In "A Nobel Prize...for Ignorance of Islam?" at the History News Network, December 11, recovering college professor Timothy R. Furnish exposes some of the falsehoods about Islam and jihad that Obama retailed in his acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize for Nothing:
Toward the end of his speech the President lapsed into banalities that bordered on intentional misrepresentations. His line about "those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam" has become boilerplate on the Left, invoked like a talisman every time Islam is mentioned. But it is nonetheless pure fantasy. As I and other commentators (Ray Ibrahim, Robert Spencer...among others) have pointed out numerous times, those who perpetrate violence in the name of Islam and Muhammad are in no wise "distorting" or "defiling" the world's second-largest religion--they are, rather, simply taking literally the violence enshrined in the Qur'an and emulating the historical example of Muhammad himself. Obama then followed with the second axiom of American liberals when discussing Islam--be sure to adduce the Crusades: "these [Islamic] extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded." Why, yes they are, Mr. President. But there are thousands of years of human history preceding the Crusades, many also amply recorded, and wars in the name of God long pre-date what the medieval Catholic Christians did. In fact, one only has to go back a few hundred years prior to the First Crusade of the 11th century to see that Muslim armies violently overran Christian lands in Egypt, Anatolia, North Africa and Spain--all in the name of Allah. But of course Muslims and Islam can never be held to account, according to our President's worldview, for their invocation of Allah to kill, conquer and enslave. Those depredations must have been carried out by just a few "extremists," no doubt embittered by something one of George Bush's ancestors had done.Obama's final bit of pro-Muslim propaganda was a line he also employed in his Cairo address earlier this year, his ahistorical claim that "one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us." This line is actually said by Jesus in Matthew 7:12: "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (NASB)." Christianity, obviously, teaches this; so too does rabbinical Judaism and, in a more negative form ("don't do to others what you would not have them do to you"), Buddhism. But Islam teaches no such doctrine! A loving attitude toward others is simply not one of the (alleged) revelations given by Allah to Muhammad in the Qur'an. And this is far more than merely some abstruse point of theology, akin to how many jinn can dance on the head of a pin. This matters, for if our Commander-in-Chief and those who take their cue from him--military leaders, diplomats, intelligence analysts--get such a basic point of Islamic theology and history wrong, how on earth can we expect to win not just the military conflict but, more importantly, the ideological one against Islam?
You mean there is a Nobel Prize for misunderstanding Islam? It's a multicultural winter holiday miracle!
Apart from Jimmy Carter, Obama is probably one of the most naive people to have ever become POTUS. Islam definitely has no Golden Rule - it's not exhibited by its followers, nor was it ever exhibited by Muhammad. Muhammad broke his word multiple times and killed those who he believed had cheated or wronged him.
The concept of the freedom of conscience and being accountable for one's actions is secondary to dogmatic fanaticism in Islam. The results of this are clear to anyone who dares study Islamic doctrine and takes a look at the Islamic world today which is, by any account, a failure in spite of the billions of dollars we give them collectively each year.
" like a talisman every time Islam is mentioned"
That has a kind of ring to it.
" like a talisman every time Islam is mentioned"
That has a kind of ring to it.
A nice bit of writing.
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Odd. In so many ways Red Hussein seems to be nothing more than a cardboard cut-out figure.
Every so often he shows a glimmer of actual intelligence. More often than that, a flash of genuine malevolence.
But I keep circling back to seeing him as a cardboard figure. Dry, empty, meaningless.
Strange. I wonder why that happens.
Only one thing wrong with this:
Obama is not ignorant. He knows. He grew up a Muslim. He learned about Islam. He learned enough to know. He does what Muslims do: lie and deny everything about it. We see it every day. Why do we still give him the benefit of the doubt?
A nice bit of writing.
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Odd. In so many ways Red Hussein seems to be nothing more than a cardboard cut-out figure.
Every so often he shows a glimmer of actual intelligence. More often than that, a flash of genuine malevolence.
But I keep circling back to seeing him as a cardboard figure. Dry, empty, meaningless.
Strange. I wonder why that happens.
I think the main reason, joeblough, is due to the fact that we have an intelligent man in Obama (though not nearly as brilliant as he has been made out to be by the MSM and their ilk) who is possessed of many terrible ideas. After all, intelligence in and of itself is no guarantee against error. Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler were both quite intelligent and got almost everything wrong.
For any loon out there (of course, you're not such, joeblough) reading this, no, I am not comparing Obama to Marx or Hitler. I'm just illustrating a point by providing two major examples from history. Intelligence must be accompanied by common sense, character and proper information or it will invariably go awry, as it has repeatedly with our 44th President.
Hmm. I really wonder how ignorant about Islam he is.
His father was a Muslim. His step-father was a Muslim. He attended Muslim school in Indonesia. He can reputedly recite the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic. He traveled to Pakistan on what kind of passport?
He's not stupid. He's well-schooled in Marxist ideology and more importantly in disguising his Communist rhetoric so that it is palatable to most Americans who do not yet see him for what he is - the most radical left-wing president this nation ever could have imagined.
I'm withholding my judgement on how much he knows about Islam. Nobody has really asked him any questions about that. Nobody did ask him any questions about that when it was the time to do so, during the campaign of 2008, when newscasters and members of John McCain's campaign staff were forbidden to say his middle name.
Right now I'd settle for a look at all of his college transcripts, his college financial aid and admissions records, his writings for the Harvard Law Review, his high school records, his selective service registration records, and his birth certificate. That's all locked up by Court Order, at a cost of about 1.8 million American dollars to pay for the attorneys who have successfully fought off the efforts of them who also want to see his history.
Strange, isn't it? It is all so very strage. We have a President about whom we know so very little, whose first act as President was to call Mahmoud Abbas by phone. He has broken nearly every campaign promise he made.
And the American Press Corps continues to fall prostrate at his feet.
We are in such deep trouble.
"Obama is not ignorant. He knows. He grew up a Muslim. He learned about Islam. He learned enough to know. He does what Muslims do: lie and deny everything about it. We see it every day. Why do we still give him the benefit of the doubt?"
Who is the "we" in your last sentence, shiek?
For example, I for one have NEVER given Hussein "the benefit of the doubt." From the get-go I knew he was a Muslim, and his subsequent lies about Islam (defending Islam) in both the Cairo and Nobel speeches prove me right. That's what I think, anyway.
Well darcy, that makes at least two of us and I guess most Jihad watchers would agree.
But the good professor Timothy R. Furnish still believes the Obama-bastard is somehow "ignorant".
I'd say the ignorance is across the board, but for the media its a sinister stupidity and complicity, dereliction of duty and possibly self hatred. There needs to be a major cleanup, sooner is better.
I expect that you are right.
It is curious though.
One often sees people who have what I call brute intelligence, by which I mean a high quality brain considered as a physical organ, who have been rendered stupid by their awful irrational ideas.
(Although I have to insist that there is nothing about our crudity in chief that suggests that his native physical intelligence is anywhere near the top ranks.)
That said, it is a bit unusual that I get such a strong persistent sense of bland artificiality from such people.
But as you imply, maybe it's not something special about Red Hussein. Maybe my own sentiments have shifted a bit.
Professor Furnish was not known to me until I saw this article. He seems to be refreshingly free of bias and with rare levels of knowledge and common sense. His 'Mahdiwatch' website looks to be worth further exploration.
Why can't more professors be like this?
A disappointingly large number of my fellow Australians are falling for the carefully measured and delivered taqqiya now spewing from the mouth of the POTUS. This says a lot about the preoccupation with 'celebrity' that seems to have infected the West. It is hard to counteract.
A typical response to my suggestion that Obama is either dangerously ignorant of Islam, or treacherously dishonest is "NO! NEVER! Why, President Obama wouldn't lie! He cares for people."
I have an expectation of the President and Congress of the United States of America that is both realistic and (dare I say) virtuous. The Founding Fathers got it right. The original Constitution and various Amendments got it right. Since the Constitution is still on the books, I still have hope. Real hope. You see, that remarkable document inspires people, elevates them, grants them many of the freedoms that can be found nowhere in the non-Christian world and it teaches free thinking human beings to protect these virtues. These virtues are self-evident but they are NOT self-sustaining.
If the POTUS softens the image of Islam to the point where it becomes transfigured, or beatified, it will wreak havoc in countries like Australia. You see, we have a well-reasoned suspicion of Muslims, based on WYSIWYG. Given the fatuously fawning treatment of Obama by 'the press' and the likes of Oprah, there is a risk that resolve to protect the West might weaken even more. The big enemy here is 'doubt'. If we are no longer certain that Islam is simply Arab supremacism shrouded in a see-through burka of religiosity, then we won't have the resolve to stop its spread. We won't recognise the enemy. And it will kill us with relative impunity.
President G.W. Bush might have come away with a 'cowboy' image (and image is in the eyes of the beholder, no?) but he scared the shit out of the bad guys. He was prepared to make the call, knowing that he was sending American men and women into harm's way. He scared the shit out of Iran, Saudi Arabia, bin Laden et al after 911 because they did not know what he might do (next). All they knew was that he was prepared to do it. And the deposing of Saddam Hussein offered one valuable lesson that does not seem to be discussed much, let alone explored.
The mighty Iraqi army, that kept Iran's holy warriors at bay for a decade, dropped its guns and ran at the sight of Abrams tanks and US Marines(?). The invincible Saddam, whose SCUDS over Israel and poison over the Kurds seem all but forgotten, was dragged out of a rabbit hole. His army was, for the most part, inhabited by cowards (for which I am grateful). Courage is a virtue. Islam destroys virtue.
The message to the supremacist Arabs/Moslems could have been clearer (hurt us or our real friends and allies and we will make the whoopin' on y'all) but at least there was a message of warning. Go in, beat them (lightly) until they submit and then get out. It got messed up when the US failed to get out, but now there is no message. The sword has been put away. The big stick is now used to play baseball. Obama is messiah... blech
Small countries like Australia do need the might of their bigger brother behind them. We need the threat of MAD, that only the US can provide, to safeguard us against wannabe world dictators. We don't want US soldiers to die for us (even though they do) unless we stand with them (which we do). But the reality is that without that resolve to do what is necessary, no Western country is safe. And Israel least of all. If she were to feel abandoned by the US and threatened existentially by Iran, she may be forced to use the only big stick that will work against insanity and then, God help us all.
Obama has no business being the President of the United States of America. At best, he is an actor on the world stage who needs script writers to help guide him on the right path, their path. This will lead to the bloodiest conflict in human history and no oratory will be able to stop this once it begins.
The Brothers Grimm were better orators than Obama and vastly more creative. They also had the temerity to call their stories 'fairy tales'. They demonstrated integrity by offering a 'moral to the story' which even children can understand. President Obama, we are not children. Try harder.
Sheik yer'mani: By saying "ignorant of Islam" I was giving the benefit of the doubt to a man who, however much I dislike him and his policies, is nonetheless POTUS. (Unlike Leftists, I respect the office, even when someone for whom I did not vote inhabits it.)
Maranatha50: as an American, and a veteran of the 101st Airborne, I thank you for your kind words about my country and her military. Please also know that most (conservative) Americans know that there are only a few countries who are our trustworthy allies, and Australia is certainly in the forefront.
Seconded, mate.
Pleased to 'meet' you, OJ. My grandfather was a Lt. Colonel in the Royal Dutch Marine Corps, stationed in Indonesia during WWII. He ended up commanding a pack of rats from the ANZACs and could not have wished for a finer bunch of men. They were straight shooting and totally resolute, never flinching or giving an inch. Each had a girlfriend, a wife, a mother and each fought for the image closest to their hearts.
Then he spoke of the 101st, and their breaching of the NAZI occupation of Holland. They had to do his job for him and they did him proud. They were straight shooting and totally resolute, never flinching or giving an inch. Each had a girlfriend, a wife, a mother and each fought for the image closest to their hearts. He said: Verdanke. Thank you. I say it also. And bless you.
Maranatha50: OJ = Timothy Furnish, the author of the article Jihadwatch cited. Guess I hadn't made that clear.
We English-speakers (and Christians) had all better hang together, or we will wind up dhimmified (or worse) separately.