real freedom. Who will win in the end?
I need to correct my last statement in the above post. I didn't mean "world domination", I meant domination or control of America.
Savitch: You can't reconcile modern liberalism (old-fashioned liberalism is something different; it had socialistic ideas I don't agree with but at least it understood that you had to kick the barbarian's butt time and again) with national security. The two are pretty much mutually exclusive. I quoted Whittaker Chambers before on this site and I'll do so again here. He presciently said that "modern liberalism is a prescription for Western suicide." You've let the most beastly of beasts (i.e., Islam) into your country at precisely the time you have less resolve than ever to handle said beast. The many errors of contemporary leftist thought, whether PC nonsense, multiculturalism, deferrence to international bodies, self-loathing, false compassion, etc., will make it extra difficult for Australia to remain Australia. The whole West is in big trouble and I'm sorry to say your country is no exception to this rule. Things could turn around though if large doses of common sense and a refusal to put up with Islamic nonsense become the norm. A good place to start would be with drastic restriction of Muslim immigration. Good luck, mate.
Wellington,
Well, I don't think ANY of the proposed suggestions would get traction at the moment, no matter how "mild" the suggestion. It just ain't going to happen because ignorance is bliss for too many people. Short of a catastrophic attack, I don't see the country taking the action it needs to take to solve the problem. But after the next foiled plot -- and there IS going to be a next time -- can we position ourselves to start putting in place those things that will ultimately need to be done?
After the next foiled attack, a potentially big attack, such as another Fort Dix or the Kennedy Airport plot, can we campaign Congress for "mild" measures, such as requesting IRS investigations into the political activities (and whether they violate the codes allowable for tax exempt status) at mosques frequented by the would-be perpetrators? (It even feels kind of similar to those crackdowns on Islamic "charities" that were carried out in the post-9/11 days.) Call it the slow anti-jihad. We need something that would keep the punitive focus on the specific religious organization(s)that encouraged the would-be terrorists in their quest (rather than being seen as attacking all Muslims). Then when further would-be attacks are foiled (or worse, committed, and we know there will be further attempts), we could campaign for stronger (but still oh-so-reasonable) measures, say, RICO charges against those involved and their supporters. Then treason. And so on, until at last we are confronting the ultimate issue: Does Islam qualify as a religion deserving First Amendment protections?
Can we find some baby steps that sound reasonable to our see-no-evil-hear-no-evil Congress and our American Idol obsessed masses? I fear the only way enough people will wake up to the danger is when there is an attack with a large body count. But if we can just get the camel's nose into the tent in the meantime, perhaps it will only take one such attack before we do what needs to be done if we are to save our civilization.
"I would strongly urge all those who properly see the threat to Western Civilization which the Islamic religion really is to be at least as cunning, prepared and resolved as are our enemies, i.e., Muslims and useful infidel apologists here in the West."
Wellington,
I wouldn't want to give the impression that I agree that the Congress acted lawfully in revoking Bob Jones' tax exempt status. In fact, I believe that what they did was unconstitutional. But, then, when has that ever stopped them from passing PC legislation, especially when they can be reasonably certain that activist Judges will back them up.
My point was that Congress can do just about anything it wants to do, just so long as it passes muster as "progressive."
Yes, Bob Jones university is a conservative Christian institution, and that's why Congress got away with striping it of its tax exempt status, and that's why the courts backed them up. Consider what would probably happen if it were suggested that Congress Strip all Mosques of their tax exempt status. I suspect they'd all be transformed into defenders of the first amendment, protesting that they have no right to punish a religious institution because of its teachings and practices.
The bottom line is that they could do it because they've done it before (to a conservative Christian institution). They just don't want to do anything to a Mosque, and besides, if they tried, the courts would suddenly find that Mosques, unlike Bob Jones, are protected by the first amendment.
"More than one billion Muslims in the world, including Muslim Americans, live peaceably with
their non-Muslim friends and neighbors."
quoted from Islam's True Nature Lost in Translation, above
Since they always quote the figure of 1.3 billion moslems, that means nearly 300 million do not live peaceably with their non-moslem neighbors. At last they admit it.
In regard to all the comments about the constitution and the first and other amendments: If the political will is there, the constitution and courts are not an obstacle. Actually, the constitution is an asset. It ultimately gives all authority to Congress. It is Congress that sets the Supreme Court's authority and competence. Scenario #1: Congress passes a law outlawing the practice of islam; this is challenged in the courts; the SC finds it un-constitutional; Congress impeaches all the SC justices who voted against the law and (following the president's nominations) appoints new SC justices, who find the law constitutional. Or Scenario #2: Congress passes a law outlawing the practice of islam and includes a clause saying that this law is outside the SC's competence; the law goes into effect.
Remember what was done to Japanese-Americans (most of them citizens) as well as many Italian-Americans and German-Amricans in WW2. Remember the suspension of haveas corpus in the Civil War.
The recent terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow may have been incompetent, but they have certainly sparked off a debate in the MSM, some of which is worth listening to. The current issue of the Specator magazine has four articles about terrorism/Islam, including this one by a muslim woman. It makes a refreshing change from the usual excuse-mongering, even if you do not agree with everything the writer says.
*****
We are up against 20 years of planning
Saira Khan
In July 1989 I had an experience that scared and alienated me, but also made me realise who I was and, more importantly, who I was not — and would never be.
I was 18 and in my first year at Brighton University, where I was studying for a BA in Humanities. I was meeting new people — people of different religions, cultures, ages, sexual orientation, experiences and interests. I was growing up, realising for the first time that there was a world other than the one my parents talked about constantly — the world of Long Eaton (where I lived) and Pakistan. I was discovering that I had a lot more in common with British non-Muslims than I had hitherto realised.
That summer two relatives of my mum’s — girls of my own age — came to stay with us, as they had done often in the past. Like me, they were in their first year at university, but they had changed completely. To my horror, the girls I’d known so well — who were fun, happy, easy-going — arrived at our house wearing hijabs. I’d never seen them dressed like that before, and it was totally alien to me — and to my family and to mainstream Pakistani culture. The two girls I’d know for years, who used to talk about boys, clothes, fashion, music and films, were now wearing Middle Eastern outfits and claiming that this was their new religious identity and it was the true way to dress for any woman claiming to be Muslim.
They told me that they had joined an Islamic group at their university and that there would be daily lectures about Islam. They said that most of these lecturers were from the Middle East. Their key message was that they had to create an Islamic State, which meant that Muslims from all over the world had to unite. These people believed — and believe — that there is no Islamic state and therefore one must be created where all Muslims can live according to the true laws of Islam.
One of girls told me that the ways her parents had brought her up as a Muslim was not the true way and that her parents were misguided and she was trying to educate them through what she had learnt from her Islamic group at university. ‘People like you, Saira, are not Muslims because you are confused with religion and culture,’ she said. ‘There is no culture, there is only religion, and until you accept that you cannot call yourself a Muslim.’ She went on to state, ‘We are not British, we are Muslim.’
My two former companions were extremely well-rehearsed in presenting their arguments. To support a certain line of debate they would recite chapter and verse from the Koran. It’s impossible to argue with someone whose get-out clause is always, ‘It is written in the Koran. We can’t argue with God’s Word.’ The sad thing was that these girls had worked so hard to get to university to study medicine and enable themselves to get a great job. Their mother was just as shocked as I was at their transformation, and at the way they spoke and despised Britain so much. As she put it, ‘I sent them to university to study and become doctors and they’ve come back telling me that I’m not a proper Muslim and that I need to wear a hijab.’ Back then, however, nobody really seemed to take much notice of this very obvious transformation and change in attitude in these two young women.
My point here is not to say that women who wear the hijab are extremists — far less that they will at some stage be involved in some terrorist activity — but to suggest that this is how, in many cases, extremism starts.
It dawned on me after the 7/7 bombings that the seeds of extremism were sown all over Great Britain well before 1989 and that indeed it had been allowed to flourish undeterred in this country for more than 20 years. We in Britain are not fighting a new phenomenon that raised it ugly head in 2005; we are fighting more than 20 years of planning and preparation by those who want Britain to be an Islamic state.
Of course, most British Muslims won’t become violent extremists, but most will endanger society — albeit unwittingly — by supporting and condoning the actions of extremists. Very few will admit this in public, but many will say behind closed doors that they are sympathetic to the bombers’ cause and that they can understand why they are doing it. These things are said in front of young children and justified by various conspiracy theories which nearly always involve Jews, America and the CIA.
But it is not all doom and gloom. In last weekend’s Observer Hassan Butt, once a member of the radical group Al-Muhajiroun, wrote a very open and honest account of his experience. He said: ‘I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise that there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.)’
It is people like Hassan Butt that the government must engage with and give priority to, because they can make a difference; it is they who should be heard over the Muslim Council of Britain and many of the Muslim MPs who think they know the community and who in my opinion are too scared to tell the whole truth in case they lose Muslim votes.
There are too few moderate voices among the Muslim community. As a result, the extremists have their say, and are not opposed. This gives the non-Muslim population the impression that all Muslims are either extremists or agree with radical Islamic principles.
The war against terror cannot be won without moderate Muslims coming out and standing up for British values — the values of integration and living peacefully in a secular society. We should not be scared to shout this out, loud and proud: we should not be intimidated by a few hotheads into thinking we are any less Muslim if we say we are British and don’t want to go around blowing up innocent people in the name of Allah.
British Muslims have to realise that there is no ‘but’ after a sentence like, ‘I wholeheartedly disagree with the terrorist actions and the killings of innocent civilians.’
Another article from the Spectator.
Jihad amid the dreaming spires
Alex Lewis
The chaos and fear wrought by Islamic extremism this week would, ordinarily, seem a thousand miles from what we call the ‘Oxford bubble’. Shocking, of course, most students would say, but emerging from this latest essay crisis is of greater immediate worry. And until this term, I’d think you crazy — and not a little paranoid — for suggesting that radicals would ever manage to infiltrate Oxford’s colleges, or turn nice middle-class girls and boys into Islamists.
But that was before the recent attacks showed that respectable-seeming professionals can be terrorists too, and before I came across Professor Anthony Glees, the director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, and began properly to investigate the rumours that Britain’s univer-sity campuses have been and probably still are recruitment grounds for terrorists.
I first encountered Professor Glees on a wet afternoon in March as we sat in the offices of the Oxford Student, one of the university’s two student newspapers, and prayed for a front page. The first edition of term was approaching and it is a matter of honour (not to mention tradition) that we scoop our older and sterner rival Cherwell. We wanted something bigger than the usual raft of Union politics and charity marathons.
Then we read of a speech Professor Glees was due to make on the threat of Islamic extremism among British students, and decided to investigate. Glees, it turned out, was the author of a controversial 2005 report, ‘When Students turn to Terror’, and it was his conviction that prior to the 7 July bombings up to 48 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and LSE, had been infiltrated by the now-banned extremist group al-Muhajiroun, which sought the creation of a global Islamic caliphate by violent means.
‘We must accept this problem of student recruitment is widespread and underestimated. Unless clear and decisive action against campus extremism is taken, the security situation in the UK can only deteriorate,’ said Glees.
Jihadists in Oxford University? It was certainly the splash we’d been looking for. The problem was, we simply weren’t convinced that it was true. Glees’ work had been criticised by university vice-chancellors for relying too heavily on ‘anecdotal evidence’. Certainly in my time at Oxford I had never encountered extremism — and nor had any of the Muslim students we spoke to. ‘The predominant force in the university has been hyper-conservatism with very boring sermons,’ said one. ‘I’ve not had a whiff of al-Muhajiroun.’
With so much claim and counter-claim, we did what Glees hadn’t — and spoke directly to the extremists. The figure of 48 universities had come from an interview given in December last year by Omar Bakri, exiled leader of al-Muhajiroun, to the Arabic-language newspaper Asharq alwsat. We tracked down a number for his house in Tripoli, Lebanon, where he fled in 2005 after learning that he could face charges of solicitation to murder.
And to our astonishment, Bakri was happy to endorse everything Professor Glees had claimed. He admitted to having spoken at al-Muhajiroun meetings in Oxford University over a 14-year period, and described the University campus as the ideal place to recruit new members. ‘We used to have open discussion sessions inside the Student Union,’ he told us. ‘We were there every Wednesday or Thursday, but we never used an Islamic name. We always had a variety of names — ‘peaceful society’ ‘shisha society’, ‘intellectual society’. No-one paid any attention to us. They didn’t see us as extremists but as intellectual students.’
Bakri claimed to have been visiting Oxford since the 1980s, and to have spoken there during the Bosnian crisis and the first Gulf War. It fitted — in 1996 he’d told the Guardian that al-Muhajiroun planned to recruit from Oxbridge using friendly-sounding front organisations. ‘They will not be able to ban peace and human societies,’ he said, ‘because if they do, it will only backfire!’
Not entirely convinced, we contacted Anjem Choudary, Bakri’s second in command in al-Muhajiroun, and Abu Izzadeen, who has called for the Pope’s assassination and described the 7 July attacks as ‘completely praiseworthy’. (Izzadeen was arrested just days later under the Terrorism Act after an extensive surveillance operation.) Both men confirmed that they had visited Oxford with Omar Bakri as part of a nationwide recruitment campaign — which Bakri claimed secured up to seven converts a day. ‘Sheikh Omar Bakri had many platforms around the country, and I definitely remember watching him speak in a debate in Oxford,’ said Choudary.
Bakri had claimed al-Muhajiroun had the support of up to 30 Oxford students and that they regularly distributed leaflets from a street stall under the name of the ‘Dawah Society’. At our request, Choudary sent the leaflets to us from an email account belonging to Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jamaa’ah, a successor organisation to al-Muhajiroun. One, entitled ‘The Rotten Fruits of Democracy’, described paedophilia and adultery as the products of liberalism: ‘Democracy and all that emanates from it is retarded and perverse. Truly the Kuffaar are upon a falsehood and what they believe in and live according to is what will make them residents of the hellfire. Do you really want to live in a society where people live like animals?’
It was chilling stuff, and certainly made for a great front page. Today, Bakri is barred from returning to the UK, and former members of al-Muhajiroun are under heavy surveillance. But are campuses still at risk from the fanaticism seen in the attacks on London and Glasgow?
This was the subject of my call to Professor Glees earlier this week. He feels the Oxford story and the events of the past week have vindicated his warnings. ‘MI5 currently has 2,000 individuals under surveillance. I’d estimate there are reservoirs of 200,000 who might be up for recruitment, the majority of whom are students,’ said Glees.
‘Look at what Ed Hussein [author of the insider account The Islamist] says. He is very clear — Bakri’s people were going up and down the campuses of this land recruiting. It makes perfect sense — targeting universities is what the communists and CND have always done and it’s all fine, of course, unless you’re looking to use violence to bring about political change.’
So what can be done to keep extremists off campuses? Glees wants to see tougher security and monitoring, and was furious at the University and Colleges Union’s ‘idiotic’ rejection of the DfES proposal that lecturers report suspect students to the police. And though he’s relatively happy with the government’s approach, David Cameron has proved a disappointment to him.
‘I’d say most people on the centre-right could not fail to be impressed at the success of Blair and Brown’s essentially conservative approach. The government is developing sophisticated policies while distinguishing between peaceful and decent Muslims and the small group of self-declared enemies of democracy, and I think it will pay off at election time,’ he said.
‘But David Cameron is a different matter. There is a deafening silence from him on this. How can he be seen as a credible future PM if he cannot stand up for the liberal democratic way of life against those who hate it?’
‘Even in response to the Queen’s Speech last year, he suggested that there was no real security threat and that the government was using the “politics of fear” to cover up its failings. After last week’s attacks, does he still believe that this is the politics of fear?’
‘David Cameron has to reclaim ownership of core conservative values. What else are we fighting for? Churchill made it clear that the Battle of Britain was about a fight between parliamentary liberal democracy and totalitarian dictatorship. It’s the same bottom line here. So where are the Churchills in the Tory party now?’
And where for that matter are the university dons? They should by now be taking the threat of Islamist recruiters seriously and warning students to be on their guard."
Burnside -- Thank you for those.
"...'heinous attempts' to link terror with Islam..."
Heinous is a pretty strong word. I'd save that one for the actions of terrorists and not for those who link terrorism with Islam.
Here's another one, Josephine, also from the Spectator.
'The public know how these attacks happen — unlike the politicians
Rod Liddle
‘Al-Qa’eda brain surgeons fail to blow up large car full of petrol’ has an agreeable ring to it, as a sort of taunt at our enemies and as a comfort blanket while we’re standing in the mile-long queue at Heathrow with a sniffer-dog’s snout in our groins. There is a certain truth to it, too — and one not yet remarked upon, in public at least, perhaps for superstitious reasons: they’re pretty useless, aren’t they? And have been for some time, now. Useless either with cool, state-of-the-art plastic explosives on the Underground, cunning toothpaste tube bomblets at the airport or, the new cruder approach — cars full of petrol to which they apparently forget to apply a cigarette lighter. Almost nothing they do works, usually as a result of their own incompetence and stupidity. Imagine: you join al-Qa’eda, take your medical exams, get a job in a British provincial hospital and spend years patiently plotting, awaiting the right moment and painstakingly growing your beard. An enormous investment of time, money and effort. And then you fill the car full of gasoline and propane and succeed only in setting yourself alight and incurring a few parking fines. Suicide bombers are, by definition, an evolutionary anomaly, a strictly counter-Darwinian development. Maybe the good gene pool has already been blown to smithereens and only the thickoes remain. We may have been left with the jihadist equivalent of Norman Wisdom, squeaking ‘Allah u-Akhbar, Mr Grimshaw!’ shortly before being arrested near Sandbach.
Which I suppose is just as well, given our palpable confusion and double standards when faced with Islamist attacks on our soil. The perpetrators may not have been British born and bred (can anyone explain why this was seen as ‘good news’?) and the car bomb itself a new, imported strategy — but everything else about the events of last weekend was same ol’, same ol’ — including the substance of the Prime Minister’s response, even though he’s a brand new Prime Minister.
We began with the usual and — this time — quite surreal assurances from politicians, Muslim leaders and, in particular the BBC, that the latest attacks were ‘nothing to do with Islam’. This is what we always hear when a bomb has gone off, or failed to go off — and it is always a silly statement, based upon nothing more real than wishful thinking and a quick, thoughtless, unnecessary genuflection towards crowd control. On this occasion, though, it was subtly undermined by one of the perpetrators, doused in flames outside Glasgow airport, screaming ‘Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!’ before being peremptorily battered by a passer-by. Also, they parked their car at a mosque — and yet, according to every bigwig, policeman and community leader interviewed, this was a mere case of coincidence — NCP being full at the time, presumably.
Then, as always happens, we had the next stage of wishful thinking. Led by the BBC’s bizarrely pro-Islamist Frank Gardner, we were assured by assorted correspondents and politicians that Britain’s Muslim community were, in their entirety, appalled and outraged by the attacks. Well, maybe they were — but how do you know? Did you ask ’em, Frank? Don’t forget that more than half of our Muslims feel sympathy for suicide bombers in Israel and a fairly hefty minority (one in eight, at the last count) for similar action against the cockroach imperialist infidel scum (i.e. you and me) over here. Not to mention almost half of Britain’s Muslims who want Sharia law in this country and do not remotely, therefore, share our norms and values.
We are told these sorts of things in order to stop us coming to unpalatable conclusions, because the government still clings, ever more precariously, to the vestigial tail of that discredited ideology, multiculturalism. Take, for example, the issue of immigration. The aspirant, useless bombers who missed their targets at Glasgow and London came here from Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. A recent Mori opinion poll commissioned by the government’s Commission on Integration and Cohesion showed that almost 70 per cent of British people thought that we had let far too many immigrants into the country. This figure, incidentally, included almost half of all black and Asian British citizens polled. It was a remarkable poll not so much for its statistics, however, as for the strange response to those statistics. The establishment — the government, the BBC, the race charities and so on — professed themselves very worried and wondered what on earth should be done. A task force charged with dampening down trouble in the immigration hotspots, maybe? A few more lessons in English for the incomers and maybe fewer translators? But at no point did any of the powers that be suggest the one thing which an overwhelming majority of those polled wished for: an end to immigration. A moratorium. Or, at the least, an influx which was vastly reduced and better regulated.
This suggestion, implicitly supported by almost 70 per cent of those questioned and opposed by only ten per cent, was not even considered; it simply didn’t figure on the radar. And you begin to understand why this might be when you remember that in 2003 the then Home Secretary David Blunkett insisted that he saw nothing at all wrong with unlimited immigration. And last year the director of enforcement and removals at Immigration and Nationality admitted that he hadn’t ‘the faintest idea’ how many illegal asylum seekers there were running around the country, getting up to mischief or otherwise. The government doesn’t think that immigration matters; the public does. And the public’s disaffection for mass immigration is not a reflexive racism and insularity, as the government and the BBC would seem to believe, but a worry based squarely upon the observable effects.
Would al-Qa’eda have found it so simple to place a dozen foot-soldiers in the NHS if we had been a little more rigorous about who we allowed into this country and we were a little more choosy about where they came from? Isn’t the public, on this issue, right — and proven to be right?
But then, even if we had been told that the 12 or so aspirant bombers were members of al-Qa’eda and about to launch an attack against British citizens, it is unlikely we could have done very much about it, even if we had their home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Every month or so we read that the immigration appeals court has allowed some murderous lunatic from the Maghreb or beyond to stay in the country, despite his clearly stated homicidal impulses, because it would be an infringement of his human rights were he to be returned to the Islamic hellhole from which he arrived. Recently, for example, we had the case of ‘A.S.’, a Libyan extremist who was almost certainly a member of al-Qa’eda and with proven connections to the Muslim terrorists who had unleashed carnage in Madrid and had planned to do so in Milan. The appeals court accepted beyond all doubt that A.S. would most likely attempt to kill us all at some point in the future, because, frankly, that’s the sort of chap he was. But it rejected the idea that he should be deported — or even locked up — because his safety, back in Libya, could not be absolutely guaranteed (and aside from coming here illegally he had committed no crime yet on British soil). Remarkably, the court conceded that it was highly unlikely that he would be in any real danger back in Libya but, Libya being a disagreeable sort of place, one couldn’t be entirely sure. He was referred to as A.S., incidentally, so as to further protect his human rights.
The public is perpetually outraged by such clear absurdities and, on this occasion at least, the government seemed a little vexed too. But there was no resolve to enact legislation (or repeal existing legislation) to prevent such outrages occurring again. Faced with the law — and in particular, international treaties to which we gladly affixed our names in simpler times — the government feels and perhaps is impotent. It is surely only a matter of time before someone who comes before the immigration appeals court is allowed to stay and later blows himself up in a public place. Perhaps it has happened already.
The overwhelming majority of the public is also opposed to the continuing war in Iraq, of course (although it has reached this conclusion a little late in the day for my liking). Whatever your feelings about the war, it must, surely, provide a moral justification for those Islamists intent upon unleashing murder upon our soil and, at the same time, inculcate a deep sense of confusion within our Muslim community. Seen objectively, the aggression instigated by our political leaders against Iraq is no less motivated by a utopian, millennialist vision of how-the-world-must-be than the violence perpetrated by those who wish us all to be better off under the benevolence of a world caliphate. Evangelical liberal fundamentalism has led to rather more deaths in the world just recently than its fundamentalist Islamist counterpart: you might conclude that they are two sides of the same coin. This may seem to be an argument for cultural relativism of the worst kind; after all, we cleave to the values of liberal democracy because we know them to be right and thus worth fighting for — and, of course, imposing, at the point of a gun and a bomb, upon other people who may not yet have seen the light. Well, perhaps. But in which case it is difficult on objective grounds to adopt outraged expressions when those other people attempt to impose their equally implacable vision of how-the-world-must-be on us, at the point of a gun. This seems to me an incontestable proposition and has been advanced recently by people as philosophically diffuse as General Sir Michael Rose and John Gray, among many others. Yet it is antithetical to the government’s point of view. But imagine for a moment that you are a British Muslim, suspended in a sort of demilitarised no-man’s-land between the secular state and the long-held tenets of your faith. What conclusion would you reach about the competing claims of the war against terror and the war against the infidel? Might you not be inclined to ascribe to them an equivalence?
The odd thing is that on all of these issues — immigration, human rights legislation, the notion that British Muslims do not share very many of our liberal values, the war against Iraq — the public seems to get it and our political leaders simply do not. There will be many more attempts at carnage on our streets before they do get it, I suspect. In the meantime, I suppose we’ll just have to put our faith in al-Qa’eda’s continuing incompetence.'
CJ, rational and ebonystone: I want to thank all three of you for your assessments respecting how to deal with Islam in America. I agree with you, CJ, that things will almost certainly have to be done incrementally (maybe not, though, if we lose seven cities in one day a la Paul L. Williams' warning). Rational, you're right that the Bob Jones University matter does set some kind of a precedent that could be explored again down the road and your analysis, ebonystone, is most interesting indeed. You're correct that Congress can remove any subject matter from Supreme Court review pursuant to Article III, Section II of the Constitution. That might be the way to go instead of an additional amendment. Under your scenario a Congressional act signed by the President declaring Islam treasonous, unlawful, etc., really would be the supreme law of the land and no federal court could review or overturn it and no state constitution or statute could not conform with it.
Discussions like these are, I believe, of paramount importance so that Americans will be as prepared as possible to deal with the "perfect storm" of totalitarian ideologies, Islam. I see Mohammed's creed as even more menacing than Marxism and Nazism, in large part precisely because it is a religion. Its staying power cannot be denied. After all, it took only a generation to kill Nazism and Marxism died after less than a century and now only flourishes among left-wing intellectuals in countries where it has never been tried. It's not going to be easy, though, and there will be many Americans who will not recognize the dangers of Islam for a long time to come, if ever. Much thought, self-education and preparation on the part of the American people as a whole will be necessary to stop the spread of this stultifying, awful creed. My best to all three of you and thanks again for your insights.
memo to Wellington:
Islamic doctrine is not merely unconstitutional; under US legal statutes, Islam (as taught by its source the Kuran) constitutes violent crime-- notably the committing of virtually limitless first degree murder, conspiracy(ies) to commit vurtually limitless first degree murders; also there is the matter of Islam constituting sedition, the Islamic practice and teaching of practicing unlawful violence (even to minors) to followers of Islam and the matter of Islam practicing defamation against all other cultures, governments, faiths, etc.
Islam clearly, openly and brazenly teaches serious and often violent criminal acts to its followers!
Permitting Islam to operate in the United States is inherently discriminatory as the permitting of Islam to operate here is tantamount to permitting lawful sanction to the criminal components of Islam whereas all other individual groups and individuals who would practice the same acts would be prosecuted in an instant.
Do we really want to give violent and seditious crimes a home in the USA using freedom of religion as a shelter.
Bear in mind, please, that many religious practices in the United States ARE banned because religious practice in America is not absolute. Peyote rituals of native American religions are illegal under US law, animal sacrifices are against US law. But somehow a 'religion' that has unilaterally sentenced 6 billion people to death (because they are not part of it) gets a free pass! Come again???????!!!!??
Do you think the Aztec religion could be revived by revival-minded Mexicans who would like to use Causcasians for human sacrifices on pyramidal-shaped structures should be legally permitted to practice such Aztec human sacrifice ceremonies? If Islam can 'legally' massacre American people to please "al-lah', then why not let Aztecs slice open US citizens and hold their hearts up to the sun to please 'Quetzalcoatl'?
In some Islamic countries persons may be executed in the mosques themselves; Saudi Arabia is a good example and possibly more Saudi people are beheaded in mosque services there than outside of them. Had it ever occurred to you that Islam may be a carefully camouflaged human sacrifice cult? Islam's origins are Mesopotamian NOT Judeo-Christian (as Islamic leaders claim). Islam evolved out of the human sacrifice cults of Assyria, Sumeria, and Babylon (where human sacrifice was a common practice); Saudi Arabia was once under Babylonian control as were many other areas adjacent to what is now Iraq (where Babylon once stood). Islam's deity is the same as the Babylonians' (the moon-god) and the calendar they use is also the same (based on the moon). Killing human beings is an essential, unqualified component of Islam and because killing is commanded by al-lah through the Kuran and thus it can NOT be removed from this 'religious praactice. There are reports of Muslims actually drinking the blood of non-Muslims in the Middle east. Classifying Islam as human sacrifice is a viable means for having Islam legitimately outlawed in the United States.
I personally see absolutely NO justification for keeping Islam legal in America. And our doing that will prove suicide to our nation's survival. If we don't get rid of Islam, this thing is going to get rid of us. Be sure of it.
Pythagoras: I share your complete distaste for Islam. There's really nothing I detest more than it. Mohammed was a psychopath and a fraud. The Koran is dreary, highly repetitive, deeply disturbing and sometimes just plain incorrect, for instance it has Alexander the Great living to an old age and being a Muslim. Islam is the only major religion which justifies the use of force to spread the faith. When Christians killed in the name of Jesus centuries ago, they were violating the tenets of their creed, not fulfilling them. When Muslims murder in the name of their religion (and they've been doing so from the seventh century onwards without letup), they are complying with a major dictate of their faith. It's called jihad (and anyone who says that jihad is merely an internal spiritual struggle is either ignorant or mendacious). And on and on one could go outlining the many wretched features of Islam, from its draconian legal system, to the institution of dhimmitude, to.........
Nonetheless, I think you've missed something and it's this: The First Amendment protects speech to a very great extent. A good example is the person who is speaking before a crowd and says we ought to burn such and such a building to the ground and everyone in it. Unless the guy started actually handing out torches to those before him, his speech is protected by the Constitution. See where I'm going here? Muslims, even the worst among them, can openly talk about how infidels should be killed for insulting Islam or for supporting Israel or for traveling to Mecca and Medina though not a Muslim or that the Constitution should be replaced by sharia or whatever, but unless they act upon it, their religion, as things now stand in American law, is completely protected. And let's just say some Muslim loon or two does kill infidels here in America. I guarantee you that hoards of Muslims will be out in droves within hours saying Islam is a religion of peace and doesn't condone killing innocent (key word there, "innocent")people. Which will mean, I'm sorry to say, that Islam will remain protected by the First Amendment as things stand now. Bottom line: unless we change the Constitution or, as ebonystone indicated in a previous post, remove any Supreme Court review of Congressional action that might outlaw Islam or take some such other legally comprehensive measure or measures, there's no way that Islam will be illegal in America. My main purpose here in posting the comments I have is to advise as many people as possible that there is currently no legal way to stop Islam from spreading in America, and this would be the case even if its tax-exempt status were revoked, which I doubt very much it will be. Oh, yeah, we got big trouble here in River City.
Pythagoras, Wellington, et al,
Here are a few more thoughts about legal action against islam: (1) the "aiding and abetting" laws, whereby if one helps, assists, or encourages another in committing a crime, he is also guilty of a crime. So these various mosques and islamic organizations that preach murder and mayhem, and give training in weapons and explosives, etc, are aiding and abetting.
(2) civil lawsuits against islamic mosques and organizations for damages for terrorist actions committed by their members. If the courts can allow action against tobacco companies for encouraging smoking (an activity legal in all 50 states, and legal throughout the history of the U.S., and an activity no one is forced into), then they ought to allow suits against islamic organization for encouraging terror killing. [ I believe something like this is being pursued by relatives of the Twin Towers victims, but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.]
Also note the success of the civil action against O.J.
Ebonystone: Your last analysis is on point but only for specific Muslims and specific mosques. It would be a piecemeal approach, which, admittedly, could have salutary effects, particularly as it would inculcate in the body politic of America over time the inimical nature of Islam, but the overall problem of Islam growing in America would still not be solved. I seek a comprehensive solution to any extension of the Islamic faith in my nation. Islam, as I'm sure you'll agree, is not good for democracy, true freedom, toleration, progress and a whole lot of other stuff that's important to us but not to the true believers of Mohammed's creed. Muslims will use our democracy to destroy our democracy.
Two other points. You mentiond the OJ civil trial. Yes, Simpson was found culpable but just how much has he paid up since? A somewhat hollow judgement, no? Ditto, perhaps, for Muslim miscreants (excuse the redundancy). Second, by any chance did you take the moniker, ebonystone, in salute to that great legal mind, Sir William Blackstone? Good communicating with you.
Wellington, actually I hadn't thought of the jurist, Sir William Blackstone. Thank you for pointing out the possibility. My reference was to another Black Stone, the one idol -- out of 365 -- that Mo left standing in the shrine in Mecca. And I note that your nom de blog is in tribute to the great duke, who got his military start dealing with moslem princes in India.
Wellington and everyone else:
My primary concern with Islam at this point is that it teaches if not commands its followers to commit MURDERS in the first degree!
Isn't the act of comitting murder a capital crime under US law??
Isn't the committing of murder en masse (by Islam) a more serious issue than religious 'rights' infractions? What has happened to America's legal system when legal officials are unable to so much as acknowledge this?
This concern of mine goes far beyond a mere 'distaste' of Islam. Hundreds of millions of innocent human beings have been brutally murdered by Muslim jihadists over the centuries. Untold millions murdered, civilizations turned wholesale into ashcans by people-turned-Killer Zombies who had been dehumanized and then brainwashed by this obscure, utterly murderous ideology. I am trying to see to it that America does not become the next Rwanda (I was once brazenly told by a Brazilian government official that an Algerian al-Qaeda cell was behind the genocide there, which I still believe since O. bin Looney Toons was hiding out at that time not too far away in Sudan). Somebody has to.
American people are supposed to be protected from mass murderers by their legal system. Apparently, they are not anymore. Islam can murder 3000 people in New York City in broad daylight and still operate here. (You see if YOU can get away with that). Islam can kill 3 million in Sudan, 4 million in the Congo, and 1 million in Rwanda and the law is worried about Islam's 'rights' as a 'religion?' Why don't they worry about Islam's murderous rampages if they want to be so damn helpful?
The seriousness of this situation is mind-numbing! I value human life and liberty and am willing to defend it. And people who believe they have the right to organize, infiltrate, destroy and massacre chosen quarry with impunity at the very least require removal from any society they have targeted. And they have targeted America. We must take action. And our laws must protect our right to take action against such people. If our laws are not up to this job, they require redrafting as to save the millions of American lives endangered by Islam. There is simply no room for anything less, as anything less will NOT suffice--not at all.
If America is destroyed by a nuclear attack by al-Qaeda there will be NO Constitution left to protect! It could happen if we don't watch our backs. With islam practicing on American soil there wil always be a (very) serious danger of this happening. Too bad nobody wants to believe it.
First degree murder of the unbelievers is a COMMAND by al-lah. This is taught repeatedly in the Kuran. There are no limits set as to how many they may kill; there are no requirements as to what they may use to massacre the unbelievers. Muslims are taught this and generally they believe it (and do it--it's called terrorism). Nuclear attacks can't be ruled out at all.
Therefore it is only a matter of time before Muslims carry out al-lah's commands to kill the unbelievers in the other western democracies on a larger scale than they have been....because that is that Islam COMPELS them to do. Mosques really exist to that end and that is why there are mosques at all in the USA--mosques exist here in America to kill us!!
Five years 2 Arab males attempted to take my life on the street of a California city in what was almost certainly an attempted professional hit (how they knew me I'll never know). This is probably happening everyday in America. I could very well have been brutally murdered that night. I have seen Islam's murderous nature up close and aimed at ME.
Anyone could be murdered by these Muslim people brainwashed by Islam. Any number of nightmare scenarios could unfold as Islam's potential for murder is limited by the creative genius of its murderers.
Full-fledged nuclear bombs may well turn entire metropolises into fireballs-- and graveyards- before this is over. Worse, we may have no choice but to watch something like this happen because the legal system has become too incoherent and blind to see the danger right in front of its very eyes....
American laws should be protecting the victims and NOT the criminals. The situation must be corrected somehow.
Before it is too late.
Take the struggle on to the streets!
BRUSSELS DEMO 2007
Demonstration outside the European Parliament.
September 11th 2007.
Europeans are saying “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!” “NO SHARIA HERE!”
So join the call. All European nations must be represented.
SO, IF YOU LOVE FREEDOM,
IF YOU LOVE YOUR COUNTRY,
- BE THERE!!
The organisers of the demonstration are:
SIAD (Denmark) sioe@siad.dk
No Sharia Here (England) sioe.nsh@btinternet.com
We have contact with Akte-islam in Germany. They are organizing the german participation: http://akte-islam.de/1.html
We are encouraging others to form similar groups in their own countries.
We seek people/organisations from all other european countries who will organize participation from their own country. We need bloggers to help us spread the word. We have to start now.
For questions or coordination between countries contact SIAD or No Sharia Here.
STOP ISLAMISATION OF EUROPE:
ORIGINS:
Stop Islamisation Of Europe (SIOE) is an alliance of people across Europe with the single aim of preventing Islam becoming a dominant political force in Europe.
It originated with the joining of SIAD, a political party dedicated to stopping the Islamisation of Denmark, with a loose association of people in England whose rallying cry is “No Sharia Here” and who want to maintain English law and stop the creeping growth of sharia law in England.
SIOE is growing in Europe with the amalgamation of similarly minded groups.
http://sioe.wordpress.com/brussels-demo-2007/
Ebonystone: Ah, yes, the Kabaah et al. Should have figured that one out but didn't. As for the Iron Duke, yes, I admire him very much and hence the reason why I took his name. He was like Ulysses S Grant (my choice for the still most underestimated person in American history) in that when the chips were down, all else had failed and folks had nowhere else to turn, his kind, extremely rare, was all that was left to salvage a dire situation. We may need another Arthur Wellesley sometime soon.
Way late to the thread but I agree that IRS tax codes are a great place to start:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015157.php#c346677
Mr. Martel, I had to post part of your description of muslim conquest on a local board. Brilliant! I hope you don't mind.