The Implications of the Dismissal of Stephen Coughlin, Joint Staff, Pentagon

The evidence is unequivocal. Mr. Coughlin should be Secretary of Defense!

Robert,

Why no source for this paper? Published? Author?
Oversight?

Or shouldn't we ask?

Also, Hannity & Colmes had Steve Emerson on last night reporting on this.

Neither H or C understood the implications of firing Coughlin because of his message being "too politically hot". Rather, they concentrated on Emerson's belief that an Islamist is in the Pentagon and was involved in the firing. "You mean the Pentagon is lying to us? " said Colmes.

In the Nazi Reich, Germans were required to believe that their country had the right to seize sovereign territory for their own "living space."

Under the Fascist Duce, Italians were required to believe that the leader represented the congealed will of the people.

In Stalinist Soviet Union, Russians and occupied peoples were required to believe that everyone was free and equal.

Under Jesuit social administration, members and conscripts were required to believe that "that which is really black is actually white, if the church hierarchy (read: caesaropope) so dictates."

In Bush-Zombamerica anti-evolutionist hordes are required to believe that ISLAM-IS-PEACE, and that fellow Abrahamists - muslims - have noble, personal salvation through prayer as their life purpose.

It is heresy to say: Bush was, is and will be, a FRAUD, and his supporters are mental slaves with the collective critical capacity of a flat worm. (And that includes Charles Johnson and his LGF-Kos mirror-images)

When stupidity prospers, none have the intelligence to discern their own stupidity.

The evidence is unequivocal. Mr. Coughlin should be Secretary of Defense!

Posted by: David England at January 12, 2008 8:16 AM

I think Robert Spencer should hold that position.

Then, I'd feel safe.

"To Our Great Detriment": Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad - by Stephen C. Coughlin, Esq.

Print it . . .read it. . . pass it around, starting with your Congressmen and Senators.

DEMAND AN INQUIRY into the shenanigans of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and his much cherished "key aid", "interlocutor" and "personal, close confidante", this Egyptian-born, Arabic-speaking Muslim Cmdr. Hesham Islam (USN ret.) whose particular anti-Christian bigotry exposed the treason within.

SHOCK NEWS - Islam penetrates U.S. government agencies at highest level.

"Implications: ....This is, therefore, a penetration of our government at the most senior levels. In this case we are obligated to undertake actions to determine, who is Mr. Islam, why was he hired, what are his true intentions, and are there others in our government at this level who have penetrated other U.S. government agencies".-Robert

This is a realistic concern. Islam's tactics are the same as those used by Kim Philby and Co. against their critics. Coughlin would have found himself in the same situation with Philby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby

So what do we do? Write our Congressmen and Senators? Politicians do not seem to have the ability to do anything decent, reasonable or intelligent. How do we can bypass them?

JBS

I just sent a copy of the enumerations to the Joint Chief of Staff. I've also sent email to my Congressman, Senators, Vice President, and to the Secretary of State. This is too important to let pass. The government is infiltrated by peopple whose ultimate aim is to implement Sharia law. This is a direct effort to eliminate our Constitution. It's just the way it is. This is too important to not do anything. We have to organize and have a stronger political will than Islamists do. If not... They will win in the long-run.

Both England and Islam should be removed from their positions, have their security clearances pulled, and should be barred from future federal employment.

I am writing to my senators and my congressman to demand an investigation on enemy penetration of the Defense Department in particular, and of the Executive Branch generally. The above well-written list of charges and actions, whoever wrote it, is quite helpful in that project.

I wrote to my Senator last week. His office actually called me back to assure me the Senator was aware of the incident and was going to look into it further. Haven't heard back but I feel my email and maybe 1-2 or 3 others may get this story the correct attention.

All who follow this story should also write.

Getting some coverage on Hannity and Colmes is better than nothing. We can write our local congressman, Our talk show hosts,local newspapers and encourage them to do follow up and take a close look at Bill Gertz articles on this,as well as Frank Gaffney Jr. and Diana West, And we can be sure that Steve Emerson carries considerable influence in the various halls.Let them know that other writers are getting on the bandwagon. The actions of antishock8 above may reap unknown rewards as well. Don't hesitate to Email the White House as well, even if you don't think it will get attention, if enough of us do it, we can send up a red light to the staff that looks at these.

comments@whitehouse.gov.

Conduct closed Congressional Hearings to provide oversight of Federal Departments and Agencies, specifically DoD, DNI, FBI, CIA and DHS to determine if there has been (1) a significant penetration of US Government Departments and/or Agencies by non-state actors hostile to the United States...

This is already the case. The only question is: how many more like Mr. Islam have infiltrated our government and who has let them in (traitors like Gordon England).

I am sick of kissing the butts of the Muslims. They need to realize that they aren't the only people in the world who matters. Coughlin shouldn't have been fired, he should have been applauded. It is high time that the muslims get called on their bullcrap. They are rude, they complain all of the time, they like to play the victim even when they have committed some horrible crime. They should get some tougher skin. If they don't like the west, then they shouldn't be allowed to live in the west. They should learn to tolerate others opinions and culture just like they constantly command everyone else in the world to do for them.

They don't like it when the truth comes out. They are all hiding something and they are sneaky. I don't think that their ways belong in the western countries. I think that they should get a grip on the world and learn the phrase "sticks and stones".

It isn't our fault that most of the terrorism is caused by the middle east. It is theirs, but they find it easier to control us by accussing us of racism and whatnot. If they don't like it, they should go home NOW.

#3...and don't take three years doing #1.and 2.

Here are some of the people so far that have written, or reflected on the Bill Gertz story about the Stephen Coughlin firing.

,Bill Gertz,-Diana West,-Frank Gaffney Jr.,-Clifford May,-Jerry Gordon,-Robert Spencer,-Andrew Boston,-and Steve Emerson,-

You can forget about Congressional hearings. That only happens if a Male soldier oggles a Female soldier -- a far more dangerous threat to our national security than an Islamic Mole.

Besides, who in a Democratically controlled Congress wants to confront Mr. Islam about his Islamic sexist and anti-Semetic religious doctrines. Those kind of confrontations are better reserved for Bible-thumping, Christian extremists -- the real threat to our way of life.

Given the breadth of his experience, Mr. Coughlin also should be considered for Secretary of State. He could probably get that department ready for the battle.

Coughlin at State and Robert at Defense would make quite a team! Steve Emerson could back up either one of them.

I think that the hiring of this Mr. Islam may reflect deals with the Saudis that were arranged at a level much higher up the ladder than SecDef. I think it goes all the way to the White House. Undersecretary England is merely carrying out his orders. If any of you readers of JihadWatch who are military veterans can attest, chain of command is like the first principle of the Defense Department. When you are in the military, every unit has a section of its news board that has the specific chain of command posted. Going all up the line.

The hiring of Mr. Islam is no accident. If DoD is penetrated, it is so because the White House is penetrated.

"I summon my blue-eyed slaves anytime it pleases me. I command the Americans to send me their bravest soldiers to die for me. Anytime I clap my hands a stupid genie called the American ambassador appears to do my bidding. When the Americans die in my service their bodies are frozen in metal boxes by the US Embassy and American airplanes carry them away, as if they never existed. Truly, America is my favorite slave."

King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, Jeddeh 1993

http://www.sauduction.com/

Owner: King Fahd, Guardian of al-Haramain, Tyrant of the Saud Terrorist Entity; Patron of all Wahabi terrorists; Cockroach in Human Form

Slave: President George Walker Bush, dypso puppet of Saudi string pullers; politically and religiously nearsighted whore to his Saudi pimps; abandoner of Israel; protector of Kosovo and Bosnian terrorists and drug merchants; indulger of Helmond (Afghanistan) heroin industry; facilitator of future Ayatollah ICBMs, aimed at the US Homeland; future ribbon cutter at a Saudi financed university in his name.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention Robert.

A muslim weasel with a last name of 'islam'.

Gee, who said it was hard to find the good guys from the bad ?

The Implications of the Dismissal of Stephen Coughlin, Joint Staff, Pentagon

Implications are the defeat of America and the rise of Islamo-fascism with the help of Bush and his left right Globlaist forces fifth column deception is going well ,the dumbed down sheeple are well verese in O.J. but clueless as to the grave danger we are in thanks to our corrupt,deviant leaders.

This was so good from supercargo ,I posted it again.

In the Nazi Reich, Germans were required to believe that their country had the right to seize sovereign territory for their own "living space."

Under the Fascist Duce, Italians were required to believe that the leader represented the congealed will of the people.

In Stalinist Soviet Union, Russians and occupied peoples were required to believe that everyone was free and equal.

Under Jesuit social administration, members and conscripts were required to believe that "that which is really black is actually white, if the church hierarchy (read: caesaropope) so dictates."

In Bush-Zombamerica anti-evolutionist hordes are required to believe that ISLAM-IS-PEACE, and that fellow Abrahamists - muslims - have noble, personal salvation through prayer as their life purpose.

It is heresy to say: Bush was, is and will be, a FRAUD, and his supporters are mental slaves with the collective critical capacity of a flat worm. (And that includes Charles Johnson and his LGF-Kos mirror-images)

When stupidity prospers, none have the intelligence to discern their own stupidity.

I was not aware. Thank you for the information.

"... are there others ...?" Well, let me submit the name of President G. W. Bush for your consideration.

A billion thanks, supercargo.

I'd been looking for the quote.

So, I'll plagarise you.

""I summon my blue-eyed slaves anytime it pleases me. I command the Americans to send me their bravest soldiers to die for me. Anytime I clap my hands a stupid genie called the American ambassador appears to do my bidding. When the Americans die in my service their bodies are frozen in metal boxes by the US Embassy and American airplanes carry them away, as if they never existed. Truly, America is my favorite slave."

King Fahd Bin Abdul-Aziz, Jeddeh 1993

Boy, is that not chilling or what.

Truly truly scary.

That should be memorised by, well, everyone. I always laugh when people talk of the nonsensical Jewish cabal pulling the strings in Washington.

It's the oil, stupid

This is not the illustration I was searching for...but it is pretty accurate.
http://aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/bush-prays.jpg

If anyone out there can locate "how George Bush will save us from islam" - you know the picture of him in his moslem prayer pose, post it.

Oh, my. First, you forgot the attribution, unless it's your own work, which would be a bit odd considering how you introduced it.

Whoever wrote it used a common technique in agit-prop, which is combining accepted facts with out and out speculation, and a few completely false or unknowable statements.

The most offensive part is when the author implies two facts not in evidence and completely without merit: 1 - that Islam was privy to classified information above his clearance level (which is complete BS - everyone involved in J2 has TS/SCI, at a minimum), and 2 - that Islam is a traitor to the U.S. Both outrageous claims, but typical of a Robert Spenser or a Bill Gertz.

How completely and utterly pathetic.

"his contract would not be renewed due to the fact his message, and therefore he himself, had become too “politically hot.”

...just wait until the dhimmified public, who upon failing to combat militant Islam, has to taste hot lead from an Islamic radically fired AK-47.....everyone would lose more than a job, they would lose their heritage, their culture, their religion, and most likely their lives....

...sometime you must be "politically hot" to alert the others who may become "hot lead dead"...

G E N E R A L
B I L L Y
M I T C H E L L
R E T U R N S !!

Thank you Jeffery. Another bafflingly nonsensical comment.

The "Roger Irrelevent" of JW.

http://www.viz.co.uk/archive_strips/motorised_strips/viztv_popup_irrelevant.html

Jeffrey Carr:

Oh, my. First, you forgot the attribution, unless it's your own work, which would be a bit odd considering how you introduced it.

It is not my own work, but I did not forget the attribution. I deliberately left it off.

Whoever wrote it used a common technique in agit-prop, which is combining accepted facts with out and out speculation, and a few completely false or unknowable statements.

Completely false? Unknowable? Neither. It appears that you missed the Implications and Actions sections. This is a call for an investigation, or actually several investigations, into facts that are not presently known but are by no means unknowable.

The most offensive part is when the author implies two facts not in evidence and completely without merit: 1 - that Islam was privy to classified information above his clearance level (which is complete BS - everyone involved in J2 has TS/SCI, at a minimum), and 2 - that Islam is a traitor to the U.S. Both outrageous claims, but typical of a Robert Spenser or a Bill Gertz.

It's "Spencer."

Those are not claims of fact, those are points on which the author of this is calling for investigation.

Do you know the difference?

Do you, finally, have anything of substance to contribute here, or is it your plan simply to continue to engage in ad hominem attacks? I don't mind substantive disagreement, but your constant charges that I am somehow operating in bad faith are based only, as here, on your (willful?) misreadings and forced interpretations of what I and others write.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

"...everyone involved in J2 has TS/SCI,...."

....spies, the really good ones (and they don't really have a hard time getting access to secure and confidential information) can get TS/SCI.....just recently:

Illegal immigrant FBI/CIA agent married to State Dept employee who held sensitive posts in Middle East embassies
Nada Nadim Prouty Update: Not only is she an illegal immigrant who was hired by the CIA and the FBI. Not only was she then given access to Al-Qaeda detainees in Iraq. Not only is she now accused of passing information to Hizballah. Not only is her brother-in-law now on the lam after being indicted for funneling money from his restaurant chain to Hizballah. Not only did that restaurant chain sponsor the Arab American Institute conference that was addressed by (on video) Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, (and in person) Richardson, Kucinich, and Ron Paul. Not only all that, but also, she is married to a State Department wonk who has held key positions in Middle Eastern embassies.

"Jihad Jane's 'State' of Bliss," by Susan Edelman and Jill Culora in the New York Post:

November 18, 2007 -- FBI fraudster Nada Nadim Prouty not only used a sham marriage to get jobs with access to secret terrorist intelligence - her current husband is a State Department employee who has held sensitive posts in Middle Eastern embassies, The Post has learned.
Her third hubby, Gordon Prouty, 40, now works for the State Department in Washington, a spokesman confirmed Friday night. He had been stationed at American embassies in Egypt and Pakistan.

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, refused to comment on Gordon Prouty's job, or say whether he was under investigation along with his criminal wife.

"He's not charged with any wrongdoing in this case," Boyd said.

But the revelation surprised national security watchdogs.

"My God, she's married to one of our people," said Mike Cutler, a former US immigration special agent.

Nada Prouty, 37, admitted last week she faked her first marriage to a Michigan man in 1990, enabling her to get US citizenship that helped her secure jobs with the FBI and CIA. Her star as an agent rose, and officials trusted her to grill al Qaeda sympathizers.

She also confessed to sneaking into government databases for secret information on her sister and brother-in-law, both linked to the Middle East terror group Hezbollah....

Gordon Prouty was a foreign service officer under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In 1999, he transferred from Cairo to Islamabad, Pakistan, a State Department document shows.

The duties of a foreign service officer can include investigation of people applying for visas to enter the United States and protection of American citizens abroad....

Harvey Kushner, a criminal-justice professor and terrorism expert at Long Island University, said it's likely authorities are looking at the Prouty marriage. "If they're husband and wife, it would be important to see what involvement he had with records, his travels, his behavior, his contacts," Kushner said.

Posted by Robert at November 18, 2007 11:57 AM
Print this entry | Email this entry | Digg this | del

Well, lookee here, Jeff Carr, lead singer of the famous 50's a capella group, The Four Stages, has come to sing us a song about his anti-jihad expertise with commentary.

Jeff has found a place to vent his frustrations here at JW. He knows something is deeply wrong with Islam. He can't figure out what that is. He has impressed many with his 4 stages of radicalization theory but cannot understand why it so many jihadist defy his theory and just want to skip stages 1, 2 and 3 and jump right to stage 4.

Keep coming back though Jeff, your epiphany could be any day now.

"Both outrageous claims, but typical of a Robert Spenser or a Bill Gertz.
posted by J. carr

Wow, when he gets mad that Arabic "S" just sneaks out.

"Spenser"

Freudian keyboard error.

Would someone detail for me what would happen, and why would it be so wrong if the Brotherhood actually did penetrate the DoD?

The DoD are not a nursery school full of defenseless children. And how long would this "penetration" continue? Would staff and civilian personell at the Pentagon continue to conduct business as usual, oblivious to this obvious act of willful penetration? If all said parties are of legal age and consent to this act of "penetration," am I as a member of concerned citizens suppose to get on a horse and ride around town to my neighbors, and we all get on our horses brandishing menacing loaded Remington 1100's as we ride off vigilante-style to ... where?

What the gadzooks am I or is anyone suppose to do upon hearing this?

I declare Jethro, if this is so outrageous then just let the chips fall where they may, and if and when some kind of mess happens, we will all stay home and simply let someone else clean it up.

There's nothing I or any other peon-ic citizen can do about such things.

(I sure wish jihadwatch.org/ employed emoticons right about now ...! -|)

Jeffrey Carr:

Implying, or even the mere suggestion of improprieties does not rise to factually known, and established evidence in the case of Hashem Islam. The authors are not necessarily making assumptions either in the noted article.

The note that there may be an association b/t particular Muslim groups comes with the comment (if this is true). Implications are practical and reasonable in this time of war (undeclared). They are just that, implications that can call for an up and down investigation to the background of certain persons.

Mr. Hashem Islam should welcome such an investigation so that t a cloud of suspicion does not hang over his head.

This would be the same Jeffrey Carr who appealed to phony "Rev" Jim Sutter this time last week to discredit Robert Spencer? The same Jeffrey Carr who believes Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald are the same person?

And yet it appears that Carr's only expertise is having been in the Coast Guard several decades ago. Yes, a highly qualified intelligence analyst we're dealing with here!

I note on his micro-blog that Carr keeps repeating this mantra that Stephen Coughlin is among the "Islam is evil" crowd (he's even thrown LTC Joe Myers in that camp now, too), and yet he had utterly failed to document the claim. Time to put up or shut up, Jeff.

From Mr Einstein above:"Why would it be so wrong if the Brotherhood actually did penetrate the DoD?"

Wow. That's a toughie. Ooooooh. You'll have to let me think about that one. Let me see. Hmmmmmm.

Don't tell me. You're related to "Jeffery" aren't you. The firm grasp upon reality was the give away.

Boy, Steven Emerson really blew it last night on Hannity & Colmes, when the latter conducted a richly sardonic interview of Emerson, his questions openly implying that Emerson was a nut-ball conspiracy theorist.

"So, Mr. Emerson, are you saying that Islamic Jihad is running a broad-based conspiracy inside the the Pentagon? (Sneer.)

Now, to be sure Alan Colmes is a self-serving moron, but the show should have given Emerson more than 5-second time boxes in which to answer each question.

I am sure Jeffery only comes here so his own site goes from 1 hit a day to 5.

Anyone who makes the claim that Christian “extremist” and Islamic jihadist
are one and the same, is suffering from a extreme case of cranial rectal inversion and should only be approached with extreme caution.

BurgerBoy:"I am sure Jeffery only comes here so his own site goes from 1 hit a day to 5."

Well I fell for that one so I guess I nudged his meter into the heady and giddy half dozen zone. We're talking nose bleeds at that altitude.

But, I'm confused. From the photo of his "so hot it's boiling" webpage is Jeffery the hairy god or the schmuck with the goggles?

Mut or schmcuk? The big Q.

BurgerBoy:"I am sure Jeffery only comes here so his own site goes from 1 hit a day to 5."

Well I fell for that one so I guess I nudged his meter into the heady and giddy half dozen zone. We're talking nose bleeds at that altitude.

But, I'm confused. From the photo of his "so hot it's boiling" webpage is Jeffery the hairy dog or the schmuck with the goggles?

Mut or schmcuk? The big Q.

Folks, my imagination seemed to get the better of me with that last post, so let me summarize those last thoughts a bit. I'm as serious as cancer now.

George and his crew are attempting to install an appreciation for democratic, Republican-style forms of government into the Middle East. Think about how George and his crew are attempting to bring this about by the events taking place.

If he appears to be straying and going about doing this in an incorrect manner, go get yourself or your favorite candidate elected and have him or her go about attempting to bring a large body of people to appreciate a government system of free people.

And if what George does seems dangerous? Well, 'tis life, is it not? An adventure it is.

I speak my thoughts now as a bystander, watching the game, the show from the sidelines.

BurgerBoy:"I am sure Jeffery only comes here so his own site goes from 1 hit a day to 5."

Well I fell for that one so I guess I nudged his meter into the heady and giddy half dozen zone. We're talking nose bleeds at that altitude, folks.

But I'm confused. From the photo of his "so hot it's boiling" webpage, is Jeffery the hairy dog or the schmuck with the goggles?

Mutt or schmuck?

The big Q.

The curse of the triple post returns

Again, hear we have confirmation why the Founding Fathers thought of the Electorial College system: the populace are fickle, and easily swayed by any wind of doctrine.

What is funny about all of this is that the mere mention of Islamic text to explain historical and modern Jihad in context throws most liberals into complete cerebral neuro-shock. It also by the way thows most Muslims into fits .. like their dirty little secret is out of the bag. Well Mr. Couglin was spreading the truth about Mr. Islams dirty littly secret (taquia). Maybe Mr. Islam, and Mr. England need some time on a waterboard ... sarcasm.

This may yet have a positive side to it. The story has gotten out, serious accusation’s made and powerful people alerted. This is an election year and political enemies of the President will jump on a chance to hurt him and his power base. This will not be dropped, hidden or contained. If an infiltration is in progress, they have failed to remain hidden. That might just be enough to not only stop this but to root them and their allies out.

We have to make sure this story and all the dirt associated with it stays in the public eye.

heroyalwhyness ,

Thanks for posting this link

http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.176/pub_detail.asp

In the end I hope this story does more to blow the lid off of this, than it hurt us by trying to silence a brave patriot like Couglin. It took several weeks for this story to break on the cable networks. They can't silence the truth ... many stories are breaking here first then getting picked up by folks like Michael Savage then onto the major news outlets. This has been forewarded thousands of times by now, which never would have happened if Couglin wasn't muscled out of the pentagon by Mr. Islam ... gotta love the name too ironic ... perfect ... catchy you think?

Tarzan didn't kill certain beasts if and when they at first did not harken to his calls. He eventually tamed them to respond to his beck and call.

I wonder how George— I mean, I wonder how Tarzan did that to those animals ...?

I noted on Jeffrey Carr's website, on criticism of Stephen Coughlin that criticizes Coughlin for not speaking Arabic. This of course is a common ploy used by Muslims to let non Muslims know that they don't understand or misinterpret the Qu'ran, or Hadiths because they do not understand Arabic. This of course is absolute nonsence.We are reminded by the televised discussion between a Sheike and Wafi Sultan, when the sheike tried to tell Wafi Sultan that she did not understand the Qu'ran because she could not speak Arabic--she let him know quite forcefully that this was a complete fabricated excuse for what is written and that more than 85 Pct. of the worlds practicing Muslims do not speak Arabic.

Where's the petition, we want to sign it. The one that states: Reinstate Coughlin and seriosly investigate Hesham Islam (and most likely fire), and the guy who personally promoted him. My pen is ready as well as my send button. I will email it everywhere.

An excerpt from Coughlin's thesis:

Threat Labels and Descriptors the Excusive Domain of the IPB (Intelligence Preparation
of the Battlefield) Process.

Rounding out the discussion on the use of language that began in the section “A Final
Note on ‘Unconstrained’” that was amplified in the discussion on “key terrain,” the
proper alignment of terminology with doctrine is critical. The IPB methodology requires
a disciplined dispassionate application of the consequences of the validated threat profile
that emerges - whatever that profile may be. When not grounded in threat development
process, descriptive adjectives become unsupported editorial comments that either blur or
mischaracterize the actual nature of the threat as defined by the IPB process. Special
attention should be given to value-laden adjectives such as "extremist," "radical," and
"ultra-conservative," not to mention national-security-centric terms like "Islamist,"
"political Islam" or “violent extremist.” Arguably, if the threat doctrine is not cancelled
out in the sit-temp phase by actual Islamic doctrine, it cannot reasonably be characterized
as "radical," "extremist," or even "ultra-conservative." Adjectives that do not draw their
meaning from the IPB process, therefore, should be disfavored.

The reverse also applies. Institutional re-definition of terms should also be
disfavored, especially when re-definitions include descriptors that, on the one hand do not
draw their meaning from the IPB process and, on the other, can be associated with
institutional definitions, doctrinal understandings, or requirements that draw their
meaning from within a pre-existing national security framework. Simply stated, threat
terms and adjectives should be validated as a part of the threat development process.
Descriptors that do not draw their meaning from the threat environment will lead the
national security community to make distinctions that may not exist inside the actual
threat domain. This is not just an interesting academic debate.

USorThem,

From your site:

"But Islam didn’t want Coughlin to let the cat out of the bag at the Pentagon and worked hard to shut him up.

Islam succeeded."

At this point in time, I disagree.

I suspect he is now bemoaning the unintended consequences of his statements and actions:

public scrutiny and debate.

Hi,
My only direct experience with Muslims was when I had to bribe them to release my brother in law Ariel from Saudi Arabia, and then when I tried to go after his recruiters in the Philippines. Ariel was recruited in the Philippines to be a construction worker, but was taken into a slavery situation instead. I learned about "moderate islam" during this experience. I also learned about the role my employer Northrop Grumman played in the saudi national guard, which I had to use to arrange my payments. I am pleased not to be working for them anymore.
I read Jihad Watch because that is where jihad activities are reported. That is where I saw your comment calling the site "pathetic". I never felt more pathetic then when "moderate moslems" finally condescended to take my money and allowed me to arrange a taxi with travel papers to pick Ariel up from the shipping container where he was hiding with his stolen cell phone after fleeing his abusers. I never felt more pathetic then when I tried to prosecute his Saudi recruiters and listening to my Philippine attorney there tell me that the judge openly took saudi money and there was nothing to be done. Have you ever been in a situation like that? You think talking to Jihad Watch readers is like "talking to the wall"? Give me a concrete example of your success in changing moslem attitudes toward infidels in a real world situation.
Thanks

ewha1
I noticed that Jeffery’s site got the most comments under the article titled “Jihad watch - don’t be a hater” and that one only got a whopping 12 comments, all the other articles have zero comments, so as you can see the only way he knows how to generate short term hits to his half-baked ideas is to come here and rant incoherently.

Mackie
A Moslem friend of mine tried that same worn out argument.
I told him the same thing, only 20% of Moslems speak Arabic, so are the other 80% following the wrong Islam?
And then I add, I am only conveying what Osama bin Laden is saying and he does speak Arabic, so what gives?

The dumb look left on his face, is priceless.

The last comment was for Jeffrey.

Mackie,

I know Wafa Sultan speaks Arabic; I think you mean Ayaan Hirsi Ali--could that be?

See also Ronin's post above for a similar pov.

Contact your elected officials at:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

The CIC, VP, state reps, governors, it's all there.
These people need to hear from the public, that we are aware of what's going on and we demand they correct such a serious error.

Robert writes:
"This is a call for an investigation into facts that are not presently known..."

Nice. Throw out a baseless accusation and then call for an investigation to see if it's true or not. And you support that tactic, eh? Unless, of course, it's used against you, right?

As to my offering substance over ad hominem, you really should read your own comments section sometime. Many of your commenters love to make ad hominem attacks at my expense. It's so much easier than having to think.

The fact is, Robert, that I've always argued from a position supported by facts and well-documented opinion. I have yet to see anyone here, you included, successfully dismantle my arguments. And while that fact may annoy you, you can take some comfort in knowing that I really dislike posting here at all. I find religious bigotry appalling and disgusting, and this blog has far to much of it, as far as I'm concerned.

John C.

You are correct, Reflecting back after I had released the comment , I recalled she did, the sheike may have been refering to Americans.

Can anyone bring up the the actions between this guy and Wafi Sultan on You tube?

Jeffrey Carr:

Actually, mostly what you've done is make yourself look like a fool with silly conspiracy theorizing -- when you're not throwing smears my way.

I admit, it's very hard for me to take you seriously when you continue to insist that my coworker is actually me, and when you base this on a document that contains numerous assertions that I likewise know from my personal experience to be false. You will say, You haven't convinced me of that. Right. And I am not going to bother trying, since you've already shown yourself impervious to evidence offered to you in good faith. But don't expect me to think of you as a serious intellect when you peddle this sort of silliness.

The fact is, Robert, that I've always argued from a position supported by facts and well-documented opinion.

Really? I haven't seen this.

I have yet to see anyone here, you included, successfully dismantle my arguments.

Nonsense. You invoked Leiken in support of the Muslim Brotherhood. I linked to material that demonstrated Leiken's arguments to be wishful thinking, at best, and contradicted by the explicit statements of the Ikhwan itself. And your response? None -- except to bring up Leiken again, as if it had never happened.

And then you wonder why people dismiss you?

Cordially
Robert Spencer

@rational
Those kind of confrontations are better reserved for Bible-thumping, Christian extremists -- the real threat to our way of life.

What does this comment have to do with the subject of the thread. You are acting like a troll.

Everyone please ignore this ill informed islamic sympathizer and contact the authorities that can look into this issue.

PS Maybe rational is Mr Islam himself, with a similar anti-Christian comment about Mr. Coughlin.

Jeffrey,
Son, these people are not attacking you. They love you. I know you dislike posting here, but can you take a moment to answer my question?
My only argument with Muslims is that they enslaved my brother in law and only let him out of saudi arabia after I paid them money, and then acted like they were doing a dirty infidel a really big favor. These were moderate moslems working alongside an American corporation. My objection has no religious basis. It is not bigotry. I want to ask you again, under what real world conditions have you successfully caused a Muslim to modify his point of view toward an infidel?
None, right?
Thanks

For the handful of commenters who don't get why Coughlin should speak Arabic, it's what is expected of religious scholars in general. Coughlin has set himself up as an expert in religious law, thus he has to at least meet the standard set by other religious scholars. One of those standards is being able to read the religious text that you purport to be an expert in, in the original language. In Coughlin's case, he not only can't read the original language, but he doesn't even have a degree in Religious Studies or in Islamic Law. No formal training in his so-called specialty? Now THAT calls for an investigation.

"I really dislike posting here at all"

Then go away, bandwidth beggar.

Your arguments have been dismantled, you're just too stupid or too proud to admit it. Review for example your comments on Couglin's credentials. A simpleton's ad hominem ("second tier", "doesn't speak Arabic"; jeeezuz), "dismantled" by real facts and quotes from colleges.

You've provided nothing substantive about the core issues of this site, that Islamic terrorism is simply jihad based in the teachings of the Qur'an and Hadith, that this plainly comes out of the mouths of the terrorists, and that "moderate" Muslims have provided no scripturally based refutation of said terrorists.

Go for it, fat boy.

Jeffery

I didn’t know you hold exclusive rights to ad hominem attacks.
Classifying readers and those who post comments here as all “haters” is ad hominem, I don’t like Islam because I have read the Qur’an, Hadith and seen Sharia in practice, all things that are not of interest to you.

The fact is, Robert, that I've always argued from a position supported by facts and well-documented opinion.

Like this one.
Christian extremists aren't any better than Muslim extremists.

Supported by what facts and who really cares how well documented or demented your opinion is!

Im.mad.as.HELL!

I think you missed the sarcasm.

Bandwidth beggar,

Coughlin's thesis is linked above in this thread (post 495778).

Direct your criticisms of Coughlin at specific portions of his work. Quote the passage in context, then critique at will. We will judge the quality of your critique. Don't direct us to view the critique on your site, because we have all figured out that is what you're really here for, traffic.

If all else fails call us Christian Extremists.

"I find religious bigotry appalling and disgusting,"
posted by J. carr

Years ago, early 70's I had dealings with Islam through college students. Even though these were honor students at a prestigious university, I attributed their upside-down logic to coming from less developed countries.
I now know different.

Why would anyone who claims to be in the "Intelligence Community" put down people who only want to understand why people want (and say it every day) to kill us and destroy our way of life?
I think that many of the commenters here are very smart and well read.
If we make fun of you, well read your own comments. You have never explained why you support getting rid of Mr. Coughlin. Maybe he is not perfect, but he is the best they have, so why shouldn't they keep him?

If you think we make A.H. attacks on you, well part of that is you are just too easy to make fun of. I know, that's playground behavior.
Read the site, we pick on each other too.

However, this is a serious subject to all of us. One that, if we lose our countries to Islamic rule, is just too horrifying to contemplate.
I guess it's just a case of 'I don't know whether to laugh or cry'.
So we laugh, poke fun, snipe at people with indefensible stances. We are sorry you are unable to take our bullying.
Keep reading JW, you just might learn something that will save your life someday.

cordially,
Aunt Bea

Mr. Carr

Instead of blasting Mr. Coughlin maybe you should actually read his thesis, and through your great powers of observation compare and contrast it with a viewpoint that you would consider as truth. All of the requirements you list above are fine, but can you actually disgest anything this man has said and have some viewpoint on it? Untill you can do that you will be scorned, because after reading Mr. Coughlin's thesis I must say it appears that you will have your work cut out for you. Untill you can break down something Mr. Coughlin said and refute it ... you will be met with scorn ... just accept that.

I think we may be able to see here were Jeffrey Carr Draws some of his knowledge and opinions on Stephen Coughlin. Mr. Carr notes the opinion's of one Larry Johnson who reflects a somewhat liberal and left leaning stance on our concerns Mr. Johnsons article is entitled "Islamofascist nonsense".---yep! no room for the battle of ideas, seems more like the suppression of ideas.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/09/islamofascist_nonsense

more than 85 Pct. of the worlds practicing Muslims do not speak Arabic.
by Mackie

That's why they haven't recoiled from it in horror. They rock back and forth, reciting syllables, with no idea what they mean. Put it in their own language and they are shocked.

As for the idea that you can't be an Islamic scholar without knowing Arabic, wasn't the koran written in a form that is no longer used today? So now you have to know medieval Arabic? Then why don't those who claim to know all there is to know about Christianity know the original language of those texts? Just how many Aramaic scholars are there?

If the words of the Koran cannot be understood except in 7th century dialects, then it is a religion whose time has passed. It should be dead.

No one needs to know medieval Arabic to know what is meant by "Death to America", something Mohammed never said.

Jeffrey Carr: You wrote above that you "find religious bigotry appalling and disgusting,..." Implicit in that statement (and so many others of yours) is an absolute refusal on your part to consider the possibility that a religion can be fundamentally flawed and inimical to mankind. You treat axiomatically something that should only be dealt with hypothetically, to wit, that Islam is a good and peaceful religion, just as, say, Christianity and Buddhism are. But what if Islam is not inherently good? After all, where is it written that just because something is a religion it must be a positive for mankind? What if Islam is indeed the one major faith which is totalitarian in structure, just as Bertrand Russell maintained well over half a century ago? What then?

Let's face it, I don't think you would call a person a bigot for disliking Marxism or Nazism. Why therefore do you automatically jump to the conclusion that if someone dislikes Islam they are some kind of narrow-minded, one-dimensional individual? Perhaps what appears to be your complete refusal to even consider the possibility that Islam is rotten to the core is dispositive of your own narrow-mindedness.

Coughlin gets it; so many people in the West, like Jeffery Carr, are so anxious for peace they will not consider that "peace" in Islam doesn't require economic, social, or any other kind of justice. It requires submission, period.

@BurgerBoy

My mistake if true, I don't think JW as a sarcasm site. Wish people would state so because most is not. When it is done it is usually a brief statement and quit obvious.

I am a little sensitive to this because it comes up very often to justify or deflect the important argument concerning the threat of Islam. Even from non-muslim, ignorant, head in the sand, left and right Americans. OH, the vast majority of US.

I wish my last statement was sarcastic!

PRCS

My assessment that Islam (Hasham, that is) outright "won" is ready for modification. That was written a week ago and before many other posts and articles. But, as long as Coughlin is scheduled to be let go, Islam keeps his position, and no further corrective action is taken, I think as between Coughlin and Islam, Islam, although bruised and beaten up in the last week, did succeed.

Taken from Mr. Carrs site: We are all on the same side here ok.

Defining the Moderate Muslims

Application of Criteria
It follows from the above that for a group to declare itself “democratic” in the sense of favoring elections as the vehicle for establishing government—as in the case of the present Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood—is not enough. Just as important is respect for freedom of expression, association, and religion (and the freedom not to be religious as well): what we called in The Muslim World After 9/11 the “infrastructure of democratic political processes.” Therefore, in determining whether a
group or movement meets this characterization of moderation, a reasonably complete picture of its worldview is needed. This picture can emerge from the answers given to the following questions

Does the group (or individual) support or condone violence? If it does not support or condone violence now, has it supported or condoned it in the past?
Does it support democracy? And if so, does it define democracy broadly in terms of individual rights?
Does it support internationally recognized human rights?
Does it make any exceptions (e.g., regarding freedom of religion)?
Does it believe that changing religions is an individual right?
Does it believe the state should enforce the criminal-law component of shari’a?
Does it believe the state should enforce the civil-law component of shari’a? Or does it believe there should be non-shari’a options for those who prefer civil-law matters to be adjudicated under a
secular legal system?
Does it believe that members of religious minorities should be entitled to the same rights as Muslims?
Does it believe that a member of a religious minority could hold high political office in a Muslim majority country?
Does it believe that members of religious minorities are entitled to build and run institutions of their faith (churches and synagogues) in Muslim majority countries?
Does it accept a legal system based on nonsectarian legal principles?

By the way most of this stuff goes against the teachings of Muhammed ... Couglin could tell you that.

Mr. Carr
Please answer this question with a yes or no

Have you read the Koran cover to cover?

Reposted from yesterday:

If the joint chiefs treat an expert like Caughlin like this, I have grave concern about our joint chiefs ability to conduct the war we are in.

I cannot recall General Marshall, General Hap Arnold, or Admiral King (WWII equivalent of the joint chiefs)firing their top experts on the Axis Powers. What are the joint chiefs using for a model? The 1940 French General Staff?

What ever happened to know-your-enemy Sun Tzu?

Besides wondering why we are paying for pentagon bureaucrats and Esposito-trained generals and admirals, I wonder just what kind of information our cadets at West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, The Coast Guard Academy, VMI, etc., and OCS schools are being taught about the Islamic enemy and about Islamic history? God help us if we have crops of future Esposito-trained officers coming up as ignorant about Islam as the present joint chiefs appear to be from this decision.

Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but here is another one of Jeffery statements based on fact and demented opinion.

If we want to end Jihadi Terrorism, we need to stop doing the things that drive moderate Muslims towards Jihadi ideology.

I wonder what excuse Jeff would use when confronted with the fact that jihad was happing way before America was around. Was it still our fault somehow, someway?

Hear no, speak no see no .... the head in the sand is a much more comforting view no?

Does it believe the state should enforce the civil-law component of shari’a? Or does it believe there should be non-shari’a options for those who prefer civil-law matters to be adjudicated under a
secular legal system?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/001493.php

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/004524.php

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/440.php?lb=hmpg1&pnt=440&nid=&id=

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/23969

Robert wrote:
"Nonsense. You invoked Leiken in support of the Muslim Brotherhood. I linked to material that demonstrated Leiken's arguments to be wishful thinking, at best, and contradicted by the explicit statements of the Ikhwan itself. And your response? None -- except to bring up Leiken again, as if it had never happened."

Leiken was one of 4 sources that I brought up to demonstrate the existence of moderate Muslims. I didn't dispute your material because I don't require Leiken as a reference. The 3 RAND studies are much better. But isn't that a moot point, Robert, because you claim that you also believe that moderate Muslims exist. You just have trouble finding them. Do I have that right?

As far as you socking "Hugh", I'm not the first person to suspect that, and I'm probably not the last, but the evidence supports Hugh being either your sock or somebody else' pseudonym. And by "evidence", I'm not talking about whatever Jim Sutter thinks he knows. I'm talking about inconsistencies in the "Hugh" character's story and the total lack of an Internet presence outside of a small handful of blogs.

Now if you'd like to move away from what I think about you and Hugh to something much more important, like why the Pentagon would hire a lawyer with no formal training in Islam to be their Islamic law expert; or the many shortcomings in Coughlin's thesis, I'll be happy to oblige you. In fact, I've already laid out my argument at my site, with supporting evidence.

Jeff

Please answer my question. It isn't a difficult one.

Jeff Carr is the perfect example why a poisonous, anti-woman, anti-progressive, anti-freedom ideology like Islam can flourish in a free society and eventually ursurp those very freedoms it used to spread like a cancer. He aids and abets it because he projects his own open-mindedness onto it. He refuses to use appropriate discrimination because he views discrimination as inherently evil. His indiscriminate tolerance will prove to be everyone's downfall.

He and his kind are not the soul of a free society. They're the virus that weakens the body and makes it unable to fight off a cancer like Nazism, Marxism, or Islam. What a shame he doesn't see it. What a shame we all have to pay the price for his short-sighted politics. What a shame that eventually, unless officials put a stop to this very real threat, honor killings, bombings, genital mutilation, religiously sanctioned female oppression, and the like will become commonplace here in America. This needs to be confronted...

Just mock Carr as the bandwidth hog he is. All hat and no pants as they used to call people like him.

"Now if you'd like to move ... to something much more important, like ... the many shortcomings in Coughlin's thesis, I'll be happy to oblige you. In fact, I've already laid out my argument at my site, with supporting evidence. "

Ohhhh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no....

Bring your arguments here, big boy. We are NOT clicking on your site. Got to get your traffic from somewhere else.

Dms

As I've said before, I'm not interested in the relative merits of any religion, including Islam. posted by: Jeffery.

I'll be happy to oblige you. In fact, I've already laid out my argument at my site, with supporting evidence.

As I said before, he is only looking for traffic, the poor guy spends hours upon hours working his site and what does he get for it, maybe 1 hit a day, no comments, nobody cares, and the egocentric maniac cant figure out why.

"maybe 1 hit a day"

Yeah, when he checks it himself.

Mr. Carr:

Leiken was one of 4 sources that I brought up to demonstrate the existence of moderate Muslims. I didn't dispute your material because I don't require Leiken as a reference. The 3 RAND studies are much better. But isn't that a moot point, Robert, because you claim that you also believe that moderate Muslims exist. You just have trouble finding them. Do I have that right?

No, of course you don't. As I have said many, many times, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are not waging jihad and never will. They aren't hard to find. Lots of them are in the U.S.

The distinction is this: peaceful Muslims are around the world being targeted for recruitment by jihadists who portray themselves as the true and pure Muslims, and appeal to those peaceful Muslims on the basis of Qur'an and Sunnah, as well as fiqh. Those groups that portray themselves as opposed to today's global jihad have not as yet mounted a comprehensive theological response to the jihadist challenge, such that will reduce peaceful Muslims' vulnerability to such recruitment. Instead, they smear and vilify, as you do, people who point out this use of Islamic material by the jihadists. That only ensures that such recruitment will continue, unchallenged.

As far as you socking "Hugh", I'm not the first person to suspect that, and I'm probably not the last, but the evidence supports Hugh being either your sock or somebody else' pseudonym. And by "evidence", I'm not talking about whatever Jim Sutter thinks he knows. I'm talking about inconsistencies in the "Hugh" character's story and the total lack of an Internet presence outside of a small handful of blogs.

Uh huh. And when in good faith I offered you ways to verify his existence, although he is a secretive person, you weaved a series of ever more outlandish conspiracy theories rather than simply accept the possibility that you were wrong. So as I said above -- I do not care what you think about Hugh and me. But since I know Hugh exists, from firsthand experience, as do many others, I know that your insistence on this makes you appear to be, well, an idiot.

Now if you'd like to move away from what I think about you and Hugh to something much more important, like why the Pentagon would hire a lawyer with no formal training in Islam to be their Islamic law expert; or the many shortcomings in Coughlin's thesis, I'll be happy to oblige you. In fact, I've already laid out my argument at my site, with supporting evidence.

Yes. I haven't been to your filthy little smear site, but someone did send me what you wrote about Coughlin. It appears that your problems with him revolve around the allegation that he has no degrees in this field. I don't know whether he actually does or not, but I do know that a degree in a field is no guarantee of competency and certainly no guarantee of freedom from bias. And a lack of a degree in a field likewise doesn't tell us anything about whether or not one knows the field or is competent in it. Middle East Studies in particular is so controlled by ideological fascists that a professorship in a major university these days is practically a guarantee that one is a hack and a propagandist, like Carl Ernst and Omid Safi, rather than an educator and a thinker.

Second: he doesn't know Arabic. I don't know whether he actually does or not, but I know there is a lot of mystification on this point by jihad apologists. In reality, translation happens. It is not perfect, but it works. Arabic is a human language, it can be rendered in another language just like any other -- but no amount of linguistic or translational alchemy can render "beat her" (Qur'an 4:34) as "give her a hug."

Also, you are deluding yourself if you think that no Arabic speakers, and no Muslims and ex-Muslims, have studied the same material and come to the same conclusions as Kaufman. Read Majid Khadduri's War and Peace in the Law of Islam.

Third, you trot out a couple of writers, Hourani and Khaled Abou El Fadl, to say that Islamic law is a human thing and constantly evolving. Any evidence that this is a mainstream, orthodox Islamic view? You provide none, and it isn't. Also, in any case the four Sunni madhahib, which I believe are mentioned in your piece, are in almost complete agreement about the doctrines of jihad warfare and the subjugation of unbelievers. In fact, there is no orthodox sect or school of Islamic jurisprudence that does not teach this. One would think that if moderates were as outspoken, fearless, and prominent as you imagine, they would have succeeded in codifying their tolerant and pluralistic beliefs somehow, somewhere, in some school or in the teachings of some sect. They haven't yet. I'm rooting for them, but we kid ourselves at our own risk.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Folks I have to confess I had an evil playground thought about Mr. Carr the other day. It was after the article was posted about the male Tokyo Rose tape from Al Qaida. Adam?
I was fantasizing about photoshopping that rag onto you know who's head.

BTW the counterterrorism blog has the full text of his rant. There are some very interesting things in there about the mortgage situation. After 9/11 it was brought out that Osama was invested in stocks that paid him because of the attacks. Something to do with re-insurance, I think.
Could they have had a hand in this debacle?
He lectures about the Bible too, and I bet he doesn't read Aramic or Greek.

"I'm talking about inconsistencies in the "Hugh" character's story and the total lack of an Internet presence outside of a small handful of blogs" Posted by: Jeffrey Carr

Mr. Carr,

Here you could be talking about me.... I rarely give out personal information and only comment on a small handful of blogs. Does that mean I have the honor of being Mr. Spencer also?

I guess your logic on the theory is wanting also.

",like why the Pentagon would hire a lawyer with no formal training in Islam to be their Islamic law expert" Posted by: Jeffrey Carr

Does this mean that in order to be a legal expert on Islamic Law one must go to one of these MADrassas? Would that not mean he's "expertise" would now be in question for Western Law?
This is like the arguement from Tariq Ramadan that "Only a believer can understand the Koran"

Again your logic is flawed as his.

If your logic is so flawed on the comment section here, why would I waste my time going to your web site for more of the same?

Ladies and gentlemen

I invite you to ponder the following paragraph by Jacques Ellul, who was probably one of the twentieth century's clearest-headed analysts of the workings of propaganda, which he detested.

"notons...que c’est un des caracteres classiques de la propagande d’accuser son adversaire d’abuser de la propagande. C’est un des premiers tests.

"Hitler n’a cesse de clamer qu’il se bornait a dire la verite, et que c’etaient les Americains et les Anglais qui, depuis 1934, faisaient contre lui une propagande dementielle. Staline n’a cesse de declarer qu’il ne cherchait jamais a influencer l’opinion mondiale, mais que c’etaient les Etats capitalistes qui abreuvaient le monde de mensonges et d’accusations contre l’innocent regime des Soviets."

Now let's put that into English (apologies for any infelicities - the translation is my own):
- " let us note ...that one of the classic marks of propaganda is that it accuses its adversary of abusing propaganda. That is one of the first proofs."

"Hitler never ceased to claim that he confined himself to speaking the truth, and that it was the Americans and the English who, after 1934, were making a mad propaganda against him. Stalin never stopped declaring that he never sought to influence world opinion, but that it was the capitalist states which were feeding the world with lies and accusations against the innocent Soviet regime".

That passage is from Ellul's magnificent 'Un Chretien Pour Israel', which has not yet been translated into English: the greater part of the book may be read as a clinical case study, exemplifying the workings of propaganda by deconstructing the vast and extremely successful 'Palestinian' Arab Muslim (and antisemitic, and also Soviet-derived) propaganda against Israel and the Jews.

But just to repeat: "c’est un des caracteres classiques de la propagande d’accuser son adversaire d’abuser de la propagande. C’est un des premiers tests" - "it is one of the classic marks of propaganda, that it accuses its adversary of abusing propaganda. That is one of the first proofs."

Now: I am sure that Mr 'Jeffrey Carr' will attempt to turn this around against Spencer himself.

Unfortunately for Mr 'Carr': it is he himself, not Spencer, who appears to me to conform most closely to Ellul's description of the propagandists. (There are other aspects of that description that fit - for example, the use of insults - but I won't take up space by going into them now).

Jeffery

For a nominal fee, I will gladly post your filthy little smear site in the spinoff links at LGF, you traffic will increase by the tens of thousands, but I must warn you if you don’t like the site of your own blood, you shouldn’t play.

For the handful of commenters who don't get why Coughlin should speak Arabic, it's what is expected of religious scholars in general. Coughlin has set himself up as an expert in religious law, thus he has to at least meet the standard set by other religious scholars. One of those standards is being able to read the religious text that you purport to be an expert in, in the original language. In Coughlin's case, he not only can't read the original language, but he doesn't even have a degree in Religious Studies or in Islamic Law. No formal training in his so-called specialty? Now THAT calls for an investigation.

This is epistemologically invalid. The is no reason on God's green earth that a good English translation and good English commentary cannot COMPLETELY explicate the contents of Islamic religious doctrine. I studied French, German, Latin and Ancient Greek and out of those four languages there were a handful of unrenderable phrases that English couldn't handle. Now, there are "states of mind" that a Frenchman or an Ancient Greek might inhabit that would be foreign to an English speaker, but there is no lack of English vocabulary to describe those states of mind. When we speak of "schadenfreude" for Germans, we know there isn't an exact English equivalent word, but it's not as if it's a feeling we can't understand because we're not native German speakers.

What Muslims have to understand (and probably won't because they refuse to read "infidel" books) is that their religion really isn't that complex and the complex parts were already enunciated through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, so anyone brought up in those traditions will easily "get" Islam. It's that Muslims don't "get" what isn't Islam, so they continue to put Islam on this pedestal like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, when actually Islam is half-understood Judaic monotheism reinterpreted to match the personal whims of a desert thug.

As for the "argument" that one must have a degree in a particular field to be knowledgeable enough in that field, it's even worse than the invalid argument about Arabic.

Mr Carr,

If you would be so kind to go to this SITE. It was brought to my attention yesterday. The author is anonymous but he has had dealings with the people of the middle east and how they conduct themselves toward one another and us.

You have a number of questions that you are asking a Muslim on you site. My thinking is that you would not know for sure if their answers were truthful or not. As has been stated here many times the proof is in the results.

Is he lying about it or not? Don't answer until you have read it.

Mat 7:17-20
So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. . . . So then, you will know them by their fruits.

حصير 7:17-20
حتى كل شجرة جيدة تحمل ثمرة طيبة ، ولكن سوء شجرة تحمل فاكهه سيئة. شجرة طيبة لا يمكن ان تنتج الفواكه سيئة ، كما انه لا يمكن سيئة شجرة جيدة تنتج الفواكه. . . حتى ذلك الحين ، فسوف نعرفها من قبل والفواكه.

Several days ago I contacted my senator with my concern over this ... still waiting for a response.

Those kind of confrontations are better reserved for Bible-thumping, Christian extremists -- the real threat to our way of life.

Just a stupid comment. WTH was wrong with the US before the "great awakening" sponsored by Madeline O'Hair? It was a pretty damned good place to live.
The US up to that time WAS a Christian nation.

Mr Carr

I'm still waiting for the answer to my teeny weeny yes or no question which doesn't require any degree to answer. Have you read the Koran from cover to cover? I will wait forever if necessary.

Video:

Here is that terrific exchange that certainly brought Wafi Sultan to our attention and always worth another watch and listen from Feb. 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLoasfOLpQ

Jeffery Carr, wow. Do me a favor, if you will? First of all, get up off of your chair and stand on your two feet. Perhaps adjust and angle your computer screen so you can see the picture screen better and more clearly. And now, while still standing I want you to click the link at the end of this sentence and then to give a warm round of applause to welcome, and to watch a day in the life of our beloved Mara. Do this for me before you do anything else, ok?

When you have finished watching this psychologically healthy little girl go through these moments in her life, I want you to ask yourself if she and millions of other Western influenced boys and girls would be "better" human being if there were more of an Islamic influence in their personal and social lives. Consider that the conglomeration of platonic and cockeyed thoughts generated from the Koran are not inspired by the Creator of the Universe, the Creator of the Universe being that "thing," whatever It is, that made the quarks and electrons, the sunsets and sunrises and rainbows, and snails, pails and puppy-dog tails, sugar and spice and everything nice ..., and that someone like Mara would begin to think thoughts and act in ways where she thinks God or Allah blesses her because she performs any of the religious rituals prescribed from the Koran.

But perhaps this train of thought is irrelevant to you, that is, that the words and thoughts of the Koran are so bogus to any rational thinking person, and that all that is important to you is that people should be free to pursue any religious practice they chose, and that Jeffery Carr will help anyone to defend those rights.

The Mind and the Personality of the Creator of whatever agnostic or atheistic colors one could imagine to paint It to be constituted with, nothing about this Creator is in all actuality gleaned from a reading of the Koran. Future intentions of this Creator to Its human creation cannot be gleaned from a reading of the Koran. The Koran is bogus and ancient and dangerous today. Why are you attempting to legitimacize such bunk?

Your arguments want to give legitimacy to a social cancer on the earth today. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have Mayan and Incan rituals practiced today too?! Maybe Mara and her friends could watch a YouTube clip of some of these rituals, and you yourself could then explain to her and her friends why people have the right to do such things ...?

Think of Mara Jeffery, and try to think and do things to keep the influence of that bums religion from bothering her, and instead try to think to create a climate where young people can grow into mature and psychologically healthy adults.

In other words, wow, do some introspection. How could you feel proud about what you're defending?

Evidence of intelligent life on earth.

==================

That said,

Mr. Coughlin was told by his employers that his contract would not be renewed due to the fact his message, and therefore he himself, had become too “politically hot.”

"Hot"? Why "hot"? What makes it "hot"?

What we are being told by his employers is that the objections of people like Hesham Islam make something "hot" for them.

But of course, if you don't care about Mr. Islam's opinions, its not "hot" at all.

So they are only announcing their eagerness to please Mr. Islam and his associates.

What does this comment have to do with the subject of the thread. You are acting like a troll.

Everyone please ignore this ill informed islamic sympathizer and contact the authorities that can look into this issue.

PS Maybe rational is Mr Islam himself, with a similar anti-Christian comment about Mr. Coughlin.

Im.mad.as.HELL!,

Obviously the sarcasm went over your head.

Mr.Islam is not the only traitor in the State Department.
For sale: America’s deadly nuclear secrets by Traitors from the London Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions. Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” she said.

Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain’s Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations.

Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.

She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.

One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

“What I found was damning,” she said. “While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.”

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: “I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.”

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. “We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s people and Al-Qaeda,” a former CIA officer said last week. “There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end.”

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. “A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, ‘We need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans’,” she said. “The official said that he would ‘take care of it’.”

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.

“The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related institutions who had access to databases concerning this information,” she said.

“The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The lists contained all their ‘hooking points’, which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to.”

One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

“He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001,” she said.

Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information to the highest bidder.

Edmonds said: “Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would find potential buyers.”

In summer 2000, Edmonds says the FBI monitored one of the agents as he met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama. She overheard the agent saying: “We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000.”

Edmonds’s employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI’s methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because, by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down the programme.

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: “If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.

One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. “We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s,” the source said.

Hey people, I spent more than an hour editing and polishing that last post ..., geez.

Robert wrote:
"The distinction is this: peaceful Muslims are around the world being targeted for recruitment by jihadists who portray themselves as the true and pure Muslims, and appeal to those peaceful Muslims on the basis of Qur'an and Sunnah, as well as fiqh. Those groups that portray themselves as opposed to today's global jihad have not as yet mounted a comprehensive theological response to the jihadist challenge, such that will reduce peaceful Muslims' vulnerability to such recruitment."

Would you call these "peaceful" Muslims, moderates? As to these moderate, or "peaceful" groups, here's a list that ARE actively involved in a theological effort to change or at least present an alternative to radical fundamentalist Muslims. I have purposefully NOT included U.S. groups because they offer little strategic value in aiding the U.S. in reducing the radicalization of "peaceful" Muslims by Jihadi Terror groups.

MODERATE EUROPEAN MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS

FEERI

FNMF
The Fédération Nationale des Musulmans de France [National Federation of Muslims of France]

The European Islamic Conference.

The Confederation of Moroccan Associations in Italy.

The Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community.

PROGRESSIVE BRITISH MUSLIMS

British Muslim Forum

Sufi Council of Britain

MODERATE ISLAM IN THE BALKANS

The Islamic Community of Bosnia-Hercegovina

The Faculty of Islamic Studies and Gazi Husrevbeg Medresa

The Islamic Community of Kosovo

The Community of Aliite Islamic Dervishes

The Alevian Islamic Community of Albania

The World Bektashi Community

------------

Robert wrote:
"I do not care what you think about Hugh and me"

Good. Then, since you don't care about whether I think that you're Hugh or Hugh is someone else's pseudonym, the we can agree to disagree about it and move on.

Robert wrote:
"I do know that a degree in a field is no guarantee of competency and certainly no guarantee of freedom from bias. And a lack of a degree in a field likewise doesn't tell us anything about whether or not one knows the field or is competent in it. Middle East Studies in particular is so controlled by ideological fascists that a professorship in a major university these days is practically a guarantee that one is a hack and a propagandist, like Carl Ernst and Omid Safi, rather than an educator and a thinker.

Coughlin claims to be a scholar and expert in Islamic law. The word "scholar" comes from the Old English "scholere" meaning school. Coughlin's degrees are listed at FINDLAW. He has 3. None of them are in Middle Eastern studies or Islam. He graduated from law school in 1995 and went to work for Thomson-West as an International Product Manager until sometime after 9/11/01 when he was called to Active duty. "Expert" comes from the Latin "expertus" - to try. That's especially pertinent for trial lawyers, no? So considering the time line post-law school, when did Coughlin gain sufficient experience in the theory and practice of Islamic law to refer to himself as an "expert"?

Robert wrote:
"Second: he doesn't know Arabic. I don't know whether he actually does or not, but I know there is a lot of mystification on this point by jihad apologists. In reality, translation happens. It is not perfect, but it works.

Actually, translation is quite hard to do properly. If it was easy, we'd have no shortage of Arabic translators, when in fact, our shortage is at a crisis point. Captured documents written in Arabic remain boxed up for weeks or months instead of being processed by intelligence analysts. And I challenge you to find any member of the academic community who is considered an expert in a foreign nation who does not speak one or more of the languages of that nation. Even then, translation is problematic because it's never just a word for word switch. There is an entire cultural awareness that informs it, which is why native speakers are preferred. They understand cultural nuance where other, classroom-trained foreign translators do not.

Robert wrote:
"Third, you trot out a couple of writers, Hourani and Khaled Abou El Fadl, who say that Islamic law is a human thing and constantly evolving."

A "couple of writere"? LOL!! Khaled Abou El Fadl bio from the UCLA Law school's website:
Khaled Abou El Fadl is one of the leading authorities in Islamic law in the United States and Europe. He was named as a 2005 Carnegie Scholar in Islamic studies. His personal library contains over 6500 Islamic books and manuscripts, some dating from the thirteenth century. He teaches Islamic law, Middle Eastern Investment Law, Immigration Law, and courses related to human rights and terrorism. He works with various human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights. He often serves as an expert witness in international litigation involving Middle Eastern law, and in cases involving immigration law and political asylum claims.

Professor Abou El Fadl was trained in Islamic legal sciences in Egypt, Kuwait, and the United States. After law school, he clerked for Arizona Supreme Court Justice J. Moeller. While in graduate school, he also practiced immigration and investment law in the United States and the Middle East. He previously has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Yale Law School, and Princeton University. He is an avid fan of the Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum.

Professor Abou El Fadl's books include: Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam (2001); Rebellion in Islamic Law (2001); Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (2001); and And God Knows the Soldiers: The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourse (2nd ed. revised and expanded, 2001).

"Just a writer", Robert? You certainly have a gift for understatement! ROFLMAO!!!

And here's the bio for Albert Hourani:
Albert Hourani, in whose name MESA’s Book Award is given, was born in Manchester, England, on 31 March 1915, the son of Fadlo and Sumaya Hourani, immigrants from Marjayun in what is now South Lebanon. He attended Magdalen College, Oxford in 1933, where he read philosophy, politics and economics. He graduated in 1936 and went to the Middle East where he taught politics for two years at the American University of Beirut. With the outbreak of World War II, he joined the Royal Institute of International Affairs where he worked with and came under the influence of Arnold Toynbee and Hamilton Gibb. He served as an analyst at the Office of the British Minister of State resident in Cairo from 1943-1945, and worked as principal researcher and writer at the Arab Office, where he helped with the presentation of the Arab case to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry which visited Palestine in 1946. After that, he devoted the rest of his life to an academic career. In 1948, he was offered a fellowship at Magdalen College and, three years later, he took up the post of first University lecturer in the modern history of the Near East and later became director of St. Antony’s College Middle East Centre. He was a frequent visitor to universities in the United States and the Middle East, and he received recognition and numerous awards.

Albert Hourani’s influence as a scholar and a teacher continues to be felt throughout our field. In 1946 he published Syria and Lebanon and in 1947 Minorities in the Arab World. In 1962, he published his classic, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1789-1939, which went through two editions and numerous reprints. In 1991, he capped his remarkable career with the publication of The History of the Arab Peoples, which was instantly recognized for its remarkably rich portrayal of the history and culture of the Arab Peoples. Between 1946 and 1993, he published eight books and edited seven others; he also published over 150 articles and over 100 book reviews. Among his articles, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of the Notables,” originally published in 1968 and reprinted in 1981, has provided a concept—that of the politics of the “notables”—which has inspired generations of historians to study the society and politics of the modern Middle East from within.

Finally, you seem to like to focus on just two camps - the undecideds or "peaceful" Muslims and the Jihadists.

But what of Traditionalists (e.g., Iraqi An-Najaf Hawza), Modernists (e.g., Muhammadiyah), Liberal Secularists, Authoritarian Secularists (e.g., Ba'ath Party), not to mention the more "Orthodox" tendencies of Scriptural Fundamentalists (e.g., Jama'a al-Tabligh) and Radical Fundamentalists (e.g., Saudi Salafi-Jihadist groups). They all have their own agendas and ideologies, Robert. Where do they figure into your "two camp" theory?

What a cut-and-past bonanza that was!!

Links:
http://icssa.org/article_detail_parse.php?a_id=1085&rel=1020,930
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG246.pdf

The rest was probably Wikipedia hagiographies. I got bored.

Point: Arabic cannot be properly translated into another language by a non-native speaker.

This has be so thoroughly repudiated in so many places it is laughable how Carr clings to this. Turn it around moron, he wouldn't be a "native" speaker of the language he was translating it into. We could never translate anything. Oh, I forgot, the Qur'an is a special case.

Point: Coughlin's credentials are insufficient.

May be, may not be, deal with what he wrote, fat boy. "Fat Boy" is not an ad hominem, because you actually are fat, and I haven't said whether that was bad or not. Calling you stupid... you can consider that a return ad hominem for attacking the man Couglin instead of his writings directly.

"That's especially pertinent for trial lawyers, no?"

No.

Had you bothered to read Coughlin's thesis you would have encountered this:

ABA MODEL RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT
(2002), Amended February 5th, 2002, American Bar Association House of Delegates,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, per Report No. 401, Rule 1.1, URL: , accessed 4 June 2007.

(Hereafter “Model Rules”).

Competence.
50 Model Rules.

Rule 1.1(2) Legal Knowledge and Skill, “A lawyer need not necessarily have special training or prior experience to handle legal problems of a type with which the lawyer is unfamiliar. A newly admitted lawyer can be as competent as a practitioner with long experience. … A lawyer can provide adequate representation in a wholly novel field through necessary study.

"I have purposefully NOT included U.S. groups because they offer little strategic value in aiding the U.S. in reducing the radicalization of "peaceful" Muslims by Jihadi Terror groups."

Read, "I have purposefully NOT included U.S. groups they were not included in the Rand study I plagiarized, and there probably aren't any anyway."

The center for counterintelligence and Security Studies recognizes the input of people like Steve Emerson,Daniel Pipes,Frank Gaffney Jr.,and Walid Phares, and it highlights Stephen Coughlins Thesis.You will note a positive story about Hesham Islam written by By Donna Miles of the American Forces Press Service. But the same sight also serves up the firing of Stephen Coughlin. There is also a comment from Hugh Fitzgerald on the firing of Coughlin on the site. This site like Jihadwatch pulls no punches.

http://www.cicentre.com/mb_infilitration_of_us.html

I searched all 217 pages of the RAND corp document "Building Muslim Networks" (as well as Carr's web-rag) and found the list of "Moderate Muslim Organizations" that Carr bastardized, but NO reference to these organizations being "actively involved in a theological effort to change or at least present an alternative to radical fundamentalist Muslims."

Liar.

Danger: DO NOT CLICK below (Carr's site), for reference only
http://idolator.typepad.com/RAND_MG574.pdf
http://idolator.typepad.com/intelfusion/2008/01/forging-strateg.html

Is there really any need to spend much more time
on this "Jeffrey Carr" person? How do we know he isn't Ahmed Bedier, or Naseem?

Nothing he's posted, here on on his URL, even amount to any kind of argument. This guy is a troll.

Mr. Carr:

Would you call these "peaceful" Muslims, moderates?

Some of 'em. Not all of 'em.

As to these moderate, or "peaceful" groups, here's a list that ARE actively involved in a theological effort to change or at least present an alternative to radical fundamentalist Muslims.

Please provide specifics of how they are doing this.

Coughlin claims to be a scholar and expert in Islamic law. The word "scholar" comes from the Old English "scholere" meaning school. Coughlin's degrees are listed at FINDLAW. He has 3. None of them are in Middle Eastern studies or Islam. He graduated from law school in 1995 and went to work for Thomson-West as an International Product Manager until sometime after 9/11/01 when he was called to Active duty. "Expert" comes from the Latin "expertus" - to try. That's especially pertinent for trial lawyers, no? So considering the time line post-law school, when did Coughlin gain sufficient experience in the theory and practice of Islamic law to refer to himself as an "expert"?

You appear to have utterly missed my point, whether out of dimness or willful ignorance, I do not know.

Actually, translation is quite hard to do properly. If it was easy, we'd have no shortage of Arabic translators, when in fact, our shortage is at a crisis point. Captured documents written in Arabic remain boxed up for weeks or months instead of being processed by intelligence analysts. And I challenge you to find any member of the academic community who is considered an expert in a foreign nation who does not speak one or more of the languages of that nation. Even then, translation is problematic because it's never just a word for word switch. There is an entire cultural awareness that informs it, which is why native speakers are preferred. They understand cultural nuance where other, classroom-trained foreign translators do not.

So I take it you reject the accuracy of translations of treatises on Islamic law made by Muslims for Muslims? You might want to inform them of that.

Here again, you seem to have utterly missed my point, whether out of stupidity or malice, I do not know, and do not wish to speculate.

In short, however, what you should do if you really want to discredit Coughlin, or me, is to show where we are wrong in what we say about Islamic law. Happy hunting.

Finally, you seem to like to focus on just two camps - the undecideds or "peaceful" Muslims and the Jihadists.

But what of Traditionalists (e.g., Iraqi An-Najaf Hawza), Modernists (e.g., Muhammadiyah), Liberal Secularists, Authoritarian Secularists (e.g., Ba'ath Party), not to mention the more "Orthodox" tendencies of Scriptural Fundamentalists (e.g., Jama'a al-Tabligh) and Radical Fundamentalists (e.g., Saudi Salafi-Jihadist groups). They all have their own agendas and ideologies, Robert. Where do they figure into your "two camp" theory?

You are putting words into my mouth. I subscribe to no "two camp" theory.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

k24anson,

I read your last post, and watched that home video of 3-year old Mara's first day of preschool intently.

It reminded me of another--I am trying to remember that other child's name, likewise a girl of about THREE--who recounted what SHE had learned, from Allah in HIS WORD, the Koran, about JEWS, who are to be liked, for they are not loved by Allah, as they are APES and PIGS.

Please, do go to MEMRI, www.memri.org, find and see it--and, as for these, The Corrupters of A Child's Mind, they can GO TO GEHENNA.

Excuse this omission: "...about JEWS, who are NOT--Nein, Nicht, Nyet, Nolo--to be liked, ..."

From Coughlin's thesis:

Current Approach advocates often shut down issues based on Islamic law
by claiming that there are “thousands of different interpretations to Islamic law” (and hence there is no point to looking to Islamic law for solutions). This comment often arises in the same discussion where supporting claims are made -- often with respect to the same fact pattern -- that “Islam does not stand for this.” These arguments are inconsistent and mutually exclusive. To assert that it is pointless to argue based on Islamic law because there are “thousands of different interpretations” is to concede that the “extremist” interpretation is valid in at least one of those interpretations thus affirming the “extremist” position. Hence, the “thousands of different interpretations” argument is not a pointless pursuit for the “extremists” because any interpretation that survives the ideological screen of the IPB process validates their threat doctrine. For Current Approach arguments to succeed at neutralizing “extremist” positions, they must establish that “Islam does not stand for this” in every situation ranging through all interpretations. Ironically, close inspection reveals that the argument used by Current Approach advocates to shut-down non-Muslim inquiries into the nature of “extremists”
claims has the ultimate effect of supporting the “extremist” position.

USorThem,

From your site:
"But Islam didn’t want Coughlin to let the cat out of the bag at the Pentagon and worked hard to shut him up.
Islam succeeded."

At this point in time, I disagree.
I suspect he is now bemoaning the unintended consequences of his statements and actions:
public scrutiny and debate.

Posted by: PRCS at January 12, 2008 1:11 PM

The more I think about it, Coughlin's voice has not been silenced at all by this incident, not even at the beginning of it; only amplified.

Even if Coughlin's contract is not renewed, and Hesham remains onboard, the cat is out of the bag, and I don't think England and Hesham will be able to put it back, now.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Carr:

Then, since you don't care about whether I think that you're Hugh or Hugh is someone else's pseudonym, the we can agree to disagree about it and move on.

No. I do not "agree to disagree." In seeing that you insist on believing this ridiculous thing, I agree to continue to believe you are an idiot.

With kindest good wishes,

Cordially
Robert Spencer

To All Jihadwatchers,

I think you are all being way too hard on Mr. Carr. Mr. Carr serves a very important pedagogical function and I value his contribution. We need to be well versed in the arguments of the other side and how to easily show that they are not supported by logic or fact. Mr. Spencer’s disputations of Mr. Carr’s positions are not only instructive, but also entertaining. (After spending far too much time in education grad school, I can assure you that making learning fun is the current Gospel.) I hope that Mr. Carr keeps coming for more. How else are we to learn first hand such debating strategy? This is a real-life class experience.

Mr. Carr:

The primary cause of jihad terror is not America's foreign policy, but rather, the theological imperative to subjugate the world under islamic law. Why? Because muslims are waging jihad against non-muslims in virtually every country in which they enjoy significant numbers. The Hindu populations of Pakistan and Bangladesh have fallen from about 10% and 25%, respectively, to less than 2% in Pakistan and something like 7-10% in Bangladesh; the middle eastern christian population is down from 20% to 2%, and the entire middle east is practically judenrein; It's the same story everywhere: Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Sudan, Malaysia, Philipines, Nigeria, S. Thailand . . . The muslim population rises in a given area, abetted by the fact that the non-muslims usually start to flee Islamic threats and attempts at islamisation . . . then (if the larger country is non-muslim), follow demands for a two-tiered legal system based on Shariah and often, a separate islamic state. . .

From India:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=33ADCAA3-1E36-4665-881D-8E6C4F6C8D7B

"During the last sixty years, from every Muslim majority area of South Asia - without exception - be it Pakistan, Bangladesh or from India's own Kashmir valley, non-Muslims have been massively driven out to India. This occurred when the Muslim population there achieved political power through majority status. Also, laws and conditions have been put in place to deliberately marginalize non-Muslims. In almost all of these cases, mosques and the clerics played a major role in facilitating this "conquest". In India the Muslim population percentage has increased from about 10 percent in 1951 to about 15 percent now. Even within 85 percent non-Muslim India, in some Muslim majority towns this phenomenon is getting repeated. These South Asian populations share language, food habits and culture but differ [only] in religion. . . ."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The author of the above quote addresses your specific point about Islamic political grievances in this quote, toward the end:

"We are fighting this war with a number of preconceived notions. I have debunked many critical ones in my book. Let me mention a few (within the brackets are my retorts):

Democracy is the solution to radical Islam. (No, in order for functional democracies to take root, political Islam must first be neutralized.);

A widely practiced religion must have a strong moderate component. (No again, free wealth can create conditions for complete domination of extremism.);

. . .

We can rely on moderate leaders in nations such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. (The de facto power in these nations are political Islamic movements, this makes these leaders ineffective in stopping these nations from being fountainheads of terror.);

Grievances drive Muslim populations into anger and towards terror. (No, most grievances are manufactured to channel Muslim energies towards jihad.). "

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hasan Butt, a former member of Al mujihiroun in Great Britain makes a similar point:

"When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2115891,00.html

If the terrorists THEMSELVES admit that the driver is their theology, and if muslims are engaging in supremacist jihad across the globe (wherever there's a significant muslim population to support them), then where does that leave YOU?

SCHOLAR [fr. ML scholaris, fr. LL, of a school] Sense 2 a: one who has done advanced study in a special field b: a learned person

Stephen Coughlin certainly fits this definition.

Point scored: ROBERT.

Mr. Carr, you not only pick a nit here, but you use an unecessarily narrow definition in your attempt to make a point without merit.

By your definition, application of scientific methods to a given question in the rhealm of nature or reality isn't scholarship; academic qualifications and success alone is.

"This is a real-life class experience"....and Carr is the Class Clown.

Whilst waiting for Mr. Carr to answer my question on whether or not he has read the Koran from cover to cover I was reading from a book I have called "Myths and Facts" a guide to the Arab-Israeli conflict and came across this little gem and thought it would shed some light on the idea that some people have that "if we just give the pali's a state, everything will be alright". It's a quote from Hizballah leader Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasralla in the Lebanon Daily Star on October 23, 2002 and points out the fact that we can always rely on what the muslims say to other muslims as opposed to what they say to non-muslims

"If they(jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

Mr Carr are you still there?

The vast majority of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims do not speak or read Arabic. Arabs are a minority.

A fair percentage does not even read at all.

This does not affect the spread of jihadi ideas which are communicated in translation into a variety of languages including English, written or spoken.

Whatever language is used, the jihadi message seems to be the same. It does not get lost in translation.

A brief canter through the Qu'ran in any language will note the great frequency of the word 'kill'.

Nobody consults an Islamic scholar with degrees up to their armpits before carrying out a jihadi mission. This is because there are no institutional structures like the Vatican Council or a diocesan system to ensure that orthodoxy is complied with. Nor is there any forum such as the great ecumenical councils of the Church to decide what is in and what is out. In this day and age of the internet and mass literacy (or semi-literacy?) scholars unfortunately do not carry the clout they once had.

The 7/7 London suicide bombers gained their jihadi training in English. This has been the pattern with other native-born would-be jihadis in the UK (and there have been quite a few now). The pattern is quite clear: Islamic theology (of whatever type or quality) has been responsible.

Recently in the UK we have seen a bit of a positive development. Some kids who entered extremist groups as rebellious teenagers have reached their 20s and seen the light and they have returned to the fold, spilling the beans. And what do they blame for their radicalisation in each case? The Iraq war? Racism? Unemployment? Nope: Islamic theology. In ENGLISH. Shiraz Maher, Ed Husain, Hassan Butt have all come out and said it was propaganda in English which led them astray.

See below:

'Comment
________________________________________
My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror

As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
Article continues
________________________________________

________________________________________
Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.
And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'
He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam.
I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.
How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.
What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.
This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away.
This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory.
Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism. A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam.
But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.
The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.
However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam.
Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer.
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 there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.
If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.
Hassanbutt1@gmail.com'

The vast majority of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims do not speak or read Arabic. Arabs are a minority.

A fair percentage does not even read at all.

This does not affect the spread of jihadi ideas which are communicated in translation into a variety of languages including English, written or spoken.

Whatever language is used, the jihadi message seems to be the same. It does not get lost in translation.

A brief canter through the Qu'ran in any language will note the great frequency of the word 'kill'.

Nobody consults an Islamic scholar with degrees up to their armpits before carrying out a jihadi mission. This is because there are no institutional structures like the Vatican Council or a diocesan system to ensure that orthodoxy is complied with. Nor is there any forum such as the great ecumenical councils of the Church to decide what is in and what is out. In this day and age of the internet and mass literacy (or semi-literacy?) scholars unfortunately do not carry the clout they once had.

The 7/7 London suicide bombers gained their jihadi training in English. This has been the pattern with other native-born would-be jihadis in the UK (and there have been quite a few now). The pattern is quite clear: Islamic theology (of whatever type or quality) has been responsible.

Recently in the UK we have seen a bit of a positive development. Some kids who entered extremist groups as rebellious teenagers have reached their 20s and seen the light and they have returned to the fold, spilling the beans. And what do they blame for their radicalisation in each case? The Iraq war? Racism? Unemployment? Nope: Islamic theology. In ENGLISH. Shiraz Maher, Ed Husain, Hassan Butt have all come out and said it was propaganda in English which led them astray.

See below:

'Comment
________________________________________
My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror

As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
Article continues
________________________________________

________________________________________
Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.
And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'
He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam.
I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.
How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.
What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.
This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away.
This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory.
Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism. A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam.
But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.
The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.
However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam.
Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer.
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 there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.
If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.
Hassanbutt1@gmail.com'

I think I have it!

“Jeffrey Carr” is another one of Mr. Spencer’s many pseudonyms. This persona was created for pedagogical purposes. You are one crafty interlocutor Mr. Spencer.

Does anyone know if Mr. Spencer owns a dog?

k24anson,

I just went to the left sidebar of this site's main page, scrolled down to the MEMRI TV link; at MEMRI, I chose the category, "Indoctrination of Children," clicked, and found #924 "3-Year old Egyptian Basmallah: Jews Are Apes and Pigs."

Go there--see it, then compare little Basmallah is taught to what her little infidel counterpart, our Mara, learns--CHILLING!

Let's all then contrast the two--innocent, healthy Mara; inculcated, psychically maimed, spiritually poisoned Basmallah! OUTRAGE!!

Patagonian Plato:

“Jeffrey Carr” is another one of Mr. Spencer’s many pseudonyms. This persona was created for pedagogical purposes. You are one crafty interlocutor Mr. Spencer.

Ah, I confess it. You're right. I am Carr. As everyone knows, a professional writer can easily change his style and beliefs.

Or, perhaps Mr. Carr would like to prove he's not me. I'd like to see him try.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

How completely and utterly pathetic.

Posted by: Jeffrey Carr at January 12, 2008 11:19 AM

Isn't it funny how Carr denigrates his own self? LOL! As Spencer said, Carr, you are "an idiot."

Oh, and "completely and utterly pathetic" --as you described yourself!

"I really dislike posting here at all." --posted by Jeffrey Carr.

Then, LEAVE! You imbecile, GOOD RIDDANCE! GOODBYE! Hey - moved to the Yemen, yet, Imbecile?

Carr doesn't even read French or Spanish, LOL!

There is no possible way that Robert and Hugh are one and the same. Consider the word count from each.

Isaac Asimov on his best day couldn't do it.

Here is "patagonianplato"'s other persona - Bozo the Clown. Begone, Mohammedan.

Actually, his nic should be "patagonianplatypus."

Plato? No way. Don't flatter yourself, Chucklehead.

Reminds me of Groucho & Co. Jeffrey Carr "May look like an idiot; Ladies and Gentlemen, he may even sound like an idiot--but don't let all that fool you--he IS an idiot!

I think "Jeffrey Carr" and Ahmed Bedier are the same! Both complete imbeciles. Oh - throw in Doug Hooper!

C'mon, Ahmed - Out yourself as Carr!

We're SO on to you!

Darcy,

Redirect your fire--"PatagonianPlato" is just a diversion--you're letting Jeffrey Carr duck into the nearest mosque for cover.

Virtual Militiaman

PatagonianPlato:

No, Neither Spencer nor his alternate Carr persona own the dog--it's photoshopped into the picture. Besides, dogs are HARAM, remember?

“Plato? No way. Don't flatter yourself, Chucklehead.”

This is what I was talking about. These Jihadwatchers are rude and insulting. Try all you want Darcy, I know that Jeff Carr and Robert Spencer are one and the same. “We will have to agree to disagree and move on.”

By the way, the platypus is a very noble semi-aquatic mammal. The ancient Greeks considered webbed feet to be a sign of wisdom.

I hate to think what they thought about webbed brains, but let's not go there, OK?

Available to Mr. Coughlin from 2001 to present are programs of scholarship (including cultural, linguistic, etc. immersion) far superior to everything offered by “mainstream academia (msa)” and will never be openly “listed” (partly because “msa” has no stake in it and therefore will not recognize/reward such scholarship).

Gordon England should be dismissed immediately from DoD and be investigated for treasonous activities, as should H. Islam (who when found guilty, should be stripped of his naturalized USA citizenship and deported to his country of origin).

The fact that koranic-Arabic language competency is prerequisite for understanding Islam is likely the key reason why so many “adherents” to the “religion of peace” are "misunderstanders" of it (as the overwhelming majority are not capable of reading the ancient text – (or is that by design).

Are you saying that webbed brains are inferior to non-webbed? Culturally insensitive Cad!

Let's just say I agree to disagree. (BTW, wasn't Patagonia the last refuge for the extinct Giant Ground Sloth?)

Google that!

*IRONY ALERT*

Mr. Carr: You must be fluent in Arabic to criticize Islam.

Irony Man: As an Islamic apologist you're fluent in Arabic I presume?

Mr. Carr: Absolutely not.

*IRONY ALERT OVER*

Robert --

Your heteronymic ventriloquism continues to astonish. The late Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, Mr. Ferdinand Person, had nothing on you.

Please, however, just listen to my voice from within, akin to the voice of Lily Tomlin pleading with Steve Martin in "All of Me" - Let Me Go! I want to be more than just a figment of your imagination, as Mr. Carr has so astutely guessed I am. Can't I be, just for a little bit, a Leibnizian monad all on my own, , bicycling through the universe like E.T.? Would that be too much, at this point, to ask? Haven't I done the state some service?

PRCS

Perhaps the cat is out and wreaking havoc.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/01/pentagon-asks-t.html

Pentagon program with Ahmed Bedier scheduled- then cancelled at urging of Joe Kauffman.

Way to go Joe!

Hugh,

To answer your questions: No.

For my next trick, I'm planning to write Don Quixote.

Yrs
R

Anyway, Hugh, everybody knows you're Marisol. Fess up, now. Own up to it. You'll feel better!

Yrs
R

I do not give a rat's rump about who's who as long as they give me the straight tell about what's what.

Is not the truth of the thought more important than the identity of the thinker?

USBeast,

No, not for the Left. For the Left, it's enough to say, "HE said that, and HE is evil" or "He is known to associate with X or Y" or some such, and that passes for rational evaluation of an argument.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

How do we can bypass them?

JBS

Posted by: J. Brian at January 12, 2008 9:17 AM

By holding the politician's feet to fire. Politicians need money and votes. Therfore campaign+finaice. Give them NONE! If it helps I have written to my senator "NO vote for you or your party, ever!" period.
Now some may find it foolish, but given that it is my right to vote for someone or another, I choose NOT to vote for traitors. Period.
Any other ideas?

Has anyone else noted the glaring contradiction in our JW troll's argument: you must be an Islamic law scholar (presumably trained at Al-Azhar or Univ. of Medina/Mecca) to speak authoritatively on Islamic law. So who does he cite? Robert Leiken and the Rand Institute. Leiken's background is Soviet/Latin American studies, and his issue area with the Nixon Center is immigration. Some Islamic law scholar! And the Rand studies noted approvingly by our troll were not authored by Islamic law scholars, but only cite such. What utter hypocrisy.

Robert has already noted Khadduri's "War and Peace in Islam". How does Mr. Troll account for S.K. Malik's "The Quranic Concept of War" (I would add that Malik, a Pakistani general, did not speak Arabic and wrote his books in English, and yet it is one of the most authoritative books on the topic), or even David Cook's "Understanding Jihad". Mr. Cook does have a PhD in Religious Studies and speaks Arabic. His conclusions are strikingly similiar to Mr. Coughlin's. Do we then get the next stage of evasion by his claim that since Cook is not a native Arabic speaker, he is non-authoritative?

I do note that Mr. Carr was banned this week by the Small Wars Journal. He has already worn out his welcome among the military-types. Very telling.

The Rand study which Jeffrey Carr cites on his blog and recommends as a good way to deal with the whole issue of "moderate Muslims" on page 74 refers approvingly of Fethullah Gulen as

"a promoter of "moderate modern Sufi Islam".

The Rand study also, for example, among the jungle of citations it uses to demonstrate a "network building" of "moderate Muslims" throughout the Muslim world, cites approvingly the Institute for the Study of Islam and Society in Indonesia”. (51)

A brief search on this Indonesian group yields a favorable mention on the website of Fethullah Gulen.

http://en.fgulen.com/content/view/2198/31/

For those readers here who are not sufficiently alarmed by Fethullah Gulen, simply search the name here in Jihad Watch archives for January 2008, and in the comments sections you will find some helpful quotes, such as:

"You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria… like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete, and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey… Until that time, any step taken would be too early - like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all - in confidence… trusting your loyalty and sensitivity to secrecy. I know that when you leave here - [just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and feelings expressed here."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019430.php#comments

It's all well and good to be touting a broad outreach program to engage "moderate Muslims" out there in the world, as the Rand project does, but it becomes grievously disappointing that when focus is applied onto any given example they give, it comes up wanting, as the above example shows.

The Rand study seems to be a big puff piece guaranteed to get grant funding, but unable to stand even the simple scrutiny of a civilian like me, who doesn't even know Arabic and who is not a "scholar" or an "expert" of anything except of the concern to save my life and lives of my loved ones from the stupidity of those whom my tax dollars have paid to do the job of protecting me and my loved ones.

Here's Carr's own bio from his one short article published on Threatswatch:

http://threatswatch.org/commentary/2007/06/keeping-perspective-on-the-isl/

"Jeffrey Carr participated in law enforcement and intelligence gathering activities with the U.S. Coast Guard until 1980. Today he is an information architect for analyst software, and writes about Data Fusion and Geospatial Intelligence at his blog www.IntelFusion.net."

US Coast Guard? 1980? So why again are we giving this troll so much attention? He has about as much experience and credentials as "Phony Rev" Jim Sutter.

Our cult leader gets a new nick name,
The Man of a Thousand Pseudonyms!

Well, it seems to me that Jeffery is a rebel without a cause. And the causes there are, don't seem very substantial. This reminds me of the old west fast draw artist who was frequently forced into a gunfight by an ambitious young gun looking for a name. Most of them failed. Just as Jeffery has failed. The shootout at the JW corral only wounded his ego...Large ego's have short recovery times. He will be back.

Hugh is the invisible man, a phenomena that puts people like Jeffery in a state of awe. Actually, Hugh is not invisible at all, he just moves at a high rate of speed...If Jeffery can make Hugh you, it gives the young gun a better target, he can shoot you both down, two birds with one stone. But he shows up with an empty holster, and lots of spent bullets...not a very good showing...

scanderbeg and cantor,

You both, among others, impress and awe me. I am grateful that counterjihad has such informed citizen-patriots behind it.

Bandar Bush penetrated Whote House with Dubya. Makes one wonde if Bandar himself was an Islamic mole, the way he stalled 9/11 commission, it makes sense, doesn't it?

In assessing threats and formulating responses and strategies it seems willfully stupid to fire any contractor who deviates from the politically correct notions of some. It reminds me of the stories of the Red army which installed a political officer in every formation in order to ensure conformity to the chairman. I would think that in analyzing threats and other such tasks that it would be wise to utilize the point of view of a steven coughlin as well as a jeffery carr.

The tactic of smearing then dismissing those you disagree with is the type of thing that is occurring in too many universities today.

It reminds me of the story of the cop who came across a drunk wanderring around the street. The cop asked, what are you doing"

The drunk answered, I am looking for my wallet I lost in that dark alley.

The cop said if you lost your wallet down that alley why are you looking for it here?

The drunk said, " The lights better here"

In the same sort of way our PC indoctrinated intelligentsia does not look for what they lost where they lost it, but choose to stay where they are comfortable, in their multiculti, pomo deconstructed well lit paths.

Jeffrey Carr wrote:

"The most offensive part is when the author implies two facts not in evidence and completely without merit: 1 - that Islam was privy to classified information above his clearance level (which is complete BS - everyone involved in J2 has TS/SCI, at a minimum), and 2 - that Islam is a traitor to the U.S. Both outrageous claims, but typical of a Robert Spenser or a Bill Gertz."

As usual Jeff your Leftist viewpoint is as plain as day.

Everyone at J2 may or may not have a TS/SCI level clearance. Some might be higher, some less. But what you are clearly incognizant of is the fact the specially compartmented intelligence is based upon the "need to know".

STATEMENT: Hesham Islam is a traitor to this nation.

FACT 1: Hesham Islam is a retired U.S. Navy Commander. Hesham Islam swore or affirmed a life-long Oath to PROTECT AND DEFEND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

FACT 2: What does Hesham Islam defend? He defended ISLAM, and he screwed the U.S. Constitution.

FACT 3: What did Hesham Islam do? He attacked a military officer engaged in his own MOS-specific sworn duty.

FACT: Hesham Islam is a traitor to his oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and to the nation to which he swore allegiance.

Any Oath or Pledge of ALlegiance uttered by hesham Islam is clearly an expample of al-Taqiyya in practical application.

As with Maj. Stephen Coughlin, Mr. Robert Spencer and Mr. Bill Gertz are two additional Americans of whom you are not qualified to stand in their shadows.

Ronin wrote:

"This may yet have a positive side to it. The story has gotten out, serious accusation’s made and powerful people alerted. This is an election year and political enemies of the President will jump on a chance to hurt him and his power base. This will not be dropped, hidden or contained. If an infiltration is in progress, they have failed to remain hidden. That might just be enough to not only stop this but to root them and their allies out.

We have to make sure this story and all the dirt associated with it stays in the public eye."

Ronin,

Yesireebob, you are exactly correct.

The fact that the enemy is within our citadel was made manifest due to the sacking of Major Stephen Coughlin at the hands of Islamist Hesham Islam. America owes Maj. Stephen Coughlin a debt of gratitutde for briging the fact of this stealthy Islamofascist infiltration to the attention of the general public. Also clear is the duration of the penetration.

I would submit this whole affair is a tactical blunder by Hesham Islam. He is now probably slapping himself silly for not keeping his fat Islamic mouth shut. (Thanks Hesham.)

I would also submit that this current situation is the direct result of our failure to define the Islamist enemy based upon his doctrine. The level of penetration might also be reflected in ourfailure to accomplish this necessity.

As far as I am concerned, this a first-order harmonic resonance signaling the heights to which Islam has penetrated or influenced our military and civilian infrastructure. In sum, Islam has corrupted our tactical and strategic decision-making processes. In war such penetration is usually fatal.

Read this and come to your own conclusions.

http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/245/the-muslim-brotherhood-in-america-defined-as-threat-organization-in-dod-memo.com

I have one question, which ought to be obvious.
Why would the US government organizations given the job of assessing threats be listening to MSA. It is after all a student organization. Do the college conservative groups have the same access?
Since when are college students qualified to advise the US government?

PS go to the USDefensenews site. It's a newsletter of all the goings on. Search the site for Islam and you get almost 800 hits.

There are some good pictures of this infiltration.

Why argue with Jeffery about a basic Multi-Cultural principle. The one where Truth is always trumped by "well-documented Opinion".

Is it not time for Jeffery to go home and walk his Dog before there is another accident in his room?

“Plato? No way. Don't flatter yourself, Chucklehead.”

This is what I was talking about. These Jihadwatchers are rude and insulting. Try all you want Darcy, I know that Jeff Carr and Robert Spencer are one and the same. “We will have to agree to disagree and move on.”

By the way, the platypus is a very noble semi-aquatic mammal. The ancient Greeks considered webbed feet to be a sign of wisdom.

Posted by: patagonianplato at January 12, 2008 8:59 PM

"Chucklehead?" You are offended enough by that meek ad hominem to say "rude and insulting?" Wow, now I KNOW you're a Muslim.

You actually think "Jeffrey Carr and Spencer are the same? Wow, now I KNOW you're a Chucklehead!

Platypus are poisonous. That's what I was thinking of, pp.

patagonianpoisonousplatypus and Carr are the same.

So obvious.

"I would submit this whole affair is a tactical blunder by Hesham Islam. He is now probably slapping himself silly for not keeping his fat Islamic mouth shut. (Thanks Hesham.)"

Wow, hope you are right, Sean Osborne!

Darcy, you’re just jealous because I discovered the truth about one of Mr. Spencer’s other alter-egos and you didn’t.

Darcy, just to make sure, all the above posts are an attempt to lampoon the aforementioned Mr. Carr? Humor is sometimes the best way to deal with such "chuckleheads."

I could never be "jealous" of you, poisonous platypus. I mean, what's there to be jealous of? Answer: Nothing.

BTW, you haven't discovered sh**. Say, have you always been delusional? What does your psychiatrist think?

Except that *you* are the Chucklehead, poisonousp.

Humor? Ha Ha Ha.

Say what you want, Darcy. Mr. Spencer admitted that I was right. Do you think that he needs professional help?

Say what you want, Darcy. Mr. Spencer admitted that I was right. Do you think that he needs professional help?

Posted by: patagonianplato at January 13, 2008 10:51 AM

Excuse me, could you substantiate your first statement, please. Where's the "admission?"

Concerning your question, no, I think you do.

Good News: The FBI has finally decided they 'need' a counter terrorism expert.
9/11 alert, didn't they 'need' six years ago?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1952572/posts

I don't know anything about this guy. Anyone else?

“Ah, I confess it. You're right. I am Carr.”

at 7:58 PM

“Ah, I confess it. You're right. I am Carr.”

at 7:58 PM

Posted by: patagonianplato at January 13, 2008 11:24 AM

You lunkhead! (There I go being "rude and insulting" again!). Spencer was being SARCASTIC. Do you understand sarcasm? My God! Chucklehead City! Excuse me, I can't stop laughing!

Daniel Pipes has this on Youssef.

http://www.danielpipes.org/trackback.php/63/3c8c9/21

Darcy, I understand that Mr. Spencer was being sarcastic. It is now obvious to me that you do not understand that my original post, the one stating that Mr. Carr and Mr. Spencer are one and the same, was made in jest. All other posts, including the one with “rude and insulting” were meant to continue the fiction. Mr. Spencer was playing along with my lampoon. Heck, even Hugh got in on the act.

You clearly missed my intent. Lighten-up!

"You clearly missed my intent" --patplatypus

Sometimes sarcasm is difficult to translate over the 'net.

Other times, people simply aren't good satirists. That must be you.

Also, I don't get what was supposed to be so hilarious, anyway. It's hard to "lighten-up" when the West is being attacked and infiltrated by Islamic Barbarians.

patagonian, your stringing along of darcy was baffling. Don't tell someone to "lighten up" after you have failed repeatedly to have the basic common courtesy of saying "oh i was just kidding".

Anyway, Hugh, everybody knows you're Marisol. Fess up, now. Own up to it. You'll feel better! - Robert, at 10:37 above

Wow, I'm always the last to get the memo on these things.

But if you're Hugh, and Hugh is me... transitivity (if a = b and b = c...) implies that... oh my. I'm going to sort this out over a vanilla soy latte, and I guess then we'll all feel better.

If we refer to you as the Trinity, that should cover it pretty much.

What qualifications does Robert Spencer have on Islam exactly ? can he post them here

johnnah,

http://www.jihadwatch.org/spencer/
http://www.jihadwatch.org/articles/

Would you like the rubber coated spoon, or can you feed yourself?

I am glad Darcy gets some good laughs, even if they're at PatagonianPlato's expense. I'm sure everything is smoothed over in the end, and in the end, we are more aware and better prepared about jihad here and abroad.

Cantor.

The reason that I never said "oh i was just kidding" is because I thought that Darcy was simply playing the straight angry role. It didn’t occur to me that he/she was truly angry until the last posting At that point it was clear that the anger was real and not part of the ongoing farce. Part of the problem is that I misunderstood the word chucklehead. I was thinking chuckle as in a type of laugh, bueno. The sense was more like idiot or blockhead. Also, I thought the platypus reference was actually quite funny.

After-all of the serious insults that Darby lobbed at me, telling him to "lighten up" was extremely polite and genteel.

Lastly, Mr. Spencer understood the humor and played along and that is satisfaction enough.

Darcy,

“Other times, people simply aren't good satirists. That must be you.”

Fine. You don’t appreciate my humor. I can accept this. I do apologize for the misunderstanding, but the name calling is absolutely unnecessary. I do not recall a single posting by you that I have disagreed with so I have no wish to pick an argument with you.

John C.

Thanks for the intervention.

Do you give lessons in sarcasm, and if so, how much per hour? I need your help!

Sean Osborne,

Good point. It does seem that Hesham Islam overplayed his hand and committed a tactical blunder. He might otherwise have been a good Ikhwanist and stayed in the shadows, making sure his profile remained low, and left no fingerprints on his work.

And the result would have been the same--Stephen Coughlin would have been let go, and Islam's [fitting name] role in this would remain hidden, thus giving him wider latitude to act as the Ikwanist plant he is.

Patagonian,

Humiliation and sometimes eating crow are the price of becoming a good satirist. It's the by-product of being played for fools by that consumate Master (we are merely his fawning acolytes)--Hugh Fitzgerald! The Man in The Shadows is the REAL puppetmaster. HIS is the HAND that deftly, craftily wields an array of sock-puppets, various dubbed Robert, or Marisol, or Greg, as the case may be. Accompanied, of course, by the fictious profile and curricula vitae of each.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a pressing engagement with the mental health examiner--Adieu!

yep, looks like Robert Spencer has no qualifications on Islam whatsoever :)

To Johnnah who wrote,

“yep, looks like Robert Spencer has no qualifications on Islam whatsoever :)”

What would you consider to be proper “qualifications on Islam”? I own all of his books so maybe I can assist you here. Please, Please, Please, do not think for a second that I am a “fawning acolyte.”

Also don’t think for a second that the lack of rapid response to your question indicates disinterest. This is the internet and this thread is already yesterday’s news.

johnnah

Color me skeptical, but I highly doubt you are qualified to say, he in not.

"What would you consider to be proper “qualifications on Islam”? I own all of his books so maybe I can assist you here."

hey PP,

list any qualification Robert Spencer has gained in the study of Islam ? looks like he has no qualifications when it comes to Islam. BTW the number of books he has written on Islam doesn't count as a qualification. before 9/11, robert spencer got his kicks in bashing catholicism. post 9/11 he decided to bash Islam.

johnnah,

Learn or leave! Robert is a recognized scholar (and Catholic, by the way). And you, what are your credentials to judge others and their work?

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!

devorgilla (1/12/08 7:36 pm) said (quoting Hassan Butt):
"Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence."
--------------------------
It would be nice, but they can't, and he knows it. Theological discussion was declared closed (ijtihad) some time in the 1200's. Islam cannot rewrite its rules. Period. The Quran is the Absolute Literal Word of God as spoken by Allah's Final Prophet (Mohammed, the Perfect Man). Islam declares itself final, perfected, and the destiny of all mankind.

We are stuck with the Islam we've got.

Now, what are our other options?

Johnnah, I asked you the following,

“What would you consider to be proper “qualifications on Islam”?”

You didn’t answer my question. I will take John C’s advice and not feed you. Take a hike.

^testing^

TROLL ALERT Status: RED

System Check: FUNCTIONING

^end test^

Darn! I just realised there are two "M"s in "consummate."

Darn! I just realized there are two "M"s in "consummate." And a "Z" in "realize."

johnnah,

I was concerned you were an idiot, now I am sure.

A man's work product IS his qualification. You either accept it or you don't. Read and specifically criticize his work. It is all laid out. For the most part he sticks to his niche, which is illuminating what the Quran, Sunnah, and fiqh and current and ancient Islamists themselves say about Islam.

What do you want, a piece of pretty paper which he could have been followed by a stroke the day after he got? What would that prove? And where would that pretty paper have come from, the Clone Factory of MESA Nostra? The Zombie Factory of Al-Azhar? Why do you need another one of those goons? Even if he was one of them, they would disavow him.

Are you Jeffery Carr?

When johnnah disputes Robert Spencer's "qualifications" on Islam and when Jeffrey Carr similarly disputes Stephen Coughlin's scholarship on Islamic law, what those two disputers don't get is that we are not talking about some abstract academic study in some dry subject like ancient history, anthropology or archeology, we are talking about protecting our property and lives from damage and destruction.

In our dangerous situation, I would rather heed someone who studies and assembles the information we need to interpret best how to protect ourselves, even if he does not have a Ph.D. Islam and Arabic calligraphy, than some academic scholar who has studied Islam for decades and knows Arabic backwards and forwards and has illustrious degrees on his wall but doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground (i.e., can't see that Islam is obviously a major source, if not THE source, of terrorism and jihad violence around the world).

Spencer is doing a fine job. Let's see johnnah refute any single claim or argument Spencer has made: that's where the rubber meets the road.

Oh, brother. I'm a "she." And if you consider "Chucklehead" to be a "serious insult," then you must be a Muslim.

Robert Spencer is an expert on Islam. End of story.

Uh Huh, "troll alert" - that is patagonianplatypus. And "johannah." Trolls. How's living under a bridge, you two? Where you belong.

Y'know, I'm VERY VERY "insulted" by September 11, 2001. Over 3,000 Americans were incinerated that day, and they didn't want to die.

And you are insulted by "Chucklehead?"

You utter and complete imbecile.

Darcy, I have apologized. Enough is enough! Please, drop it! Right now you are just being obtuse.

Picking a fight with me is not in the interests of our mission here. You obviously have never read any of my posts. If you had, you would realize that we are on the same side.

From now on its patagonianplato to you!

Darcy, I have apologized. Enough is enough! Please, drop it! Right now you are just being obtuse.

Picking a fight with me is not in the interests of our mission here. You obviously have never read any of my posts. If you had, you would realize that we are on the same side.

From now on its patagonianplato to you!

Posted by: patagonianplato at January 13, 2008 7:00 PM

OK - then stop being stupid. If you believe in "our mission," which is QUITE serious, you'll stop being a jokester. It's not funny. Too much is at stake. Like our civilization, capische?

"Picking a fight with me" -- YOU "picked it." Let's get that straight.

It may be "patagonian," but it ain't "plato."

Darcy, just because you are humorless doesn’t mean that I will spend an eternity in purgatory. Chao!

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious." -- Ayatollah Khomeini

Oh my, has this become an entertaining thread.

Darcy loses her mind after not getting PatagoniaPlato's sense of humor (at my expense, but so what - Darcy's reaction has been worth it).

Sean Osborne, the Christofascist, shows up after deleting my comment on Stephen Coughlin at his NEIN blog (Sean, do you know that "nein" means "no" in German? What idiot would name his organization "NO"?)

And one brave soul named Johnnah shows up to pick up where I left off (so I guess he must be me, right, Concerned Citizen?)

Anyway, I have no interest in sticking around. I just wanted to say thanks for the "chuckles".

Carry on!

Good riddance, and don't let the door hit you in your big behind, Bandwidth Beggar!

Sorry, just couldn't let you get the last word after you ignored all the holes poked in your cut-and-paste festival. Bet you still haven't read Coughlin's thesis.

Bet he hasnt read the Koran either. Hope Robert bans him. If not, I'll just hit the troll bar when I see his name.

It's obvious, to me anyway, that both jeffrey carr and jonahh are both actually........ALAN COLMES!

BurgerBoy,

That Khomeini[mhrh] quote is timelessly sinister.

John C

And purposely done, on purpose.

Because it so reminded me of a hysterical comment hereinabove.

And now here is some real California Cheese for Mr Carr to go with his whine.

awww man, i really did open up the can of worms there!!!

wach how all of Robert Spencer's ignorant cyber minions leap to his defence, yet none of them can show/list any qualifications tht Robert has on Islam.

No sign of the great man himself to answer a very simple question i.e. If Robert Spencer is an "expert" on Islam, then please list his qualifications on Islam.

All Robert Spencer has is a degree in religious studies which he gained back in the 80's.

again prior to 9/11, Robert was busy showing off his "expertise" against catholicism. when 9/11 occurred, Robert suddenly became an "expert" on Islam.

johnnah

Is that you sitting on Carr’s lap in the picture?

Of course Jeffrey Carr has no interest in sticking around. The guy is a Leftist/Progressive who has had his buttocks shot off by many patriotic Americans within these various Jihad Watch comments sections.

Jeffrey Carr has demonstrated beyond any doubt that he and others of his Leftist ilk (Islamopologists) are in lock-step with the Islamonazi enemies of this Republic.

Jeffrey Carr has firmly placed himself - at least as far as I am concerned - firmly within the Oath of Federal Service caveat "all enemies, foreign or domestic."

Jeffrey Carr has, by his own keyboard, washed away all of the faux pretense of 'academic rigour' he has been so fond of attempting to delude or deceive with, both here and at the forum of the Small Wars Journal. In the comments section of the NEIN blog Jeff Carr (asshat extraordinaire) wrote the following about Maj. Stephen Coughlin's thesis"

""Instead, he (Maj. Stephen Coughlin) wrote a thesis which barely meets academic rigour."

Jeffrey Carr obviously made the above statement without having read more than the title of Major Coughlin's “To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad" thesis.

(As an aside - a close look at his own bio reveals the true nature of the wannabe intel analyst.

And I quote: "I enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1976 and spent several years as a communications specialist working on law enforcement, intelligence and search and rescue missions. In my last year of service, I was in the interview loop for that "Other Government Agency" until President Carter instituted a hiring freeze."

Last year of Jeff's service is obviously the fiscal year 1979-1980, making his "several years" in reality a total of four years in the Coast Guard. Question: When was the last time ANY "Other Government Agency" recruited an E-3 possibly E-4 non-college graduate? Never would be the operative word in any answer to this question.)

Jeffrey Carr has no alibi, he has defined himself an an enemy of this Constitutional Republic. Therefore, and of course, he has to leave. His comments here and to my own blog constitute and confirm as evidence in perpetuity his status as an aide, abettor and facillitator of Islamofascist terror and asymetric warfare against this nation.

awww man, i really did open up the can of worms there!!!

Not really, as the non-issue of academic qualifications has already been "opened up" by a multitude of individuals who try to use it to shut down debate of Robert's actual points regarding jihad doctrine.

People who think that's a winning argument ought to consider that Socrates didn't have a Ph.D. in philosophy, yet he appears to have known the subject pretty well and made a significiant contribution to it. As someone who went to the Ph.D. level in one field in the humanities, I can assert unequivocally that a non-academic with a strong work ethic can easily achieve the same level of knowledge about a subject in the humanities as a Ph.D. in that subject. If we're talking engineering or medicine, that's a different story.

I guess if you can't debate the points being made, debate something else, right?

again prior to 9/11, Robert was busy showing off his "expertise" against catholicism. when 9/11 occurred, Robert suddenly became an "expert" on Islam.

And this is an issue, why? Any number of Muslim apologists (Karen Armstrong comes to mind), display a similar career arc, first as students of one subject, then as students of Islam, although they obviously ended up in a place where they became embarrasingly effuse in their submission to Islam. Would you level a similar criticism at a group of "experts" who reached a different conclusion about Islam post-9/11, if they hadn't been doing anything Islam-related pre-9/11?

That you'd emphasize these two non-issues as the crux of your argument shows you either have no argument or you don't know how to structure an argument so that your strongest points are made first, with subsequently weaker points following.

Johnahh, I doubt that Robert is uncomfortable with your question. He's argued with me that expertise isn't dependent on a degree, and vice versa. This is a common POV among people who are self-taught, like Robert and, as regards Islamic law, Stephen Coughlin. The human capacity for self-delusion is limitless, which is why self-teaching is so often a fool's errand.

Sean "Christofascist" Osborne - do you like being called a Christofascist, Sean? Do you think it furthers any kind of discussion? Don't bother answering - those are rhetorical questions, but they make the point that "Islamofascism" is a stupid moniker that is counter-productive. You might as well just call them "sand-n..rs". It'll have the same effect.

More to the point, stay tuned to IntelFusion. I'll be posting my list of the worst "spook" sites on the Web sometime in the next 24 hours. Your faux intelligence website "NEIN" will, needless to say, be among them. You're invited to respond in the Comments; a privilege which you have denied to me, but since I'm your intellectual superior, I have no problem in letting you regurgitate your silly ideas for everyone to see.

Why is it stupid people always think they are the smartest person in the room?

"The human capacity for self-delusion is limitless, which is why self-teaching is so often a fool's errand." Gibberish.

Carr, you are an idiot. Your arguments against Robert and Coughlin credentials work SO much better against YOU, can't you see that? A poster blew YOUR "credentials" out of the water above, and you have NO work product to show your "self-taught" knowledge base except a few articles on a vanity blog, some of said articles already picked apart (easily) here (recall the fabricated theological efforts of Moderate Muslim Organizations above).

No one here should visit the Bandwidth Beggars site.

Carr and johnnah,

Read and study the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority

Concerned Citizen,
You'll be happy to know that IntelFusion's page views have been sky-high. Thanks for telling everyone NOT to visit my site. Please keep up the good work. (DISCLAIMER for the idiots who don't recognize sarcasm - page views are only important for sites that are commercial, like JihadWatch. IntelFusion is not a commercial site and I couldn't care less how many of you visit).

I post under my real name. I give out verifiable personal information to any legitimate inquires. I'm not the one hiding behind an alias - you are. At least, Sean, buffoon that he is, posts under his real name and gives a biography of sorts. I can't fault him for that. What he doesn't know, and is just using as flame bait, is what my rank in the Coast Guard was and who my interviews were with when I was recruited in 1980. Although your posts don't show it, I'm assuming that you have at least a modicum of intelligence sufficient to know that neither Sean nor anyone outside of that OGA could possibly know the truth of the matter.

Now, please continue warning people away from my site. They might learn something, and then you'll lose a comrade in your ill-conceived holy war.

"ill-conceived holy war"

You are just so full of ironies, and just full of it.

This is not MY "holy war", it is a jihad.

YOU continue to assert that jihadists have "ill-conceived" it, though providing no factual basis for that assertion. Then you provide nothing but ad homininem and appeals to authority to prop up your notions.

So, since you don't enjoy posting here, go masturbate your obese ego somewhere else.

Mr. Jeffrey Carr (but we now know who you really are, wink, wink!) wrote,

“The human capacity for self-delusion is limitless, which is why self-teaching is so often a fool's errand.”

Dear Mr. Carr,

Of all of your statements, this is the most unfathomable. I would like to recommend a dissertation topic for you.

“Great Person’s in World History Who Had Little If Any Formal Education.”

I will give you at least one name so you can get started. Thomas A. Edison.

Today, self-education is one of the last remaining ways to avoid indoctrination. I am grateful that Mr. Spencer never studied under apologists such as Professors Armstrong and Esposito.

My young friend PatagonianPlato - There is no substitute for education. And the more one can get of it, the better. Self-education always suffers in comparison because the brain learns best through having pre-set notions confronted with alternate viewpoints, and that rarely happens among the self-educated and self-directed (witness the disaster of home schooling). Debate is what fosters strong, creative minds, and academia is the best place for debate to occur (most of the time).

However, having said that, quite a few highly educated people do not welcome contrary views, and that's to their detriment. The brain needs stimulation and exercise just like the body does. Unfortunately, such an exercise requires at least 2 people who can counter arguments with logic and facts, and that's apparently quite impossible with this bunch of Islamphobes, who are busily mounting their own holy war against an entire religion. So in spite of our differences of opinion, I wish you well, and invite you to comment on these issues at IntelFusion, where your arguments will be welcomed and well met in kind.

Jeffrey Carr wrote:

"Now, please continue warning people away from my site. They might learn something, and then you'll lose a comrade in your ill-conceived holy war."

Concerned Citizen and All,

Warning people away from Jeff's site is a pretty good idea on the whole. However, going there also serves the illuminating purpose of seeing Jeffrey Carr single-handedly buttress the case against him as card-carrying leftist Islamopoligist (and thus a domestic enemy of this Republic and its Constitution). Jeffrey achieves this illumination with crystal clarity.

Case in point.. just two days ago Jeffrey Carr named his choice to replace the Joint Staff position held under contact by Maj. Stephen Coughlin as one Khaled Abou El Fadl.

Take a look at his January 12, 2008 IntelFusion entry: "Memo to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England: This is What an Islamic Law Expert Looks Like."

Obviously Jeffrey Carr had exercised exceptional and extraordinary due diligent research prior to naming Khaled Abou El Fadl as his nominee for the position soon to be vacated by Maj. Stephen Coughlin.

Quoting Mr. Carr:

"Since Major Stephen Coughlin (USAR) is departing the Joint Staff when his current contract expires in March, 07, and since he was hired as a so-called "expert" on Islamic law, in spite of the fact that he has no formal training in it, I thought it might be valuable for all concerned, particularly the Deputy Defense Secretary, to meet an authentic expert on the subject - Khaled Abou El Fadl."

Consistent his true nature Carr has nominated the pre-eminent stealth Islamonazi in the United States today.

To wit, I defer to what Daniel Pipes wrote about
Khaled Medhat Abou El Fadl in the Spring 2004 issue of Middle East Quarterly:

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1841

On January 7 on Jeffrey Carr's site, I posted a detailed argument against the Rand study which Carr thinks is so great but which I argued had many holes and flaws.

The argument I took the trouble and time to write and post was 1,285 words.

Two days later on his site, Carr responded to my argument with this non-response:

"Cantor, your modification to the questions are superfluous and point to the fact that you never read the full report."

A couple of days later, I responded:

"Jeffrey Carr,

"Cantor, your modification to the questions are superfluous and point to the fact that you never read the full report."

"1. If they are "superfluous" independent of their supplementation elsewhere in the Rand report, that would have to be demonstrated with an argument. You have supplied no such argument.

2. If they are "superfluous" because they are supplemented elsewhere in the Rand report, that would have to be demonstrated by pointing out where in the Rand report the "superfluousness" of my critique is nullified. You did not demonstrate this."

Then Jeffrey Carr interrupted my last post by only quoting the above, and wrote:

"Cantor, I'm going to cut you off here because you've just demonstrated my "superfluous" criticism of your writing in your first two points. To wit, your point "2" is another way of wording your point "1".
If you want your comments read, let alone replied to, you might consider exercising a lot more "fire discipline" in your writing."

To which I just responded:

"No, my point 1 is decidedly different because of two words -- "independent of".

#1 adverts to the alleged superfluousness of my argued points INDEPENDENT OF the Rand report; #2 adverts to the alleged superfluousness AS DEMONSTRATED SOMEWHERE IN THE RAND REPORT OTHER THAN THE SECTION I INITIALLY TACKLED (the section you published originally).

You have failed to establish any pertinent superfluousness in my long post on either count.

Your comprehension and reading skills are abysmal, not only here but whenever you respond to people on Jihad Watch."

"Not really, as the non-issue of academic qualifications "

yes Veni, it would be a non-issue as Robert Spencer has no qualifications on Islam to speak of. he has undertaken no detailed studies on Islam whatsoever.

how much of an "expert" on Islam can Robert Spencer be ?

page views are only important for sites that are commercial, like JihadWatch. IntelFusion is not a commercial site and I couldn't care less how many of you visit ~ posted by Carr

More Carr BS, why would he have a comment section below each of his lame articles on his abominable little smear site, if what he claims is true?

I must say, I am pretty impressed that Mr Carr was able to teach his lap pet how to type, now when will he teach his lap pet to read and comprehend, if his lap pet wants to contact Mr Spencer, this site has a place, yet he cant seem to find it, I don’t know if its because he is willfully ignorant or just plain stupid.

johnnah,

You really, really need to read this. You're making an ass out of yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority

Jeffrey Carr, perhaps I've missed your comment, but did you ever get around to backing up your first claim you made on this site - labeling Stephen Coughlin as a Christian extremist?

yet another Spencer minion bites the dust.

still waiting for anyone to provide any evidence Robert pencers qualifications on Islam ?

The human capacity for self-delusion is limitless, ~ posted above

Then his minion (johnnah) shows up and proves this beyond any doubt. What a fool.

Gee, Jeffrey -

I didn't think you could "advertize" your Intel qualifications to the public even to the level you have...and when you mention that "Other Government Agency" I assume you mean the Dark Side (CIA)???

Wow. What braggadocio that emanates from your vocal cavities. If your qualifications are not exaggerated, then I have some advice: Asphyxiate that voice, for the sake of "National Security". Your contract with the government ends with your death, not your retirement.

Dear Mr. Carr,

As a Phi-Beta-Kappa, I can assure you that I am not anti-education. In my lifetime, I have studied at 10 different institutions on three continents. However, with very few exceptions, I found my professors to be lacking and learned very little from them. I can unequivocally state that I have learned in spite of them, not because of them.

My interest in education recently took me to ed. grad school for a year. In all of my classes, I was the only veteran and the only conservative in my classes. They all thought I was from another planet. What support I did receive came in whispers from frightened people who did not want the professors and other students to know that they occasionally agreed with me. I was once publicly trashed in a seminar by a Professor because I had the temerity to challenge him, (I showed him no disrespect). In addition, I was accused of conservative bias on a Magnificent Cold War Unit Plan that I wrote. Finally, I was black-balled from teaching in a school system because of my conservative views.

In order to even be accepted at this school, I had to sign the NCATE Social Dispositions Loyalty statement.

I wish you were correct about today’s universities, but IMHO you are not. Universities today are liberal mono-cultures that, except in rare occasions, broke no dissent.

To Fellow JihadWatchers,

Ignore Johnny-One-Note. "There are none so blind as those who have eyes and yet will not see."> Hecklers be banished.

As for Mr. Carr, we see that his philosophies are shallow, his standards are double--One for Thee; Another for Me--his motives are mixed, and his reason is entirely self-serving.

Sweeping pejoratives and broad mischaracterization of your interlocutors don't impress me, Jeffrey, so you've succeeded in keeping me from your site. I see no point in contributing anything there. I think that your boasts betray your insecurities, Mr. Carr.

If you should get a grip on yourself, benefit yourself with some serious self-study, focus on serious matters, and show some humility; well then, I think you might have something to contribute here--no point in trash-talking your hosts.

johnnah,

"still waiting for anyone to provide any evidence Robert pencers qualifications on Islam ?"

1. Spencer has read the relevant texts (Koran, Sira, Hadiths, Islamic legal texts like the Umdat-al-Salik, as well as numerous writings of Islamic scholars and clerics, in addition to numerous writings of non-Islamic scholars of Islam)

2. Spencer has organized the data of #1 and presented reasoned arguments based upon that data.

Those are his qualifications.

Apparently, no one has been able to refute his reasoned arguments (#2). Do you know of any refutations of Spencer? If so, show them to us.

Surely, if Spencer is wrong about any claim he has made about Islam, it can be refuted. If his claims cannot be refuted (his claims are published for all to see, for years now), then of what relevance are any additional qualifications you have in mind?

Dear cantor,

Everything you say is spot-on, but you know that you're speaking to the rest of us, not that nit-wit, Johnny-One-Note. His sort only listen to themselves and to their echoes.

Dear cantor,

Everything you say is spot-on, but you know that you're speaking to the rest of us, not that nit-wit, Johnny-One-Note. His sort only listen to themselves and to their echoes.

patagonianplato

I agree.

I have been anti-education (to my own detriment) because of the rampant anti-conservative nature of academics. They are not here to teach, only to indoctrinate you into their leftist dogma. So I am self-learned in everything, I learned MS DOS 3.2 through windows XP, inclusive, AutoCad 9 through 2007, inclusive, and high-end touch screen home theater remote controls, and I have excelled in all categories way beyond those who took classes for such. Real life experience trumps a class room any day of the week.

My wife is currently going for her BS, I cant believe how much lefty BS she has to navigate through just to get there. She started taking an algebra class last week, the professor did nothing but spew his rabid anti-America hatred and his crazy leftist dogma for the whole two hours, not once did he talk about math. She dropped the class in hopes of finding a less rabid anti-American professor. Now I don’t have my wifes patience, I would have been rolling in the dirt with the dolt if I was in his class, because thems fighting words to me.

What were Mohammad's credentials to create a document so formidable it can't be deciphered even by his votaries, much less by a man who has devoted over twenty years to its study? Mohammad was illiterate. Surely johnnah and Carr aren't saying it was divinely inspired?

Well, as someone who's graduated with the following:

-BA in English Renaissance Literature (English Lit.), with
-minor in English History
-minor in Russian Language
-MBA with concentration in Finance & Statistics

I have absolutely no respect for anyone who places all stock in institutions of "higher learning".

I have known simpletons with better sense than PhDs, so peddle that nonsense elsewhere.

It is puerile to assume that all learning occurs in structures solely designed for socialization.

Hogwash, I say.

(And before you attempt to "dazzle" me with "I've traveled the world & you haven't" crap, don't. I have too. I also speak several languages. Blahblahblah. Heard it all before. Not impressed.)

The Johnny-One-Notes and Under-Pars of this world say that such a question can't even be ASKED, much less ANSWERED, Concerned Citizen.

dude,

the right wing crickets are really chirping now!!!

"Those are his qualifications"

yes, i heard that Spencer also managed to get his website banned too. better add that to his list of qualifications.

still waiting for Spencer to list his qualifications on Islam ?

Johnnah,

If you made any sense, I think you'd have someone responding.

I think most people are just looking at your post, thinking "Huh? Who left the padded room open?"

It's been done, johnnah, you just can't comprehend it. Mr. Spencer is a pioneer, and your are a scoffer and a mocker with no substantive contribution here since you decline to critique Mr. Spencer's arguments, which speak for themselves.

You've also failed to demonstrate any comprehension of the two logical fallacies you've demonstrated in nearly every post. I've met numerous liberals such as yourself who think they are intelligent merely because they imbibe and can parrot what they here in the standard propaganda sources (main stream media, and baccalaureate classrooms).

Grow up. Choose a subtopic of Spencer's huge body of work and critique its CONTENT. Really, it shouldn't be hard if you're right, right?

Dr BurgerBoy,

I commend you and your wife on all your efforts, both at self-education and at formal institutions. Please don’t let any professor ever bully you or your wife. If they bully either of you, file a grievance. If we do not push back, they will always get away with it.

I once found out that my history prof. of the moment was a communist. I decided to use the opportunity to conduct an experiment in liberal bias. On the final, I took on another persona, (kind of like Mr. Spencer has been doing lately), and wrote a bunch of goboldy-goop about the masses, the proletariat, and capitalistic imperialism. What I wrote was a complete mush of incoherent nonsense. The fool ate it up and gave me an A.

Patagonianplato

Dr BurgerBoy, that is funny, but maybe somewhere, someone gave me an honorary doctorate in swearing, beer drinking and talking to much, all things self-learned which I really stand out at.

Thats funny about your prof., but also really sad, why can’t education be about showing all sides and letting the chips fall where they may?

That’s why I like this site, Mr Spencer and Hugh don’t indoctrinate, they truly educate and then you get to decide for yourself.

The insolence of this empty-headed one, to DARE ask, nay DEMAND, a response from the Exalted, Beloved GREAT LEADER--fool!

Do ye ask of him that he deign give thee audience? Begone! Lest the Antiprophet bid his ready minions to visit a dreadful doom here and hereafter upon ye, wretched knave!!

Doug Hooper, Jim Sutter (johnnah is one of his ) and Jeffrey Carr need each other. They'relike a pack of feral dogs.

Jim Sutter is possessed of many jinn.

BurgerBoy,

I want to thank-you for the earlier Ayatollah Khomeini quote. It brought a little perspective, which was greatly needed at that point, and it brought me relief. Thanks for the support!

As for the Dr, you have more knowledge and common-sense than most professors.

(The preceding post was made with 100% sincerity and seriousness.)

What kind of credentials are needed to read and quote verbatim from islamic texts?

Patagonianplato

Your welcome

I really enjoyed your intelligent sarcasm and John C. also, and I see no need to stop that kind of mockery of Islam and their justifier’s, Mr Spencer uses it all the time, and its freaking hilarious.
The poster who shall not be named, just so reminded me of that quote, this poster continually excused you of being a “Muslim”, so I could not resist the temptation and it was very fitting.

A little conservative common sense and years of hard knocks have made me a little smarter, and if I ever get hooked on phonics then I could spell without word-perfect.

BB,

Join us minions!

John C

Where do I sign up?

My young friend PatagonianPlato - There is no substitute for education. And the more one can get of it, the better. Self-education always suffers in comparison because the brain learns best through having pre-set notions confronted with alternate viewpoints, and that rarely happens among the self-educated and self-directed (witness the disaster of home schooling). Debate is what fosters strong, creative minds, and academia is the best place for debate to occur (most of the time).

However, having said that, quite a few highly educated people do not welcome contrary views, and that's to their detriment. The brain needs stimulation and exercise just like the body does. Unfortunately, such an exercise requires at least 2 people who can counter arguments with logic and facts, and that's apparently quite impossible with this bunch of Islamphobes, who are busily mounting their own holy war against an entire religion. So in spite of our differences of opinion, I wish you well, and invite you to comment on these issues at IntelFusion, where your arguments will be welcomed and well met in kind.
Posted by: Jeffrey Carr

How long has this guy been trolling here?

PRCalDude

Nice blog you have, I think this Carr guy has been around since, Jan 5.

BB,

Your in, you just passed your initiation--CONGRATS!

PRCalDude

Nice blog you have, I think this Carr guy has been around since, Jan 5.
Posted by: BurgerBoy

"Mr. Spencer is a pioneer"

ROFLMAO..........too funny, thanks for the chuckles!!!

Mr Spencer is such a pioneer that he is recognised as a Scholar throughout the muslim world ? gets all the invites to the major events etc ? welcomed everywhere ? not quite eh.

Spencer has NO QUALIFICATIONS on Islam, he has managed to get his website canned for peddling his hatred of Islam. He did throw a hissy fit over that.....something about his "free speech" being blocked.........truly ironic

dms wrote:

"What kind of credentials are needed to read and quote verbatim from islamic texts?"

I think it depends on who one directs this question to.

My response would be:

A.) A document accrediting the bearer with the ability to sing "I Choked Mohammed, but I did not shoot the Dhimmi" in Arabic.

B.) A document accrediting the bearer with the ability to quote Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" forwards and backwards, cover to cover.

C.) A document accrediting the bearer with the ability to lie and dissimulate (practice al-Taqiyya) 24/7/365 and make other crap up along the requisite path of jihad just as Mohammed did.

--or--

If you inquire of ISNA's Ihsan Bagby (stealth Islamofascist), Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Kentucky, he would tell you the only credential needed by American academia is a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from University of Michigan. That kind of accredidation immediately gets one a position as "Director of the Islamic Society of North America's Islamic Teaching Center."

Graduate Admissions to the University of Michigan's Near Eastern Studies program (Ph.D. like Ishan Bagby's) boil down to the following pre-requisites:

1.) SINGLE MOST IMPORTANTLY, the graduate candidate must Compose a two-page "Statement of Purpose" detailing to the Near Eastern Studies faculty a clear idea of why one wants to pursue a career in Islamic Jihad for the establishment of a global, totalitarian Khalifate.

2.) LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION A sum total of three letters of recommendation from fellow Islamists at ISNA attestingto ones potential as a Jihadi

3. ACADEMIC RECORD detailing a 3.5 GPA in undergraduate course work and a familiartiy with Islam and Jihad. Other factors of the individuals academic history are also considered in lieu of the 3.5 GPA. Factors such as successful demonstration of an improed martyrdom bomb belt design or enhanced TATP manufacturing skills for the purpose of kufr slaying will be considered.

Attaining such credentials is apparently not an easy task as the following except will attest.

"But many [American] colleges and universities are still struggling to find their first specialist in Islam. There aren't a lot of them to draw from. Though some 325 U.S. colleges and universities offer courses in Islam, most are taught by people trained in other disciplines. Of 1,200 religious studies departments across North America, about 120 have faculty who claim Islam as their prime area of expertise, according to the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_18_119/ai_91350115

"Mr. Spencer is a pioneer" ROFLMAO..........too funny, thanks for the chuckles!!!

Laugh all you want, there aren't twenty people on the planet currently doing what he does with the volume of work output. None of which you've even attempted to refute, meaning you can't. You continue the argumentum ad hominem and bleat the appeal to authority as though you've made a novel observation, a new way of disqualifying your opponent's voice not recognized as fallacious millenia ago. Again, dumbasses like you are a dime a dozen, watching Rosie on TV and repeating the mantras in the mirror. Who are you trying to impress? We've attempted to educate you about these fallacies, but you are impervious to reason.

What is particularly disappointing is you've posted numerous times on this thread, and not approached Coughlin's thesis. Interestingly, he incorporates your opaque viewpoint, in that analyzing the jihadi's Threat Doctrine, a standard part of the the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (a traditional military system of analysis), does not require the assumption that they are correct in their interpretation of Islam. All it requires is that portions of their doctrine survive the ideological screen of what Islam actually is to be effective (i.e. it is a possible conclusion out of "thousands" of potential interpretations of Islam). It is all about understanding your enemies' motivations, not defaming the religion.

Mr Spencer is such a pioneer that he is recognised as a Scholar throughout the muslim world ? gets all the invites to the major events etc ? welcomed everywhere ? not quite eh.

What dissenter has ever achieved such formal recognition and what would the purpose of such fawning acceptance be?

Spencer has NO QUALIFICATIONS on Islam, he has managed to get his website canned for peddling his hatred of Islam. He did throw a hissy fit over that.....something about his "free speech" being blocked.........truly ironic

His qualifications are evidenced by what he's written. REFUTE HIS , IF YOU CAN. He and others, relatively few through history have developed and popularized critical analysis of Islam, which does not exist within Islam itself in any substantial degree and has not for 14 centuries. It has ALWAYS been predominately done from without.

Speaking of irony, you've posted nonsensical and irrelevant material on HIS site for days, and he has not once attempted to silence your dissent. Leftists and Islamists (is there a difference?) have frequently attempted to silence his "suprisingly sedate" approach to criticism of the Islamic texts.

That's it--no more of this nit-wit who doesn't ante-up NADA. We see that he's acting in complete BAD FAITH. I'm sure we will have seen the LAST of this Sutter-clone. Let's ask JW to BOOT HIS WITLESS A** OUTTA HERE.

GOODBYE, JOHNNY-ONE-NIT, We Hardly Knew Ye!