LAHORE: The US State Department is launching what it says will be the first comprehensive public diplomacy effort targeting children, hoping to shape the views of Muslim youths ages 8 to 14 with a series of summer camps and enrichment programs designed to counter negative images of the US, The Boston Globe reported on Monday.The report said the new initiative was the brainchild of Karen Hughes, a confidante of President Bush who has become the most powerful public-diplomacy czar in decades. Hughes has argued forcefully that the US government must reach out to children younger than age 14, a population the State Department has largely neglected because they are too young for traditional exchange programmes….
As a test of her idea, Hughes asked embassies in 14 Islamic countries this summer to come up with pilot programmes for that age bracket, and spent nearly $1 million on projects that involved about 6,000 youths and hundreds of local partnering organisations. Participants included more than 2,000 girls in Turkey who attended a basketball camp and 80 children from rural schools in Malaysia who learned about Thomas Jefferson and other US heroes on an American-style camping trip with embassy staff and families.
But the programmes also carry risks in nations with virulent anti-American sentiments, which are where most of the programmes are aimed. For example, 41 Iraqi students learned about baseball and the English language for three days this summer in Baghdad. A photo of the group meeting with US Ambassador Ryan Crocker hangs on the door of Hughes’s office at the State Department -- but it cannot be publicly released for fear that the children may be harmed by terrorists. -- from this article
How will 6,000 children, playing basketball and doing crafts, or 60,000 children, or 600,000 children, or 6 million, doing the same, all paid for by the long-suffering American taxpayer in a program that is called the "brainchild" -- presumably adopted -- of Karen Hughes, overcome what they or other children will constantly be fed from the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira?
What will be accomplished by giving Muslim children memories of nice camps paid for by nice Americans, with pictures of July Fourth picnics, and cowboys in Wyoming, and lobstermen in Maine -- you know, the kind of thing that the karen-hughses of this world think might be just the ticket to make Muslims "like us -- because they are just like us." (I made it up, it's not her idiotic slogan, but it just as well might be)?
The way to limit the menace of Jihad is to get a large number of Muslims to change what they believe. The belief may be in Islam itself -- that is, we may show them that we Infidels are well aware of what Islamic texts contain and what Islam teaches (see Ayaan Hirsi Ali, see Ibn Warraq, see Wafa Sultan, see Ali Sina, see an ever-growing list of distinguished and articulate apostates: then see Magdi Allam, for the "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim, see Bat Ye'or, see Oriana Fallaci, see many many others, including those associated with this website), and will not be fooled.
And when that happens the Muslims will quickly realize that the blague as before will not do, and have to start speaking something with just a little more resemblance to the truth. And by degrees, as they do this, as they are forced by Infidel attitudes to do this, some of them will realize that they are not obligated to stay with Islam forever, and may become those defectors, those apostates. This is likely to take place especially among those who are non-Arabs, and who can be persuaded of what is, of course, true: that Islam has always been a vehicle of Arab supremacism, of Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism. And if the Infidels stay resolute and implacable, based on their greatly increased knowledge of Islam, Muslims are going to have to think about Islam itself, and non-Arab Muslims will have to think about whether or not pretending to be little Arabs, with Arab names, and following Arab folkways of the seventh-century (as imagined), is really quite the thing that they want for themselves.
And if the ways in which Islam limits artistic expression, or free and skeptical inquiry, are pointed out, repeatedly, there will be some wavering Muslim parents. They will be able to inwardly recognize, if not outwardly admit, that all this does indeed stunt the mental (and moral) growth, and who wants that for one's beloved children?
And if Infidels make clear that the prevalence of despotism among Muslim states is not accidental, but reflects the view in Islam that political legitimacy comes not from the expressed will of the people but from the will expressed by Allah in the Qur'an (and glossed by the Sunnah, that is, mainly, by what is in the Hadith and Sira), for Muslims are merely slaves of Allah, subject to his whims, then at least some Muslims are going to have to answer this criticism. And they will be unable to do so, for the true-blue Believers will admit to the justice of the charge, and indeed claim that it shows the superiority of Islam.
And if they make clear as well that the economic backwardness of Muslim states is a result of several factors, and that those factors again arise out of the teachings, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam, then there will be those who, contemplating the attraction of Islam, but also wanting economic development (say, in sub-Saharan Africa), will choose to keep Islam out, or, if it is present in their countries, to keep it from spreading. And it should be clear that inshallah-fatalism, and political despotism, both prompted in Muslim countries by the tenets of Islam, are what explain the failure of the rich Arab oil states, for example, to develop anything like modern economies, despite the ten trillion dollars they have received, since 1973 alone, in unmerited oil revenues.
Washington's fails to understand the connection between Islam, jihad and terrorism, and it seems its commitment to this view is without any limit.
Koran Hughes and Iman Bush are becoming a danger. 08 cant come fast enough
Too bad we can't send them all to Bible Camp.
The real problem is that hazard of a religion they follow.
Elric66
What do you think of Huckabee? I heard him say that this is 'a religious war, a battle of ideologies..' and I almost fainted.
Hope he has bodyguards.
...so many truths and we should be educating all those Mulsims who have been shielded from western influences...by whatever means...
I see free Korans.
(And then I see dead people.)
Hmm... We yanked Europe's bacon out of the fire in WW2 -- we saved their children from the furnaces, fed them chocolate, fed them food, built them schools, taught them baseball -- taught them about Democracy, and prevented the Soviet Monster from gobbling them up...
And yet that generation of European children turned around and raised the most America-hating generation in European history...
What makes Karen Hughes and all the infants running State think that a society which is nurtured on a poisonous mother's milk of abject, violent, and militant HATRED for the very tenets of our infidel existence, what makes such persons think that "outreach" will result in anything good?
"Winning their hearts and minds" has been, and continues to be a catastrophe of giant proportions.
Capitalist,
I havent heard that but that does give me hope. Excluding Ron Paul, the worst Republican candidtate is better than any of the Dems. But I dont want to vote for the lesser of 2 evils.
Hugh! you said, "How will 6,000 children, playing basketball and doing crafts, or 60,000 children, or 600,000 children, or 6 million, doing the same, all paid for by the long-suffering American taxpayer in a program that is called the "brainchild" -- presumably adopted -- of Karen Hughes, overcome what they or other children will constantly be fed from the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira?" What you said is definitely not 'Religiously Correct'. What you have stated, definitively, is that unless the Koran, Hadith, and the Sira are somehow ripped out of supreme holy place they now occupy, and many holy writings are taken from these, "holy books" and thrown in the toilet and flushed forever, There is no use in spending any time or money on trying to make friends with these people who walk lock-step by mandate, and therefore define themselves (if they are smart enough to know what these holy books clearly state as the unalterable command from God) as perpetual enemies or all non-Muslims! I agree totally with what you say and am presently begging everyone to be as brave as you are in calling for the truth to be made known world-wide, namely, that the holy books the Muslims use are unalterably and clearly commanding all the believers in said holy books to be murderers and tormentors of all humans who are not unquestioning living robots of an unchangeable and anti-human set of books - unless one would suffer to high a risk of being murdered by calling for the removal of the murderous passages (as called for in all the books themselves) - won't you join me? I have a bumper sticker that loudly says, " Please, Allah, protect me from your followers" These "holy books" need to be condemned before terrorism can, in the least, be stopped! Everyone! Please become POLITICALLY INCORRECT !
As a Pakistani Christian I would like to tell you that it does not matter whatever you stupid Americans do for Pakistanis (young or old), they will always hate you americans. Even if you give them Green Cards or US Citizenships, they will always hate you. You gave them billions in aid after the big earthquake last year, they still hate you. Stop being DHIMMI. Do not waste your time. You stupid americans still dont understand what Islam and muslims are about.
The Jihad Awareness Project currently has 61 volunteers in 33 states.
WE STILL ARE SEEKING CITIZEN VOLUNTEERS FROM ALL 50 STATES, ESPECIALLY FROM THE FOLLOWING 17:
Alabama
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Kansas
Louisiana
Michigan
Mississippi
Montana
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Utah
Vermont
West Virginia
Wyoming
I'm looking for at least two people in every state of the Union who would be willing to purchase a copy of Robert Spencer's Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't and mail it, on an agreed upon date, to one of the senators in your state. I'm organizing an effort to get the book simultaneously to all 100 senators, in order to send a strong message. If we get more than two people per state, books can also be sent to the House of Representatives.
If you’d like to be involved, please write to me at traehnam@yahoo.com under the subject heading “Senate,” and tell me the state your senator represents, an email address where I can reach you, and a nickname. No need for your real name. And I will never share your email address with anyone, not even with other volunteers for this project.
And visit www.jihadawareness.blogspot.com to get more info on this project and to leave comments other volunteers can read. You can also see there the growing list of participants in this project, and the states their senators represent. I’ll try to update the list at least once a day. I've also designed a graphic that might amuse. Scroll down when you get to the site.
Once we have at least two people from every state, we can agree on a mailing date and then each of us can mail a copy of the book on that date.
Right before each of us mails the book, we can issue a press release to various media outlets in every state, and in that way announce and explain the mailing. And perhaps we can come up with some other ways of maximizing the effectiveness of this project and gaining as much positive attention as possible.
Congress is in recess until after Labor Day. But one of the project's volunteers suggested contacting Rep. Sue Myrick, who started the anti-Jihad caucus in Congress. I'll try to coordinate this project with Rep. Myrick to maximize its effectiveness. I've also been calling various congressional offices to get advice on how best to go about this. And I'll soon contact Regnery, Robert Spencer's publisher, to ask their advice and to see if we can coordinate with them in some way.
If Karen Hughes is such a PR wiz, why are Pres. Bush’s opinion polls so low? Is what was done to the non-to-soon x-pres.’s opinion polls of those in his own party, what this PR “Genius” is doing for us Infidels? Perhaps we need to send her back to Texas along with the “tough on the Border Agents” X-Attorney General Gonzales. ’08 please don’t come to late.
Yet more proof of the awful Bush family's Marxist roots. Scum. I can only hope that the latest, and dumbest, of the brood slips in his Floridian shower stall and bangs his haid.
Consuela.
Great idea this latest of Bushonian 'hearts & minds' fiascos - just one minor addition: they should include a Shahada-plastered football to be kicked around by each youthful, sports-camp attendee. In the mean time: 'Koran Hughes' should stick to her hijab-clad PR stunts at new mosque opening ceremonies.
Crusader, there is another Pakistani who speaks/writes these truths and his was book banned in the Netherlands in the early 1990's.
Bloggers, Sir Henry Morgan and Gandolf provide an interesting post titled " in the blog "Reconquista"
The banned book
"The Downfall of The Netherlands: Land of the Naive Dupes"
can be read in it's entirety here:
http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/heroes/downfall.htm
You can’t effectively fight an enemy unless you realize, at a minimum, that you do, indeed, have an enemy, unless you know who the enemy is, know how strong that enemy is, what he wants and what his methods are and the policymakers in Washington, to judge by this effort which, I am sure, made them all feel good and like they were “doing something” but will likely have absolutely no effect, have failed on all counts.
Islam has not lasted these almost 1,400 years by being easy to reform. Muslims are taught to believe the Qur’an is the immutable word of Allah, good for all times and places and that those who seek to modify it are apostates, subject to death by law in many Muslim countries and by custom in many more. The Saudis have funded many tens of thousands of largely Wahabi run madrasses all over the Muslim world and many in the West as well. All of these madrasses indoctrinate Muslims in the ultra fundamentalist Wahabi strain of Islam. In poor Muslim countries such as Pakistan, madrassas offer almost the only way for poor children to get food, shelter and the education that comes with it and they are taught not subjects like geography, world history, political science, mathematics, music or art but are taught a simple curriculum—to read a few words from the Qur’an, to memorize the Qur’an by rote and to know and obey the Wahabi line including Jihad against all unbelievers. Muslim fundamentalists not only control educational systems but they also have control or influence over book translation and publishing, television, newspaper and radio as well as the pulpits of innumerable Mosques reinforcing their version of Islam.
So, tell me that taking a few kids for a few days and exposing them to American ideas is going to prevail against the near total Muslim control of information in their societies; I particularly liked the part about not having their pictures on display for fear of what might happen to them back in their native countries.
Now, if Armstrong was articulating an absolutely resolute and muscular, pro-active, long term American policy vis-a vis Islam based on the recognition that our enemy was the teachings of Islam and those who carry out or support Jihad in obedience to them . If her effort was a part of a huge, multifaceted WWII or Cold War scale propaganda effort—Radio, TV, the Internet, books, plays, speeches, leaflets, word of mouth campaigns, speakers sent to Muslim countries—using all the weapons and techniques available for us in propaganda’s arsenal--fighting the Jihad on every level in every country on Earth, getting the message of our implacable resolve to fight the Muslim Jihad on all fronts and especially on the front of ideas across to the Muslim world, that would be a whole different thing, but, she’s not.
justamomof4:
I investigated your link to the banned Dutch book by Mohammed Rasoel and found something else that I find darkly disturbing: the “religion of Millennium” which states as one of its primary tenants the following:
“The nature of morality is dependent on the truth. Most of humanity is burdened by false moral sets which prevent their adherents from doing good.”
Thank you kindly and respectfully but the only TRUTH I know is in Jesus Christ the Only Begotten Son of the One TRUE God. Period. Anything else is simply a smokescreen including islam and your “religion of Millennium”. And further: just because islam is bad is no justification for “throwing the baby out with the bath water” as many others seem to have fallen prey to these days.
"Now, if Armstrong was..." GaryK above.
Perhaps you are confusing one of Islam's most influential and hideous apologists, Karen Armstrong, with one of Islam's most influential and hideous appeasers, Karen Hughes?
One was a nun -- the other was... I'm not sure exactly what Karen Hughes was... or is, aside from being one of Islam's most influential and hideous appeasers.
jsla--Thank you for the correction. I did indeed, mix up the Karens. I meant to write Hughes and instead wrote Armstrong.
The crap Armstrong writes has made a strong impression. Even in today's world, its hard to find anyone writing "history' that is so thoroughgoing and forthright in their lies, omissions and misdirections; a perfect pro-Muslim propagandist.
Among other things, I was trained as a historian and reading any one of Armstrong's books or seeing her on TV gets my blood pressure up quite easily, since practically everything she says is a lie, deliberately twisted, leaves out essential information that would contradict her point, or is an incredibly forced interpretation.
descendantofacrusader, you mis-read my comment, or perhaps, I should have phrased it differently. The link provided was solely for access to an english translation of this banned book. Unlike you, I did not take notice of the host site's philosophy until your comment. Regardless, the book is an interesting read.
justamomof4,
My apologies – perhaps my assumptions were a bit hasty concerning either your beliefs or intent. I will make an effort to read the banned book in question but not what I personally consider to be the highly objectionable material from the website displaying the English translation. Thank you and best regards.
Washington's fails to understand the connection between Islam, jihad and terrorism, and it seems its commitment to this view is without any limit.
Posted by: KAOSKTRL at August 28, 2007 10:46 AM
Tom Tancredo, R-CO, has detailed this threat in his book 'In Mortal Danger' http://www.teamtancredo.typepad.com
Just suffer me to say it one more time - just in case there is just one person out there who agrees with me! Hugh! you said, "How will 6,000 children, playing basketball and doing crafts, or 60,000 children, or 600,000 children, or 6 million, doing the same, all paid for by the long-suffering American taxpayer in a program that is called the "brainchild" -- presumably adopted -- of Karen Hughes, overcome what they or other children will constantly be fed from the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira?" What you said is definitely not 'Religiously Correct'. What you have stated, definitively, is that unless the Koran, Hadith, and the Sira are somehow ripped out of supreme holy place they now occupy, and many holy writings are taken from these, "holy books" and thrown into the toilet and flushed forever, There is no use in spending any time or money on trying to make friends with these people who walk lock-step by mandate, and therefore define themselves (if they are smart enough to know what these holy books clearly state as the unalterable command from God) as serious and dangerous and perpetual enemies of all non-Muslims! I agree totally with what you say and am presently begging everyone to be as brave as you are in calling for the truth to be made known world-wide, namely, that the holy books the Muslims use are unalterably and clearly commanding all the believers in said holy books to be murderers and tormentors of all humans who are not unquestioning living robots of an unchangeable and anti-human set of books - [[that is tell this truth publically unless one would suffer too high a risk of being murdered by calling for the removal of the murderous passages (as called for in all the books themselves)] - won't you join me? I have a bumper sticker that loudly says, " Please, Allah, protect me from your followers" These "holy books" need to be condemned before terrorism can, in the least, be stopped! Everyone! Please become operatively RELIGIOUSLY INCORRECT !