American convert to Islam says it is not permissible for Muslims to join an Infidel army

Assume that the powers-that-be in the US Armed forces knew and understood the above, namely that having Muslims in the US armed forces is problematic -- at best they will prevaricate; at worst they will by spies or be working otherwise against the interests of the US -- then... what is the US Military to do? what is it to do in the context of laws on freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of religion, and of non-discrimination?

It goes even further - we saw on stilts what was long known in WWII that all economic and political activity within a nation at war contribute to the war effort. Contributing to national wealth in any form, above and beyond mere payment of taxes, contributes to the war effort. Hence the bombings of Coventry, Dresden, and Hiroshima, etc. It doesn't take a genius to conect the dots and conclude that if the US is "at war with Islam" (as the jihadis cast it) then arson and all manner of sabotage are not only justified, but imperative.

Can We Ban Islam? - Legal Guidelines for the Criminalization of Islam in the United States
by Sultan Knish.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/05/can-we-ban-islam-legal-guidelines-for.html

Geert Wilders' recent call at a Palm Beach synagogue to ban Islam has stirred up all sorts of controversy, with more "moderate" blogs speaking out in opposition to it. So let's take a closer look at the issue of banning Islam.

Banning Islam is more difficult in the United States than in Europe, because of the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

On the surface of it this is a fairly straightforward formulation barring the legislative branch from taking any action to create a state religion or barring the practice of any religion.

The founders were English citizens and well aware of the way in which religion could stoke political violence. In the late 18th century, Cromwell was not ancient history, neither were the Covenanters or the Gunpowder Plot. While they did not anticipate like the rise of an Islamic insurgency in America, they understood quite well that religion and violence could and would intersect.

That of course was one of the reasons for barring a State Church, to avoid giving the government control over religion, a situation that had resulted in much of the religious violence in England. By giving religion independence, but not political power, the First Amendment sought to avoid a repeat of the same ugliness that had marked centuries of wars in Europe.

That of course is a key point. The separation of church and state was meant to protect the integrity of both, and avoid power struggles between religious groups. There was to be no state religion, the government could not leverage religious authority and religious factions could not begin civil wars in a struggle to gain power or autonomy. For the most part it worked.

Until now the only real acid test for this approach involved the Mormon Church, an ugly history on both sides that has mostly been buried under the weight of time. More recently Scientology flared up as a cult turned church that demanded its own autonomy and did its best to make war on the government and its critics.

And then there is Islam. The first problem with using the First Amendment in defense of Islam-- is that its goal is to violate the First Amendment. Islam's widely stated goal is to become a State Religion, around the world and in America as well.

Sharia has been making steady advances in Africa and parts of Asia. Majorities of Muslims in the UK have said that they want Sharia law, and leading British figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury have supported the introduction of Islamic law into the British legal system. Domestic advocates for Sharia, such as Noah Feldman, are pushing for the normalization of Sharia law in the United States as well.

This would in effect turn Islam into an Established Religion in the United States, itself a violation of the First Amendment.

Furthermore Islam abridges the remaining portions of the First Amendment, which protect Freedom of Speech and the Press. Islam rejects both of these. To protect Islamic rights therefore means depriving non-Muslims of freedom of religion--- and both Muslims and non-Muslims of freedom of speech and the press.

These are not hypothetical scenarios, the Mohammed cartoon controversy has demonstrated exactly how this will work. So did the persecution of Salman Rushdie. To accept Islam is to reject freedom of speech and religion... in the same way that accepting Communism meant rejecting freedom of speech and religion. Islam and the Constitution of the United States are incompatible in the same way that Communism and the Constitution are incompatible.

The Founders sought to protect religious freedoms, at no point in time did they seek to protect religious terrorism. And Supreme Courts throughout American history have found that the First Amendment does not provide license for significant lawbreaking. That is why polygamy is not legal in the United States.

Having to choose between religious freedom and the rights and dignity of women and children-- America correctly chose the latter.

In 1785, James Madison, Father of the Constitution, wrote, "We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion or the duty which we owe our Creator and the manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence."

Yet Islamic history and recent events in Eurabia demonstrate that Islam does indeed spread by force and violence. Upholding the right of Islam to force its statues and views on Americans, violates Madison's fundamental and undeniable truth.

In 1802, Jefferson wrote his explanation for the First Amendment to the Danbury Baptist Association;

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, and that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that the legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

There is a key phrase in this statement, which is that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions. This statement was used as a legal principle by the Supreme Court in 1878 in the case of Reynolds vs the United States. Reynolds had been charged with bigamy and claimed that his faith required him to engage in polygamy.

The Court found that while Reynolds had the right to believe that polygamy was his duty, he did not have the right to practice it-- thus upholding Jefferson's distinction between action and belief.

As the court put it;

In our opinion, the statute immediately under consideration is within the legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the United States have exclusive control. This being so, the only question which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law

Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?

So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? [98 U.S. 145, 167] To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.

The outcome then was that we could not have a situation in which crimes could be committed in the name of religion and protected by the First Amendment. Belief could not be criminalized, but practice could be.

But what does that actually mean and how exactly do we distinguish between action and practice? Does it merely mean that it is legal to believe in seizing America in the name of Islam, but not to practice it.

We can begin by pointing out that any number of Islamic practices which violate American law or promote an unhealthy social consequence can be banned, for much the same reason that polygamy was. In Reynolds vs the United States, the Court upheld the right of the Utah legislature to brand the spread of polygamy as a threat to innocent women and children, that had to be arrested through strong measures. The spread of Islam's practices can be seen in the same way.

France has treated the Hijab in a similar way. The United States can too, if it finds any abuse or violence associated with its enforcement or use. Honor killings over the Hijab demonstrate that this is the case. State Legislatures can then move to ban the Hijab.

Thus while we cannot charge someone with believing in Islam, we can stamp out many Islamic practices that are dangerous or abusive. The First Amendment does not protect religious practices that are illegal or made illegal, it protects only the beliefs themselves.

And we can go much further at an organizational level, based on the Sedition Act of 1918 and the 1954 Communist Control Act , which give us some guidelines for cracking down on Islam.

Sec. 2. The Congress hereby finds and declares that the Communist Party of the United States, although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States. It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic, demanding for itself the rights and privileges accorded to political parties, but denying to all others the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Unlike political parties, which evolve their policies and programs through public means, by the reconciliation of a wide variety of individual views, and submit those policies and programs to the electorate at large for approval or disapproval, the policies and programs of the Communist Party are secretly prescribed for it by the foreign leaders of the world Communist movement. Its members have no part in determining its goals, and are not permitted to voice dissent to party objectives

This applies to Islam just as much as it applies to Communism. And this preamble was part of a passage demonstrating the fundamental distinction between Communism and legitimate political parties.

The assumption of the Communist Control Act was that the First Amendment did not apply to the Communist party or to Communist controlled parties... because they did not fit the democratic template of the First Amendment. As such the Communist party was not a legitimate party, but an overseas directed conspiracy to overthrow the United States and replace it with a Communist system.

Not only can this same argument also apply to Islamic organizations such as CAIR, but Islam can be distinguished from other religions on similar grounds. The following phrase from the original document represents the key point here;

It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic, demanding for itself the rights and privileges accorded to political parties, but denying to all others the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

And that is the core of the problem. While we cannot criminalize individual beliefs alone, we can criminalize organizations dedicated to overthrowing the United States and replacing it with a totalitarian system. An organization is not merely "belief", it also represents an attempt to put those beliefs into practice.

The Internal Security Act of 1950, along with the 1954 Communist Control Act provides extensive legal grounds for criminalizing organizations dedicated to the overthrow of the United States, as well as membership in such organizations-- and even provides for the removal of citizenship from members of such organizations.

While succeeding courts have thrown out many portions of these laws, had the United States truly gotten serious about the War on Terror, it could have passed a real Patriot Act that would have clamped down on Islamist organizations in a similar way.

The bill could have easily retrofitted some of the language of the Communist Control Act as follows;

Sec. 3. Islamic organizations, regardless of their assumed name, whose object or purpose is to overthrow the Government of the United States, or the government of any State, Territory, District, or possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein by force and violence, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof; and whatever rights, privileges, and immunities which have heretofore been granted to said party or any subsidiary organization by reason of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, are hereby terminated:

Sec. 4. Whoever knowingly and willfully becomes or remains a member of such organizations, or (2) any other organization having for one of its purposes or objectives the establishment, control conduct, seizure, or overthrow of the Government of the United States, or the government of any State or political subdivision thereof, by the use of force or violence, with knowledge of the purpose or objective of such organization shall be subject to all the provisions and penalties of the Internal Security Act of 1950

The question then becomes one of defining what exactly an Islamist organization is. If we define Islamist under the same guidelines as Communist, but specifically modified as representing a belief in the overthrow or takeover of the United States or any part of it, thereby placing the United States under Islamic law... we already have a very broad net to work with.

Or to simply quote the Internal Security Act again

Sec. 4. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to combine, conspire, or agree, with any other person to perform any act which would substantially contribute to the establishment within the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship

Since Islam represents a totalitarian dictatorship, any organization or individual seeking to establish Islamic Law or Sharia within the United States, can be held liable and charged over its violation. This would apply to both Muslims and non-Muslims.

And the Koran or Quran itself represents a volume whose contents implicitly call for the violent overthrow of the United States.

Consider Chapter 9 of the Koran, which governs the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims. Particularly Sura 9:29

[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

There are numerous other verses in the Koran which similarly call for Muslims to subjugate non-Muslims and take power. This parallels the charge against the Communist party and places Muslims who believe in the Koran on the same level as Communists who believed in the overthrow of the United States.

Participation in any Muslim organization therefore becomes the equivalent of participating in a Communist organization-- and can be banned.

So back to the original question, can we ban Islam? While we cannot ban an individual from personally believing in Islam, we can ban Islamic practices and organizations-- which would effectively ban any practice of Islam in an organized way.

While the First Amendment does not permit a ban on any specific religion, this is limited to religious belief, not religious practice. And the laws enacted against Communism in the 1950's demonstrate that organizations aimed at the overthrow of the United States can be banned and membership in them can even be criminalized.

Thus we can be Islam from the public sphere, ban Muslim organizations as criminal organizations, criminalize Muslim practices and even denaturalize and deport Muslims who are United States citizens. The legal infrastructure is there. Despite the fact that the United States is far more protective of political and religious rights, within a decade every single Muslim organization, from the national to the mosque level, can be shut down... and the majority of professing Muslims can be deported from the United States regardless of whether they are citizens or not.

We can do it. Whether we could or will do it is another matter. It would require rolling back a number of Supreme Court decisions that are a legacy of the corrupted Warren Court. But it was possible post 9/11. It may yet become possible again.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/05/can-we-ban-islam-legal-guidelines-for.html

I have been arguing for years (sense I became aware) that Islam should be legally banned in the US. Have not completely read Yankel's post but it looks like he is covering it like a lawyer (or congressman).

Isn't it ironic that the enemy is now insisting that they be identified as the enemy. That has been the question all along. "Who is the enemy?" I hope and pray that the military will finally understand who he is and not be blinded by PC. I don't think the current admin. will ever get it but that will be just another nail in the coffin to get them out of office. Despite the MSM I see the American public starting to get it.

Excellent post, Yankel!

Good Cop / Bad Cop:

We see Muslim spokesmen saying that the Muslims must abandon the concept of "Ummah". We are seeing Muslims and Muslim Organizations calling for American citizenship to be put above their loyalty to other Muslims around the world. This is a very strange thing as prior to 9/11 the ulamaa of Islam had many fatwas that said just the opposite... -- Umar Lee.

Scene I, Act I: A PC MC dhimmi is seated in a chair at a table, the glaring bulb of the interrogation room over his head. He looks visibly anxious and upset, as moments earlier, Major Nidal Hasan of the Islamic/PC MC Joint Task Force had just put him through the ringer with violent threats and slapping him around.

Then representatives of the Moderate Muslims entered the interrogation room, to assure him that Muslims are good people who can be good and loyal citizens.

A half hour after that, Umar Lee comes in, to badger the dhimmi again with truculent language and veiled threats.

When the Good Cops re-enter the interrogation room, the dhimmi will be ready to believe them -- for he desperately needs the Good Cops to get him out of this situation, and his need is psychologically stronger than his dreaded, semi-conscious intuition that the Good Cops are in fact in league with the Bad Cops: for it that were true, then they are all bad and all of them mean him harm. He would have no choice but to submit -- or take action against all of them.

I see it as a very simple situation being made more convoluted by well-meaning theists protecting their interests, which is understandable.

To outlaw islam (and scientology, while we're at it) all that needs to be done is to identify islam as a cult and ban it.

It's a cult by anyone's standards, let's just call it what it is and move on.

Ban islam!

"...it may be advantageous for Muslims to work in these armies so as to learn their secrets and be aware of their potential evil." -- Sheikh Muhammed Salih al-Munajjid

Potential evil?! Can you say, irony?

All the while he, and others, are COMPLETELY oblivious to the fact that they are serving an evil ideology and evil false prophet.

Muhammad was a liar, thief, sexual deviant and murderer; and yet this EVIL MAN manages to escape their attention? How ironic!

It kind of clarifies the American versus Muslim conflict in these so-called "America-loving Muslims", doesn't it?

Question_Everything,

Identifying Islam as a cult has two problems:

1) it goes against massive understanding of Islam as not only a Religion, but "one of the world's Major Religions" -- an understanding that the mainstream throughout the West has now, and has had about Islam for centuries;

2) closely related to #1, a Religion by definition cannot be a cult, for at least two reasons:

a) A cult must be relatively small in numbers and relatively uniform in appearance & behavior, relatively small in terms of geographical dispersion, and relatively ephemeral in terms of lasting over time -- on all three counts, Islam fails: it has over a billion adherents who seem to be "diverse" and "not monolithic"; it is dispersed all over the world in nearly every country and indeed has over 50 countries of its own -- no cult has ever had even one country of its own; and it has lasted 1,400 years while no cult in history has lasted anywhere near that long.

b) Secondly, a cult must be mostly bad and have unacceptably eccentric teachings and behaviors among its adherents. While we JWers know that most, if not all, Muslims fit this description, unfortunately the existence of innumerable Muslims who smile, behave ostensibly decently, and demonstrate an outward appearance of moderation in terms of things of which we accuse them of immoderation -- including diet, alcohol, music, art, women, sexuality, humor, etc. -- serves to sustain the PC MCs in their stubborn belief that Muslims are not, in fact, "monolithic", and that at best there is a "struggle in the Muslim world" for the "hearts and minds" of Muslims, whereby the dastardly minority of "extremists" are trying to twist Islam but the majority of decent Muslims, if we only help them, will win out and become just as enlightened and relaxed as we modern Western secularists are -- just give them time, and stop "demonizing" them and their Religion -- one of the world's Great Religions, in fact. It thus cannot be a cult in the sense of having bad, or strange, or comical, or ugly, or illiberal, or even evil and dangerous teachings -- like the Jim Jones cult, or the Moonies, or Satanic cults, or Scientology, or Jehovah's Witnesses (at least on the strange and comical end); etc.

3) And finally, working in symbiosis with 1 and 2 above, we have the powerfully inhibiting factor of Reverse Racism among our dominantly mainstream PC MC societies throughout the West. Nearly every time they look at Muslims, they not only see decent moms and pops like the rest of us, they also see Ethnic People -- and to be against Ethnic People, to condemn their way of life as a pernicious cult, would be tantamount to seeming to be racist, and that is simply beyond the pale. Anything is better than that. Nothing is worse -- not even another hundred attacks of mass-murder on us perpetrated by Muslims over the coming decades. If most Muslims were white and Western, that would be quite another matter. We could deal with that, and take appropriate measures to protect ourselves from them. But they aren't. They are lovely Brown People, furthermore spiced with cool ethnic garb and oriental ways. We must thus accept the continued violence and threats of violence from Muslims against us in the coming years -- suitably repressed and redefined in our minds, of course, so that its rough edges do not disconcert us overmuch -- as part of the price of our continued pledge to uphold "diversity" and to purge our evil Western selves of the crypto-racism and bigotry that always lurks beneath the surface -- unless we do our part to fight against our own inner demons and not treat the Noble Savages as brutally as our ancestors did.

Thomas_h, hope this helps:

The following is a description of what cult is:

1.A cult is a religious group with extreme beliefs and practices - beliefs that are often contrary to science and logic but they are believed as "obvious" truth by the cult members.
2.The members of cults often isolate themselves from friends, family and society and use deceptive and unethical recruiting techniques.
3.Use manipulative methods to control the minds of followers.
4.Venerate a human leader or leaders.
5.Recruiting work is performed by all of the members.
6.People are not allowed to criticize the leader, the doctrine, or the organization, or read information that is critical of the cult.
7.Members are trained to reject and disbelieve criticism of the cult as lies from 'Satan'.
8.Members are taught to suppress anything which might reflect negatively to outsiders about the cult.
9.The doctrine is absolutist and the ideology is internalized as 'The Truth'.
10.Members are instilled with a deep fear about ever leaving the organization, and anyone who does depart is of 'the devil' and severely punished.
11.Members are emotional controlled and warned of being caught and punished.
12.Disciplinary action is administered by group leaders, which may involve excommunication for such things as questioning organization policy or doctrine.
13.Advocate socializing only with other members in the organization and avoiding outsiders.
14.The belief in apocalypse and Dooms Day.

Just because it has a large following does not detract from its cult status and that's what should be encouraging people to see it for. A cult. No more religious status, no more tax-free exemptions.

Well, apparently, islam owns the planet, or rather, its’ fate (thanks to Weaselzippers). A local branch of Indonesia’s National Council of Ulema (MUI) has issued a fatwa on the movie 2012, stating, “'For the common people, the portrayal of doomsday in this film could distort their faith…” Then they go on to lie about the film portraying the destruction of mosques and church’s being spared. I don’t think they saw the film. I did last weekend and I distinctly recall seeing the Pope and his Cardinals being crushed in the rubble of the Vatican.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/art-culture/03-clerics-cringe-as-2012-causes-storm-in-indonesia-ss-05

islam is at war with everything and anyone who isn’t part of the ummah, and even then, at war within its’ own factions. This is why anyone who takes any edicts by nut jobs like Umar Lee seriously are insane. But who can absolutely refute the sanity of going, or staying muslim, when it displays its’ intolerance at every turn?

Next they’ll be a fatwa against Star Trek for failing to show how muslims are part of the future fiction…oh wait, there was Khan...

Question_Everything,

I beg to differ. There's no need for the West to twist itself in pretzel-logic knots to avoid the facts:

1) Islam is a religion.

2) Islam is also other things.

3) Islam is evil, unjust and dangerous to the West.

The West continues to behave like a little child who can't wrap its head around a new concept: A dangerous Religion that has a blueprint fanatically followed by its members to conquer the world using any methods it can, including any type of violence that will further that end. The Western Man-Child plugs its ears and shuts its eyes and says "No....! A Religion can't possibly be this bad...! Especially a religion with so many followers all over the world... and most especially one whose followers all look like lovely Brown People... No!!!"

Then come along those in the West who have woken up to the danger, but agree that Islam cannot be a Religion -- and so must be redefined before we can deal with it rationally. That is nearly as silly as the aforementioned mentality (and probably partakes of it on some level).

The day that the West wakes up to the danger of Islam will be approximately the same day it says, "Islam is a Religion? Okay, so what? Time to shut it down."

"What about the many Muslims who have served and now the 20,000 who currently serve in the armed forces, those that fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq? Are they influenced by their religion in their willingness to serve, fight and die for their country? Courageous Muslims like Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, praised by Colin Powell in his endorsement speech of Barack Obama, gave his life for his country, and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and the honor of being buried in Arlington cemetery."
-- from a piece by John Esposito in The Washington Post

John Esposito would have you believe that one of a handful examples -- I think perhaps the only example, of a Muslim (not Nation-of-Islam, but honest-to-goodness real Muslim) soldier who died fighting, in the American army, not in the ranks of Muslims being fought -- the example of Rashad Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, is merely one of many. But of course it isn't.. It is the very same example that was used by Colin Powell when he wanted to make his silly, because ignorant-of-Islam remarks, in defense of Muslims.
Remember?

Well, you will find those remarks, and comments by me on them, as well as on other aspects of the ability of Muslims to exhibit loyalty to an Infdiel nation-state and to take part, as all others are expected to take part, in the military efforts of that Infidel nation-state, in the following excerpt from an article I posted at JihadWatch last year:

Fitzgerald: Colin Powell and Jihad: A dereliction of duty
In evaluating the threat of Islam and Jihad, for the colin-powells of this world what counts is the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence. He takes the sentimentalism of our depraved politics at face value: "and then there is Mary, who lives in Sioux City, Iowa and makes $13.42 an hour." In this he recalls Bush at one of his State-of-the-Union farces, pointing to an Iraqi woman, who had been deliberately seated next to the parents of a Marine killed in Iraq. He asks her to stand up and acknowledge the applause of the crowd, applause presumably due her because she is "an Iraqi woman" who has not tried to kill Americans, and may even support what they are doing, or think they are doing, in Iraq -- which makes her, of course, a hero.

In an interview yesterday, Powell reached new heights or depths (they are the same in this case) of anecdotal absurdity. He offered up this:

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said. Such things as 'Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well the correct answer is 'He is not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian.' But the really right answer is 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer is 'No. That's not America.' Is there something wrong with some 7-year old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo-essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in you can see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American, he was born in New Jersey, he was 14 at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he can go serve his counrty and he gave his life."

So, on the basis of having seen a picture of a Muslim mother of a Muslim son who had been killed in Iraq, Colin Powell uses his (apparent) prestige to tell the interviewer and all of America, that there is nothing wrong with Islam, nothing wrong with the ideology of Islam, nothing to be concerned about in Sharia supremacism, nothing wrong with the idea of a Muslim president. His irresponsibility astounds.”

So let’s go back, after this excursus on Colin Powell, the man who originated this rhetorical reliance on the single case of Karim Rashad Sultan Khan, to the latest exploiter of the story of that Muslim serviceman, John Esposito.. When, in The Washington Post, the once-humble junior professor (at Holy Cross) and now sole proprietor of his Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding which is still allowed to be connected to Georgetown (despite the warnings of Catholic convert Magdi Allam, despite the wariness expressed by James V. Schall, S.J., despite the civilisational worries about the threat of Islam that Pope B enedict feels so keenly – doubts and wariness and worries shared by every Catholic who has bothered to fully inform himself about Islam, and is not, like John Esposito, on the take or ont the make), tries to make sure that his unwary non-Muslim readers will not begin to examin any of the texts of Islam – he doesn’t dare t quote a single relevant passage, not one of the Qur’anic passages quoted by, relied on, by Nidal Malik Hasan himself in his lectures and rants to fellow soldiers. For John Esposito is engaged not in pedagogy but in sinister propaganda, and he ought really to be called before Congress, or at least made the subject of Congressional (and other) inquiy, into how within our government some have come to rely on such venal people as John Esposito, with his long and easily-examined record of misleading both the public, and those in government, about Islam. It is a scandal that he was ever relied on, as he apparently has been in the past, by some in the government, particularly during the Clinton Administration, as an “authority on Islam. ”

Esposito is not the only apologist for Islam who for too long has been treated with quite-unecessary respect. He should, by those who understand these matters, be treated in a manner more befitting an enemy agent. For he is, as a Protector of Islam, akin to those who during the Cold War defended the Soviet Union and its policies, or those – far fewer – who during World War II continued to make excuses or even identify with the Germans, the Nazis – until such books as John Roy Carlson’s influential “Under Cover” exposed these enemy agents, and the FBI really went to work, unhesitatingly rounding them up. John Esposito need not be among those rounded up, but he should clearly be seen for what he is, and for a long time, has been.

Though John Esposito is billed as “scholar of Islam” –a non-Muslim equivalent of that Muslim apologist for Islam, the soft-spoken, not unclever, hissingly colubrine Tariq Ramadan, whom terminally naïve Tony Blair once appointed to a committee established “to examine ways to root out extremism in Britain.” One can well imagine all the “ways” that Tariq Ramadan would, on that committee, have suggested be considered, in order to “root out extremism.” Yes, he would certainly have recommended sympathetically portrarying Muslims in the media, or rewriting textbooks so that they gave credit – as Tariq Ramadan has insisted be done – to Muslims for being those really responsible, in his view, for the Renaissance. And no doubt he would have recommended many other things – permitting the burqa even for passport photos, changing British foreign policy to be forthrightly on the Muslim and Arab side, providing prayer rooms in schools and offices, banning any criticism of Islam --these are just some of the ways that Tariq Ramadan could think up to “root out extremism in Britain.” some committee or commission? quoted by Nidal Malik Hasan himself in his lectures and rants -- his readers not to examine any of the texts, any of the doctrine, of Islam. Instead, he offers the usual sentimental appeal, by referring to all the Muslims who have served so loyally --let's not mention the various akbar-hassans rolling grenades, or deserting their posts, or offering to supply naval secrets from right on board an American warship -- in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he refers to one "Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan"-- the very same Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan whom, more than a year ago, the egregious, Jaguar-from-Prince-Bandar Colin Powell used as his lonely example of a loyal Muslim – his loyalty presumably a sure thing, proven beyond a reasonable doubt, just because he was in the American military and was killed (which does not prove anything about his interior thoughts).

Now Colin Powell’s reputation has been, among those who have been paying attention, tarnished by that Jaguar-from-Bandar incident, and also by his insensate pursuit of money on the lecture circuit, and the usual boards of directors on which he serves. We are all disgusted, I trust, with the spectacle of so many of our former rulers who, once they leave office, cash in, and how, on what they like to call, so archly and mincingly, “public service.” There is Clinton, there is Blair (a non-American entry into the public-private grabbing-the-dough competition) , and they have eached reaped, if we are to believe reports, r a cool 100 million since leaving office. They disgust most of all. Also high in the running for disgust, it turns out, is Al Gore, who has parlayed his sermonizing on global warming into his own 100 million, and his example may be used by the opponents of global warming so that, unless he is willing, as he certainly should be, to disgorge – for a good cause, bien entendu, to Save The Earth – most of that 100 million, in order not to make himself one of the issues, one of the things standing in the way of necessary legislation, he, Al Gore, may be the Man Who Prevented the Earth From Being Saved From Global Warming. If what was at stake were not so important, one might stop to savor the irony.
And then there’s Colin Powell. He’s enjoyed decades in which he has been untouchable, never-called-to-account, always held up as an example of rectitude, one of those Washington “wise men” with whom we are supposed to be so impressed. He’s a man everyone is careful not to criticize, but to join in offering acclaim, and now basks in this “elder-statesman” reputation similar to that of another “wise man” –another term for roughly the same thing is “an old Washington hand” which is also supposed to impress - -- that Washington fixer, Clark Clifford, “wise man” and “old Washington hand” of vast experience and grave mien – that is, until he, Clark Clifford, had his blushing comeuppance when he was discovered waist-high in BCCI-engendered mud.

in a speech in 2008, though he clearly had never read the texts of Islam, never given any thought to the doctrines of Islam or the long history, some 1350 years, of Muslim conquest and attempted conquest, and subjugation of a great many non-Muslim lands and non-Muslim peoples, Colin Powell asserted that Muslims had been loyal, had served this country loyally in war, and his example, his sole example, was that of Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan. Now why did John Esposito choose that example to adduce? Was it only because Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan was the example mentioned by Colin Powell? Or was it because – save for some homegrown members of the Nation of Islam, whose Islam is not, we all know, orthodox Islam but rather a vehicle for a kind of black separatism given a farrakhanesque twist of resentment – there may be no other examples of real, orthodox Muslims whom John Esposito can name?
And does John Esposito know whether or not the soldier Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan has been made much of, has been honored, by the Muslims in this country? If they were all so loyal, wouldn’t they, instead of letting the name Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan be invoked by John Esposito and Colin Powell, that is exploited to insist on something that is hardly proven by the death of a single (or even a dozen) Muslim soldiers – that is, the assumed loyalty to an Infidel nation-state, the putative patriotism, of Muslims – Muslims who are real, believing, taking-Islam-seriously Muslims. During the two world wars, some Muslims fought, were drafted into, the French army. So what? Did they do so out of loyalty to France or to make far more money than they otherwise could have made? Does the fact that some fought – and some must have died – in Italy fighting German soldiers mean that they were impelled by hatred of the Nazis, by loyalty to the French state, or that, in the circumstances, it was a job for which they were relatively well-paid, compared to their poverty at home in North Africa, and they did it. When Muslim Turkish soldiers fought with NATO forces in Korea, were they doing so because they believed deeply in opposing the Communist threat to civil liberties, or did they participate because Turkey received a lot of benefits from being a member of NATO?

If, as Esposito and Powell imply, the case of Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan is one that is not exceptional and his own example controversial among Muslims,, then shouldn’t CAIR, a group that John Esposito I am sure has no quarrel with, be establishing a prize, or perhaps a series of prizes, in the name of Rashad Kareem Sultan Khan, of perhaps making sure that little boys in madrasas and mosques are told his tale, in the hope that they will emulate his example, and “fight for their country”? But there is nothing like this. In World War Ii, to prove their loyalty, the Japanese-Americans joined the famous 422nd Regiment , and fought up and down Italy, and was the first or second most decorated regiment in the entire army. And in Little Italies all over this country, and in Yorkville and other centers of German-American groups, windows of barbershops displayed pictures of the local boys in uniform, and if someone died in the war, much was made of him. Anything similar going on among Muslims? Do you think a Regiment consisting only of Muslims, just as the 442nd consisted entirely of Japanese-Americans, could be formed, Muslims determined to fight – in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia or Iran if need be (well, perhaps Shi’a Muslims would be willing to fight against the Saudis, and Sunnis would support the bombing of Iran’s nuclear project, if they thought it would knock out or weaken the Shi’a, a variety of “Muslim” that they thought was not the real thing).

Esposito was once a sly apologist for Islam. He remains a sly apologist for Islam, but men and events have caught up with him, and he can no longer explain away, or justify, all of the things he for so many years used to explain away, and justify,with far greater success. He can’t do it any longer, not in the same way. He is coming to be regarded with disgust, a disgust he earned long ago. As long, however, as he continues to earn the only thing that matters to him – the money that keeps piling in, and pilling up, from Arab donors who wish to keep him living in the style to which he has grown accustomed, he really doesn’t care.

But we do.

Echoing the old Uncle Sam poster, check out what Pigman thinks of SuperJihad's call for infidels to submit

Our dificult task to bring the light of freedom and democracy to Afghanistan, is having all the unintended consequnces I had hoped for.

One more reason to ask why Muslims have been welcomed into North America.

Islam is opposed to everything we believe. We seem to lack the guts to solve this politically. The time will come when we will have to fight to get our country back.

A big sarcastic thanks to the blind idiots who refused to see Islam for what it is: the doctrine of Satan.

Sigh.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1738137/posts

Unless a new amendment to the Constitution is passed which would make Islam the exception to the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom, ALL efforts to have Islam banned will fail. The only other avenue is for Congress to pass a law making Islam illegal and remove consideration of this Congressional act from Supreme Court review, which it can due pursuant to Article III, Section 2. The likelihood of either of these occurring is as close to zero as one can get without being at zero.

Cults are legal in this country. The Communist Party, irrespective of the Internal Security Act and other Congressional measures, was NEVER illegal in America. These attempts to make Islam illegal will fail under present Constitiutional law. No law professor, no judge, virtually no lawyer, would maintain otherwise. Scientology is a cult if ever there were one and it's legal in America. If one wants to be a Neo-Nazi, fool that he is, that too is lawfully allowed. Acting upon certain beliefs are indeed not necessarily legal, but belief itself is sacrosanct as present law stands. The way to limit Islam in this country (aside from finding excuses to limit Muslim immigrants) is to discredit it in the eyes of the vast majority of Americans, just as Nazism and Marxism have been discredited (and both of which, to remind all again, all still perfectly legal in America). These attempts to find ways to make Islam illegal will all fail under present American law. Guaranteed.

Perhaps the special commission appointed to investigate the massacre at Ft. Hood would like to read these fatwas. They would save them (or their lackeys)a lot of time. But I guess it would be a waste of time to send them the obvious answers to their useless inquiry because nothing would change. The changes required to protect our military personnel and the American public would not fit the multiculti, diversity paradigm and that is all that matters to these people.

The truth about islam is not hidden away somewhere in a secret location. The truth about islam is everywhere; we see it every day in the words and actions of muslims. The history of islam, despite many attempts to revise it, is still available from many sources, Mr. Spencer's books for one. Islam's canonical texts are readily available, accompanied by the detailed explanations of respected islamic scholars. The people who are supposed to know and understand our enemies are guilty of gross negligence for their failure or refusal to believe the ugly truth about islam, even in the aftermath of the jihadist terror attack on our soldiers in Ft. Hood.

The truth about islam contradicts the popular myths positing that a society must be multicultural, politically correct, diverse and tolerant to be worthy and defies the moral relativism that deems all cultures, religions, and beliefs of equal value. To paraphrase General Casey's infamous words, diversity is more important than the murder and carnage committed by a devout muslim military officer against his fellow soldiers.

Many comments here have pointed to the great difficulties -- amounting, as Wellington said, to virtual impossibility -- in outlawing Islam in the U.S.
But there are other angles to pursue which could greatly reduce the threat of Islam; in the U.S. in particular, and in the West in general:
1) further Moslem immigration could be halted completely; we have the right to control our borders, and admit whom we choose
2) foreign aid to Islamic countries could be halted; perhaps on the high-sounding principle that aid would be given only to countries that fully accept the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, which would eliminate all 57 countries of the Islamic bloc
3) we could reduce our financial support of the U.N. to a share proportionate to our share of the world population -- about 4%
4) we could dramatically reduce our dependence on OPEC oil by developing our own resources; this one would be a twofer: it would both reduce our trade deficit and massively reduce the income of a number of the main sponsors of imperialistic Islam, thus weakening their influence
5) State human welfare departments could aggressively pursue any and all suspicions of child abuse in Moslem homes and, where necessary, remove children from unfit homes. This is done on a regular basis in other families, so let's be sure it's done in Islamic ones.

Then there's this weasely fatwa, issued in response to the panicky query from Army "Chaplain" Capt. Abd Al-Rasheed Muhammad, the Imam of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in the wake of 9/11.

It basically says that while it is Haram for Muslims to fight Muslims, that a Muslim in the armed forces of an Infidel land is not in control of his own actions, and that any refusal on the part of the Muslim might cause harm to either himself or the Muslim community in that Kaffir land.

In other words, the Muslim soldier is essentially the victim of Infidels.

What the situation might be in the case of a volunteer army, such as in the United States, or in the case of Muslims joining the service *after* 9/11-when it would be clear that a soldier would likely be called on to fight Muslims, is never addressed.

What is most striking, however, is that there is no indication that a Muslim fighting Muslims in an Infidel force can *ever be*, in and of itself, moral. In other words, no matter how decent the Infidel, or how vicious the Muslims, it is never really acceptable for a Muslim to oppose Muslims, if it is seen as doing so at the behest of Kaffirs.

Oddly, this was prominently featured in the awful book, "What's Right with America is What's Right with Islam" by Imam Abdul Rauf—a queasy combination of reassuring Taqiyya and outright threats aimed at a clueless (non-Muslim) American audience.

Here's text of the fatwa:

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=ia&ID=IA7501&Page=archives