Spencer: Jihad Watch Offers Questions for Candidates

These are very nice questions, even I as an individual don't really know how to answer them other than making it illegal to practice Islam in it's current state - punishable with immediate, permanent, irrevokable deportation.

But if I were a presidential candidate... even with my knowledge of Islam, how do you respond to these without alienating a huge portion of the dhimmified American public? Including alienating the large numbers of 'moderate' muslims whose votes you would then lose.

McCain passed through my state not too long ago and I even got to ask a question for him at a rally, so I don't know if I'll have much of a chance to try out one of these.

Out of curiosity, how SHOULD a presidential candidate answer these with respect to the future of America, and still have a snowball's chance of winning an election? I'm interesting in hearing from anyone, not just you Robert (but by all means feel free).

I have visions of Robert being wisked away by men in black helicopters.

Out of curiosity, how SHOULD a presidential candidate answer these with respect to the future of America, and still have a snowball's chance of winning an election? I'm interesting in hearing from anyone, not just you Robert (but by all means feel free).

Posted by: Kelana at January 28, 2008 5:55 AM

Unless Sha'aria kicks in first.

"Would you call upon the Muslim community in America to institute comprehensive and transparent programs in mosques and Islamic schools, teaching against the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism, and extolling the virtues of American pluralism, democracy, and the non-establishment of a state religion?"

...This is something the Muslims in host countries should be doing on their own without goverment prodding...

...but it ain't happinin......which leads me to the conclusion that just the opposite is happening in the Mosques....

Ban Muslim Immigration...

C'mon Mr Spencer, the last two chairmen of the House Intelligence committee couldn't even answer the simplest question about Al Qaeda and Hizballah in the congressional quarterly (Jeff Stein) ... you think these guys combing their hair or Hillary wouldn't move heaven and earth to guarantee they don't have to answer those kinds of questions?

All we have to know is this.... if it's NOT a religion of peace, what's your plan, Stan? You know, Mitt, Rudy, John, Hill and Barack ... just in case.

If you thought it might not be, would you SAY IT OUT LOUD, and give us a clue (preferably without a focus group intervening)?

I keep thinking back on the description of the behavior of people in the fall and winter of 1939-1940 in Europe in Lynne Olson's, "Troublesome Young Men". It was all just too horrible to really discuss. Bad form, you know.

The worst part of this is I know I'm not being CYNICAL ENOUGH

Would it be possible for folks here to pass round the hat so as to pay for some brave newspaper to publish these four questions as a sort of 'Open Letter', advertisement style?

They could also, perhaps, be simplified and then turned into fliers, placards, or posters, to be judiciously sown around the urban landscape by American jihadwatchers.

Congressman Tom Tancredo has answers to all of these questions and some questions of his own. Too bad Americans could not see a patriot to save their lives. Now, Americans have to deal with smile-balls like Hillary, Rudy and McCain. This after being sold out again and again by slick Willy and dubya. Americans have short memory and no ability to learn lessons.
Well, deal with sell-out and corrupt politicians, and weep.................

Mr./Ms. Candidate:

Will you end the insane Gonzo Gitmo charade?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2005/06/006589print.html

Iraqi business proprietors, who have already made at least $500,000 per year, are automatically considered for bringing their relatives in to the US. This is a sort of importation of business capital. Our government lives on taxes; whatever will generate more tax will also be welcome--please, this is not my idea.

As to Tom Tancredo, he had been too stupid to have proposed the bombing of Ka'aba as a solution to deter jihad, which had made him a laughing stock. His proposal had exposed his lack of knowledge in history. Ka'aba had been destroyed more than three times, Saud has razed it to the ground at one time to exhume the dead prophet companions; earth quake had destroyed it, but it has always been rebuilt and made larger.

Senator McCain,

You've identified 'radical Muslim extremists' as a relentless threat to American security.

Do 'moderate' Muslim extremists cause you as much concern?

"They could also, perhaps, be simplified and then turned into fliers, placards, or posters, to be judiciously sown around the urban landscape by American jihadwatchers."

Dumbledoresarmy,

That's a good idea! I'm on it!

Yesterday McCain was asked the question by a lady in the audience he spoke at, while he was with Joe Leiberman if he thought the US could trust Saudi ARabia. After the entire audience went "whooooah" over the question, and Joe Leiberman was smiling pointing his finger at the lady who asked the question saying "that's a rough question" McCain rambled for about 2 or 3 minutes and never did answer the question. And then Leiberman comes to the mic and says "that's why I'm supporting this man because he answers the tough questions"

In other words, more status quo from the "straight shooting" McCain.

*** Will you establish a task force of patriotic experts on the Islamic jihadist ideology, and will you develop an understanding of what is already at work in Saudi,and Waahabi influenced mosques, and madrasses throughout this country that are determined to undermine this nations sovereignty?

*** Will you work to get a clear understanding of what the true objectives are from groups like The Muslim Brotherhood, and CAIR, The Congress of American Islamic Relations?

*** Do you already have an understanding that Islam is much more than just a religion, and that it is actually more of a political movement with it own body of laws called sharia?

Until we greatly reduce the 56 trillion dollars in debt to countries like Saidi and China, and come up with new sources of oil, along with new sources of energy like methanol, ethanol, bio diesel, etc., and restart our manufacturing base by ending, even if to start, by reducing, NAFTA, CAFTA, and other insane trade agreements that let us become only CONSUMERS and enslaved to those countries, these questions, even if asked, will NEVER be truthfully answered by ANY viable candidate, and so our enslavement will continue, no matter how "good" they are on the "issues of the day".

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: "You ask too long-a questions."

Here a simplified question:

"Are you familiar with any of the following terms:
dhimmi, dhimmitude, jizyah, taqqiyah, lesser jihad, Banu Qurayza, the Battle of the Trench, Aisha, ...???"

If so, please describe, if not, will you have your staff brief you on these terms?

ssa,
Tom Tancredo spoke honestly. So what if the Saudis have rebuilt the kaaba more than once? Let them rebuild it again. Every penny spent rebuilding is one penny less for worldwide terrorism. The meteorite will probably survive anything less than a nuclear bomb and it will find its way into the new structure. But in the meantime, the world's Muslims will see the smoking ruin of the Grand Mosque and the Saudis will lose some of the foreign exchange that comes with the hajj. The House of Saud will also lose some of their legitimacy as "keeper of the holy sites" if they can't keep those sites safe.

Agree w/ Alert & PMK about Tancredo. He had proposed threatening to nuke the place, in which event, Mecca would have been left Ka'aba-less for a good while.

I have one more question to add, Insh-Robert:

5. A number of you have spoken about the threat of Jihad that is posed to the US. To what extent will you support other countries in their anti-Jihad efforts? In particular, would you reverse our policy of supporting Jihadi forces in the Balkans, mainly in Kosovo? How will your policy differ from that of President Bush both here, as well as in the Mid East dispute?

6. Is Islam itself one major source among others of terrorism? If you say "No", please explain why. If you say "Yes", my assistant is standing by with smelling salts to revive me.

7. If you fail to get the required co-operation from Pakistan, and if pro-Jihadi elements win elections later this year, what steps will you take to ensure that Pakistan's nukes don't fall into the wrong hands?

Questions for the candidates are offered above.

But this is not the first time such a quiz, or an examination, has been put up, pointedly, here. They are all part of the same questioning: does a head of state (Olmert), does a skeptic coming to this site (a poster answered), do those in charge of policy (Rice, Bush), do the generals carrying out policies in Iraq, know enough about, have they learned about, figured out the relevance of, the ideology of Islam?

Here are a few examples of previous questionairres:

#1.

Fitzgerald: A few questions for Ehud Olmert

One has a few questions for Olmert:

What do you know about Islamic teachings?

How seriously do you think Muslims take those teachings?

Do you have any reason to think that the way Muslims are suffused with the teachings of Islam, a system of Total Regulation and Complete Explanation of the Universe, is different from the way that either Judaism or Christianity impinges on, or organizes the life of, Jews and Christians?

What do you know of Muslim teachings regarding non-Muslims?

Have you ever read the Qur'an and at least a few hundred of the hadith, possibly directed by a scholar of Islam?

Are you acquainted with the life of Muhammad, as written and read by Muslims, and do you realize the role that Muhammad plays as the Perfect Man, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil?

Do you know about the decapitation of the prisoners of the Banu Qurayza? The attack on the Khaybar Oasis? The murders of Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak for mocking Muhammad? The marriage to little Aisha?

Are you familiar with the agreement that Muhammad made with the Meccans in 628 A.D. when, feeling not yet strong enough to attack them directly, he made an agreement for a truce, a period of ten years, and then eighteen months later broke that truce on a pretext and, now with stronger forces, attacked the Meccans?

Are you aware that in the entire history of Islam, this behavior by Muhammad is hailed as being exceptionally clever, and has been taken as a model for all agreements and treaties made between Muslims and non-Muslims?

Are you aware, for example, that all of the Muslim commentators on the law of War and Peace in the Law of Islam are in universal agreement that no permanent peace treaty can ever be made between Muslims and Infidels, only temporary agreements made necessary when the Muslim side is too weak?

Have you read, for example, or has anyone brought to your busy attention, Majid Khadduri's War and Peace in the Law of Islam, with its discussion of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya?

These questions, and your answers to them, will be published in the five leading newspapers of Israel.

Please, Mr. Prime Minister, think carefully before answering.

And come to think of it, why shouldn't this little quiz, which so clearly will elicit for us information about the comprehension of Infidel leaders everywhere, be given, in one form or another, all over the world, beginning with those in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid?
Why shouldn't we all demand that those who presume to protect and instruct us (they go together: protection must be accompanied by instruction on what one is being protected against, and how, and why) take this test?

This is not a multiple-choice examination. It will not be graded by some computer, measuring the little lines who shaded in with a No. 2 pencil.

No, this test requires the ability to put a few sentences together. It does not supply the pre-fabricated answers.

And it will not be graded by a whirring machine in Princeton, New Jersey.

It will be graded, instead, by all of us. And we are in no mood, the publics of the Western world, to indulge or overlook in any way. Too much depends on the understanding of these matters.
Olmert, I'm afraid, has already failed with the surpassing idiocy of his every statement and move. Bush, in his messianic missing-the-point fervor -- he had an idea and now the idea has him -- to create a Light Unto the Musiim Nations instead of exploiting the situation to weaken the Camp of Islam -- has not done much better. Almost all of the known leaders of the Western world have similarly failed.

But there are others, waiting in the wings. They should all be asked to take the test above -- all those hoping to be the next Republican or Democratic candidate. We want to know, more than anything else, what they understand about Islam. We want to know if they are fooled, or foolable, or unwilling to state things, even if not with the full freedom that one has at this website, but slightly more obliquely (that may at first be necessary, and if undertaken only for tactical reasons, may in some cases be understood and forgiven).

But they need to take the test.

[Posted by Hugh at November 29, 2006]

Fitzgerald: Cat's out of the bag

Those at the Emory Wheel are reduced to this transparent nonsense of Taqiyya and Tu Quoque. How else can they proceed? They know what is in the texts. They know what states, societies, families suffused with Islam are taught. They know the tenets. They know the attitudes. They are well used to the atmospherics. They just don’t know how to handle those Infidels who also know those texts, those teachings, those attitudes, those atmospherics.

And there is nothing they can do to stop more and more Infidels, as they pick up their newspapers or turn on the evening news, from realizing how much of it is about this or that local manifestation of the worldwide and permanent Jihad — which can only get worse, and examples of which will only proliferate. Those Infidels will find out, slowly and then more rapidly, in greater and greater numbers, about Islam. There is nothing Islamic apologists can do about this, try as they will to lie, or to hide, or to distract with irrelevancies, or by appeals to Western “guilt” and false claims of victimization. Islam itself, as the vehicle for Arab imperialism, is the most successful imperialist project in history, the force which caused whole peoples to jettison and ignore, or despise, their own histories, pre-Islamic or non-Islamic. In light of that, the raising of idiotic claims of “racism” will not forever prevent Infidels, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and all others, everywhere and not just here in this country, from finding out about Islam.

It’s too late. Cat’s out of the bag. The Qur’an is just a click away (www.quranbrowser.com). And so are the Hadith. And so is the Sira — or you can read the texts about Muhammad, the Muslim texts, the texts of Qur’an and Hadith and Muslim Sira, and Muslim commentators and historians, with connective tissue and organizing principle supplied by Robert Spencer.

There is nothing these people can do about all that, except what they have been doing all along: “three Abrahamic faiths,” “one of world’s great religions,” “hijacked” or “perverted” by “extremists,” or adducing in support of this preposterousness a handful of Qur’anic phrases: “there is no compulsion in religion” (which does not mean what an Infidel who reads only those words would naturally take it to mean), and 5.32 but not 5.33 (Bush does it, Blair does it, even semi-educated fleas do it). Or if not the Qur’an, then one of the inauthentic Hadiths from one of the unauthoritative collections: Karen Armstrong loves the one about Muhammad returning from the “Lesser Jihad” of war to the “Greater Jihad” of domestic life, without recognizing that the hadith in question is not widely accepted as authentic. Why, I can write the Mosque-Outreach script for Infidels myself, and so can you, dear reader, and so can any man.
Here’s a case study, based on the posts of a Muslim who dropped by Jihad Watch a few days ago.

He asked:

"My questions to you [at JW} are: Do you personally know any Muslims? Do you have any Muslim friends? Do you know about the Muslim experience in the post 9/11 America? Have you ever visited a Mosque? Have you ever been to an inter-faith event (e.g. poetry recital)? Have you ever read the Holy Qur’an or any of the other Islamic spiritual texts such as the works of Jalaluddin Rumi or al-Ghazali, Rabia al-Adawiyyah, Muhammad Iqbal, etc.?"

The questions are misplaced. Many of the readers at this site have visited those Mosque Outreach exercises in Taqiyya-and-Tu-Quoque. Many have read the Qur’an, and have read and reread it, keeping in mind several things:

1) About 20% of it makes no sense, even to Muslims who know classical Arabic. See Christoph Luxenberg for one attempt to solve that matter of philology.

2) The internal contradictions in the Qur’an are resolved through the doctrine of “naskh” or “abrogation,” so that, as in the systems of common law, where the doctrine of stare decisis ordinarily holds but later decisions, when different, cancel the effect of earlier ones (e.g., Plessy v. Ferguson is not valid after Brown v. Bd. of Education).

3) The doctrine of “naskh” allows the so-called Meccan suras, the softer ones, which were presumably the product of a time when Muhammad still felt the need for support and had not yet become as harsh toward Infidels as he became once he had taken control in Medina (Yathrib), to be cancelled or overruled or overturned by the much harsher so-called “Medinan” suras.

4) While there are more than 150 Jihad verses in the Qur’an — though only 27 appearances of the word “qitaal” or combat, the most dangerous ones, such as those contained within Sura 9, are among the very last “revealed,” and hence possess great authority.

5) In English or French, as Western scholars of Islam familiar with the original texts have noted, the Qur’an’s verses are far less harsh than they are in the Arabic. Many of the words involving the treatment to be meted out to Unbelievers, that is Infidels or non-Muslims, are of this kind.

6) The official Muslim groups tend to distribute the translations that are much milder than the real thing. Even those used by Muslims, such as that of Yusuf Ali, do not always adequately convey the real meaning. But that can be found usually in the notes, and it is important for Infidels to read those Muslim annotations.

7) The Qur’an by itself does not yield up its full meaning, and the Sunnah, that is the customs and practice of Muslims of the time, of Muhammad and the Companions, is the true interpretive aid, the essential means by which obscure meanings are teased out. That is why Muslims so often refer to “Qur’an and Sunnah.”

8) Islam is a collectivist faith that does not admit of free exercise of conscience. That is, it will not permit — often on pain of death — individuals from deciding for themselves that they wish to leave Islam, sometimes for another faith, sometimes for no faith at all. That Islam does this makes it akin to other totalitarian belief-systems that do not tolerate anyone leaving that closed system. In a sense, a Muslim who leaves Islam is treated as a deserter from the army of Islam, just as someone who is persuaded to become a Muslim, even without any real understanding and with very incomplete (often deliberately withheld) knowledge, merely by reciting the single verse of the Shehada, is regarded as a recruit to the army of Islam, someone who has been signed up, rather than someone who has been carefully taught in order to save his individual soul.

9) Yes, not only have many of those posting here visited mosques during those phony Outreach Programs, but we have made it a point to attend those utterly phony presentations of Islam, in which none of the real questions — about how Islam divides the world uncompromisingly between Believer and Infidel, and territorially between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb — ever come up. And of course there is never a discussion of Muhammad, that is of the killings of Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan, the decapitation of the bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, the attack on the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis, the tale of little Aisha, and so much else.
It makes no sense whatsoever, given the smooth taqiyya-and-kitman-and-tu-quoque so well-practiced and presented, for Infidels to attend any Muslim event without having thoroughly prepared themselves by learning about Islam, by reading the immutable texts of Islam, by talking to those who have grown up in Islam and left it, or those who, as Infidels, grew up in lands dominated by Islam — such as Hindus from Bali or Bangladesh, Christians from Egypt or Iraq or Pakistan, Jews from Yemen or Egypt or Syria, Zoroastrians, what few are left, who have escaped from Iran, and so on. One can expect only apologetics from Muslims — that is what our experience, individual and collective, demonstrates again and again. One can only take so much nonsense and lies, before even the most naive start to have things begin to make sense.

They figure the whole thing out.

You offer, instead of honesty, a list of all kinds of irrelevancies. Jihad Watch is a pedagogic site. It is a site devoted to presenting all kinds of material about Islamic behavior and Islamic doctrine, and showing their connection. And it is also devoted to revealing the ways in which Infidels, in and out of the West, do or do not exhibit the traditional behavior of dhimmis — that is, the non-Muslims under Islam who were allowed to stay alive, and even to practice, within severe limits, their non-Muslim religions, but who were subject to a host of economic, political, legal, and social disabilities that together amounted to a permanent condition of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity.

In conclusion, a few questions, in turn, for you.

Have you ever compared the treatment, meted out over the past 1350 years, in all the lands conquered by Islam, toward the indigenous non-Muslims, with the way in which Muslims have been received and allowed to settle deep behind what they themselves are taught to regard as enemy lines?

Have you ever given the slightest thought to the possibility that the belief-system of Islam, with its Total Regulation of Life and Complete Explanation of the Universe, was essentially akin to a totalitarian doctrine?

Have you ever wondered about, or gone to hear, or read the books of, the many brilliant and articulate apostates from Islam including, but not limited to, Ibn Warraq (Why I Am Not a Muslim), Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina (whose site www.faithfreedom.org relentlessly offers arguments against Islam from those who finally left it, and in so doing found intellectual and moral peace), Anwar Shaikh (who has described Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacism in “Islam the Arab National Religion”), and many others, the most impressive people born into Islam, thoughtful, articulate, coherent — and being joined by other thoughtful, articulate, sensible people who through no fault of their own were born into Islam.

Eventually some Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and Indian Muslims may be able to slough off Islam as an ideology through a re-embrace of what could be seen as an original identity: that they were merely the descendants of Hindus, or in some cases Buddhists, who were forcibly converted to avoid either death or the onerousness of the dhimmi condition. Similarly, in the case of some North African “Arabs,” they may recognize themselves as the descendants of the indigenous Berbers — so many of whom, under the cultural and linguistic imperialism of the Arabs, were so arabised as to become “Arabs” themselves. And they not only became “Arabs,” but in turn to oppress the rights of those Berbers who still, steadfastly, have managed to resist the very arabisation that the ancestors of the “Arabs-from-Berbers” did not. Similarly, given how educated and intelligent Iranians are, including some who once worked to overthrow the Shah, they will come to see the use to which Islam is naturally put, the damage it has brought to Iran. This can be made to frame the incipient anti-Islam sentiments of many Iranians in national terms, see the primitive desert Arabs as having brought the “false gift” of Islam to the superior civilization of Persia. Discussion of what misery the Arab “gift” of Islam has brought to Iran, and a recognition by Iranian Muslims that they are the descendants of Zoroastrians whose last adherents are now so oppressed in Iran, might be one point of purchase to undo or at least limit the appeal of Islam. Have you given that Arab supremacism for which Islam is a vehicle any thought yourself?

And you ask, who has read the Qur’an? You should have asked: Who has read the Qur’an, the Hadith, and the Sira, should you not? In turn, one might ask: Have you read the Bible? Have you gone to a church merely to observe Christian worship? What do you know about the field of comparative religion? And would you allow other Muslims, your siblings or your children, to freely visit churches and synagogues and Hindu temples, and to read the holy scriptures of other faiths, and even to study those faiths formally, as many non-Muslims study Islam and the history of Islam? Would that be something you think should be encouraged for Muslims, both in Dar al-Islam, and in the Lands of the Infidels?

Tell us all about it.

Fitzgerald: A Few More Questions For General Petraeus

Senator Warner: Are you able to say at this time if we continue what you have laid before the congress here, this strategy. Do you feel that that is making America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.

Warner: Does that make America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted this in my own mind. What I have focused on and what I have been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the multinational Iraq. -- an exchange during the recent testimony of General Petraeus before the Senate

A Few More Questions For General Petraeus:

Q.: General, you have not “sat down and sorted this out in [your] own mind.” Does that make sense? Shouldn’t you not merely “accomplish the mission,” but ask yourself if the mission makes sense?

A.: Sir, I don’t know actually. I have to focus on the job I was given.

Q.: But what if the job, what if the mission, does not make sense?

A.: I’d have to think about that long and hard, Senator.

Q.: You have been in Iraq, General Petraeus, for a long time.

A.: Yes.

Q.: You were there in 2003.
A.: Yes.

Q.: You were there in 2004. You were in Tel Afar. You were building up Iraq’s forces. You were allowing American weaponry to be distributed to what were called “Iraqi” forces without much oversight.

A.: I was there, yes, in 2004. In Tel Afar. And elsewhere in the north. There was no time to waste in getting those weapons into what we thought were the proper hands, Iraqi hands, so they could help defend themselves.

Q.: Not all of those hundreds of thousands of weapons did end up in hands that were using them only to defend themselves, were they?

A.: No, sir.

Q.: Where did that weaponry end up? Isn’t it true that some of it ended up on arms markets, sold to the highest bidder, or even ended up in Syria? Isn’t it true that some of those weapons ended up in the hands of people who hate Americans and want to kill them?

A.: Well, Senator, if we are going to worry about that, there are plenty of people in Iraq to hate Americans and would like to see them dead, and if we counted all of those, I’m just not sure, outside of Kurdistan, how many people we would have left to work with.

Q.: General Petraeus, you have a Ph.D. from Princeton, isn’t that true?

A.: Yes, sir.

Q.: And you have a reputation as being something of a strategic thinker. You wrote a very detailed manual on counter-insurgency. Isn’t that right?

A.: Yes, sir.

Q.: And in that manual, you suggest there are some helpful rules, some generally-applicable principles, that apply to all counter-insurgencies, and that you think they might be helpful in this case.

A.: Yes, sir.

Q.: And one of those rules, or laws or deductions was that, and let’s see if I get this right, that “in general, insurgencies last ten years.” Do I have that right?

A.: Yes, sir.

Q.: General Petraeus, does that mean that we should be prepared to stay in Iraq for another six years – if the “insurgency” in Iraq lasts the average length of time you say an insurgency does last?

A.: Well, sir, I haven’t given that much thought.

Q.: You haven’t?

A.: No, sir, I’ve been too busy with accomplishing the mission, trying to fulfill the mission.

Q.: General, if I were to tell you that a colonel in the British army had written a study concluding that “in general, civil wars last 4.7 years,” what would you say to that?

A.: I’m not sure I understand, Senator.

Q.: Would you find something a bit doubtful about someone who came to such a conclusion, and who thought further that such a conclusion might be useful?

A.: Yes, Senator, I take your point. There are many variables, of course.

Q.: And one of those variables, the biggest variable of them all, in Iraq is that there is both an insurgency, or many insurgencies, and a civil war, or several civil wars, and in the meantime the Muslim population, whatever it is fighting for or against, is certainly not a friend, and cannot be an ally, of the Americans who are, and will remain, Infidels. Isn’t that right?

A.: I couldn’t say actually. But I see what you are saying, and I think it is something I will have to explore with my advisers.

Q.: Yes, that would be helpful. That would be desirable. Now General, some Congressmen have come back from trips to Baghdad, where they met with you, and have reported that you have said the American forces might have to stay another nine or ten years. Is that true?

A.: I may have given that impression, sir. I talk about what might be or could be, not what necessarily will be.

Q.: So you think it might be necessary, it might make real sense, for the American forces, stretched as they are, with all the damage done to the morale, and to the quality of those forces, that everyone in the Pentagon knows about, you think perhaps it might make sense to keep American forces in Iraq for, as one Congresswoman put it last week, “another nine or ten years”?

A.: Sir, the situation in Iraq is evolving. I really couldn’t say. I’m not trying to evade giving you an answer. I just can’t say.

Q.: What kind of regime, what kind of neighborhood, what kind of welcome, do you think people in Iraq would offer Americans for the next nine or ten years?

A.: I really couldn’t say.

Q.: General, the other day I was disturbed to read the transcript of your answers to the set of questions posed to you about Islam. You apparently have read “parts of the Qur’an” but had not heard of the Hadith or Sira. Is that correct?

A.: Yes, sir.

Q.: Do you think that in order to discover the mental make-up of the people in Iraq -- I’m not going to call them “Iraqis,” you notice, General -- we might, just might, look into Islam?

A.: That makes sense, sir.

Q,: General, what do the officers and men, the soldiers and Marines, learn about Islam? What are they taught at Fort Jackson and Fort Bragg and Fort Benning before they are in country?

A.: I don’t know, Sir.

Q.: You don’t know?

A.: No, sir.

Q.: Do you think you should find out? Do you think morale might improve, and effectiveness might improve, if the soldiers knew in advance what attitudes they would encounter, and where those attitudes come from?

A.: I don’t know, Sir. I’m not sure that the hostility that they encounter is something we should tell them about in advance. They may not necessarily encounter it. They may have their own experiences.

Q.: But that is the general experience, isn’t it?

A.: Yes, sir.

Q.: And many soldiers in Iraq have been quoted as saying they find the “Iraqi” soldiers and police untrustworthy, as well as unwilling to take the risks that American soldiers routinely take? Isn’t that true?

A.: Yes, sir. But that doesn’t prevent us from working with them, as in Anbar Province. The success we have had in Anbar Province has been quite remarkable, sir.

Q.: Isn’t that “success” really a function of the local Sunnis wanting American weapons and money – just the way people all over Iraq, including the Shi’a, have wanted to get their hands on American weapons and American money?

A.: To some extent, Sir.

Q.: And isn’t it also a function of the local Sunnis simply resenting the Al Qaeda people who have been so extreme in their behavior, so domineering, that they have made enemies of the Sunnis?

A.: Yes, sir, there is that.

Q.: So it is really no wonder that the local Sunnis would turn on Al Qaeda, which after all was killing anyone who did not follow their orders?

A.: No, sir.

Q.: Not quite a miracle after all. And even if a “miracle,” a purely local one, that has no relevance to other regions, to the Shi’a in Baghdad or in the entire south of Iraq, does it?

A.: That remains to be seen, Sir.

Q.: Does it? Does it remain to be seen by 160,000 American troops? Do they have to experience it for themselves, or can we use the past as any guide? Do we have any reason to think that the Sunnis who are now, as you put it, “working with us” in Anbar Province, will ever acquiesce in the new status of Sunnis in Iraq?

A.: Senator, I don’t think the Sunnis are happy, anywhere in Iraq, with what has happened to their power. Even those who hated Saddam Hussein now claim they miss him, they wish he would come back.

Q.: And do you trust those Sunnis to be allies of Americans, or rather, while they are willing to work with the Americans, do you think they could ever be permanent allies of the Americans?

A.: Sir, I’ve been so busy trying to accomplish the mission that I just haven’t given this thought. I use what I can. The Sunnis in Anbar help defeat Al Qaeda.

Q.: General, some people say that if the American forces withdraw from Iraq, it is dead certain that “Al Qaeda will take over.” President Bush has said as much. And then other people, with the same certainty, tell us that it is undeniable that if we leave then the Shi’a, along with Iran, will take over all of Iraq. The forces of Al Qaeda hate the Shi’a and call them “Rafidite dogs.” The members of Al Qaeda think the Shi’a are not only not real Muslims, but they also play on the notion that any Shi’a in Iraq cannot be a real Arab, must be a Persian. Isn’t that right?

A.: Something like that, Sir. I haven’t studied the matter very closely.

Q.: So how is it that either Iraq will be taken over, definitely, by Al Qaeda, or by its enemy, the Shi’a, backed by Shi’a Iran? Who’s right?

A.: I don’t know, Sir. I haven’t given it any thought.

Q.: No thought? No thought as to what might happen in Iraq if the Americans withdraw?

A.: No, sir. Except that it would result in a bad situation, with lots of instability and fighting.

Q.: Bad for whom, General?

A.: Well, instability is always bad for America, isn’t it?

Q.: Is it, General? Is instability within the Islamic world bad for us? Is open hostility within the Islamic world bad for us? Was the Iran-Iraq War “bad for us,” as you put it, General?

A.: Well, I don’t think that our oil supplies would be as secure.

Q.: General, do you know that during the Iran-Iraq War oil supplies were largely untouched, and the price of oil went down steadily from 1980 to 1988?

A.: No, Senator, I did not.

Q.: General, President Bush has often spoken of bringing “freedom” and “democracy” to -- and these are his words, not mine -- “ordinary moms and dads in the Middle East.” Have you ever had occasion to think about those words, and what Islam teaches about “freedom” and “democracy”?
A.: No, Senator, I have not.

Q.: So, would it or would not surprise you to learn that in Islam men are regarded as merely “slaves of Allah” who must fulfill his will, or endure without complaint even his whim, and that it is not right for mere mortals to think that they know best, and that they can vote in just any government or regime they want, but must always and everywhere do the bidding of Allah?

A.: Well, Senator, that’s a tough question. I just don’t know enough about Islam to comment on that. I do know that I’ve always been taught that the love of freedom is universal, that everyone has that love of freedom, and no one wants to be a slave of anything. That’s why my father fled the Netherlands, and brought his boat here. He didn’t want to live under the Nazi occupation. He loved freedom.

Q.: General, I think many people in the Western world, many people in Western Europe, many people in the Netherlands right now, are worried about whether or not they will live in freedom. But you know, they are worried about a different kind of occupation, a new threat to their freedom. And General, I don’t think we are going about it the right way. I don’t think Iraq is the place to be.

A.: Senator, I don’t know anything about what is going on in the Netherlands today, or the rest of Western Europe. I’m under CentCom.

Q.: General, as you know, the Shi’a Arabs are about 60-65% of the population. So in any “democracy” that we bring them, they are going to win the vote, win power, have the Shi’a rule. Isn’t that right?

A.: Well, I suppose if there is bloc voting you could say that. But if they vote for individuals, that wouldn’t necessarily happen.

Q.: Do you think that in Iraq most people vote as individuals, for individual candidates, and pay no attention to whether those candidates are Sunni Arabs, or Shi’a Arabs, or Kurds?

A.: Senator, during the elections in Iraq I was not part of the Observer Force. I had many other things to do, many other things on my mind. I’ve got a war to fight, I’ve got people to train.

Q.: General, I have some figures here. The war in Iraq has cost a certain amount to date. And there is more to come, even if we were to announce a total withdrawal tomorrow. There is the cost of bringing home all that equipment, for example. Isn’t that right?

A.: Assuming we do bring it all home, yes, Senator.

Q.: Do you think it makes sense to leave that equipment behind, General? Are you quite sure that the mutually hostile groups in Iraq won’t use that equipment in ways that we wouldn’t approve?

A.: No, Senator, I’m not.

Q.: General, on another question, could you tell us how keeping American troops in Iraq has an effect on the Jihad elsewhere in the world?

A.: Sorry, I’m not sure I understand the question.

Q.: Well, in 1970 there were 15,000 Muslims in the Netherlands. And now there are a million. And in some cities in Europe, or parts of the biggest cities, the police do not go, and non-Muslims feel unsafe. And everywhere there are mosques and madrasas going up.

A.: I’m still not sure I understand the question.

Q.: I would like you to tell us what the continued presence of American troops in Iraq, for another year, or another five years, or another ten years, would do to the instruments of Jihad to spread Islam around the world. For example, what effect those American forces would have on the spread of Islam all over the globe? And since Jihad to spread Islam, until it dominates everywhere, and Muslims everywhere rule, is a central duty in Islam, how does our being in Iraq help in the war of self-defense against the Jihad?

A.: Senator, I haven’t really given that much thought. I’ve been focused on the mission.

Q.: General, you have been following the news in Europe, haven’t you?

A.: Well, of course, sir, I try to stay informed.

Q.: And you know that all over the countries of Western Europe there is great alarm over what people have been discovering about the behavior, the attitudes, the beliefs, of their Muslim populations, and it seems the more they find out about Islam, the more worried they become. Are you aware of that?

A.: Well, Senator, not actually. In a general sort of way I know that immigrants always have a tough time adapting.

Q.: Do they now? Did your father, Sixtus Petraeus, have difficulty when he arrived in the United States in 1940, fleeing the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands -- did he have difficulty integrating into American society?

A.: No, Senator, he didn’t.

Q.: General Petraeus, is it possible that an ideology, that is a Total Belief-System, may in fact mold the worldview of those who are taught from infancy to believe in that Total System, and who learn almost nothing outside of what that Total System permits, and who grow up surrounded by family members and others who have never doubted, never been allowed even to be exposed to the doubts expressed by others, that Total System?

A.: I’m not much on ideology, Senator. I’m a kind of hands-on guy. I do my job. And my job is doing the very best I can as a member of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Q.: General, what constitutes fighting a war?

A.: Senator, I would say that what we are doing right now in Iraq constitutes fighting a war. Yes, in Iraq we are fighting a war.

Q.: A war against whom?

A.: Against the terrorists and those who would deliver Iraq over to the terrorists.

Q.: General, do you think Pakistan has been delivered over to the terrorists?

A.: I couldn’t say, Senator.

Q.: What about Saudi Arabia? Has Saudi Arabia been delivered over to the terrorists?

A.: As I understand it, Senator, the Saudis have been doing their utmost to de-program their own homegrown Al Qaeda members -- and we can learn from them.

Q.: Can we? Are you quite sure? And do you know how Saudi Arabia has spent some one hundred billion dollars spreading Islam throughout the Western world?

A.: No, I’m not familiar with Saudi finances, sir. I concentrate on the military aspect of things.

Q.: General, can you tell us why we are in Iraq?

A.: Well, let me put it this way. I am in Iraq to accomplish the mission. I haven’t given much thought as to larger questions. I have a job to do and I am giving it the very best I can.

Q.: I think that about sums it up. This session is adjourned.

[Posted by Hugh at September 17, 2007]

Fitzgerald: Final Exam

Final Exam:

Passage #1:

Another of the group, Yu Jung-hwa [of Korean missionaries captured by the Taliban], described how she thought she was going to die.
"The most difficult moment, when I had a big fear of death, was when the Taleban shot [a] video.

"All 23 of us leaned against a wall and armed Taleban aimed their guns at us, and a pit was before me.

"They said they will save us if we believe in Islam. I almost fainted at the time and I still cannot look at cameras," she said.

Passage #2:
Qur'an 2.256: "There is no compulsion in religion."

Discuss Passages #1 and #2. You may bring in any additional knowledge you may have from your other reading on the 1350-year history of Islam. For this you may touch on:

1) Recent scholarship on the origins of Islam -- John Wansbrough, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, Yehuda Nevo, Gerd Puin, Christoph Luxenburg et al.

2) The definiition of dar al-Islam and of dar al-Harb, and the relationship that is to be established between the two.

3) The basis for all Muslim jurisprudence pertaining to treaties and agreements with Infidels -- that is, the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya.

4) The concept of Muhammad as a "perfect man" and the behavior of Muhammad in his 78 military campaigns, including the stated reason for the campaign against the Jews of the Khaybar oasis, and the execution of the Jews of the Bani Qurayza taken prisoner.

5) Sura 9:29 of the Qur'an.

6) The doctrine of naskh, or abrogation.

7) What the word "Sunnah" comprises, and the contents of some of the best-known hadith (stories about the acts and sayings of Muhammad) that express the correct Muslim attitude toward Infidels.

8) The Qur'anic verses pertaining to women. The most relevant hadith pertaining to women. The women in Muhammad's life, including the story of his last, and favorite, wife -- young Aisha, whom he married when she was 6, but demurely waited to consummate the marriage when she was 9 years old. The significance, or lack of it, of this part of Muhammad's life for Muslims today.

9) The atittude toward the Christian belief in the divinity of Christ. The relevant passages in the Qur'an about believers in "shirk."

10) The concept of the kuffar. What is the Bilad al-Kufr? Why is it now permissible, as it once was not, for Muslims to migrate to the Bilad al-Kufr and live there? What do the Muslim websites explain?

11) What does the phrase "umma al-islamiyya" mean? Do whom, or to what, must Muslims owe their allegiance? Are they permitted to owe their allegiance or loyalty to anything else? Could they ever possibly fight on the side of Infidel fellow-citizens against Muslims from another country?

12) What is the concept of "taqiyya"? Does it differ from "kitman"? People of all religions lie, but is there another religion that formally sanctions lying in order to protect that religion or its Believers?

13) How are Jesus and Moses viewed in Islam?

14) What are the "djinn" in the Qur'an and where to they come from?

15) When was the Qur'an written? Over what period of time? And who wrote it down, if Muhammad was "unlettered"? And who dictated it? Why are there so many elements of both the Old and the New Testament to be found in the Qur'an? Which came first?

16) Why did the original Arab conquerors have such astounding success in subduing large swaths of territory? Did the belief-system they brought with them help or hinder that success, in the light of what you now know about Islam?

17) Can the hadith that are regarded as "authentic" be changed? That is, can one simply get rid of those hadith that say unkind things about Infidels?

18) Why are those who are Muslims not allowed to change their religion without the threat of severe punishment, including death?

19) Why do Muslims call Infidels who become Muslims "reverts" rather than "converts"?

20) What does the word "dhimmi" mean? What are the ahl al-dhimma? What is the "pact" that was made between the Muslims and the "People of the Book" who were allowed to live, and even practice their religion, under certain conditions? What requirements were laid upon the dhimmis in order that they might be treated as such? What does it mean to be a "protected people" -- "protected" from what, exactly?

21) Was Islamic Spain a paradise of interfaith harmony, that it would be advisable to try to reproduce today, if only we could?

22) What are the vast benefits that either "interfaith dialogue" or a "dialogue of civilisations" can bring to us?

Oh, this is just a start. Come to think of it, this little quiz may prove useful not only in Tulsa, but in New York and Washington.

Here is what I propose. Everybody, anybody, who wishes to utter a word about Islam, or about the relation of the tenets of Islam to how Muslims actually treat non-Muslims, and have done so for 1350 years, will have to take this test.

Time allotted: as much as you want.

If you want to go to the bathroom, the proctors will escort you.

Please write on only one side of the blue book.

[Posted by Hugh at September 12, 2007]

There are more such lists of questions. But this should be, for now, enough.

Hugh, a passing grade on your test needs to be made mandatory for high school graduation and, perhaps more importantly, for voting.

Would it be possible for folks here to pass round the hat so as to pay for some brave newspaper to publish these four questions as a sort of 'Open Letter', advertisement style?

They could also, perhaps, be simplified and then turned into fliers, placards, or posters, to be judiciously sown around the urban landscape by American jihadwatchers.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy

… how about a card game like Non-Trivial Pursuit: The Religion That's After You!?

... or Islam's Non-Trivial Pursuit: It's After You!

Listening to Barack Obama I've learned that:
1) Ending a war is preferable to winning a war.

2) Examining and/or fighting Islamic Jihadism is fear-mongering and foolishly wishing it will all just go away is hope

3) 1350 years of Islamic supremism can be ended by dialogue with fanatical rulers who consider us the Great Satan.

Folks,

Maybe, it is still not too late to avert the looming catastrophe in Florida. Since the Florida Republicans are certain to do the wrong thing and reject Rudy after he put his heart and soul into the Florida campaign, the only ones who can save the situation are the Jewish retirees from the New York City, overwhelmingly Democrat, by crossing the party lines and voting for Rudy in the Republican primary. They know very well that Rudy saved the New York City from the Dark Age before he was elected mayor, so now they can give him the power to save our whole country and Israel. This might be the most crucial election in this country's history, so it is not time to do the politics as usual. Wasting the chance of having Rudy as president would be a blunder every bit as horrible as the one committed by the Democrat primary voters 32 years ago when they rejected Henry Jackson, a courageous man and a great friend of Israel and nominated Carter instead. Think of all the torture Israel suffered since from the bloody "peace processes" forced on it by our cowards-in-chief, the dhimmitude that backfired even deadlier on our own country. Rudy is the first great man to run for the presidency since Jackson. He stands apart from all other candidates through sheer force of personality and extraordinary leadership and administrative gifts, he has a quality to him that all other candidates are lacking. He represents an opportunity for this country that we cannot afford to miss, not in these dangerous times.
Folks, do any of you know the web sites those old-timers are the most likely to visit? If you convey this post of mine there, I'll be most appreciative.

Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.

Hugh's many questions are good, but really there is only one question that suffices to vet the good politician, to separate the wheat from the chaff:

Is Islam itself nourishing terrorism?"

A "No" answer disqualifies the politician in question; a "Yes" should get our vote -- no matter if he is a pro-abortion, anti-global-warming two-headed black lesbian transsexual.

I was especially interested in Robert's first proposed question for the candidates about Muslim immigration. The number of Iraqis the Bush administration plans to admit as refugees in this fiscal year is 12,000 (Refugee Resettlement program of the US State Dept.) The largest percentage of those are Muslims. So far they are behind schedule due to a disagreement between the US State Dept and Homeland Security over screening issues.

But, keep in mind that the Iraqis are not the only Muslims admitted as refugees in recent years. Between 1990 and 2003 (the only figures we have)we admitted 208,702 Muslims from 77 countries. The largest group were the Bosnians at 108,000. The Somalis were at 41,000 as of 2003, but estimates put the number of Somali refugees and asylees over 70,000 by 2006.

Refugees are entitled to apply to bring extended family members and have been doing so all these years. The State Dept. insists they are carefully screened, but I don't think the terrorist threat is as great as the threat of changing America from within. We have already seen the demands the Somalis have placed on communities.

If you asked the candidates questions about this they wouldn't know what you are talking about, since most politicians don't have a clue this is happening (unless of course you have been one of those,like Ted Kennedy, promoting this program for nearly 30 years).

Is Islam itself nourishing terrorism?"
A "No" answer disqualifies the politician in question; a "Yes" should get our vote -- no matter if he is a pro-abortion, anti-global-warming two-headed black lesbian transsexual.
Posted by: cantor

Problem is that such a question, if asked, will be seen as a softball question giving the candidate the opportunity to explicitly disavow assaulting Islam, rather than as an opportunity to attack Islam itself. Nobody - not even a Tom Tancredo, had he lasted - would answer yes to such a question. And I doubt that even, say, Loyalist party candidates, if asked, would answer yes to such a question. Even though one could distinguish between attacking Islam from attacking Muslims.

The questions Robert listed above, as well as the 2 I asked, are questions that avoid putting the candidates in a position that NOONE would be willing to be put into, but nonetheless offer them an opportunity to implicitly attack Islam without explicitly attacking it, or exposing theselves as unwittingly pro-Jihad. In a society where a majority of the populace was where we are, your question would likely get a direct yes/no answer. In the absense of that, we do have to let candidates give us the truth indirectly, rather than hand it to us on a platter.

How would Obama deal with the islam problem. Considering his family on one side is muslim. Will he stand against it?

And how will he deal with Africa's ongoing crisis situations. Will he forgive debt and promise more money in aid?

http://www.expatica.com/fr/articles/news/French-editor-back-in-court-over-prophet-cartoons.html

Infidel Pride, I still don't think my question is impractical, but I do agree my stark Yes/No answers are.

Thus, I would retain my question, but allow the politician to finesse his answer without really saying "No". One possible way he could do it without incurring politically correct suicide:

Question: "Is Islam itself nourishing terrorism?"

Answer: "Well, I'm not sure that kind of stark language is the most productive way of framing this very complicated problem we and the whole world are facing, although on the other hand I wouldn't want to necessarily avoid going out on a limb solely because I, as a candidate running for the Presidency of the United States, in these very sensitive and politically correct times, am constantly worried about the sensitivities of special interest groups, some of whom do not necessarily deserve that kind of deferential treatment; and so to get back to the main point of your question, I would say it's a very good question, one that needs to be put on the table for discussion, and not one that should be prejudicially banned from all political discourse, as it has been too much so up to this point, in my opinion, and if I am elected, I will make sure to make the discussion of that question a definite priority..."

What I just imaginatively constructed would be much more refreshing, IMO, than anything we've heard to date from any of the actual candidates; but I don't think it would politically harm the candidate who would speak it, and in between the lines are crumbs for the perspicacious among us who would vote for him or her, and look forward to the fruition of the promise contained therein.

cantor

In that case, I'd rephrase that question as, "Mr ____, there are those who claim that Islam itself is the root cause of terrorism and extremism, and provides a nurturing environment to the above. To what extent, if any, do you agree with such perceptions, and do you think that terrorism is the only threat to our free society that's posed by Islam?"

I think that this forces the candidate to be upfront about what (s)he believes on the issue, and non-answers also tell one what one needs to know. Such a question could also have follow up questions regarding how candidates regard other social trends such as burqhas, honor killings and footwash basins that are not part of Jihad the way it's widely understood, but are negatively perceived symbols of Islam creeping into Western society, which a general audience is not likely to be very sympathetic towards. So if a candidate has negative sentiments towards the above, they are more likely to be expressed, as opposed to a blanket what amounts to 'Yes, I do think Islam itself is nurturing terrorism, but I'm too scared to spit it out in so many words'.