September 2010 Archives

Apparently a simple thumbs down wouldn't have sufficed. Anyway, "modern, hip Muslims" like this bloodthirsty Islamic supremacist thug may indeed catch up to me one day, but they will never be able to prevent the truth about their violent, hateful, intolerant belief system from coming out. And they will never be able to extinguish the human spirit.

Threats like this one are merely an expression that they are morally and intellectually bankrupt, and they know they're losing the national and international argument -- and so in their frustration and static, impotent rage they resort to smears and defamation (a la CAIR) and to death threats (like our hip friend here).

The threat/book review is here.

Turkish Delight, September 29, 2010 By J

This review is from: The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran (Paperback)

Robert Spencer has his right to speech. But someday he will slip up, he will visit a place that doesn't honor such infidel "rights." And what a day they will have with him. You've heard of head cheese and blood pudding? See, modern hip Muslims like me like to be look different than everybody else in Western society. And we don't like to believe Islam has any real enemies left. But Robert Spencer, well, he will see the sacred text come to life..."fuel the fires of hell..." only when they are done with him.
Peace and Love.

Peace and Love!

After all, how could they ever have gotten the idea that anything illegal would ever be going on in a Muslim neighborhood? But fear not: aghast over being exposed as greasy Islamophobes, they are bowing and scraping with more energy than Obama in front of King Abdullah.

"Police apologise over CCTV in Muslim areas," by Danielle Dwyer and Wesley Johnson in The Independent, September 30 (thanks to Kristian):

A police force today apologised over a controversial CCTV scheme which saw more than 200 surveillance cameras installed in two largely Muslim neighbourhoods.

West Midland Police Chief Constable Chris Sims said he was "deeply sorry" that his force got the balance between counter-terrorism and excessive intrusion into people's lives "so wrong".

The cameras, some of which were hidden, sparked anger from civil liberties campaigners and residents in Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath in Birmingham, where they were predominantly installed.

Mr Sims said there were "serious shortcomings" in the force's management of the scheme, named Project Champion.

"I am sorry that we got such an important issue so wrong and deeply sorry that it has had such a negative impact on our communities," he said.

"My real regret is that Project Champion has undermined the strong relationships that exist between West Midlands Police and our communities that have been built up over many years.

"When I became Chief Constable in 2009 I put strengthening the trust and confidence of communities at the heart of the changes we would make to policing.

"I am committed to continuing with these changes and rebuilding any trust we have lost."...

Of course, Muslims have no need to do anything whatsoever to gain the trust of non-Muslims in Britain -- trust that they aren't teaching the same ideas of jihad and Islamic supremacism that led to the July 7 bombings. No, the responsibility is, as always, solely on the shoulders of the non-Muslim community.

Two British brothers. The men. One of them was named Abdul Jabber. They were involved with al-Qaeda. And so yet again the mainstream media asks a hapless public to figure out the motive and goal of these planned attacks, because mainstream media "journalists" cannot or will not explain those motives and goals themselves.

More on this story. "British brothers 'behind Mumbai-style plot,'" by Duncan Gardham and Rob Crilly in the Telegraph, September 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Two British brothers are said to be "at the heart" of an al-Qaeda plot to launch Mumbai-style terrorist attacks on the West.

Intelligence sources say the pair are part of a 10-strong team who were planning to launch shooting sprees on cities in Britain, France and Germany.

A Pakistani intelligence official, who is part of a team that has been tracking militants, said that they had been watching the two British brothers for nearly a year.

In recent weeks the men had been in telephone contact with London as they sought help in securing weapons and preparing the plot.

The official told the Associated Press: "They have been making calls to Germany and London. They have been talking about and looking for facilitators and logistics they need there to carry out terror strikes."

The suspects, and the eight German members for the attack team, have backing from al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban, the official said.

Although he characterised the plot as "immature," the Pakistani official warned against underestimating the group, adding: "It does not mean that they are not capable of materialising their designs. They are very much working on it."

However, the official said that one of the brothers, named as Abdul Jabber, had been killed in a US missile strike on militant camps in Pakistan's tribal borders....

The 10 Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai in India two years ago killed 166 people and injured more than 300, gaining world-wide notoriety....

Tariq Dar, a community organiser in North London, said there were about 80,000 expatriats from Jhelum in Britain, most of whom arrived in the 1960s.

"We came here to contribute to the economy and nine-nine per cent are law-abiding citizens," Mr Dar said. "I go back to Jhelum quite often and I don't see any active militant organsiations."

However Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the leader of a plot to bring down trans-Atlantic aircraft using home-made liquid bombs, was brought up in Walthamstow, East London, and Jhelum and Omar Khyam, the leader of the fertiliser gang planning to blow up a shopping centre or nightclub, also visited the town before attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Malakand.

The city, which is 55 miles south east of Islamabad, has a population of about 175,000.

Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office said they had "concrete evidence" that 70 people have travelled from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan for military training and the figure could be as high as 220.

Ahmed Sidiqi, 36, a German citizen who was captured in Kabul in July, is said to have given American interrogators some of the information that led to the unraveling of the latest plot.

It is said to be separate from an alert in France earlier this month that led to the Eiffel Tower being evacuated on two occasions....

In July 2005, I wrote this about MPAC's "National Anti-Terrorism Campaign": "the concern here seems to be less on rooting out jihadists from within American Muslim communities than on protecting Muslims from uncomfortable attention from law enforcement."

And here we are again. "MPAC's One-Way Street on Cooperation," from IPT News, September 30:

By denouncing an investigation aimed at uncovering a possible U.S. support network for terrorist organizations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) shows again it would prefer to impede law enforcement than help it.

Last Friday, FBI agents carried out raids in Chicago and Minneapolis to discover evidence of support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), both designated terrorist organizations. Speaking about the raids, Steve Warfield, an FBI spokesman in Minneapolis said:

"the warrants are seeking evidence in support of an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism."

MPAC, however, joined other organizations in criticizing the searches as "fishing expeditions." In its press release, MPAC argued:

"squelching healthy and necessary discourse on public policy concerns sends one loud and clear message: The U.S. government has no regard for nonviolent work. Unless there is clear and convincing evidence that these activists were planning terrorist operations, then the justification of the raids is absurd."

Such arguments reveal that MPAC either doesn't understand what activity is proscribed under U.S. law, or simply doesn't care. The government doesn't need to show that these so-called "anti-war activists" were "planning terrorist operations," in order to prosecute them. It is a crime for any person to provide "material support or resources" to a designated FTO. Proscribed support includes:

"any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instrument or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials)."

There is more.

Russian novelist Elena Chudinova wrote The Mosque of Notre Dame in Paris a few years back. Jihad Watch readers were introduced here in October 2005 to her dystopian imagining of what an Islamic France would be like in 2048. She couldn't get it translated into French because it was too politically incorrect -- Julia Gorin has more details on that here, as well as the first translation of any part of this book into English. Here, via Julia's excellent Republican Riot site, is that excerpt:

Chapter 3 - Slobodan [”Sloboda” is Serbian for “freedom.”]

… It was cold standing on the balcony of the twentieth floor but he didn't feel like going in to the warm, brightly lit rooms. Paris lay below him, silently sleeping, like always except during Ramadan when the fires in the streets flashed and fluctuated: believers admiring the view of the Seine with Al Fraconi Mosque, which was once Notre Dame, sat until dawn in the luxurious Monde Arabe restaurant, in Maxim’s or Procope….Luckily, Ramadan was over. Paris nights were unpopulated.

How pleasant the silence was and what a good thing he had chosen an apartment on a high floor, far above the ones where you couldn't have a window looking out on the street.

He wasn't sleepy; the few remaining hours were too precious. Soon the loudspeakers would be filled with the voices of muezzins, and the devil would set out on patrol through Paris to piss in the ears of believers insufficiently devout to get up for early morning prayers.

It's what you deserve, Frenchmen; good God, didn't you see it coming? Weren't you the ones who shaped today with your very own hands? Now you live in what you have created because there is a God.

You didn't know anything about the history of Serbia; you didn't know anything about Kosovo. You didn't know how the Serbs died gloriously on the battlefield of Kosovo Polje when the soldiers of Prince Lazarus, defending their cradle, stood on the path of the foul army of Sultan Murad. You didn't know that Bayazit arrived like a mortal plague, and that the Muslim Albanians followed in his tracks.

Five hundred years under the Ottoman Empire! You didn't know what a scourge the Ottoman Empire was; you didn't know how much Serb blood was shed to vanquish it. And very few years after the Serbs returned to the banks of the Sitnica River, they were again expelled! Adolf Hitler was the new Bayazit; did you humane Europeans forget about him? Who among those of you that applauded the bombing of Belgrade [in 1999] so much as heard in school that it was none other than Hitler who toppled Serb Peter II and pushed Kosovo into the hands of Albanian Zog I as a gift? And the Albanians descended into Serbian lands like new Bayazits, like hyenas trailing the scent of blood, once again occupying the abandoned homes, once again reaping the crops sown in Serbian fields. And how many armies did Hitler and Mussolini have to keep there in order to make Kosovo Albanian? You Europeans, who make such a big deal of the fact that you founded the Second Front after it was long overdue, did you even bother to thank the Serbs because Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks began their attack on Hitler's supporters long before you? [Chetniks were the monarchist anti-Nazi and anti-Communist guerrillas.]

What inspired you to help the Albanians establish borders that had been drawn by Hitler; what convinced you to believe so easily the stupidest of lies about Serb bestialities?

Yes, obviously, the question is not “what” but “who”. You were poisoned; you were led around on a leash by the Muslim diaspora - and while you, mere toys in the hands of puppeteers, called yourself fighters for something called "human rights" and enlightened humanists - you were nothing more than traitors of Christian civilization.

There is much, much more, plus abundant documentation of what went on in Kosovo, here.

The double game continues: if Faisal Abbasi is tried, expect him to become a national hero in Pakistan, a la Aafia Siddiqui. "Pakistan holds government worker in NYC plot," by Asif Shahzad for AP, September 30:

ISLAMABAD -- An employee at Pakistan's state-run Islamic advisory body has been detained for allegedly playing an important role in assisting the failed New York Times Square car bomber, an intelligence officer said Thursday.

The suspect accompanied Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistan-American bomber, to Pakistan's northwest to meet militant leaders, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the intelligence agency does not permit its operatives to be named in the media.

The suspect, identified as Faisal Abbasi, was with Shahzad throughout his time in Pakistan, the officer said.

He said Abbasi worked for the government's Council of Islamic Ideology, which advises on Islamic affairs....

A Misunderstander of Islam right in the middle of the Council of Islamic Ideology! Yikes!

This compromise is likely to lead to more rioting and will of course satisfy no one, especially the Islamic supremacists who will continue to demand that the entire site be given to them. "Ayodhya verdict: disputed site to be split between Hindus and Muslims," from the Telegraph, September 30 (thanks to Kristian):

A disputed Indian holy site in Ayodhya claimed by Muslims and Hindus is to be divided between the two religious groups, a lawyer acting for one of the Hindu litigants told reporters.

Muslims revere the compound in Ayodhya, north India, as the site of the now-demolished 16th century Babri Mosque, while Hindus say it is the birthplace of the god Rama....

Typical mainstream media bias. Hindus say more than just that: there is a clearly historical reason why the site belongs to them. Even AFP acknowledged this a few weeks ago: "In 1992, the 16th-century mosque was razed by Hindu zealots who said it was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior god Ram." It attributes the claim that the 16th-century mosque was a victory mosque built on the site of a destroyed Hindu temple to "Hindu zealots," but it is noteworthy for a mainstream media source even to go that far into what mainstream reporters would ordinarily classify as "Islamophobia."

That sentence comes from a story that contains some other revealing details: "Indian Muslim cleric urges calm over Ayodhya verdict," from AFP, September 3 (thanks again to Kristian):

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's chief Muslim cleric appealed Friday for calm over an expected court ruling on a bitterly disputed religious site that triggered massive Hindu-Muslim riots in India 18 years ago....

In 1992, the 16th-century mosque was razed by Hindu zealots who said it was built on the ruins of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu warrior god Ram.

The destruction triggered some of the bloodiest communal violence since the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, leaving around 2,000 people dead.

"Whatever may be the verdict and whatever may be the provocations, I appeal to Muslims not to take the law into their own hands," said Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief imam in New Delhi's Jama Masjid mosque.

In a Friday sermon to thousands of congregants, Bukhari nevertheless argued that the Muslim claim to the site was indisputable.

"The Babri mosque was there and the court has to acknowledge that fact and so the site rightfully belongs to Muslims," he said.

"We are also not willing to give an inch to anyone."

That could be adopted as the motto of Islamic supremacists everywhere, from Ibrahim Hooper to Feisal Abdul Rauf.

Breakthrough! The passage of the Qur'an that says of disobedient women, "beat them" (4:34) has now been -- finally! -- rightly understood. Set your Secret Qur'anic Decoder Rings to 4:34, and voila! "Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and dance with them."

Of course, it's a violent, bruising dance, but who are you to say anything about someone else's culture, kuffar? (And you're so willfully blind about Islamic supremacism, kuffar, you might just buy this dance bit.)

Well, not this time. Nonetheless, Allaetin Can deserves a friendly pat on the back (delivered with maximum force, of course) for giving it the old Sharia try.

"NZ kebab shop owner guilty of assault," from AFP, September 30 (thanks to Kenneth):

A Turkish immigrant who claimed he was performing a traditional dance with violent-looking moves as he beat his wife has been convicted of assault by a New Zealand judge.

Kebab shop owner Allaetin Can was arrested in August after a passer-by reported he was attacking his wife outside their takeaway in the North Island town of Hawera.

He denied the assault charge, arguing he and his wife were celebrating a profitable lunchtime's trade with a traditional dance called kolbasti, which features mock wrestling, hitting and kicking.

After last month ordering police to examine Can's claims, judge Allan Roberts described them as "nonsense" in a decision handed down on Wednesday.

"I reject the explanation as a lie," Roberts said, labelling Can "a manipulative, deceitful man"....

In "The Ultimate Lesson of Egypt's Fake Photo" in Pajamas Media (via RaymondIbrahim.com), September 22, the ever-insightful Raymond Ibrahim offers a provocative assessment of the influence of Sharia in the Islamic world based on a doctored photo circulated by the Egyptian media:

One of the most widely circulated newspapers in the world, Egypt's Al Ahram, recently ran a fake picture depicting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak walking in front of U.S. President Barack Obama and a pack of other Mideast leaders. In fact, based on the original photo, Mubarak, the octogenarian, appeared trailing last.

Why the outlandish deception by an internationally recognized newspaper founded in 1875? Al Ahram editor Ossama al-Saraya defended the fraudulent photo by referring to it as an "expressionist photo ... a brief, live and true expression of the prominent stance of President Mubarak in the Palestinian issue, his unique role in leading it before Washington." All well and good, but beyond the euphemisms and rationalizations, the fact remains: by portraying something that was not true, the state-run Al Ahram intentionally tried to deceive the people.

On the one hand, as Wael Khalil, the Egyptian blogger who first called attention to the altered photo pointed out, this anecdote is a snapshot of the routine deception the Egyptian government foists on the people: "They lie to us all the time. Instead of addressing the real issues, they just Photoshop it." On a deeper level, this incident reveals that, contrary to common belief, the fundamental problem facing the reformation of the Islamic world is not merely doctrinal; it is cultural.

Consider: even though sharia law promotes various troubling doctrines -- the subjugation of non-Muslims and women, animosity to the non-Muslim world, even the use of deception, as in the case of the Mubarak picture -- the one hope has been that only "radical" Muslims follow these mandates. And this is true, consciously speaking. Unconsciously, however, sharia's teachings have become so embedded in the Muslim psyche, permeating the worldview of all people born or bred in the Islamic world, regardless of whether they are "moderate" or "radical," indeed, regardless of whether they are Muslim at all....

There is more.

Livid Lutherans? Angry Anglicans? Cantankerous Catholics? Nope. More on this story. "Official: Germans, Brits behind Europe terror plot," by Asif Shahzad and Paisley Dodds for the Associated Press, September 30:

ISLAMABAD - Eight Germans and two British brothers are at the heart of an al-Qaida-linked terror plot against European cities, but the plan is still in its early stages, with the suspects calling acquaintances in Europe to plan logistics, a Pakistani intelligence official said Thursday. One of the Britons died in a recent CIA missile strike, he said.

The revelations underscore the role of Pakistan as a haven for many would-be Islamist militants with foreign ties, a worrying prospect for Western countries who face additional challenges when tracking terror suspects among citizens who have passports and easier access to their shores.

Pakistan, Britain and Germany are tracking the suspects and intercepting their phone calls, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media.

The official is part of an intelligence team that has been tracking the two British brothers of Pakistani origin for nearly a year and the Germans for more than six months.

He said the suspects are hiding in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region where militancy is rife and where the U.S. has focused many of its drone-fired missile strikes.

"They have been making calls to Germany and London," the official said. "They have been talking about and looking for facilitators and logistics they need there to carry out terror strikes."

Western security officials said Wednesday that a terror plot to wage Mumbai-style shooting sprees or other attacks in Britain, France and Germany was still active. Both European and U.S. officials said the plot was still in its early stages and not considered serious enough to raise the terror threat level. [...]

In Brussels on Thursday, Europol director Robert Wainwright said a drop in terror attacks in Europe -- coupled with intelligence that had thwarted major plots in the past -- masked an ongoing threat.

"There has been a significant decline in the number of terrorist attacks in Europe -- certainly committed by Islamist groups -- that hides the reality that these groups are still active," Wainwright told AP.

It's par for the course, but you may still want to read this last bit sitting down:

Asked about the suspected plot, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Abdul Basit, said the government was unaware of any such plans.

"Let me reiterate that Pakistan is committed not to allow its territory for terrorist actions anywhere in the world," he said.

No "terrorism." But how about jihad?

Meanwhile, Pakistan wants to dictate the terms of a war it won't fight.

We're simply supposed to join Pakistan in their game of Russian roulette, as one official described it, while Islamabad's actions serve to protect what has become the country's number one export: jihadists.

"Britons training in Pakistan for UK terror attacks," by Rob Crilly, Duncan Gardham, and Ben Farmer for the Telegraph, September 29:

The young Muslims, who all hold British passports, are said to have travelled into the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan to join training camps run by al-Qaeda and their associated militant groups.

Well, they're not lawless: the conflicts there are driven by the intention of imposing Sharia. The central government has simply looked the other way.

They are being trained to use firearms as well as explosives so that they can launch random shooting sprees in the UK, Western intelligence sources said.

"We believe there are 15 to 20 Britons in the camps," said an intelligence source in Islamabad, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The disclosure comes after the CIA launched drone strikes on Pakistan training camps in North and South Waziristan in an attempt to disrupt an al-Qaeda plot to launch an attack targeting Britain, France and Germany.

"The plans would have seen terrorists sent on to the streets, probably of the capital cities, to shoot random passersby before heading in to landmark buildings. Intelligence sources said that the attacks would have been coordinated for maximum impact and may have been aimed at financial institutions. However, the terror cells had not yet travelled to Europe and the targets were still unclear.

"A missile from one US unmanned drone killed several Britons in a training camp in Pakistan, sources said, and the security services are now trying to trace their links back to the UK.

"MI5 is thought to be uncomfortable that an ongoing operation has become public while they were still building up a picture of the terrorists' support network.

""This is an ongoing operation with a constantly changing dynamic," one security source said. "There are local, national and international links, including Pakistan."

"Intelligence agencies in Britain and the US were in the early stages of establishing the full details of the plot but MI5 had traced it from Pakistan back to Britain, sources told The Daily Telegraph.

"A US intelligence source said the threat was "credible, but not specific" and could have included other European countries such as Spain and Italy, or even the US.

"Some of the intelligence is understood to have originated with the capture of a German national in Kabul, Afghanistan in July. Ahmed Sidiqi, 36, is said to have talked of training with explosives and weapons and of plans to launch attacks in Germany and Europe.

"Sidiqi attended the Masjid Taiba mosque, formerly known as the Al-Quds mosque, in Hamburg, which was also attended by the leaders of the September 11 attacks.

"German security sources said there were "increasing rumblings" about potential attacks and they were aware of intelligence pointing to al-Qaeda attacks in Europe and the United States....

During the surge we always maintained here that as soon as the American military presence in Iraq decreased, the jihad would resume. Only someone who doesn't know anything about the belief-system of those who fight against Americans in Iraq, and who doesn't believe that it is necessary to know anything about that belief system, and who makes all kinds of unwarranted assumptions about the motives and goals of those attacking us in that country, could possibly have ever thought otherwise. Unfortunately, such people fill the highest positions in Washington. And so here again comes the fruit of their misconceived and failed policies, and yet once again the response will almost certainly be to call for more of the same.

I am not saying that Americans troops should stay in Iraq indefinitely. I'm saying that the whole Iraq democracy project was foredoomed because of the Sharia imperative. And to think that we have in any way brought "stability" to Iraq at this point is to misdiagnose the problem there yet again, to ignore the depth and bitterness of the Sunni/Shi'ite divide, and to dismiss the lessons of history. But here again, that's what's they do every day in Washington.

"Attacks on Baghdad Green Zone Surge," by Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker for the New York Times, September 29:

BAGHDAD -- The heavily fortified Green Zone in Iraq's capital has in recent weeks come under an intensifying barrage of rocket attacks, and a senior American military commander suggested Wednesday that Iranian-backed militias were behind the attacks in an effort to influence the formation of a new Iraqi government.

The attacks -- 23 in the past month, including 2 on Wednesday -- have alarmed American officials and raised questions about the ability of Iraq's security forces to stamp out attacks on the capital's governmental and diplomatic core.

They have coincided with President Obama's declaration of the end of the American combat mission here on Aug. 31 and the fitful, convoluted negotiations among Iraq's major political blocs to choose a new prime minister and thus a new government....

"It's very difficult to do diplomacy and development without adequate security," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a conference on Tuesday in Washington, though she did not directly address the recent attacks.

"So as our troops go out of Iraq, which is the plan, then we have to figure out how do we provide enough of a security envelope for our diplomats and our development experts to do the work that we're now asking them to do."...

Good luck with that.

Several years ago, as Pakistan's double game became increasingly obvious, I began making the point frequently that to give aid to the Pakistani government was essentially to finance the jihad, and that we should stop cutting our own throats and instead cut that aid. In late 2008, when it was confirmed that a great deal of the money that we gave to the Pakistani government to fight against jihadists was funneled to those same jihadists, I began to emphasize this even more.

And yet as I made this point in speaking to various groups, invariably during the question and answer period someone would say that we had to keep funding the Pakistani government because we had to keep demonstrating our support for the moderates. Well, it should be clear even to the dimmest learned analyst where that kind of thinking leads -- and who was right all along. But probably the response to this in official Washington will be to do something like it did in response to Pakistan's duplicity last October...triple aid to Pakistan.

Pakistan follows through on the threat Marisol noted here: "Pakistan cuts NATO supply line after border firing," by Hussain Afzal and Deb Riechmann for the Associated Press, September 30 (thanks to Infidel #1):

PARACHINAR, Pakistan - Pakistan blocked a vital supply route for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Thursday in apparent retaliation for an alleged cross-border helicopter strike by the coalition that killed three Pakistani frontier troops.

The blockade appeared to be a major escalation in tensions between Pakistan and the United States.

A permanent stoppage of supply trucks would place massive strains on the relationship between the two countries and hurt the Afghan war effort. Even a short halt is a reminder of the leverage Pakistan has over the United States at a crucial time in the 9-year-old war.

By midmorning, a line of around 100 NATO vehicles was waiting to cross the border into Afghanistan, officials said.

"We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies," Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said of the border incident, without mentioning the blockade....

Pakistan won't do what its leaders promised, and is determined to ensure no one else does.

Apparently we're just supposed to sit back, trust duplicitous Pakistan, and get attacked again. It seems Pakistan would like that a great deal, at least until Islamabad is lost to the very jihadists it has collaborated with in the name of sticking a finger in the eye of the U.S. and India.

Priorities. "Terror plot in Europe prompted drone strikes," by Paisley Dodds for the Associated Press, September 29:

LONDON - Security officials said Wednesday a terror plot to wage Mumbai-style shooting sprees or other attacks in Britain, France and Germany is still active and that recent CIA strikes in Pakistan were aimed at al-Qaida operatives suspected in the threat.

One must wonder if the rash of high-profile alerts and arrests initiated by Dutch and Swedish authorities lately are related to this heightened state of vigilance on the part of European security. They clearly are not taking any chances.

The plot was still in its early stages and not considered serious enough to raise the terror threat level, officials said. Still, the Eiffel Tower in Paris was briefly evacuated Tuesday -- the second time in two weeks because of an unspecified threat -- and French police were on alert.

France has reported an imminent threat of attacks, including a possible strike by a female suicide bomber.

A heavy police presence was seen Wednesday around Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and Big Ben. Victoria Station was briefly evacuated after an unusual smell was reported.

"This plot was in its embryonic stages," a British government official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work. He said the plot had preoccupied the security community more than other recent threats, but did not merit changing the security threat level from severe to critical.

Some details about the plot came from Ahmed Siddiqui, a German citizen of Afghan background who was captured in Afghanistan in July, a U.S. official said. [...]

Siddiqui was apparently on his way back to Europe when he was captured.

U.S. intelligence had heard of the European plot about a month ago and was monitoring the people involved, according to two U.S. officials. The CIA recently stepped up airstrikes from unmanned aircraft in northern Pakistan, in part to disrupt the plot.

However, a British government official said that while the drone strikes were thought to have disrupted the planning of the attacks, the operation was still considered active. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.

The Obama administration has intensified the use of drone-fired missiles in Pakistan's border area. This month there have been at least 21 attacks -- more than double the highest number fired in any other single month

And Pakistan's threats. First: "Pakistan threatens NATO "it will stop protecting U.S. and NATO supply lines to Afghanistan"," by Kimberly Dozier and Chris Brummitt for the Associated Press, September 28:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan has told NATO leaders it will stop protecting U.S. and NATO supply lines to Afghanistan if foreign aircraft stage further cross-border attacks against fleeing militants, security officials said Tuesday.

If carried out, such a threat would have major consequences on the war in Afghanistan as well as on Pakistan's relationship with the United States, which is vitally important for both nations. Analysts said there was little or no chance of Islamabad carrying though with it, however.

It was also a clear sign of Pakistani unease at the attacks on Saturday and Monday by NATO aircraft against militants in its northwest tribal areas and a reminder of the leverage the country has in its complicated alliance with Washington....

And the military threat. "Pakistan threatens action over NATO incursions," by Nasir Habib for CNN, September 29:

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's foreign minister said Wednesday his country may use military force to stop violations of its territory.

"We will not allow anyone in any case to interfere in Pakistan's territory and if this continues, we will adopt all the set measures including military action," Rehman Malik told reporters. "I assure you we are quite capable of defending our homeland."...

Not against jihadists, clearly.

"Pakistan is living a lie." Pakistan is "playing Russian roulette." "We're living on borrowed time."

All quite true. "Status of US ties with Pak was like a 'cold shower' for Obama: Woodward," from Asia News International, September 27:

Well-known author-cum-journalist Bob Woodward has revealed in his latest book "Obama's Wars that President Barack Obama's focus is turning increasingly to Pakistan, even as his administration's military efforts continue to be directed at Afghanistan.

Woodward told ABC News that Obama was told of deep problems in the US relationship with Pakistan in his very first intelligence briefing, and it seemed like"a cold shower" coming days after his triumphant 2008 presidential victory.

"Imagine the high of being elected on that Tuesday and they come in two days later and say, by the way, here's-here are the secrets, and one of the secrets is Pakistan," Woodward said.

"We're attacking with a top-secret, covert operation, the safe havens in Pakistan, but Pakistan is living a lie. And this is a theme throughout the whole Obama presidency: 'How do you get control of Pakistan?' "

Uh-oh: something you can't fix by just being nice?

In Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari is depicted as quietly providing help to U.S. enemies, with the CIA suspecting that his government compromised its intelligence.

"You can't keep playing one side against the other," Biden warns Zardari, according to Woodward's book.

Interesting contrast of public and private conduct:

For his part, Zardari expresses frustration that Americans are too concerned about civilian casualties. Woodward reports that Zardari told then-CIA Director Michael Hayden that his poll numbers were high enough to weather blowback from casualties.

"Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me," Zardari told Hayden, Woodward writes....

More on this story: "US warned Pakistan against selective action on terror groups," from Indo-Asian News Service, September 29:

Washington, Sep 29 (IANS) Shortly after the failed Times Square bombing plot, the US warned Pakistan against playing 'Russian roulette' with terrorist groups associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, threatening the US.

President Barack Obama dispatched his national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and CIA director Leon Panetta to Pakistan to convey this warning less than three weeks after a Pakistan-born US citizen tried to blow up an SUV in New York City's famous Times Square, according to a new book, 'Obama's Wars' by Bob Woodward.

'We're living on borrowed time,' Jones told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the first meeting in Islamabad.

'Jones thought that Pakistan - a US ally with an a la carte approach of going after some terrorist groups and supporting others - was playing Russian roulette. The chamber had turned out to be empty the past several times, but Jones thought it was only a matter of time before there was a round in it,' Woodward writes.

Asking Pakistan 'to reject all forms of terrorism as a viable instrument of national policy inside your borders,' the two officials told Zardari whatever Pakistan was doing with the many terrorist groups operating inside its borders, it wasn't good or effective enough.

Panetta pulled out a 'link chart', developed from FBI interviews and other intelligence that showed how Pakistan-based Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) had assisted the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad.

The two officials pointed 'to the disturbing intelligence about Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the horrific 2008 Mumbai attacks that had killed 175, including six Americans'.

Pakistani authorities are holding the commander of the Mumbai attacks, Jones said, but he is not being adequately interrogated and 'he continues to direct LeT operations from his detention center'.

Intelligence shows that Lashkar-e-Taiba is threatening attacks in the US and that the possibility 'is rising each day'.

The two in effect told Zardari that if there is a successful attack in the US, there might be no way to save the strategic partnership, the book suggests. 'If that happens, all bets are off,' Panetta is quoted as saying.

Afterward, the American officials met privately with Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the most powerful figure in the country. But he had other concerns.

'I'll be the first to admit, I'm India-centric,' he is quoted as saying. ...

That's right. The explanation when he was first arrested was: "We suspect him of insulting people."

Insulting whom? The Dutch Reformed Church? No, it wasn't his equal-opportunity insulting of other religions that got him hauled in. His cartoons poked fun at Islam, and at the time, the double standard kicked in with the full force of the law behind it. He was arrested in May of 2008, and it has taken this much time, effort, and legal wrangling to get the charges dropped.

"Prosecutor Drops Case against Dutch Cartoonist," by Katrine Winkel Holm for the International Free Press Society, September 25 (thanks to Gravenimage):

COPENHAGEN, September 25, 2010 - International solidarity works and sometimes the good people win. That is conclusion one may draw from the Dutch prosecutor's recent decision to drop all charges against the intrepid cartoonist who goes under the ominous pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot.

In a mail to the Danish Free Press Society's webzine Sappho.dk, Nekschot characterises the outcome as a "complete victory".

Nekschot goes on to say that "five years of expensive investigations, an arrest, legal procedures and consultation at the highest level have resulted in nothing. I think the prosecutor wanted to drop the whole thing because the case against Geert Wilders is due to begin. It's the same prosecutor, you know."

There is one fly in the ointment: Nekschot's website may no longer display the "discriminating" drawings he was being investigated for. However, they are still on the internet and Dutch newspapers are allowed to reprint them for "journalistic reasons", as stated by the prosecutor.

Did the Interdepartmental Working Group on Cartoons weigh in?

As Nekschot sees it, however, that is "a very, very small price to pay. I can carry on making caricatures, perhaps even more controversial ones, because I have been allowed to keep my anonymity."

The issue of continued anonymity has been Nekschot's biggest worry all along. A public trial would have forced him to show his face, and that would have been tantamount to a death sentence. He remembers all too well what happened to two other Dutchmen who dared to offend the tender sensibilities of the religion of peace, the politician Pym Fortuyn and the film-maker Theo van Gogh, who were murdered in 2002 and 2004.

During both of Gregorius Nekschot's visits to Denmark as a guest of the Free Press Society, he therefore chose to address the audience dressed in a burka.

In the midst of all the joy over the prosecutor's decision to drop the case against Nekschot, it should be remembered that the Dutch penal code still has its article 137c, which forbids incitement to hatred. This means that anyone not towing the line of multiculturalism and deference to Islam can still be hauled before a court whenever the state deems it expedient to do so.

In Nekschot's case, the ruling elite decided that criminal proceedings were counterproductive and the caricaturist has no doubt that international attention to his plight played a crucial role.

As he states in his mail to the Free Press Society: "I think your help, from abroad, has been extremely important! The Dutch government must have realized that a case against me could turn into an international and very damaging affair. Apart from Wilders' case, another headache - so to speak."...

There is more.

An update on this story. This woman and her sons have been given the run-around by Egyptian authorities for years, as they have tried to resist the auto-conversion the state tried to inflict upon the sons because their father converted to Islam.

There is supposedly "no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256) but there are innumerable forms of coercion, including this stacking of the deck to favor conversions to Islam.

Just ask Egyptian apostates like Muhammad Hegazy or Maher El-Gohari how hard it is to go in the other direction, in the face of Muhammad's command to slaughter apostates from Islam. Not to mention judges who rule that "Islam is the final and most complete religion and therefore Muslims already practice full freedom of religion and cannot convert." Apostates die, but Islam is eager to siphon off followers from other faiths by hook or bureaucratic crook.

"Mother of Christian twins seeks Azhar fatwa," by Essma Fadl for Daily News Egypt, September 28 (thanks to Twostellas):

CAIRO: Kamelia Lotfy Gaballah, a mother of two 16-year-old twins -- Andrew and Mario -- whose father converted to Islam, requested that the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar issue her a fatwa that would prevent her children from forcibly converting to Islam.

Such a fatwa would eventually enable the twins to be registered as Christians on their national ID cards.

Gaballah presented a note to the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayyeb which asks him to issue a fatwa indicating that Sharia gives the right to children who have reached the age of 15 to choose which religion they believe and follow.

This fatwa is meant to support a different one that Gaballah previously managed to obtain from the Egyptian House of Jurisprudence, through which she won custody of her children in April 2009 after their Muslim-convert father claimed custody was his.

Gaballah told Daily News Egypt that she is supposed to meet with the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar soon, according to promises given by Al Azhar officials. Gaballah also confirmed that she met with many members of the Jurisprudence Committee of Al Azhar who have showed understanding in her case.

"The meeting was positive," Gaballah said. "I was assured that Sharia is clear about this, because it is the kids' right at the age of 15 to choose their own religion regardless of the parents' religions."

We know they can talk the talk. But now they need to follow through on the other half of the equation.

The case of Andrew and Mario raised controversy among human rights activists and religious scholars during the five-year custody battle.

The twins' secondary school stopped them both from attending religion classes due to an intervention made by the Minister of Education. The school had insisted that the twins must attend Islam classes rather than Christian classes since most of their documents identify the twins as Muslim.

Gaballah said that her kids know nothing about Islam, as they were born and raised as Christians.

Gaballah filed another lawsuit before the Administrative Court to change her twins' religion on their birth certificates, but the court refused to proceed with the lawsuit last March.

Later Gaballah appealed to the Higher Administrative Court, but the date for the hearing has not yet been scheduled.

The twins turned 16 last June and thus need to obtain their national ID cards. When a national ID card is issued, the religion listed on the ID is taken directly from the individual's birth certificate. As a result, Gaballah was advised to get a fatwa from Al Azhar for her two children.

"I just want to change their religion in the official papers to end their suffering, especially since they cannot take thanaweyya amma exams without their national ID cards," Gaballah said.

According to Gaballah, the Department of Civil State Organization asked her to present either a court ruling that allows her children's religions to be changed, or some other official document that proves the twins are Christian. Without either of this documentation, they would be unable to issue the twins' national ID cards with their religion listed as Christian.

Gaballah's lawyer Alaa Fetyan told Daily News Egypt that they are merely trying to get the fatwa so that they may present it to the Department of Civil State Organization and get the twins' IDs issued.

"If we manage to get this fatwa, it will be presented to the Higher Administrative Court who will then ask the twins about their religion and the lawsuit will end," Fetyan said.

The waiter-turned-millionaire developer (a transformation not yet satisfactorily explained) Sharif El-Gamal has said that "when you beat up someone physically you get exercise & stress relief," and he has a history of run-ins with the law. But now the mainstream media is in full-bore whitewash mode, even as he digs in his heels and continues to try to demonize the opponents of the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. Pamela Geller has video of the Today's Show's love letter to El-Gamal, along with some choice observations from herself, here.

He may be insisting that he is calling the shots on the project because his partner Hisham Elzanaty recently said that he was.

"Mosque Developer Has No Plans to Move the Project," from NBC New York, September 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The developer behind a controversial proposal to build an Islamic center near ground zero says he's the one ultimately calling the shots on the project and there are no discussions about moving it.

Sharif El-Gamal, who is of Egyptian and Polish descent but was born in Brooklyn, spoke Wednesday on the "Today" show. "This has been very unexpected. It's been an eye-opener to see how my country, the United States, views my religion, Islam," Sharif El-Gamal, chairman of Manhattan-based real estate company Soho Properties, told Matt Lauer.

He added there are a lot of misperceptions about his Islamic faith. "We are peace-loving Americans. Fear makes people irrational, and our identity has been hijacked by the extremists."...

Building a mega-mosque at Ground Zero, and insisting on doing so in the teeth of enormous popular opposition, is sure doing wonders to dispel those misperceptions, eh, Sharif?

Uh, yeah. "Ahmadinejad: Hegemonic Powers Paralyzed by Iran's Awe," from the Fars News Agency, September 29:

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian nation and government 's awe and grandeur has bewildered and paralyzed the hegemonic powers, specially the US, and made them adopt passive policies against the country, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.

"The US president and the hegemonic system are confused and passive against the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said, addressing a ceremony here in Tehran today.

His remarks alluded to the US president's recent remarks in an interview with the Persian-language TV channel, BBC Persian, during which he resorted to sedition against the Islamic Republic and encouraged the Iranian people to stand against the government, alleging that the Islamic Republic, and not Washington, should be blamed for the 30-year-long sanctions against Iran.

Ahmadinejad described Barack Obama's comments as psychological warfare, and cautioned that psycho war is now the most important front for the enemies to confront the Islamic Republic.

They want to bring the Iranian nation to its knees through such measures, but no avail, the President said.

Iranian officials have on many occasions warned about enemies' plots and conspiracies for defeating the Iranian nation through soft and psychological wars....

Somehow I doubt that Barack Obama is using psyops against Iran.

Those Methodists again, no doubt. "Counter-Terror Operation Stops Trucks On I-20," from WSBTV.com, September 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Ga. -- A team of federal agents stopped tractor-trailers on Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, inspecting each truck as it passed through a weigh station, and Channel 2 has learned its part of a counter-terrorism operation.

Channel 2's Linda Stouffer reported a flashing sign on the interstate directed the trucks to pull into a state-owned inspection station near Lee Road in Douglas County at the height of the evening commute.

Channel 2 Action News confirmed that agents from several federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the Transportation Security Administration were involved. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office assisted in the exercise....

However, federal sources told Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne the inspections are part of a counter-terrorism operation.

News Chopper 2 showed screening devices, dogs and a large drive-through bomb detection machine in use along the eastbound interstate near Lee Road.

Trucks were being sorted into two lines, one with more rigorous screening. Agents used a variety of devices to check the exteriors of the trailers, including a large drive-through machine similar to a security tool used at the Super Bowl, and a tool that measures radiation.

The Islamic jihadists "began firing on people without distinguishing between Muslims and Buddhists." They are trying to "strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah" (Qur'an 8:60), and if some Muslims get killed in the process, that is collateral damage and does not mitigate the fact that the killers were waging Islamic jihad.

So imagine if nine or ten years from now Muslims want to build a giant mega-mosque at the site of this massacre, and insist that they want to do so in the interests of peace, reconciliation, and bridge-building with unbelievers. And they invoke the fact that the jihadists in this instance "began firing on people without distinguishing between Muslims and Buddhists" as if it somehow established that the killers were not legitimate Islamic jihadists. That fact doesn't render this not a jihad shooting, as it took place within the context of the Muslims' jihad to establish a separate Sharia state in their area of Thailand. But it would parallel the Islamic supremacists' oft-repeated line these days, that Muslims were killed in the World Trade Center jihad attacks, and therefore Muslims can legitimately erect a huge mosque at Ground Zero.

"Thailand, Islamic rebels disguised as policemen fire on crowd: 5 dead and 3 injured," from AsiaNews, September 29 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Bangkok (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A group of Islamic rebels triggered a shootout last night in a village in Pattani province, killing five people including two children.

According to initial police reports, the militants presented themselves in the village market dressed as police officers and began firing on people without distinguishing between Muslims and Buddhists....

Former resident of Texas. One wonders if, when he was there, everyone who knew him assumed that he was a "moderate," and that it would be "Islamophobic" even to consider any other possibility. "Spain arrests American al-Qaida suspect," by Daniel Woolls for Associated Press, September 29 (thanks to JCB):

MADRID - Spanish police have arrested a U.S. citizen of Algerian origin who is suspected of financing al-Qaida's North African affiliate, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

Mohamed Omar Debhi, 43, was arrested Tuesday in the town of Esplugues de Llobregat near Barcelona. His arrest is not connected to terrorism alerts this week in France and Britain and is just a coincidence, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity in line with ministry rules.

Debhi is suspected of laundering money and sending some of it to an associate in Algeria, Toufik Mizi, to be passed on to cells of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a ministry statement said. Mizi is wanted in Spain after eluding a police raid in 2008.

The ministry said Debhi used bank transfers or human couriers to send Mizi amounts in excess of euro60,000 ($80,000), although it did not specify how much was sent altogether.

The statement said Debhi was "linked to crimes of financing terrorism in the Sahel for al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb," referring to the vast stretch of sub-Saharan territory where the terror organization has kidnapped several Europeans and other Westerners in recent years....

The Interior Ministry official said Debhi at one point lived in Texas in a town with the postal code 77450. That corresponds to the town of Katy, near Houston. The ministry had no immediate information on when Debhi obtained U.S. citizenship, the official said.

"Travelers with German passports do not require a visa to enter the United States."

More on this story. "'Credible But Not Specific' Threat of New Terrorist Attack," by Richard Esposito, Rhonda Schwartz, Matthew Cole and Anna Schecter for ABC News, September 28:

US and European officials said Tuesday they have detected a plot to carry out a major, coordinated series of new terror attacks in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and possibly the United States.

A senior US official said that while there is a "credible" threat, no specific time or place is known. President Obama has been briefed about the threat, say senior US officials.

Intelligence and law enforcement authorities in the US and Europe said the threat information is based on the interrogation of a suspected German terrorist allegedly captured on his way to Europe in late summer and now being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

US law enforcement officials say they have been told the terrorists were planning a series of "Mumbai-style" commando raids on what were termed "economic or soft" targets in the countries.

In testimony before Congress last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, "We are all seeing increased activity by a more diverse set of groups and a more diverse set of threats."

Bet there's a common thread.

The captured German reportedly said several teams of attackers, all with European passports, had been trained and dispatched from training camps in Waziristan and Pakistan. Officials say the German claimed the attack plan had been approved by Osama Bin Laden.

These attackers are in addition to the reported 90 or so combat-trained jihadists already reported to be in Germany last November.

US intelligence officials said they believed an attack on American soil was more likely to come from terrorists connected to the al Qaeda group in Yemen, known as AQAP, al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.

In the last four years, dozens of German citizens have been recruited to train in al Qaeda-connected camps in Pakistan, according to US and German law enforcement officials.

"The American authorities are extremely nervous about what is going on, the Germans are extremely nervous about what's going on," said Guido Steinberg, a counter-terrorism analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

"The advantage, of course, is the passport, because with the German passport it's a lot easier to travel," said Steinberg.

Travelers with German passports do not require a visa to enter the United States.

Steinberg said the Germans, many of Turkish and Uzbek descent, were recruited from mosques in Berlin, Bonn and Hamburg, including the same mosque in Hamburg where Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers gathered. German authorities shut down the Taiba mosque in Hamburg, previously known as the al Quds mosque, in August....

It's bitterly ironic how often we're told that Muslim women in the West wear Islamic dress freely and proudly. Yet Islamic spokesmen in the West never seem to get around to addressing this kind of coercion.

An update on this story. "Chechnya Coerces Women on Dress, Activists Say," by Sophia Kishkovsky in the New York Times, September 27 (thanks to Larry):

MOSCOW -- Women in Chechnya are under pressure to adopt Islamic dress, according to human rights activists and an Islamic fundamentalist video circulating on the Internet in the latest example of deteriorating women's rights under Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the president of the restive southern Russian republic.

Activists in Chechnya, where Russia has waged two wars against separatists in the past 16 years, said intimidation reached a peak during the fasting month of Ramadan. There was also a crackdown on violations of Islamic law such as the sale of food before sundown and any sale of alcohol, they said.

The activists who spoke from Chechnya insisted on anonymity because they said they feared reprisals.

Threats tapered off, they said, as Ramadan ended in mid-September. Men in Islamic clothes had been approaching women whom they deemed unsuitably dressed to pull them by the arm, an offense according to Chechen custom.

A woman activist said that incidents she recorded in August included a woman being taken away by men in a jeep for wearing a skirt they regarded as see-through and no head scarf in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Other men handed out leaflets to women advising them how to dress, she said.

According to Chechen tradition, women should not wear sleeveless clothes; they usually wear a strip of headscarf more like a hairband than a hijab. Until recently, it was considered the prerogative of male family members to decide their style of dress, but Islamic activists, with support from Mr. Kadyrov, are calling for much fuller cover.

The run-up to Chechen Women's Day, a holiday decreed by Mr. Kadyrov to honor 46 Chechen women who drowned rather than succumb to Russian soldiers in 19th century wars, featured fawning praise in the Chechen media of women as wives and mothers and calls to observe Islamic morals.

Chechen television reported on September 16 about a march in Grozny of female students of an Islamic university in Islamic dress. The event, organized by a club called "Ramzan" and a government agency responsible for "spiritual and moral education," was dubbed "Beauty of the Chechen Woman."

"Every person must strive to beauty, and a young woman who puts on a hijab looks beautiful, as befits the dictates of the Almighty," Sado Meserbiyev, the chairman of "Ramzan," said.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in August that women's rights were being violated by efforts to impose an Islamic dress code. It said women without headscarves or in immodest dress had been attacked with paintball guns in Grozny. [...]

Yet attacks by insurgents who say they are true representatives of Islam continue, even as Mr. Kadyrov introduces measures that he says are meant to preserve peace and the purity of Islam....

Footage on the Internet shows women in dresses with short sleeves and no headscarves being sprayed with paint from passing cars. Mr. Kadyrov told Chechen television in July that he approved of such action.

"Even if it was done with my permission, I wouldn't be ashamed," he said. "It turns out that the girls who were sprayed with paint had been warned several times previously. After such an incident, a girl should just disappear from the face of the earth, lock herself in the house and not go out because she behaved so inappropriately that such a thing happened to her."...

It's all her fault, doncha know.

Hatched in Pakistan. "Multi-Attack Terror Plot On European Cities," by Alex Watts for Sky News Online, September 28 (thanks to Alan of England):

Intelligence agencies have intercepted a terror plot to launch Mumbai-style attacks on Britain and other European countries, according to Sky News sources.

Sky's foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall said militants based in Pakistan had been planning simultaneous strikes on London and major cities in France and Germany.

He said the plan was in the "advanced but not imminent stage" and the plotters had been tracked by spy agencies "for some time".

Intelligence sources told Sky the planned attacks would have been similar to the commando-style raids carried out in Mumbai.

Then, Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba killed 166 people in a series of gun and grenade attacks in the Indian city.

The European plot was unearthed after intelligence sharing between London, France, Germany and the US.

It came as the Eiffel Tower in Paris was evacuated because of a bomb scare for the second time in two weeks....

A leading Moscow imam, Ildar Ayautdinov, has threatened to have Muslims conduct prayers in Orthodox churches if they don't get more mosques in Moscow, and added: "There is a need to construct mosques, otherwise something bad will supersede spiritual development." Something bad, eh? I can't imagine what!

Meanwhile, will Moscow authorities allow a mosque to be built where a church was disallowed? Sounds familiar.

"Proposed Moscow Mosque Stirs Protests," by Natalya Krainova in the Moscow Times, September 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

A dispute has escalated over plans to build a mosque in Moscow's southeastern outskirts, with local residents vowing to send an appeal with about 2,000 signatures to President Dmitry Medvedev and nationalist groups promising to support them.

Muslim leaders defend the need for the worship site, saying the capital's four mosques are overflowing with people.

Residents of the Tekstilshchiki district in southeastern Moscow will send Medvedev a complaint signed by more than 1,800 people opposing construction of the mosque, mainly on the grounds that it might cause massive traffic jams in the area on Islamic holidays, activist Mikhail Butrimov told The Moscow Times on Friday. Butrimov leads the movement Moi Dvor, or My Yard, which supports residents in their fight against the mosque.

Butrimov said residents asked local authorities several years ago to build a Russian Orthodox chapel or create a park on the unused lot. But authorities banned construction on the plot, saying utilities ran underneath it, he said....

The hub, that is, for Sharia finance -- and with Sharia finance comes Sharia, which bodes ill for the country's non-Muslims. "Nigeria Plans Sukuk Debut Targeting Role as Shariah Hub: Islamic Finance," by Dana El Baltaji for Bloomberg, September 28:

Nigeria, Africa's second-largest economy and home to 75 million Muslims, plans to sell its first Islamic debt within 12 months as part of a bid to become the continent's center for Shariah-compliant financing.

"Nigeria will be the Islamic hub by 2020," central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said in a Sept. 24 telephone interview from the capital, Abuja. The government has yet to decide on a size for the sukuk sale, he said....

International sales of Islamic debt, which comply with the religion's ban on interest by paying asset-based returns, declined 24 percent to $10.7 billion so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Issuance is rebounding after Dubai World, one of the emirates' three main state-controlled holding companies, reached an agreement this month with creditors to change terms on $24.9 billion of debt....

Nigeria's population, which is 50 percent Muslim, "remains largely unbanked," Razia Khan, head of Africa research at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in London, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday. "So yes, Nigeria has the right demographics to emerge as a hub for Islamic banking in Sub- Saharan Africa."...

The country in a "few weeks" will issue guidelines to allow conventional banks to open so-called Islamic windows and subsidiaries, Sanusi said. "There is a very strong desire among the population for Islamic financial products."...

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) removes its policy of doing background checks on new Top Level Domain applicants after Muslims complain that the policy would "be seen by millions of Muslims and Arabs as racist, prejudicial and profiling." Well, that's very important. We don't want millions of Muslims and Arabs to see us as racist and prejudiced. Better to be blown up in a jihad attack than that!

"Anti-terror rule dropped from new TLD guidebook," by Kevin Murphy at DomainIncite.com, September 27 (thanks to Joseph):

ICANN will cut references to terrorism from its Draft Applicant Guidebook for new top-level domains, after criticism from some Arab stakeholders.

The ICANN board of directors decided on Saturday at its retreat in Trondheim that it will revise its policy of doing background checks on new TLD applicants:

The background check should be clarified to provide detail and specificity in response to comment. The specific reference to terrorism will be removed (and the background check criteria will be revised).

The reference to "terrorism" first showed up in DAGv4, the latest draft. It caused a bit of a stir, with at least two Arab community members harshly criticizing ICANN for its inclusion.

Khaled Fattal of the Multilingual Internet Group told ICANN it would "be seen by millions of Muslims and Arabs as racist, prejudicial and profiling" while Abdulaziz Al-Zoman of SaudiNIC observed that's it's not globally accepted "who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter".

It appears that their complaints have been heard.

Of course, the very concept of "Islamophobia" was invented precisely in order to divert attention away from the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. "Candidly Speaking: Islamophobia and the Jews," by Isi Leibler in the Jerusalem Post, September 27 (thanks to Bob):

It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade.

We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards "gas the Jews."

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church's medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, "the descendants of apes and pigs."

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam.

WHAT MAKES this situation even more bizarre is that over the past months, there has been a concerted campaign claiming that Islamophobia represents the greatest threat to human rights in the world! In the US the controversy over the mosque at Ground Zero, where 3,000 Americans were murdered in the name of Islam, has been twisted into an attempt to deny Muslims equal rights as distinct from not violating the sensitivities of the bereaved families. Not a single mainstream conservative politician has ever denied the right of Muslims to build mosques throughout the US.

This is taking place at a time when the Muslims have the audacity to promote legislation at the UN and elsewhere which would make any criticism of Islam a criminal offense. The response of the Obama administration has been to reiterate the ludicrous mantra introduced by president George W. Bush describing Islam as "the religion of peace" and blatantly deny the reality that present-day terrorism is essentially a Muslim phenomenon, even though that does not mean all Muslims are terrorists.

Taking political correctness to the ultimate extreme, US counter-terrorism director John Brennan described jihad as "a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam intended to purify oneself or one's community," and urged that those indulging in terrorist acts never be described in "religious terms" despite the fact that all recent terrorist acts in the US were perpetrated by Muslim extremists. Administration officials initially described perpetrators as demented people rather than Islamic terrorists. This even applied to the Fort Hood killer, who had been influenced by an American-born Yemeni imam and was shrieking "Allahu akbar" while massacring unarmed American servicemen.

Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists.

In that context, the relative tranquility which Muslims experience in Western societies is a great tribute to tolerance - a tolerance unlikely to have been extended to Jews in similar circumstances. Imagine the response if Israel had a track record like some of the Arab states, or if Jews in Western countries were blowing up their neighbors....

Be sure to read all of this superb piece.

Just in case you thought these kinds of cases couldn't get any more absurd, Luke is accused of "unpleasant conduct," in addition to blasphemy, because he is supposed to have unplugged and damaged a microphone used for Qur'an recitation in a mosque. He denies it. The justification for the blasphemy charge itself, meanwhile, remains "unclear." More on this story: it appears that "Luke Gregory Lloyd" is the same person as "Greg Luke." "American to Appear in Indonesian Court for Allegedly Blaspheming Islam," from the Jakarta Globe, September 28:

Lombok. A United States citizen residing on the Indonesian island of Lombok will appear in court "within two or three days" on charges of blaspheming Islam, police said on Tuesday.

Central Lombok Police said the dossier of Greg Luke, 64, from California, had been accepted by the Praya District Prosecutor's Office.

The charges stem from an incident in which police claim the Californian entered a mosque near his house in Kuta, turned down its speakers and insulted Islam. Luke was attacked by a rampaging mob and his home and contents destroyed or stolen in the aftermath.

Nurkholis, head of the prosecutor office's general crimes section, confirmed they had received the case file.

"Within two or three days, the US citizen will appear in court on two charges. The first is blasphemy and the second is unpleasant conduct," Nurkholis said.

"The unpleasant conduct is because he is alleged to have unplugged and damaged the mosque microphone, which locals used for reciting the Koran," he said.

The nature of the blasphemy charge remains unclear.

Luke has vigorously denied the charges, saying he was assaulted without stepping foot in the mosque....

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak thinks that standing up to "Islamophobia" takes political courage. One wonders what planet he lives on.

"Najib Commends Obama, Says Time To Galvanise The Moderates," from Bernama, September 28:

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 28 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak commended United States President Barack Obama for taking "a courageous public position" in dealing with Islamophobia, saying the US president did so "knowing it might cost him his political terms."

The prime minister said however that it was now time for the US president to galvanise the moderates, bring in the non-governmental organisations and social movements so that more people would see the importance of taking a moderate stance.

"If you take an extremist or an extreme position then you are going to aggravate the situation," he said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday in New York.

Najib was responding to a question on the position taken by Obama in the recent plans by a pastor in Florida to burn copies of the Quran to commemorate the Sept 11 attacks.

The pastor later cancelled the plans amid a flurry of condemnations, including from Obama who said that it would only benefit the al-Qaeda and endanger US troops Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the six-minute interview, Najib was asked on a number of issues including Islamophobia.

Najib said: "This is a very important issue that we need to deal with because lately, we're seeing a resurgence, if you like, or an upswing in terms of fearing Islam or Islamophobia."

"There is a danger we are being pressured by the periphery, meaning the extremists and I don't mean just extremists among the Muslims.

"There are extremists among Christians, there are extremists among the Jews. But what is important is for us the majority, the moderates -- and in fact I made a clarion call -- that there should be a movement of the moderates," he said....

Yes, we're all still waiting for that. But of course, it has only been nine years since 9/11, and there have only been a few thousand calls for the "moderates" to become more vocal and active against the "extremists." One must realize that these things take time!

And note also Najib's moral equivalence. He doesn't seem to have given the names of any of these Christian and Jewish "extremists," although he seems to have had Terry Jones in mind. In any case, it seems doubtful that these "extremists" have slit anyone's throat while shouting praises to their God (much less triumphantly filmed the process) or flown any planes into any skyscrapers, while likewise proclaiming the greatness of their God.

During his intervention at the Asean-US Summit, Najib conveyed to Obama that Malaysia wanted to help the US to overcome Islamophobia to allow the American society a better understanding of Islam and dispel negative perceptions towards the religion.

Great!

Killing for a cartoon: If one's priorities are so disordered, that mentality will have far-reaching effects on the stability of one's culture, society, and economy. The resulting climate of fear stifles development and innovation: Why think outside the box if it will get you killed? And why develop anything if the next enraged mob will burn it down? In other words, the logical conclusion of this sort of behavior is jihad causing and perpetuating poverty through mental enslavement and physical terror.

It is a consequence of the absence of that mentality that explains why Danes and Norwegians aren't flocking to Islamic countries for a better life, but the other way around.

An update on this story. "Police: Norway terror plot targeted Danish paper," by Jan M. Olden and Bjoern H. Amland for the Associated Press, September 26:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Three terror suspects who were arrested in an alleged al-Qaida plot in Norway were likely planning an attack against a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, Norwegian and Danish police said Tuesday.

The intelligence branch of Denmark's police, PET, said the suspects were believed to be planning an attack either against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper directly or against people in Denmark linked to the 12 drawings that sparked outrage in Muslim countries in 2006.

The men were arrested July 8 in what U.S. and Norwegian officials believe was a plot linked to the same Pakistan-based al-Qaida planners behind thwarted schemes to blow up New York's subway and a British shopping mall.

Siv Alsen, spokeswoman at the Norwegian Police Security Service, told The Associated Press that one of the suspects, 37-year-old Iraqi Kurd Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak Bujak, had disclosed the plot to investigators.

"We can confirm that he has confessed and explained about his role in planning terror. He was planning this together with the two others arrested," Alsen said. "The information we got indicates that it (Jyllands-Posten) was the target."

Gratitude:

The other suspects in the case are 31-year-old Uzbek national David Jakobsen and the alleged ringleader, 39-year-old Mikael Davud, an Uighur who came to Norway in 1999 and has Norwegian citizenship.

Their lawyers have said they intend to plead innocent to any terror charges.

Brynjar Meling, Bujak's defense lawyer, confirmed to The Associated Press that his client had admitted to being involved in the plot.

"He says that it's important as a Muslim to tell the truth," Meling said. "It is important that the matter doesn't become bigger than it already is and damage Muslims more than it already has done."

Meling said Bujak told investigators the suspects had dropped their plans even before they were arrested and that Bujak wasn't linked to al-Qaida in any way. Meling declined to comment on whether Jyllands-Posten was the target.

An AP investigation shows that authorities learned early on about the alleged cell by intercepting e-mails from an al-Qaida operative in Pakistan.

It was the second time this month that Scandinavian police said the Danish newspaper was the target of planned attacks.

On Sept. 10, a Chechen boxer was injured in a small explosion at a Copenhagen hotel while preparing a letter bomb, likely intended for the Jyllands-Posten, Danish police said.

PET chief Jakob Scharf said Tuesday that the two cases, which were not believed to be related, "illustrate that there is a priority among militant Islamists to carry out acts of terror against Denmark and symbols connected" to the cartoons.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

And so people have to die. Priorities:

Intelligence officials say Denmark remains in the cross-hairs of Islamic terrorists because of the cartoons, which were first published by Jyllands-Posten five years ago, and reprinted by a range of Western papers in early 2006, triggering fiery protests from Morocco to Indonesia.

A Somali man is facing terror charges after police say he broke into the home of one of the cartoonists armed with a knife and ax. The cartoonist was unharmed.

Jyllands-Posten's headquarters in Aarhus, western Denmark, is protected by a metal fence and round-the-clock security guards. All mail is scanned before being opened.

"We feel safe about the security measures that surround us," Lars Munch, managing director of the media group that owns Jyllands-Posten, told AP.

In Human Events this morning I discuss the OIC's ongoing but newly energized campaign against the freedom of speech:

"The Muslim world is going through an unprecedented difficult and trying time," said the Secretary General of the 56-state Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, on Friday.

One might reasonably have thought that he was referring to the recent increase in violent jihad incidents in the West, perpetrated by Muslims who explained and justified their actions by reference to Islamic texts and teachings. But no, Ihsanoglu was exercised about "Islamophobia," the invented term Islamic supremacists use to try to stifle realistic analysis of the global jihad in all its manifestations.

"We are facing daunting challenges and severe hardships," Ihsanoglu complained. "Islam and Muslims are under serious attack, and Islamophobia is growing and becoming more rampant and dangerous by the day."

It is not at all established that "Islamophobia" really is growing. In fact, the FBI has recently released data establishing that hate crimes against Muslims are comparatively rare. But if there is any actual suspicion of or negative feelings toward Muslims in the United States, it is solely and wholly the responsibility of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas underwear jihadist; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed one soldier and murdered another in a jihad shooting outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark.; Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square jihadist; Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden on 9/11; the London jihad bombers of July 7, 2005; and so many others.

Yet Ihsanoglu, with an evasion of responsibility that is characteristic of Islamic supremacists, pretends that non-Muslims are growing more suspicious of Muslims and Islam not because of this, but because of some gratuitous bigotry. This is a tried and tested tactic, designed precisely to divert attention from Islamic jihad attacks and to shame and discredit those who would dare stand up to jihad (both violent and stealth) and Islamic supremacism in the West.

Without any reference to the pandemic of jihad violence either in the U.S. or worldwide, Ihsanoglu referred instead to a "pandemic of Islam vilification" in the U.S. and Europe, and declared: "We need an all inclusive effort of OIC member states to stem this menace. That is why I firmly believe that this question of Islamophobia should figure prominently on the agenda of all OIC member states whenever they deal with their Western counterparts."...

There is more.

It's good that they were acquitted. It's a small blow for sanity and Constitutional freedoms. But it's bad enough that they were arrested in the first place -- that Muslims in Dearborn were able to convince police that they had done something for which arrest was warranted.

An update on this story. "Jury Acquits the Four Christian Evangelists Arrested at Dearborn Arab Festival," from the Thomas More Law Center, September 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Late Friday evening, a jury of six Dearborn, Michigan residents returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty of breach of the peace charges, which were brought by the Dearborn Police Department against four Christian evangelists as they were peacefully proselytizing to Muslim youths during the Arab International Festival on June 18, 2010.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national Christian public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represented the evangelists, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla, Negeen Mayel and David Wood, at no charge. The jury returned its verdict after an hour and half of deliberations. Nageen Mayel was found guilty of failing to obey a police officer--a charge unrelated to the actual incident, which will most likely be reversed on appeal.

Robert Muise, the Law Center's Senior Trial Counsel, handled the five-day trial. The prosecutor placed seven witnesses on the stand including Chief of Police, Ron Haddad.

Even after the acquittals, Dearborn's mayor, Jack O'Reilly, continued his ongoing and unprecedented personal attacks on the Christian evangelists, accusing them of being anti-Muslim bigots. O'Reilly's continuous anti-Christian rhetoric was clearly an attempt to curry favor with Dearborn's large Muslim population, which also explains the Police Department's alarming mobilization to arrest the four Christians....

Predictable, sure, but still outrageous -- although they can't prevent the truth from coming through from Pamela Geller, who comments and notes much of what 60 Minutes left out here.

For a particularly egregious example of media bias, compare Scott Pelley's offensive question to Pamela -- don't you think it necessary to tell the truth? -- to his deferential, even reverential treatment of the openly pro-Sharia Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and the developer Sharif El-Gamal, who has described beating people up as "exercise and stress relief." Pelley doesn't even come close to asking Rauf about why he wouldn't condemn Hamas, or El-Gamal about where the money is coming from, or...either of them whether they thought it necessary to tell the truth.

This piece is essentially a PR vehicle for the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque proponents, to help them overcome the public's overwhelming opposition to the mosque project.

Hoping to prove yet again that terrorism works. "Taliban 'want to swap kidnapped British aid worker for Pakistani scientist jailed in the U.S.,'" by Andrew Levy and Daniel Bates in the Daily Mail, September 27 (thanks to Mackie):

Militants claiming to have kidnapped a female British aid worker are believed to be demanding an exchange for the jailed Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui.

The doctor, who was working for a charity, was travelling with three Afghan men in a two-vehicle convoy when they were ambushed yesterday morning.

At first the Taliban said it was not responsible for the adbuction, but a local commander named as Mohammed Osman, today claimed he had taken the group.

Osman told the Afghan Islamic Press: 'We are lucky that we abducted this British woman so soon after the ruthless ruling by an American court on Aafia Siddiqui.

'We will demadn the release of Siddqui in exchange for her.'

Siddiqui, a 38-year-old mother-of-three neuroscientist, was jailed for 86 years last week by a New York court for the attempted murder of U.S. agents and soldiers who were trying to interrogate her in Afghanistan...

Spencer in Sweden last July with Kent Ekeroth and Daniel Assai of the Sweden Democrats

The Sweden Democrats are mercilessly defamed in the mainstream media. Predictably, they're charged with being "racist" and "neo-Nazi," and predictably, they're neither, as you can see from this pdf. They're actually a staunchly pro-democracy, pro-human rights, pro-Israel party that is making a strong stand against Islamization and the stealth jihad in Sweden. (Visual evidence of the party's actual nature comes in the photo above: Ekeroth is Jewish, and Assai an immigrant to Sweden from Iran).

I spoke in Sweden at the invitation of the Sweden Democrats last July; you can see the videos here and here. "Extremists in Sweden ride immigration wave," from UPI, September 25:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- In a seismic upheaval in Swedish politics, an extreme-right movement accused of being Islamophobic has won seats in the country's Parliament, observers say.

Election victories by the Sweden Democrats, a party widely denounced as "racist and neo-Nazi," have probably saddled the country with a fragile minority government, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported.

Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson, 31, celebrated his party winning nearly 6 percent of the vote by declaring: "We're in."...

As if the OIC didn't already largely control the UN. "More UNSC seats for Muslim states: Iran FM," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, September 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

Ahlul Bayt News Agency ; Iran's foreign minister has stressed the necessity of allocating more permanent and non-permanent seats in the UN Security Council to Islamic countries.

"In the past two decades the UN has faced important challenges and has lost its efficiency to effectively respond to the needs of the modern world," Manouchehr Mottaki said at the Organization of the Islamic Conferences (OIC) Foreign Ministers Annual Coordination Meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Sunday.

The OIC, which was established in 1969, is the second-largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations and has 57 member states spread over four continents.

"Therefore, continuing the process of revising the structure of this organization (the UNSC) with the aim of strengthening its capabilities and enhancing its capacities... is an unavoidable necessity," IRNA quoted Mottaki as saying.

The Iranian foreign minister added that the UN decision-making process should be more democratized and its activities more clear.

Mottaki referred to the mounting trend of Islamophobia as the Islamic world's main challenge in the West and called for the cooperation of all Muslim countries and the adoption of collective measure to effectively counter the phenomenon....

"Collective measure," that is, not including fighting against jihad terrorism.

He advocates the murder of homosexuals and apostates, but that has all been taken out of context, doncha know. "Visa-Ban Islamic Scholar's Victory In Court," by Thomas Lawrence in the Express, September 26 (thanks to Twostellas):

AN ISLAMIC scholar barred from entering the UK for his "unacceptable behaviour" has won the first round of his court battle against the Home Secretary's ruling.

A High Court judge decided the case for Dr Zakir Naik should be fast-tracked despite objections from Theresa May's lawyers.

Dr Naik's solicitor Tayab Ali is being assisted by two QCs from the chambers of Tony Blair's wife Cherie Booth. He said: "It is manifestly unfair to proceed to judgment on the basis of remarks made many years previously."

Mr Ali added: "His comments have been taken extremely selectively and completely out of context."...

Of course! When is the Qur'an or any Islamic supremacist ever quoted in context?

In "Radical Islam gets the better of free speech" in the Star Tribune, September 25, Katherine Kersten asks why American journalists have not rallied to the cause of Molly Norris:

[...] Surely, you say, American journalists and media moguls -- always staunch defenders of the First Amendment -- are proclaiming outrage and rallying round this young woman? On the contrary. The media have largely been silent about her nightmarish plight.

When the Washington Examiner, an on-line newspaper in Washington, D.C., asked the American Society of News Editors for a statement about Norris, none was forthcoming. Ditto for the Society of Professional Journalists. This, despite the fact that the editors group's mission statement extols "the First Amendment at home and free speech around the world," while the journalists claim to stand for "the perpetuation of the free press as the cornerstone of our nation and liberty."

Principle and backbone were more in evidence back in 1989, when Iran's radical Ayatollah Khomeini launched the current drive to extend Islamic law to the West. After Khomeini accused British novelist Salman Rushdie of blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses" and called for his death, the U.S. Senate unanimously resolved "to protect the right of any person to write, publish, sell, buy and read books without fear of violence."

But since 9/11, American media have increasingly caved to threats from radical Islam. The new norm is a self-censorship consistent with Muslim teaching that Islam must be free from insult, though other religions may be insulted at all times.

They want to "avoid any untoward incidence" -- i.e., Muslims going mad and murdering innocent people because of something this priest said. And so we see once again that terrorism and violent intimidation work, which will only ensure that we will see much more of both. "Insult On Islam: Government Will Not Keep Quiet - Dd Mashitah," from Bernama, September 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 27 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian government will not keep quiet to any form of insult against Islam in the country to avoid any untoward incidence.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Dr Mashitah Ibrahim said any form of insult against the religion should not be condoned and stern action should be taken against those who insulted Islam.

"I fear that something might happen if no stern action is taken," she told reporters at a Aidilfitri open house hosted by Yayasan Waqaf Malaysia here Monday.

She was commenting on several video-clips posted on the YouTube website of a priest giving a speech which insulted Islam.

A newspaper carried a report Monday which stated the protem president of the Muslim Bloggers Alliance, Zainol Abideen, as saying that the priest was Benjamin Stephen and that the speech was made in a church in Kuching, Sarawak (East Malaysia).

Dr Mashitah said she regretted that such a thing could happen and urged the Sarawak Islamic Religious Department to investigate.

In "OIC and the Modern Caliphate" in the American Thinker, September 26 (thanks to Pamela Geller), the world's leading scholar of Islamic antisemitism, dhimmitude, and the Islamization of Europe, Bat Ye'or, exposes the Organization of the Islamic Conference:

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is a religious and political organization. Close to the Muslim World League of the Muslim Brotherhood, it shares the Brotherhood's strategic and cultural vision: that of a universal religious community, the Ummah, based upon the Koran, the Sunna, and the canonical orthodoxy of shari'a. The OIC represents 56 countries and the Palestinian Authority (considered a state), the whole constituting the universal Ummah with a community of more than one billion three to six hundred million Muslims.

The OIC has a unique structure among nations and human societies. The Vatican and the various churches are de facto devoid of political power, even if they take part in politics, because in Christianity, as in Judaism, the religious and political functions have to be separated. Asian religions, too, do not represent systems that bring together religion, strategy, politics, and law within a single organizational structure.

Not only does the OIC enjoy unlimited power through the union and cohesion of all its bodies, but also to this it adds the infallibility conferred by religion. Bringing together 56 countries, including some of the richest in the world, it controls the lion's share of global energy resources. The European Union (EU), far from anticipating the problems caused by such a concentration of power and investing in the diversification and autonomy of energy sources since 1973, acted to weaken America internationally in order to substitute for it the U.N., the OIC's docile agent. In the hope of garnering a few crumbs of influence, the EU privileged a massive Muslim immigration into Europe, paid billions to the Mediterranean Union and Palestinian Authority, weakened the European states, undermined their unity, and wrapped itself in the flag of Palestinian justice, as though this would supply some protective system against the global jihad, which it endeavored to focus on Israel.

Religion as the main aspect of the OIC emerges from its language and its targets. It seems that the OIC is restoring in the 21st century the Caliphate, the supreme controlling body for all Muslims. In their Charter (2008), Member States confirm that their union and solidarity are inspired by Islamic values. They affirm their aim to reinforce within the international arena their shared interests and the promotion of Islamic values. They commit themselves to revitalizing the pioneering role of Islam in the world, increasing the prosperity of the member states, and -- in contrast to to the European states -- to ensure the defense of their national sovereignty and territorial integrity. They proclaim their support for Palestine with al-Quds Al Sharif, the Arabized name for Jerusalem, as its capital, and exhort each other to promote human rights, basic freedoms, the state of law (shari'a), and democracy according to their constitutional and legal system -- in other words, compliance with shari'a....

Read it all.

The home of the Islamic bomb is now chair of the "U.N. nuclear watchdog's governing body." "Nuclear-armed Pakistan becomes chair of IAEA board," from Reuters, September 27 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Vienna: Pakistan became the new chair of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's governing body on Monday, despite being outside a global anti-nuclear arms pact and home to a nuclear smuggler who supplied Iran and North Korea.

Western diplomats have suggested they do not see the choice as ideal because -- like India, North Korea and Israel -- Pakistan has shunned the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that is at the heart of the International Atomic Energy Agency's work.

But Western powers did not oppose the nominee of a group of Middle East and South Asia member states at a meeting of the IAEA board on Monday, which approved the choice by acclamation, one diplomat who attended the closed-door session said.

Pakistan is a longstanding member of the Vienna-based IAEA and the choice was within its rules....

I've been predicting this since at least 2006:

June 27, 2006: "Of course, Ahmadinejad may be jumping the gun a bit as far as that is concerned, but he is certainly doing all he can to bring into being a Shi'ite client state in Iraq."

September 13, 2006: "Here we see looming in Iraq the Shi'ite client state of Iran that the U.S. has unwittingly helped put into place with its short-sighted democracy project."

October 31, 2006: "Is al-Maliki on the road to creating the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians have been trying to foster in Iraq for quite some time now?"

February 11, 2007: "Iran continues its efforts to create a Shi'ite client state in Iraq."

June 10, 2008: "Or are U.S. troops the main obstacle to Iraq's becoming a full-fledged client state of Iran?"

November 12, 2008: "Very soon now the President of the United States and the President of Iran will sit down, without preconditions, and hash this out, and clear everything up before Iraq turns fully into the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians covet."

July 1, 2009: "Their goal of creating a Shi'ite client state is closer than ever to being realized."

July 30, 2009: "Was this what we have been fighting for in Iraq all these years? An Iranian Shi'ite client state in Baghdad?"

Yep.

"Iran: Tehran and Baghdad jointly planned attack on 'Kurd rebels,'" from AKI, September 27 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Tehran, 27 Sept. (AKI) - Iraq and Iran worked together in a weekend assault on Kurdish rebels that killed more than 30 insurgents in Iraqi territory, according to a news report.

An unnamed Iranian government source told an Iranian journalist about the operation during an interview on Arab-language satellite news channel Al-Arabiya.

"The attack was against a group of rebel Kurds who operate in Iran but find refuge in Iraq," journalist Amir Moussavi said....

The Organization of the Islamic Conference continues to pretend that it is Western non-Muslims, not Islamic jihadists, who are responsible for the link between Islam and terrorist violence, and are hoping by means of laws against "incitement to religious hatred," which are of course to be interpreted and applied by them, to render us mute and hence defenseless in the face of the advancing jihad. "OIC calls for urgent collective measures against Islamophobia," by Habib Shaikh in the Saudi Gazette, September 27:

JEDDAH - Foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have called upon the international community to make collective efforts to prevent incitement to hatred and discrimination against Muslims and to take effective measures to discourage negative stereotyping of people on the basis of religion, faith or race, according to an official source at the OIC on Sunday.

This call was made in the declaration by the Annual Coordination Meeting of Foreign Ministers of OIC Member States on Countering Islamophobia held at the United Nations head quarters, New York on Friday.

The foreign ministers called for a global awareness on the dangerous implications of the rise of Islamophobia on world peace and security and urged the leaders of the international community to demonstrate their collective political will to address the issue with all urgency.

"We emphasize the need to develop, at the UN, including the HRC, a legally binding institutional instrument to promote respect for all religions and cultural values and prevent intolerance, discrimination and the instigation of hatred against any group or followers of any religion."

They also called upon the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up an observatory at her office aimed at monitoring and documenting acts that lead to incitement to religious hatred, hostility and violence.

In the declaration, they extended support for all initiatives aimed at promotion of moderation, tolerance and encouraging dialogue for shunning violence and extremism, and invited the international community both in terms of policy and practice to stand against all xenophobic campaigns of fear-mongering and discriminatory measures that endanger peaceful coexistence among cultures, civilizations and nations and create a negative environment conducive to violence and violation of human rights of individuals and communities.

"We also call upon the international community to make concrete measure with a view to fostering an environment of respect for all religions," they said.

They stressed that while considering the importance of dialogue among civilizations and expansion of relations and cooperation between the Islamic World and other cultures and civilizations, "we reiterate our commitment to continue efforts in engaging with the West in projecting the true tenets of Islam, and countering common challenges."

However, they expressed "profound regret and deep concern" at the increasing acts of Islamophobia, growing trend of intolerance and hatred toward Muslims, and mounting number of acts of violence against Muslims in some Western societies....

Pope Shenouda III is in a no-win situation. In a Muslim-dominated country, members of his flock may be murdered over the bishop's questioning the veracity of the Qur'an. It is his natural right to do so, but one that is suppressed and denied under Islamic domination. And they may end up dying anyway, at the hands of those who are not mollified by the apology. When you're stirred into a self-righteous rage, an excuse to kill for Allah is an excuse to kill for Allah.

Shenouda acknowledges it is not their country anymore: "we are the ones who are guests since Muslims are the majority." Not just "guests," but dhimmis under constant threat of the arbitrary end of Islamic "tolerance" if any one of them steps out of line.

We, on the other hand, still have a choice, and a right to say what we wish about Islam, and about Muhammad. Let us make frequent use of that right, protect it, and never surrender it.

"Egypt pope apologizes over bishop's Islam remarks," by Maggie Michael for the Associated Press, September 26:

CAIRO - Egypt's Coptic Christian leader Pope Shenouda III apologized in a television interview Sunday to any Muslims who were offended after his top bishop reportedly disputed the authenticity of some verses of the Quran.

The remarks come during a period of heightened tension in Egypt between the majority Muslims and a Christian minority that feels discriminated against.

Feelings? Nothing more than feelings? Let's see: repeated attacks at the slightest or even imagined provocation, abductions, coerced conversions to Islam and forced marriages. And the police just look the other way. Search our archives for much more.

Shenouda's apology comes a day after the premier institute of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world, Al-Azhar, criticized Bishop Bishoy, the Coptic Church's No. 2, for provoking sectarian tension.

Bishoy was quoted in the Egyptian media for wondering about the time frame for the revelation of the Quranic verses disputing the divine nature of Jesus Christ. The bishop reportedly said these verses were inserted after the Prophet Muhammad's death by one of his successors.

Muslims believe that the prophet received all verses through the Archangel Gabriel during his lifetime and they are the immutable word of God.

Tensions between Muslims and Copts are on the rise over issues like the construction of new churches and bitter arguments over conversions. The two communities generally live in peace, though clashes and attacks have taken place.

The construction of new churches or fixing of old ones is forbidden under Islamic law. That is why it provokes violence from Egypt to Indonesia.

"Debating religious beliefs are a red line, a deep red line," Shenouda said in an interview aired on state-run TV. "Maybe they (Bishoy's address) thought this is for priests only and the remarks were not for publication."

"I am sorry if our Muslim brother's feelings were hurt," he added.

Bishoy also sparked outrage last week when he told Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that "Muslims are only guests" in the country.

For this incident, Shenouda blamed the press for possibly misquoting Bishoy and said that "we are the ones who are guests since Muslims are the majority." Coptic Christians make up around 6 to 10 percent of the country's 80 million people. Prior to the 7th Century Arab invasion, Egypt was majority Christian.

Thousands of Muslims demonstrated on Friday against Bishoy's remarks and Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Center held an emergency meeting to condemn the bishop's statements.

"Such irresponsible statements threaten ... national unity at a time when it is vital to maintain it," said the statement.

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, Mohammed Badie, urged Muslims to "respond to whomever slanders the book of God or the prophet."

Shenouda appealed for calm.

"You don't extinguish fire by adding more fire, you need water," he said.

Seeking to cool the controversy, political parties and the journalists' association have urged their members to stay away from the debate....

Can Feisal Abdul Rauf or Honest Ibe Hooper or some other vaunted "moderate" straighten this guy out about the Religion of Peace™? But how did such a spectacular Misunderstander of Islam come to occupy such a high position in the Islamic Republic? Shouldn't that bring cognitive dissonance by the flotilla-load to those who believe that Islamic violence is the result of a twisting and hijacking of the peaceful religion?

"Iranian Minister: Israel's Destruction Is Foretold in the Koran," from MEMRI, September 25 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that Khamenei's promise that Israel will be destroyed is based on what's written in the Koran.

Source: Fars (Iran), September 25, 2010

If only they would express that same indignation about actual stonings that have taken place or are pending in the Islamic world. Like this one, where you can see the practice Muhammad participated in and endorsed on full display. Or the sentence hanging over the head of Sakineh Ashtiani in Iran. Or the fate endured by the young couple in Afghanistan just a few weeks ago.

Rather than directing their outrage where it belongs, standard procedure suggests two simultaneous, contradictory steps: They will insist stoning is not an issue for Islam because it is not in the Qur'an (click here for more on why that hasn't made a difference for the Muslims who have upheld the practice over the centuries). And yet: they will try to divert or end the discussion rather than repudiating the practice itself.

"Muslims demand apology for New Zealand minister's joke," from Agence France-Presse, September 25 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WELLINGTON -- New Zealand's Islamic community has written to Prime Minister John Key demanding an apology for a joke one of his ministers made about Muslims, the Dominion Post newspaper reported Saturday.

The president of the Federation of Islamic Associations New Zealand, Anwar Ghani, said Muslims were "very upset" about the remarks made in a speech by Building Minister Maurice Williamson.

"We brought it to the notice of the PM saying that what was said was highly inappropriate and the minister should be reprimanded and apologise," Ghani told the newspaper.

They doth protest too much. Perhaps some element of truth rubbed them the wrong way.

Williamson cracked a joke about Muslims and the practice of stoning while giving a speech at a building industry awards ceremony last month.

Ghani said he did not think comments centred on religious intolerance were commonplace in New Zealand, but this issue was "a big problem because it was uttered by someone who is regarded as being responsible and a public figure".

A spokesman for the prime minister confirmed the letter had arrived and was being considered.

Will these Jewish "activists" be chanting the Islamic jihad battle-cry, "Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return," the way the "activists" on the last flotilla were doing?

"Activists set sail for Gaza from Cyprus," by Menelaos Hadjicostis for Associated Press, September 26 (thanks to JCB):

FAMAGUSTA, Cyprus - A boat carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Germany, the U.S. and Britain set sail on Sunday for Gaza, hoping to breach Israel's blockade there and deliver aid.

Richard Kuper, an organizer with the U.K. group Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said one goal is to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

Kuper said the boat, which set sail from northern Cyprus flying a British flag, won't resist if Israeli authorities try to stop it....

Boat passenger Rami Elhanan, an Israeli whose daughter Smadar was killed in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Jerusalem in 1997, said it was his "moral duty" to act in support of Palestinians in Gaza because reconciliation was the surest path to peace.

"Those 1.5 million people in Gaza are victims exactly as I am," Elhanan, 60, said in an interview.

Other voyage organizers included the group European Jews for a Just Peace and the U.S.-based Jewish Voice for Peace.

The 33-foot (10-meter) catamaran Irene, carrying a total of nine passengers and crew members, set sail from the Turkish Cypriot north of the island because the Greek Cypriot south imposed a ban on all-Gaza-bound vessels in May, citing "vital interests."...

"Jewish communities around the world are not united in support of Israel," Kuper said in a telephone interview from London. "Israel's future peace is coming to terms quickly with the Palestinians."...

Which in practice would mean surrender to them, and acceptance of dhimmi status in an Islamic state.

Jihad Watch reader Bob has noticed an interesting phenomenon. He has found it in the Wall Street Journal, but it can also be found in all mainstream media outlets:

It appears that the WSJ has started a campaign to re-write history.

Now, when a story concerns Muslim terrorists, it never mentions they are Muslim, as you can see here and here.

But if the article is in any way positive, they use the 'M' word 17 times (here).

Who started this new policy? Was it a directive from Barack Hussein Obama? Robert Gates? Hillary Clinton? Rupert Murdoch?

Or did the staff collective decide that it was their duty to serve as a PR agency for Muslims?

Personally, I doubt it came from any of the above. After all, this has been the policy of the Society of Professional Journalists since 2001, as Pamela Geller reveals here. But just consider the effect upon American public opinion of nine uninterrupted years of this relentless pounding and propaganda. If you ever wonder why so few Americans are clued in to the reality of Islamic jihad, here's your answer.

Dhimmitude on the sly. Eurabia Update: "Top supermarkets secretly sell halal: Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, and M&S don't tell us meat is ritually slaughtered," by Abul Taher in the Daily Mail, September 25 (thanks to Stefcho):

Britain's biggest supermarket chains are selling halal lamb and chicken without telling unsuspecting shoppers.

Those stocking meat slaughtered according to Islamic law include Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Somerfield and the Co-op.

And a Mail on Sunday investigation has found that fast-food chains including Domino's Pizza, Pizza Hut, KFC, ­Nando's and Subway are also using halal meat without ­telling customers.

But the UK's second-biggest supermarket, Asda, has refused to confirm or deny whether it sells halal meat.

The Mail on Sunday contacted Asda on Tuesday, but by yesterday it had failed to answer any of our questions.

Initially, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Tesco were reluctant to admit they sold halal meat. But later they confessed to selling Islamically slaughtered lamb. Tesco also admitted selling some halal chicken without labelling it as such.

Most lamb imported from New Zealand by British supermarkets has been slaughtered according to Muslim law, but this is not mentioned on packaging. Some lamb from British abattoirs is also halal.

Last night, Agriculture Minister Jim Paice said: 'People should know what they're buying in the shops or when they're eating out and I will be discussing with the food industry the role labelling can play in giving consumers a choice.'

The supermarkets and fast-food outlets said they did not feel the need to tell customers that meat is halal because the slaughter conformed to Western standards, with animals stunned before being killed.

But the RSPCA has raised concerns about the way chicken is killed in Islamic abattoirs because the birds are stunned with a weaker electric current, which does not guarantee unconsciousness during slaughter.

Our enquiries have found that ­Subway uses some Islamically slaughtered chicken that has not been stunned.

Non-Muslim religious leaders say that Christians, Hindus or Sikhs may find it offensive to eat meat slaughtered according to Islamic ritual. Jews are unlikely to be exposed to such meat because they eat kosher, or animals slaughtered according to Jewish law.

Last week The Mail on Sunday revealed how halal food was being served to unsuspecting people in hospitals, schools and pubs across the UK....

Inayat Bunglawala, the chair of Muslims4UK, said: 'Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as halal. Halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat.'

But Mike Judge, from the campaign group the Christian Institute, said: 'The idea of having Islamic ritual said over meat would be objectionable to some Christians. I would find it objectionable, so it should be labelled as halal.'...

The Muslim slaughterman murmurs the Islamic verse as thousands of chickens whir towards him on a conveyor belt hung from the ceiling.

Masood Akhtar grabs hold of one chicken's head with his left hand and, with his right, draws his knife across its neck.

The slaughterman barely has time to say 'Bismillah Allah-hu-Akbar' (meaning 'In the name of Allah, who is the greatest') before the next bird is upon him.

It appears a long way from the ritualised slaughter that many would imagine produces halal chicken. Mr Akhtar is not dressed in robes but in a hair-net and a yellow blood-spattered jacket.

And far from a spiritual ceremony, the process is clinical and robotic - Mr Akhtar claims to kill 45 birds every minute and 40,000 in a week.

The procedure appears to follow Sharia law, which states that the bird must be killed alive by a Muslim man who recites the set verse as he cuts its throat....

Mr Akhtar, 29, became a slaughterman at the age of 18 after a few months' training.

'When I arrived I wanted to be a killer,' he recalled. 'On my first day in training, three out of ten birds I killed were not cut properly through both neck arteries - this meant they were not halal.

'But after three months of practice I was perfect - every bird was killed in true halal style.'

The Paul Flatman plant opened in 1961 slaughtering chickens in the normal way, but in 1977, as demand from halal wholesalers increased, Mr Flatman switched his entire production to halal.

He says he has never found it hard to recruit Muslim slaughtermen. 'It's usually just through word of mouth in the Muslim community - it's not hard to find volunteers.'...

It is not at all established that "Islamophobia" really is growing, but in any case, if it is, it is because of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas underwear jihadist; Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square jihadist; Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden on 9/11; the London jihad bombers of July 7, 2005; and so many, many others. Yet Ihsanoglu, with an evasion of responsibility that is characteristic of Islamic supremacists, pretends that non-Muslims are growing more suspicious of Muslims and Islam not because of this, but because of some gratuitous bigotry. This is, of course, a tried and tested tactic, designed precisely to divert attention from those Islamic jihad attacks and all the others, and to shame and discredit those who would dare stand up to jihad (both violent and stealth) and Islamic supremacism in the West.

"Counter Islamophobia, Muslim nations urged," from the Khaleej Times, September 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Muslim nations must collectively resist growing Islamophobia in the US and Europe, the head of the world's largest organization of Islamic countries told ministers from the 57 member nations.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to work with Western leaders to dispel misconceptions about their faith. They met on the edge of the UN General Assembly.

Ihsanoglu said on Saturday that he would be taking this message on the road next week to Chicago, where the OIC will host a major conference on Islam and Muslims in America at the American Islamic College.

Education, he said, is key in helping the West truly understand Islam.

He said his new book, "The Islamic World in the New Century: The Organization of the Islamic Conference, 1969-2009," includes a whole chapter on the danger of growing Islamophobia in the West.

Islam has recently been under attack in America, especially with a controversy over a proposed Islamic center near the World Trade Center sites and threats by groups to burn the Holy Quran in a protest.

"The Muslim world is going through an unprecedented difficult and trying time," Ihsanoglu told the ministers during their annual meeting on Friday. "We are facing daunting challenges and severe hardships. Islam and Muslims are under serious attack, and Islamophobia is growing and becoming more rampant and dangerous by the day."

He said a "pandemic of Islam vilification" is sweeping through some parts of Europe and the United States, increasing misperceptions about Islam and eroding Muslims' human rights.

"We need an all inclusive effort of OIC member states to stem this menace," Ihsanoglu told the ministers. "That is why I firmly believe that this question of Islamophobia should figure prominently on the agenda of all OIC member states whenever they deal with their Western counterparts."...

This couldn't have anything to do with sympathy for the jihad of these men at high levels in Pakistan, now, could it? Naaaah. Unthinkable! "Pakistan Danish embassy bombing suspects acquitted," from Reuters, September 25 (thanks to Mukund):

A Pakistani court acquitted on Saturday three men accused of involvement in a 2008 suicide car-bomb attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad, a public prosecutor said.

The court acquitted the trio on the basis of "insufficient" evidence against them, the prosecutor, Mohammad Tayyab, said.

"We produced 32 witnesses before the court. Two of those saw (the trio) them on the spot signalling attackers to go ahead and later identified them in a police station," said Tayyab.

"But still the judge found insufficient evidence."

The men were arrested several months after the attack that killed six people. An al-Qaeda leader said one of the bombers had come from Saudi Arabia....

I've often noted the futility of such gift-giving. Attempts to win hearts and minds do not address the Islamic underpinnings of the hatred and contempt so many Muslims feel for America; a free laptop isn't going to change that. "U.S. Gift for Iraqis Offers a Primer on Corruption," by Steven Lee Myers in the New York Times, September 25 (thanks to Bill):

BAGHDAD -- The shipment of laptop computers that arrived in Iraq's main seaport in February was a small but important part of the American military's mission here to win hearts and minds. What happened afterward is a tale of good intentions mugged by Iraq's reality.

The computers -- 8,080 in all, worth $1.8 million -- were bought for schoolchildren in Babil, modern-day Babylon, a gift of the American taxpayers. Only they became mired for months in customs at the port, Umm Qasr, stalled by bureaucracy or venality, or some combination of the two. And then they were gone. [...]

But the American military commander in southern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, was clearly furious. Even if the culprits are not exactly known, the victims are: Iraqi children and American taxpayers. He issued a rare and stinging public rebuke of a government that the United States hopes to treat as an equal, strategic partner -- flawed, perhaps, but getting better.

In a statement, he demanded an investigation into the actions of "a senior Umm Qasr official," who, even now, has not been identified.

The disclosure embarrassed the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who, in the middle of a protracted political fight to win a second term, could hardly have welcomed the headlines.

"They are stealing the computers of students," the newspaper Al Nasiriya declared, voicing a populist outrage at Iraq's government that is becoming fairly common....

Why? I thought that the jihadists were just a Tiny Minority of Extremists. But anyway, the idea that defending ourselves against jihadists will intensify anger against us in the Islamic world shows the hollowness of any argument predicated on the idea that we should change our behavior in any way so as to appease Muslim anger. Obama and Petraeus wanted Terry Jones to call off the Qur'an-burning because Muslims would be angry; now the U.S. should have let off a murderous jihadist, Aafia Siddiqui, because Muslims will be angry. At a certain point we have to say that we're going to be who we are, and exercise our freedoms, and defend ourselves, no matter who it angers.

More on this story. "Dr Aafia's sentence to intensify hatred against US among Muslim world, warns Imran Khan," from Sify.com, September 25:

While condemning the 86 year sentence to Dr Aafia Siddiqui by a US court, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman, Imran Khan, has announced launching a countrywide protest against the verdict, and warned that the sentence would intensify the prevailing hatred against the US among the Muslim world, particularly in Pakistan.

According to The News, Imran added that Pakistanis would not tolerate the US administration's abduction of their daughter and punishing her for crimes she had not committed.

"Aafia is the daughter of the nation, and all-out efforts should be made for her early return," Imran insisted.

He further stated that the government should be ashamed that it failed to convince America for the release of Dr Aafia, even though Pakistan had been working as frontline state with the US in the war on terror.

The protection of life and property of the citizens is the government's responsibility and likewise that of overseas Pakistanis, but in the case of Dr Aafia it seemed that the government did nothing and just made hollow claims, he added.

He warned that the PTI would hold protest rallies, seminars and meetings and continue to campaign till she is returned back to the country. (ANI)

We see this claim routinely made wherever an informant is involved in uncovering a jihadist plot. The informant, so it goes, enticed them into participating in jihad, echoing the standard elementary-school defense and classic abdication of responsibility: "but he made me do it!"

And it is, indeed, a flimsy argument. Are we to believe at some point the defendant so easily took the step of saying, "Welllll, I don't normally go in for this sort of thing because I'm a peaceful, moderate Muslim, but you're a swell guy, so... Yeah, let's murder some Australian solders!" Or kill some Jews. Or plot to kill American soldiers overseas. And so on.

An update on this story. "Terror accused 'was provoked'," from The Age, September 23:

A man accused of conspiring to launch a terror attack against an Australian army base in Sydney believed that Somalia was the place for ''true jihad'', the Supreme Court heard yesterday.

Wissam Fattal told an undercover police officer in February last year that many Muslims from Australia ''were going to fight jihad in Somalia''. The court heard that Fattal was also interested in travelling to Yemen or Afghanistan, and that he believed the life of a mujahideen was the best life.

Fattal's lawyer, Pat Tehan, QC, said the undercover officer, known only as ''Hamza'' tried to manipulate Fattal into making threats against the Australian military. He said Hamza tried to provoke Fattal in May last year by telling him Australian soldiers had killed an innocent man in Iraq.

In a March 10, 2009, exchange which was played to the court yesterday, Hamza allegedly recorded Fattal saying: ''Brother, if I find a way to kill the army, I swear to Allah the great, I'm gunna do it. I swear to Allah the great why I kill them, because they put what they call them sending, send them to Afghanistan and Iraq.''

The court has heard that Fattal travelled to Sydney in late March last year and visited Holsworthy Army Barracks for surveillance.

Hamza, a Victoria Police senior constable, said he befriended Fattal at the Preston mosque. He first met Fattal on November 7, 2008, prayed with him and visited him repeatedly from April 2009 while Fattal was in custody on an unrelated charge.

Hamza gave his evidence from an undisclosed location and by video link to a courtroom reconfigured to protect his identity. He said he boxed and trained with Fattal who told him he was a former successful kick-boxer.

Only the jury, the respective legal teams and Justice Betty King and her staff were able to see Hamza's face on television monitors as he gave evidence.

To the rest of the court, Hamza was a disembodied voice with an Australian accent. Hamza posed as a convert to Islam when he approached Fattal at the mosque.

Fattal, 34, Abdirahman Ahmed, 26, Saney Edow Aweys, 27, Nayef El Sayed, 26, and Yaqcqub Khayre, 23, are charged with preparing for, or planning, a terrorist attack.

They were allegedly planning a suicide attack against Holsworthy Army Barracks. The men have pleaded not guilty....

Did Hamza put it in all of their minds, too?

UPDATE: More recent reports indicate the bomb threat may have been a hoax, and an unfortunate waste of the time and resources of law enforcement. The points about the nature of the reporting, however, still hold:

A man. A Canadian man. A Canadian citizen around the age of 30. Of Pakistani origin.

Those four things are all that we're told about this suspect in this story, and yet none of them, not even that he is of Pakistani origin (although that one points us in the direction of the real answer), gives us any inkling as to why he might have wanted to set off a bomb on a plane. Unless there is some terror threat among Canadian men around the age of thirty that has been underreported for fear of inciting Canuckphobia.

"Canadian man arrested in Sweden after plane bomb threat," by Carmen Chai for AFP, September 25 (thanks to Nora):

STOCKHOLM, Sept 25, 2010 (AFP) - Swedish police on Saturday arrested a man on suspicion of planning to blow up a Boeing 777 flying from Canada to Pakistan, after a bomb threat forced an emergency landing in Stockholm.

"We are detaining a man that we suspect had some explosives aboard an aircraft between Canada and Pakistan," Stefan Raadman of the Stockholm police, who is heading the investigation, told reporters at Stockholm's Arlanda airport.

Police said no explosives had been found in the search so far, and interviews with passengers and the suspect were ongoing.

The man, a Canadian citizen around the age of 30, was arrested for "planning to sabotage an airplane," he added.

The Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) flight was on its away to Karachi from Toronto and landed at Arlanda airport shortly after 0730 GMT....

He added the suspect was "of Pakistani origin."...

"A woman contacted the Canadian police and said there was a man on board that could have explosives on him. We do not know for the moment who this woman is," Janne Hedlund of the Stockholm police told the TT news agency....

The ACLU is not pleased, but Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller says rightly: "It strains credulity to argue that our laws require the government to disclose to an active, operational terrorist any information about how, when and where we fight terrorism." Now if only they would speak honestly about what is the cause, motivation, and goal of most "terrorism" nowadays, we might be getting somewhere. "WH: lawsuit for cleric would reveal state secrets," by Pete Yost for Associated Press, September 25:

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Saturday invoked the state secrets privilege which would kill a lawsuit on behalf of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an alleged terrorist said to be targeted for assassination under a U.S. government program.

In a court filing, the Justice Department said that the issues in the case are for the executive branch of government to decide rather than the courts.

The department also said the case entails information that is protected by the military and state secrets privilege.

The courts have sufficient grounds to throw out the lawsuit without resorting to use of the state secrets privilege, the Justice Department said in its filing.

"The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy," the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement. "In matters of life and death, no executive should have a blank check."

Al-Awlaki's father, through the CCR and the ACLU, filed the case in federal court in Washington.

The father has demanded that the government disclose a wide variety of classified information which could harm U.S. national security, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

"It strains credulity to argue that our laws require the government to disclose to an active, operational terrorist any information about how, when and where we fight terrorism," said Miller....

The total number of schools that the Taliban has bombed is now approaching 1,000. And despite the singularity of this barbarity, there are still many in the U.S. who dare to label the political opposition, which has never bombed any school or anything else, or even the anti-jihad movement, which is working in defense of human rights against precisely this sort of thing, as the equivalent of the Taliban. "Two girls' schools blown up in Peshawar," from the Daily Times, September 24 (thanks to all who sent this in):

PESHAWAR: The Taliban on Wednesday blew up two more girls' schools in the provincial capital amid a security operation against the terrorists in the bordering area of FR Peshawar, police and locals said.

The Taliban bombed five schools in a week's time in the capital, spreading terror in the school-going children and their parents. Badha Bair Police Station Muharrir Mukamil Shah told Daily Times that the Taliban blew up two girls' schools at Sulmankhel village of Bada Bhair, a suburb area of Peshawar.

He said the Taliban bombed Girls High School Sulman Khel and Girls Primary School Sulman at around 1am and both schools were situated alongside each other. About the damage, he said six classrooms were destroyed in the girls' high school and four classrooms were destroyed in the primary school.

Schools have been consistently targeted by the Taliban's for the past five years and according to officials, the Taliban have bombed more than 1,000 schools, mostly in Swat....

WARNING: The video above is graphic, and beyond disturbing. It is footage of a woman dying under a barrage of stones. But it must be exposed:

This is Sharia. This is an act Muhammad approved of and participated in, according to canonical Islamic sources including Sahih ("sound," "reliable") Bukhari.

This is Islam's "justice," "compassion," and "mercy" which apologists will not repudiate, attempting to dodge the issue by assuring the uninformed (and maybe even trying to make themselves believe) that it is not an issue because it is not prescribed in the Qur'an itself. Click here for why that does not make a difference to the Muslims who have continued the practice over the centuries.

And what was this woman's crime? Here is the back story. "Rare Video Shows Taliban Allegedly Stoning Woman to Death in Pakistan," by Megan Chuchmach for ABC News, September 24:

A rare video reportedly smuggled out of northwest Pakistan allegedly shows a woman being stoned to death by Taliban militants in the upper region of Orakzai.

Al Aan, a Dubai-based pan-Arab television channel that focuses on women's issues, said it had obtained cellphone footage that it says shows a woman being executed because she was seen out with a man. The killing reportedly took place two months ago and was smuggled out by a Taliban member who attended the stoning, according to Al Aan. ABC News could not independently confirm the cellphone video's authenticity.

The video, which seems to show a woman tethered to the ground as a group of men throw stones at her, is so graphic that ABC News cannot show it in its entirety. Parts of it air today on the 25th episode of "Brian Ross Investigates."

"It's difficult to know where and when it was shot," says Gayle Lemmon, deputy director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council of Foreign Relations, in an interview with Ross, "It is consistent with videos that have been coming from Taliban-controlled areas since the '90s."

Lemmon says that when women "stray outside the line" in Taliban-controlled areas, they may "face severe punishment."

"Women are respected as carriers of the family honor," says Lemmon, "but they also pay the price."...

Gee, what a great system: be "honored" or be killed!

The ABC link has its own video, including a mostly dismal interview with Lemmon, who hedges on whether this has anything to do with Islam.

But we know better.

As ever, "eruptions" are awfully easy to come by there. An update on this story. "Pakistan erupts over jailing of scientist Aafia Siddiqui," from Agence France-Presse, September 24 (thanks to PRCS):

Pakistani police used tear gas to disperse protesters who shouted "Death to America" in outrage after a US court jailed a woman scientist for 86 years for attempting to murder US officers.

In a case that has been condemned across the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 167 million, the government said it would petition Washington to secure the mother of three's repatriation on humanitarian grounds.

A New York court found Aafia Siddiqui, the once brilliant scientist dubbed "Lady Qaeda" by the US tabloids, guilty of the attempted murder of US military officers in Afghanistan in 2008 - five years after she disappeared.

In Karachi, Siddiqui's home town and Pakistan's largest city, police fired tear gas shells to prevent scores of people from marching on the US consulate at the behest of the youth wing of Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).

The protesters shouted "Death to America", "Allahu akbar" (God is greater), "Free Aafia Siddiqui" and "Down with the US system of justice".

The last one -- that's ultimately what it's all about, isn't it?

Hundreds more took to the streets in Pakistan's second largest city of Lahore. Cricket hero-turned-politician Imran Khan led a rally to condemn the verdict as "unethical and inhuman", an AFP reporter said.

They condemned President Asif Ali Zardari and Khan, who heads the party Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice), warned that the verdict could fan anti-Americanism across Pakistan and the Muslim world.

Hundreds more rallied under the auspices of the JI in Lahore, shouting "Go America Go, Free Aafia Siddiqui".

"The judgement against Siddiqui is based on anti-Muslim policy of the US," said Liaqat Baluch, the senior JI leader who led the rally.

In Islamabad, police stopped dozens of Islamic students from marching on the US embassy to hand over a protest note. The crowd shouted "Crush America", "Siddiqui is our sister" and "We will bring her back".

Dozens of lawyers and activists blocked traffic in the central city of Multan, shouting "Down with America" and setting fire to an effigy of President Barack Obama and former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, an AFP reporter said....

That "Arlington woman" would be one Kimberly al-Homsi, the Muslim woman who has been picked up for highly suspicious behavior at Dallas Love Field, and who shut down a Fort Worth highway for five hours after leading police on a chase that yielded a cache of pipe bombs when a patch of ice finally stopped her.

An update on this story. "Arlington woman sentenced to 10 years in federal prison," by Mitch Mitchell for the Star-Telegram, September 24:

FORT WORTH -- Two people were sentenced in federal court Friday for charges related to a February police chase through Arlington and Fort Worth.

Kimberly Al-Homsi, 45, of Arlington, was sentenced Friday in federal court and will serve 10 years in prison and three years of supervised release after she leaves prison.

Her co-defendant, Yasinul Ansari, 19, of Arlington, was sentenced to more than three years in prison and three years of supervised release.

Al-Homsi and Ansari have been in custody since their arrest in February by officers with the Arlington Police Department and both pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered firearm, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

On Feb. 13, during the investigation of a possible aggravated assault, Arlington Police Department officers stopped Al-Homsi's vehicle, but she sped away. She led officers from Arlington to Fort Worth, where she stopped on the southbound entrance ramp to Loop 820 at Rosedale Street. Ansari was a passenger in the vehicle.

Al-Homsi and Ansari were arrested after she told officers that there were three pipe bombs in a bag in the back seat of her vehicle. The pipe bombs were rendered safe. Al-Homsi told authorities that on Feb. 7, she and Ansari bought various items that they used to construct three pipe bombs and at one point, attempted to detonate one of the bombs. These three bombs, which were in working order, or could have easily been put in working order, were the ones that law enforcement found in her vehicle, the release said.

What is often lost in this discussion is the idea that the Board has the right and duty to exercise quality control over the content of its textbooks, and it would be reasonable for any such body to be concerned about bias, double standards, and agenda-driven statements in those books. The problem that responsibility is encountering here is Islam's already privileged status, where anything but accolades is to be met with knee-jerk accusations of the worst possible intentions, so as to shut down the discussion and silence dissent.

An update on this story. "Texas ed board adopts resolution limiting Islam," from the Associated Press, September 24:

AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas State Board of Education adopted a resolution Friday that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as social conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.

The board approved the one-page nonbinding resolution, which urges textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books, by a 7-5 vote.

Critics say it's another example of the ideological board trying to politicize public education in the Lone Star State. Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which advocates for religious freedom, questioned why the resolution came at a time when "anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country has reached fever pitch."

From that, you'd think those of us who criticize Islam's teachings were rampaging in the streets, setting fire to piles of tires, hurling stones at government buildings, and calling for bloodshed.

Not us. But that's precisely what has happened in Afghanistan over a Qur'an burning that never happened, and even the rumor of burnings.

"It's hard not to conclude that the misleading claims in this resolution are either based on ignorance of what's in the textbooks or, on the other hand, are an example of fear-mongering and playing politics," Miller said.

Future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts will not be bound by the resolution.

"This is an expression of the board's opinion, so it does not have an affect on any particular textbook," said David Anderson, the general counsel for the Texas Education Agency, when asked by a board member what legal weight the resolution would carry.

"So this is a cosmetic exercise?" asked board member Mavis Knight, a Democrat from Dallas.

The resolution cites world history books no longer used in Texas schools that it says devoted more lines of text to Islamic beliefs and practices than Christian ones. Chairwoman Gail Lowe said the resolution cites old books because board rules prohibit them from discussing current books more than 90 days after their adoption.

"I believe that it's happening in the current (social studies books) even though we can't cover that in the resolution," said board member Terri Leo, a Republican from Spring. The resolution sends a "clear message to publishers that it should not happen in the future."

The resolution also claims "more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the U.S. public school textbook oligopoly, as they are doing now." [...]

The resolution concludes by warning publishers the "State Board of Education will look to reject future prejudicial social studies submissions that continue to offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world's major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage space-wise and by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others."

Eminently reasonable concerns.

The waiter-turned-millionaire developer (a transformation not yet satisfactorily explained) Sharif El-Gamal has said that "when you beat up someone physically you get exercise & stress relief," and he has a history of run-ins with the law.

And now he shows us yet again how "moderate" the entire Ground Zero mosque initiative really is: he is going to address the annual banquet of Hamas-linked CAIR:

Sharif El-Gamal, the main developer of the Park51 project in lower Manhattan, will speak at CAIR's 16th annual banquet on Saturday, October 9 in Arlington, Va. A recent summit of national Muslim leaders expressed strong support for Park 51 project.

Register today to hear from the man at the center of a manufactured controversy that has sparked an anti-Muslim backlash nationwide.

GO TO: http://www.cair.com/banquet/

CAIR is also holding an intensive day-long critical leadership skills training conference on the same day as the banquet.

The conference will include training sessions for public speaking, on-camera interviews, using social media, political engagement, challenging Islamophobia and knowing your legal rights with law enforcement agencies.

You can find details, including session descriptions here.

Whether you are an imam, president or board member of a mosque, a young business leader, a student leader, an activist, or just someone who wants to help the community, this is the conference you must attend.

Islamophobia has become a growing threat to American Muslims and must be challenged vigorously, methodically, and comprehensively. You, the Muslim grassroots, are a key player in this organized effort. During the conference, we will also present a strategic vision for the American Muslim community for the next 20 years.

As a community, we will stand firm to defend the ideals of civil rights and equality. Empower yourself to take an active role by joining us at the leadership conference. We have only 200 spaces available for the workshops, so reserve your place right away.

We're looking forward to a day of practical trainings and an evening of celebrating our community. Please join us on Saturday, October 9, by making your reservations today.

GO TO: https://www.cair.com/banquet/
SEE Descriptions of the training sessions: http://tinyurl.com/CAIRworkshops

To make a reservation over the phone or to reserve an entire table for eight people, call 202-742-6454, or you can e-mail banquet@cair.com

Sincerely,

Nihad Awad
CAIR National Executive Director

CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

Some "moderates" El-Gamal is keeping company with!

And he held up a copy of the Qur'an, which should have been a cue to every "moderate" Muslim leader in the U.S., from Feisal Abdul Rauf to Honest Ibe Hooper, Brave Ahmed Rehab, Salam al-Marayati and the rest of the rogue's gallery to explain how Ahmadinejad, with his vicious antisemitism and genocidal aspirations, is actually a Misunderstander of the Religion of Peace™. Yet so far, nothing but silence from those quarters.

"US walks out on Ahmadinejad UN speech," from AP, September 23 (thanks to Darcy):

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.S. delegation has walked out of the U.N. speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he said some in the world have speculated that Americans were actually behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks, staged in an attempt to assure Israel's survival....

The Iranian leader spoke of threats to burn the Quran by U.S. religious groups, calling that an act of "evil." He held up a copy of the Muslim holy book, saying "the truth cannot be burned."

In Cyprus in 1974. This is reminiscent of how CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

"Retired general confesses to burning mosque to fire up public," from Today's Zaman, September 24 (thanks to M.):

A retired general who has recently been accused of having conducted an assassination attempt on the life of Turkey's eighth president, Turgut Özal, has inadvertently confessed that he ordered the burning of a mosque as part of psychological warfare operations in 1974.

In remarks published in the Haber Türk daily yesterday as part of an interview with Gen. Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, who led the Special War Department in 1971 and also worked to mobilize civilian resistance during Turkey's military intervention on Cyprus in 1974, said: "In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque." In response to the surprised correspondent's incredulous look the general said, "I am giving an example," in an attempt to clear things up. [...]

The confession brings to mind the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) coup plot, allegedly drafted by a clique in the military to undermine the government. Dozens of military officers were arrested, although most were later released during the investigation into the Sledgehammer document, which includes plans to bomb the Fatih and Beyazıt mosques and down a Turkish jet over the Aegean to fuel problems with Greece with the ultimate aim of discrediting the government.

When allegations regarding the Sledgehammer plan first arose after the document was leaked to the press earlier this year, then-Chief of General Staff Gen.İlker Başbuğ dismissed the accusations as nonsense. Başbuğ said a military whose troops are known for shouting "Allah Allah" as they attack the enemy could not possibly think of burning the house of God. However, Yirmibeşoğlu's revelation shows that this has actually been done before.

First, she was "mentally ill," and now she says she's not. Then again, the insanity defense didn't work out, anyway, and so turned out not to be useful. An update this story.

"Pakistani Woman Sentenced to 86 Years for Trying to Kill Americans," by Chad Bray for the Wall Street Journal, September 23 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

NEW YORK--A Pakistani woman trained as a scientist in the U.S. was sentenced to 86 years in prison Thursday after she was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan two years ago.

Aafia Siddiqui, 38 years old, was convicted in February of grabbing a soldier's M-4 assault rifle and trying to shoot an assembled group of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and soldiers at an Afghan police compound in July 2008.

The U.S. team had traveled to the compound in Ghazni, Afghanistan, to interview her after she taken into custody by Afghan authorities, prosecutors said. Ms. Siddiqui was found at the time with materials that included handwritten notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" in the U.S. and listed several landmark locations in New York City, prosecutors said.

Prior to her sentencing, Ms. Siddiqui again proclaimed her innocence and disputed claims by her lawyers that she has a mental illness.

"I do not want a 9/11," she said. "I do not want any bloodshed."

A jury found Ms. Siddiqui guilty in February of seven charges, including two counts of attempted murder. The jury found there wasn't premeditation in the attempted murder charges.

After she was sentenced Thursday, Ms. Siddiqui turned to the audience and urged the public to forgive the persons involved in her case and not to take any actions of revenge.

How magnanimous.

Prosecutors had alleged that Ms. Siddiqui, unbeknownst to the Americans who traveled to Ghazni, was behind a curtain in the second-floor room where they gathered. She burst from behind the curtain, grabbed an American soldier's rifle and started firing, prosecutors said.

She was shot in the abdomen by a soldier who returned fire with his sidearm, prosecutors said.

Ms. Siddiqui, who received graduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in biology and neuroscience while living in the U.S. between 1991 and June 2002, has denied grabbing the weapon or having any familiarity with firearms.

At trial, she testified that she was simply trying to escape the room and was shot by someone who saw her. She claimed she was concerned at the time about being transferred to a "secret" prison.

"He saw me and he got scared. He said, 'she's free' or 'she's loose,' " she said at the time.

On Thursday, Ms. Siddiqui, who has previously expressed displeasure with her lawyers and the U.S. legal process, said that she didn't want the lawyers on her case to file an appeal and that she didn't want them to take any further action in her case.

Ms. Siddiqui's mental state has loomed large over her trial, with her lawyers claiming she suffers from schizophrenia.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, who is presiding, found her comptent to stand trial. He noted Thursday that experts for the defense and the prosecution gave conflicting opinions about Ms. Siddiqui's mental state and that she had been uncooperative with prison psychologists.

During the hearing, Ms. Siddiqui raised her hands and shook her head several times when her lawyer, Dawn Cardi, argued she had a mental illness.

"I do not have any mental illness," Ms. Siddiqui said.

The judge ordered that she receive periodic mental evaluations while serving her sentence.

These members of the media refused to provide a mouthpiece for propaganda. There's something you don't see every day. An update on this story. "Somali radio reporters walk out after Islamist takeover," from BBC News, September 23:

Somali journalists have walked out of a radio station recently seized by Islamists in the capital, Mogadishu.

The staff at GBC said they refused to take orders from Hizbul Islam militants.

Previously, Hizbul Islam had allowed private radios to operate in their territory, only banning music, which they regard as unIslamic.

In Mogadishu, at least 19 people have been killed in heavy fighting, ahead of a crisis summit on Somalia at the UN.

Correspondents say radio stations provide a vital source of information for Mogadishu residents, who need to be constantly updated on which areas are unsafe.

It is, of course, in the jihadists' interest to suppress even this basic information, or allow it only selectively. Besides, a terrified, demoralized, exhausted population is more inclined to submit.

The journalists from GBC, which was popular for its broadcasts of international football matches, said they had been ordered to refer to the government as "apostate".

The "apostate" government is therefore, according to Islamic law and Muhammad's own instructions, lawful for slaughter.

"We defied because we do not want to lose our impartiality," one of the reporters said, asking not to be named for security reasons.

A newly established free media group Federation of Somali journalists has condemned Hizbul Islam's interference.

"It is unacceptable and part of the ongoing violations against the independence and the impartiality of the private media," said its deputy chairman Abdi Haji Gobdoon.

The demand for full independence has changed, but little else has. They have simply gone from wanting full autonomy to govern the area as a separate Islamic state to wanting to do the same thing while remaining part of the Philippines.

If anything, the revised set of demands would create a win-win situation for the jihadists. If they cut themselves off, they would at some point have to attempt to build a functioning economy, worry about infrastructure, and so forth -- in other words, act like a real state. They would also face more acutely the prospect of jihadist impulses turning inward in power struggles for the fully independent state.

By staying part of the Philippines, they remain attached to that stream of resources, and can continue to blackmail Manila with demands for the sake of stability in the region. It is also easier while technically remaining part of the Philippines to continue to revise the borders of the Islamic state that is still technically Filipino, than as a sovereign nation making demands on another: again, blackmail is cheaper than war.

What remains to be seen is how willing Manila is to overlook its constitution in a Sharia-for-peace deal for this region. "Philippine Muslims drop separatist demands," from Al-Arabiya, September 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

The chief government negotiator in peace talks with Muslim rebels on Thursday welcomed a rebel leader's statement that his group is no longer demanding independence from the Philippines and instead is seeking a status similar to a U.S. state.

The rebel announcement Wednesday "will definitely pave the way to finding an understanding for a politically feasible arrangement that maintains the territorial integrity and the fundamental premise of people's sovereignty in one republic," law school dean Marvic Leonen said in a statement.

"We hope that there can be a lot of common ground" with the rebels, Leonen, head of the government negotiating panel, later told The Associated Press. The rebels have been fighting for Muslim self-rule for about four decades.

Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, told local reporters on Wednesday that his group wanted a "substate" that he likened to a U.S. state. He said it would not be independent and would be under a "unitary government."

Just like that time Nebraska demanded to form an Islamic theocracy -- no, wait...

"It is not stated in our proposal specifically, but the formulation that we have put up is really for the creation of a ... substate arrangement," Iqbal was quoted as saying.

Leonen said it was a "welcome clarification" of the rebel position.

"We are willing to listen to the concept that they are willing to propose," he told the AP.

Talks collapsed in 2008 after the Supreme Court rejected a preliminary accord that would have expanded an existing Muslim autonomous region in the southern Philippines.

A spokeswoman for the court said then that eight of 15 justices voted to declare the deal unconstitutional because the proposed Muslim homeland would lead to its "eventual independence," which would violate the country's "physical and territorial integrity."

After the court threw out the proposed agreement, rebel negotiator Musib Buat said the rebels had been "pushed to the wall" and the only option left for them was "to revert to the original goal of independence" and campaign for "decolonization" with support from the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

Iqbal gave scant details about what the rebels sought to establish, saying only that the Muslim substate would not wield four powers exercised by a central government - national defense, foreign affairs, currency and coinage, and postal services. He said it would not maintain a separate armed forces and would only have troops for "internal security."

He could not be reached Thursday for further comment.

Government and rebel negotiators met shortly before President Benigno Aquino III took office in June and agreed to resume talks. Both sides have formed their negotiating panels but no date has been set for a resumption of the Malaysian-brokered talks.

Iqbal said a final peace accord could be completed in less than two years "if the Philippine government is really serious" in pursuing peace.

More than 120,000 people have died in the decades-long conflict in the resource-rich southern Mindanao region, the homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Additional thoughts on this story:

Regarding uniforms, and Muslim inmates' complains about bans on "certain religious clothing": Of all places, the social equalizer that uniforms provide is essential to attempting to keep the peace in a jail. The last thing one ought to want in a place where no one wants to be, but they all got there for a reason, is the emergence of a visibly privileged class to stir the pot.

One must wonder what the specific grievance is: no skullcaps? When did they become a pillar of Islam? Or, are the pants too long, trailing on the ground in a most un-Sunnah way? Either way, one returns to the fundamental purpose of having uniforms in the first place.

Regarding food: While Muslim inmates are not offered pork, the most likely remaining grievance here is that the rest of the meat on the menu is (gasp!) not halal. They could go for any variety of vegetarianism, which would certainly not be unheard of in Western Washington, but who should have to do that when you're just so special? A more vegetarian diet would be the non-obstructive way to go, while the name of the game here is this: Being Seen While Being Muslim.

There are several issues to consider in this case. One is the inmates' personal sense of entitlement and resource-sapping efforts to game the system from within. For that matter, this fixation keeps them from addressing the internal factors that landed them in jail in the first place. After all, they're the "victims" now!

But along with generating tension and resentment where no more is needed, the creation of a privileged Muslim class in the jail would also create an incentive for other prisoners to convert to Islam for the perks, as we have seen in the U.K. And there is strength in numbers: so much the better for more demands, and for the intimidation of other inmates.

There is also the question of what happens when prisoners who have been so indoctrinated are released, or if they attempt to shrug off what may have seemed like a convenient conversion, inside or outside of prison. Indeed, it would be like dealing with a prison gang on steroids. Not every prison gang has Allah's own prophet commanding the slaughter of those who would attempt to leave the fold.

But there is still a greater issue: This case also sets up a telling comparison of values and priorities that has far-reaching implications for how a society operates. One that is in play here is the emphasis on external piety through the demand for the "right" to wear special religious clothing. The focus on external displays, together with and a closed, segregated society are a serious recipe for dysfunction. And that goes for Islamic societies in general, not just prisons.

Even more broadly, there is the matter of how resources and human efforts are allocated for the sake of what one supposes to be "good." When comparing the religious texts of Islam and Christianity, one notices a striking contrast in the exhaustive cataloging in the ahadith of Muhammad's mannerisms, preferences, personal comportment and appearance, which is why one finds Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan growing violent over their neighbors' unwillingness to grow a beard, tailor their pants above their ankles, and so forth. On the other hand, the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles are perhaps deliberately vague on the appearances and sartorial preferences of Jesus and the early Christians. Indeed, we don't even get much on what the prophets and patriarchs of the Hebrew Scriptures wore, and certainly not in the prescriptive sense that accompanies stories about Muhammad (see also: Qur'an 33:21).

Why?

Perhaps it's because none of those features are the important thing about who they were or what they did, where worthy imitation is at issue. And focusing on those would be the easy way out on showing "piety."

Our society is demonstrably better for that higher placement of priorities, even among those who would deny any Judeo-Christian influence in this regard, taking these attitudes and others for granted as human nature because they have never experienced a culture where that influence has been actively suppressed and expunged.

If Muslims really wants to cure "Islamophobia," here is an easy way. They can:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

If Muslims do those five things, voila! People like me will no longer suffer from the illness of "Islamophobia"!

And Pamela Geller said it best: "Muslims in the U.S. are not the ones living under death threat. People who are standing up to jihad activity and Islamic supremacism are. They are not the ones targeted. We are. They are not getting death threats. We are. They don't have to live with 24/7/365 heavy duty security, Geert Wilders does. Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Salman Rushdie, the producers from Comedy Central, and accidental counter-jihad tourists like Molly Norris live under death threat. As do I."

Indeed, I have a stalker who has threatened my life and posted private information about me online with the clear intention of inciting Muslims to attack me, who lives in College Park, Maryland. I wonder if he attended this forum -- the Nyumburu Cultural Center is in that city.

"Panel discusses cause and effect of Islamophobia in the U.S.," by Melissa Quijada in the DiamondbackOnline, September 23 (thanks to Tipster):

Scattered views filled a forum yesterday as students and activists addressed the fear of Islam and Muslims that's recently resurfaced in the media, agreeing the term Islamophobia should be discussed emphasizing similarities, not differences.

Last night at the Nyumburu Cultural Center, the Black Male Initiative student group hosted a discussion of about 100 students and activists to address social tensions amid a recent surge of anti-Islamic sentiments. Supported by the Muslim Students' Association and the Muslim Women of Maryland members, the event challenged the word and filled seats.

"It's important for us as engaged citizens and human beings to speak out against these injustices when they rear their ugly heads," said Solomon Comissiong, Nyumburu Cultural Center's assistant director of student involvement and public relations, as he opened the panel.

And when discussing an issue that often creates deep divides, panelists emphasized the importance of unity in tackling such a phenomenon.

"The existence of 'Islamophobia' is a social failure," said Secretary of the Muslim Students' Association Osama Eshera. "This is an issue we all have to deal with together."

Panelists paid specific attention to a string of anti-Islamic events, many of which have recently made national headlines, that led to the discussion held last night.

Dave Zirin, a sports writer and socialist activist who co-monitored the event with Comissiong, referenced the New York City cab driver who was stabbed in the throat, face and arm after disclosing his Muslim faith. Comissiong cited the national unrest earlier this month when Florida pastor Terry Jones threatened to burn copies of the Qur'an in protest of efforts to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

Of course, the New York cabbie stabber worked for a pro-Ground Zero mosque group, so it is hard to pin his actions on "Islamophobia." And it's outstanding moral myopia to tut-tut at the Qur'an-burning but not at the Muslims who murdered innocents because of it.

"We thought it was necessary to do something like this in light of all the anti-Muslim backlash," Comissiong said.

Much of the first half of conversation pointed to the terrorist acts of Sept. 11 as the root of fear and hatred of Islam.

"There's a notion that Muslims rejoiced while Americans suffered," said Eshera, a junior bioengineering major. "The reality is that about 300 Muslims died in the terrorist attacks."

Preposterous. A tenth of the people killed in the Trade Towers were Muslims? A ridiculous lie, but clearly one that Islamic supremacists have agreed upon, as it is oft-repeated lately.

A long line of both students and seasoned social activists stepped forward to ask questions and make comments, causing the event to run longer than expected. Some fundamentally challenged the term Islamophobia and the differences between Americanized fear against Muslims and the Islamic faith.

"You have an entire community calling it Islamophobia and a community of Muslims calling it Islamophobia," said university aluma and panelist Rayyan Ghuma. "It's all about semantics now."

"It takes us labels for us to do anything," said Omnia Joehar, junior government and politics major. "How many have stood up until 'Islamophobia' was made?"

Yesterday's discussion even spurred Elizabeth Rosenberg, co-president of the Interfaith Dialogue Project, to address the same topic with her group members next week.

Comissiong said he hoped the discussion was a start to spreading awareness so others can continue to address the issue on the campus.

"We want people to leave with a heightened consciousness," said Comissiong. "We want them to have a feeling of empowerment."

Oh, no worries, Comissiong. They feel plenty empowered.

Why did he bother to marry these girls? In accord with Islamic imperatives derived from Muhammad's marriage to Aisha.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

"Philly man admits going to Egypt to impregnate young girls," by Michael Hinkelman for the Philadelphia Daily News, September 16 (thanks to Axel):

A Philadelphia man admitted in federal district court yesterday that he had sex with three underage females in Egypt from January 2004 to May 2007.

Authorities said Omar Rashaad Bey, 33, of South Philadelphia, impregnated two of the victims when they were 15 and both bore Bey's sons at the same age. The births occurred in Egypt in February 2006 and March 2007.

Federal law makes it a crime for a U.S. citizen to travel abroad to engage in illicit sex with persons under the age of 18.

Bey allegedly entered into "purported Islamic marriages" with the two women he impregnated, according to prosecutors.

Bey, a U.S. citizen, wore a white skullcap, white robe and sandals to the plea hearing. He told U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois he was not currently married, had fathered 12 children, ages 6 months to 15 years old, and was employed as a regional manager for a maintenance company....

Yet a prosecutor says that "the jail offers Muslims meals without pork and allows them to pray together and perform ritual cleansing." So possibly this is an attempt to gain special status and special privileges for Muslim inmates in this jail.

"Muslim inmates suing Pierce County Jail," from AP, September 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

TACOMA, Wash. -- Two Muslim inmates from the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma are suing, claiming they are banned from practicing their religion.

The lawsuit was filed this week with the help of the ACLU and Public Interest Law Group in federal court in Tacoma.

The News Tribune reports that inmates Raymond Wesley Garland and Larry Edward Tarrer say the jail prohibits Muslims from group prayer, bans certain religious clothing and refuses to accommodate their diet.

You're in jail. When in jail, you should not expect special accommodation of your demands.

A deputy prosecutor who represents the jail, Craig Adams, disputes the claims. He says the jail offers Muslims meals without pork and allows them to pray together and perform ritual cleansing.

Not "What we want is, firstly, is to inflict so much damage on al-Qaeda that they will never take French hostages again."

"France asks al-Qaeda for demands over Niger hostages," from the BBC, September 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

France wants to contact an al-Qaeda group which seized five of its citizens and two others at a uranium mine in Niger last week, a minister has said.

"What we want is, firstly, for al-Qaeda at some point to at least put some demands on the table," Defence Minister Herve Morin told French radio.

A French military team is in Niger to help find the hostages who include a Togolese and a Malagasy national.

The militants killed a French hostage after a failed rescue bid in July....

A new statement attributed to the group appeared on Islamist forums on Thursday, warning France against trying to rescue its citizens....

Is burning a book illegal in Britain? Would someone who burned a Bible be arrested? I think probably not, because British authorities know that no Christians would go ape and start killing innocent people if someone burned a Bible. That means that most likely these men were arrested because Muslims are likely to commit acts of irrational violence in response to their action. But that, in fact, is solely the responsibility of the Muslims in question, not of the Qur'an-burners. It is breathtaking how easily the West has assumed responsibility for the insanely violent reactions of Muslims to provocations that, if they had been directed toward Christians or Jews, would have been greeted with indifference.

"Britons arrested for Qur'an burning," from the QMI Agency, September 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

Six men in England have been arrested after two Qur'ans were burned and video of the Sept. 11 act was posted online.

Four men were arrested Wednesday and two men had been arrested Sept. 15 on "suspicion of stirring racial hatred," a Northumbria police press release said....

What race is Islam again?

Police and Gateshead council issued a joint statement about the burning, saying it is not how most people in the town feel or act.

"The kind of behaviour displayed in this video is not at all representative of our community as a whole. Our community is one of mutual respect and we continue to work together with community leaders, residents and people of all faiths and beliefs to maintain good community relations," the statement said.

Great. When will see that "mutual respect" reciprocated?

"Plenty of stones were pelted continuously on the procession, acid bulb and burning objects were also thrown." Islamic Tolerance Alert from India: "Ganesh procession attacked for one hour in Borsad, 7 murthy broken, 30 injured," from DeshGujarat.com, September 23 (thanks to G.S.):

More than fifty persons were injured in central Gujarat town Borsad after Ganesh immersion procession was attacked in Muslim dominated Nagina Mosque area on Wednesday. Local police fired 13 rounds in air and lobbed more than 20 tear gas shells to control the attack on Ganesh procession.

According to police sources, a procession consisting 23 Ganesh murti departed from Gandhi Ganj area at 10.30 in the morning. When the procession reached Nagina mosque, the local police inspector, DySP and some Muslim leaders welcomed it. However when about 11 murtis passed from this place, tha [sic] attack on the procession started. Plenty of stones were pelted continuously on the procession, acid bulb and burning objects were also thrown.

About seven Ganesha Murti were broken, and 30 Hindus were injured. The Hindus started protecting themselves using steel and aluminum utensils, but the stone pelting was so heavy that even metal utensils were broken. Police fired rounds in the air and also lobbed the tear gas shells, but the attack discontinued only when all Hindus left the place to rescue self from an attack. The whole event of attack continued for an hour.

The Policemen were shocked due to sudden attack, because Muslim leaders had initially supported the cops and welcomed the Ganesha idols....

Serious provocations to "sectarian violence" -- i.e., jihad. "Egyptian Coptic Church Accused of Stockpiling Weapons," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, September 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(AINA) -- A new wave of defamation by Islamists against Coptic Pope Shenouda III and the Coptic Church is seen by many observers as a serious provocation to sectarian violence against the Copts, and the possibility of Egypt being dragged into civil war.

On September 15, Qatar-owned Al-Jezirah TV broadcast a program called Without Limits, presented by moderator Ahmad Mansour, who hosted the Islamist Dr. Selim el-Awah, former Secretary-General of the World Council of Muslim Scholars, which has stunned and enraged Copts inside and outside of Egypt. "El-Awah is simply threatening Copts that the forthcoming chaos after Mubarak dies will see mass violence against the Copts," says Magdy Khalil, Coptic activist and head of Middle East Freedom Forum.

The program alleged the Church has its own militia and hides weapons and ammunition in monasteries and churches, preparing for a war "against the Muslims." el-Awah said that "Israel is in the heart of the Coptic Cause," and the Church gets weapons from Israel. He cited as evidence an incident in mid-August, in which the son of a priest in Port Said, Mr. Joseph El-Gabalawy, was falsely accused of importing weapons from Israel. Although he was cleared of charges and released, as the imported goods were children's fireworks from China and did not belong to him, he is still detained by State Security.

The television program also charged the Church of concealing Muslim converts to Christianity, besides abducting and torturing Christian converts to Islam. Out of the thousands of Christian woman who converted to Islam, willingly or unwillingly, el-Awah mentioned only two wives of priests whom he claimed converted to Islam and consequently were imprisoned in monasteries, Wafa Constantine and Mary Abdallah. Speaking on the latest crisis over Camelia Shehata, about whom Muslims fabricated rumors of her conversion to Islam, he said that she never converted to Islam and was handed over by State Security to her two married sisters (AINA 11-1-2015).

The nearly two-hour program went on to accuse the Coptic Church of being a "State within the Egyptian State," allegedly taking advantage of the weakness of the present regime, behaving as if it is above the law. The Church was also accused of making an "inheritance" deal with the regime to support President Mubarak's son in succeeding his father as president in exchange for benefits.

Selim el-Awah said that ever since Pope Shenouda came out of detention, having been banished to a desert monastery by the late President Sadat in 1981 and released by President Mubarak in 1982, there has been "scientific preparation" to demand the division of Egypt into a Muslim State and a Coptic secular State"

He warned that if the status of the Church remains as such, the "country will burn" and called on Muslims to go out in demonstrations as the "only answer left to counteract the strength of the Church." He said "If they go out to the streets, who can control them?"

"For the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel," says Magdy Khalil, "someone has accused the Coptic Church of stockpiling weapons from Israel as a prelude to waging war on Muslims, claiming that Israel is at the heart of the Coptic issue." [...]

A Muslim demonstration is called for Friday September 24, in Alexandria demanding the disposal of Pope Shenouda III.

Khalil recollects similar circumstances taking place at the end of the seventies when rumors circulated about a plan by Pope Shenouda to establish a Coptic state in the Upper Egyptian Province of Assiut, and about the storage of weapons in monasteries, "those rumors were justifications for a series of attacks against the Copts over decades," he said.

He believes that this dangerous talk by Dr. el-Awah is an introduction to the destruction of the Copts in the event of a the outbreak of chaos in Egypt after Mubarak's death. "It will not be like what happened in the seventies, but it could evolve to become like the Armenian genocide that occurred in Turkey in 1915," said Khalil.

How odd, that the one thing that we know has nothing ever to do with any terror plotting anywhere by anyone -- Islam -- seems to figure into so many terror plots. "Terror accused tried to 'convert prison inmates to Islam,'" by Emma O'Sullivan for Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC News, September 23:

The Victorian Supreme Court has heard one of five men accused of a terrorist plot wanted to convert prisoners to Islam while he was in jail for an unrelated matter.

An undercover police officer is continuing to give evidence against five men accused of planning to attack the Holsworthy Army base in New South Wales.

The policeman's job was to make friends with accused man Wissan Fattal....

Fattal told the officer he did not want to apply for bail because he was busy converting young prisoners to Islam....

The Victorian undercover senior constable known in court as Hamza met Fattal at a Melbourne mosque in 2008.

He said he was instructed to find out if Fattal was likely to commit any acts in Australia in the cause of Islam.

The officer said he told Fattal he was a convert to Islam and sought advice from Fattal on religious matters....

In "Australian Muslim Cleric Calls for Beheading -- Who Cares?," September 23, Larry Elder (thanks to Kristian) points out the glaring double standard:

What happens when an Australian Muslim cleric calls for the beheading of a Dutch politician?

Not much.

What happens when an American pastor no one ever heard of threatens to burn a Koran?

It ignites an international outcry.

Terry Jones, pastor of a 50-member church in Gainsville, Fla., threatened to burn the Koran as a protest against the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. Democrats and Republicans denounced Jones. Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that Jones' action would put American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at risk, and he personally telephoned the pastor to dissuade him.

Those who would desecrate the Koran or who would draw a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad or who would otherwise "disrespect" Islam run the risk of being murdered. This is quite a response from followers of what President George W. Bush called a "religion of peace," the "hijacking" of which motivated the 9/11 hijackers. Bush repeatedly distinguished between a war against Islamofascism and a war on Islam. But the distinction apparently collapses if one pastor doesn't get the memo.

How dare this pastor of some church-nobody-heard-of show insufficient respect for Islam, many of whose followers support a global jihad that demands replacement of all non-Islamic governments, as well as the conversion of all to Islam, by force if necessary?

Where is the international outcry from this recent story from Reuters?

"A well-known Australian Muslim cleric has called for the beheading of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders. ...

"The Sydney-born (Feiz) Muhammad has gained notoriety for, among other things, calling on young children to be radicalized and blaming rape victims for their own attacks.

"(De Telegraaf, the Netherlands' largest newspaper) posted an English-language audio clip in which he refers to Wilders as 'this Satan, this devil, this politician in Holland' and explains that anyone who talks about Islam like Wilders does should be executed by beheading. ...

"Wilders is currently on trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

"The Freedom Party leader made a film in 2008 which accused the Koran of inciting violence and mixed images of terrorist attacks with quotations from the Islamic holy book.

"Wilders was also charged because of outspoken remarks in the media, such as an opinion piece in a Dutch daily in which he compared Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf.'"

Civil libertarian groups vigorously defend vile but protected speech. Where are the free-speech groups denouncing Wilders' prosecution for making abrasive comments? Or does the right to free speech only apply to the nasty comments routinely made on cable shows by Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck/tea party-hating lefties?

If a proposed Koran burning generates international news and condemnation, isn't the call by an Australian Muslim cleric for the beheading of a democratically elected European politician worthy of a few moments on the network nightly news?...

Read it all.

In Front Page this morning I discuss the sad case of Molly Norris, the "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" cartoonist, who has gone into hiding:

[...] This is the sort of case that the President of the United States should be talking about. As he wrung his hands about the prospect of Muslim rioting over Qur'an-burning, and told the prospective Qur'an-burner to stand down rather than admonishing Muslims not to react with violent rage to something that did not harm them, the Molly Norris case gave Barack Obama an opportunity. He should have gone on television and given a brief lesson about how freedom of speech is a foremost bulwark against tyranny and a cornerstone of any society that respects the dignity of the human being.

Obama could have said that the idea that Molly Norris would have to give up her career and the name she had established as a cartoonist, and live in hiding because of a cartoon, or series of cartoons, is unconscionable. He could have told the Islamic world that neither Muslims nor their prophet were harmed by cartoons depicting Muhammad, and that the willingness of some Muslims to commit murder over such depictions was the only thing that makes people care to draw Muhammad in the first place.

Obama could also have said that to threaten people with death and to kill people who had nothing to do with any cartoons of Muhammad because of those cartoons was sheer madness, and was a form of violent irrationality that was destructive to free societies -- and as such, it was something that the U.S. would do everything it could to resist. He could have announced that Molly Norris and others who were threatened by Islamic supremacists for exercising their freedom of speech or freedom of expression would be given full round-the-clock protection -- and that if violent protests and riots over cartoons or Qur'an-burning broke out in areas where American troops are deployed, those troops would put down those riots and protect the innocent to the fullest possible extent.

Meanwhile, there is no indication (officially, anyway) that Molly Norris is receiving any aid from law enforcement authorities as she disappears and reconstructs her identity - in sharp contrast to the Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is receiving protection from the New York City Police Department because of threats he has allegedly received. In even sharper contrast, Gainsville, Florida authorities have announced that they plan to bill the abortive Qur'an-burner Terry Jones $180,000 for security costs for the Qur'an-burning event that he ultimately called off - despite the fact that they never bothered to warn Jones beforehand that he would be footing the bill.

Apparently when Muslims behave with violent irrationality, it is entirely the responsibility of non-Muslims who supposedly "provoke" them to clean up the mess they make. It is unfortunate that in these dark days we don't seem to have any leaders who will stand up for the principles of freedom of expression, explaining their importance and defending their necessity. Molly Norris, and every free citizen, deserves nothing less.

Islamic leaders told police that the explosion was just a 13-year-old "experimenting." What was the kid trying to do? "Teenager responsible for chemical bomb near Islamic Society of Portland," by Helen Dailey for WCSH6.com, September 22 (thanks to Joe):

PORTLAND, ME (NEWS CENTER) -- Police say there were no injuries or damage caused by a chemical bomb that went off in a parking lot near the Islamic Society of Portland.

The bomb went off in the lot between the Islamic Society and Back Bay Grill around 8:00 PM Tuesday night. Portland Police say Islamic elders came forward to tell them that a 13 year old from the Society was experimenting and was responsible for the bomb. Another bomb was also found undetinated [sic]....

Just a young Muslim at a mosque experimenting with a bomb. In Maine. What's to be concerned about? It isn't as if mosques have ever been centers of violence elsewhere, right?

"Western Education Is Sin" practices its peculiar form of piety. "Muslim motorcycle sect kills two more," from AP, September 22:

A POLICE commissioner says members of a radical Muslim sect killed two people in northern Nigeria, the latest motorcycle slayings by the group.

Borno state police commissioner Ibrahim Abdu told The Associated Press yesterday that the two were killed by Kalashnikov-carrying men riding a motorcycle taxi...

Boko Haram - which means "Western education is sacrilege" in Hausa - has campaigned for the implementation of strict Shariah law in Nigeria, home to both Christians and Muslims.

No kidding, really? "A Claim of Pro-Islam Bias in Textbooks," by James C. McKinley, Jr., in the New York Times, September 22:

HOUSTON -- Some conservative members of the Texas Board of Education assert that the history books used in this state have a pro-Islamic bias, and they are upset about it.

Never shy about wading into the culture wars, they are planning to vote Friday for a resolution that would send a blunt message to textbook publishers: Do not present a pro-Islamic, anti-Christian version of history if you want to sell books in one of the nation's largest markets.

"The purpose of this resolution is to ensure there is balanced treatment of divergent groups," Gail Lowe, the chairwoman of the board, said. "In the past, the textbooks have had some bias against Christianity."

The resolution was written and submitted to the board this summer by, Randy Rives, who as a member of the school board in Odessa, Tex., pushed through a Bible study curriculum.

Last spring, Mr. Rives ran for the state board but failed to defeat the incumbent, Bob Craig, a moderate Republican.

Defeat at the polls did not dampen Mr. Rives's enthusiasm for protecting Texas students from what he sees as a conspiracy to sugarcoat the history of Islam in textbooks. In interviews, Mr. Rives has likened his concerns about Islam to those he and other Americans once had about communists infiltrating American society.

Speaking to the state board last summer, he said that Middle Eastern companies were investing in American publishing houses, or the "textbook oligopoly," as he called it.

"If you can control or influence our education system, you can start taking over the minds of the young people," Mr. Rives said. "And so I think we are real passionate that you need to make a bold statement to the publishers that pushing this agenda will not be tolerated in Texas."

As evidence of Islamic influence in textbook publishing, Mr. Rives cited a 2008 decision by the Dubai royal family to invest heavily in a company that owns the publishing house Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Boston....

What for? "Govt projects Rs 110bn increase in defence budget," by Sajid Chaudhry for the Daily Times, September 23 (thanks to G.S.):

ISLAMABAD: The government has projected an increase of Rs 110 billion in the defence budget and informed the International Monetary Fund that according to the post-flood situation, the defence budget will be Rs 552 billion against the budgetary allocation of Rs 442 billion for the ongoing fiscal year 2010-11.

This increase in the defence budget has been projected by the government at a time when development and non-development budgets of the civil government are being slashed by 50 percent and 20 percent respectively to create fiscal space for the rehabilitation of the flood-affected population....

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the UN Human Rights Council had a "biased, politicized and extremist approach." That's an understatement. The UN has thoroughly discredited itself as any kind of moral authority. "UN experts: Israel flotilla raid broke int'l law," by Frank Jordans for Associated Press, September 22 (thanks to Choi):

GENEVA - A report by three U.N.-appointed human rights experts Wednesday said that Israeli forces violated international law when they raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla killing nine activists earlier this year.

The U.N. Human Rights Council's fact-finding mission concluded that Israel's naval blockade of the Palestinian territory was unlawful because of the humanitarian crisis there, and described the military raid on the flotilla as brutal and disproportionate.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded late Wednesday by saying the Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, had a "biased, politicized and extremist approach."

The Islamic militant group Hamas that controls Gaza, meanwhile, praised the report and called for those involved in the raid to be punished.

The 56-page document lists a series of alleged crimes committed by Israeli forces during and after the raid, including willful killing and torture, and claims there is "clear evidence to support prosecutions."

"A series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in Israel prior to deportation," the experts found....

No mention, I'm sure, of how the flotilla "peace activists" were chanting "Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahoud, jaish Muhammad sa yaoud" -- Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return -- a genocidal chant referring to Muhammad's massacre of the Jews at the Khaybar oasis in Arabia.

Now is the time for all the great Western moderates to step up to the plate and explain how Iran's Supreme Leader is Misunderstanding Islam, and how the Islamic Republic of Iran is not truly Islamic at all. Imam Feisal? Honest Ibe? Anyone? Anyone?

"'Enemies of Iran will have the same fate as Saddam,'" from the Tehran Times, September 23:

TEHRAN - Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has stated that the assertion that the Islamic Revolution is over is only a delusion.

The enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran will have the same fate as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Leader said at a meeting with members of the Basij volunteer forces held in Tehran on Wednesday to mark the beginning of Sacred Defense Week.

Saddam, who had the financial, political, and military assistance of the global aggressors to confront the late Imam Khomeini, the Islamic Revolution, and the Iranian nation, died such a humiliating death, and history can repeat itself, Ayatollah Khamenei observed.

"The enemies pretend that they have targeted Iran, but in reality they have targeted Islam and the Quran, since they have realized that spirituality and the Quran are the engines of progress... of Iran," he stated....

This is part of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's ongoing campaign to pressure Western states to criminalize criticism of Islam as "hate speech," thus rendering them mute and defenseless in the face of the advancing jihad. "Islamic states push UN to condemn Koran burning," by Robert Evans for Reuters, September 22:

GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Islamic states sought on Wednesday to have the United Nations human rights council condemn a U.S. pastor's suspended plan to burn Korans, saying it was part of a pattern of global anti-Muslim violence.

A resolution submitted by Pakistan for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) asks the council to speak out against what it dubbed "the recent call by an extremist group to organise a 'Burn a Koran Day'."

The resolution, which diplomats said was likely to be passed as the OIC and its allies have a majority on the 47-nation body, made no reference to condemnation of the plan by President Barack Obama and other U.S. and foreign leaders.

But it said the project, championed by little-known Florida preacher Terry Jones, was among "instances of intolerance, discrimination, profiling and acts of violence against Muslims occurring in many parts of the world."

The move came amid increasing efforts by the OIC -- which has Russia, China and Asian and African states as allies in the council -- to have the U.N. recognise "Islamophobia" as racism and open to challenge under international law....

In speeches in Geneva over the past few days, OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey has also argued that Jones' plan underscored his grouping's long-standing demands for a U.N.- backed ban on "defamation of religion"....

European diplomats said they were unlikely to vote against the OIC resolution, as their governments had already condemned the Koran burning idea, but feared it would be used to increase pressure for actions on defamation and "Islamophobia."...

No kidding, really?

Yemen has a chess team?

Islamic antisemitism update: "Yemeni Chess Team Fired For Playing Israel," from MEMRI, September 22 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Yemeni Sports Minister Hamoud 'Abad has fired members of Yemen's Chess Association and chess team.

The players were fied after they played Israel, in the Chess Olympiad currently underway in Russia.

Source: Marebpress.net, September 22, 2010

This is from a few months ago, but is worth recalling in light of recent events regarding Qur'an-burning. Shouldn't Barack Obama and David Petraeus lecture the Iranian government about incitement to violence? What's that? They shouldn't, because Christians aren't going to go ape over this and start killing innocent people? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe? "Hundreds of Bibles Have Been Burned By The Iranian Government Security Forces," by Dan Wooding for Assist News Service, June 7 (thanks to Mackie):

IRAN (ANS) -- The Farsi Christian News Network (www.fcnn.com) is reporting that Iranian Government Security Forces have burned hundreds of Bibles.

A spokesperson for FCNN told the ASSIST News Service (ANS), "This action [of burning the Bibles], which has been confirmed by informed sources, was aired on a site belonging to the Pasdaran paramilitary organization, is nothing less than shameful and the persons responsible must be identified and exposed to the whole world."

The report said that on Saturday, May 29, 2010, Ati News, a site belonging to Morteza Talaee, the previous head of the security forces and the current member of the Tehran's city council, "in its usual anti-Christian propaganda" reported that their social-life reporter had disclosed that shipments of so called, "Perverted Torah and Gospels" had entered Iran through its Western borders.

Two days later, on Monday, May 31, 2010, the same report was reiterated by the official anti-crime website of the Pasdaran Army called "Gerdaub" which said that a large shipment of Jewish and Christian Scriptures had entered Iran through the Western Azerbaijan province and, according to security officials of that province, the "occupier forces" that operate in the Western regions of Iraq were responsible for such activities.

FCCN stated that Gerdaub, the official website of the Pasdaran Army [also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG] continued its report by quoting the security official who had stated: "Some of these books are distributed locally, but most of the books are smuggled and distributed all over the country. In just the last few months, hundreds of such 'perverted Bibles' have been seized and burned in the border town of Sardasht."...

At least in the view of a dhimmi "University Academic Professional" at the University of Illinois. "Block-I chant portrays 'neither patriotism nor remembrance,'" by David Green, "University Academic Professional," in the Daily Illini, September 15 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

The vast majority of 9/11 observances in this country cannot be seen as politically neutral events. Implicit in their nature are the notions that lives lost at the World Trade Center are more valuable than lives lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere; that the motives of the 9/11 attackers had nothing to do with genuine grievances in the Islamic world regarding American imperialism; and that the U.S. has been justified in the subsequent killing of hundreds of thousands in so-called retaliation.

The observance at Saturday's football game was no different. A moment of silence was followed by a military airplane flyover; in between, Block-I students chanted "USA, USA." This was neither patriotism nor remembrance in any justifiable sense, but politicization, militarism, propaganda and bellicosity. The University is a public institution that encompasses the political views of all, not just the most (falsely) "patriotic." Athletic planners should cease such exploitation for political purposes. They might at least consider how most Muslim students, American or otherwise, would respond to this nativist display; or better, Muslims and others that live their lives under the threat of our planes, drones and soldiers....

Never mind the non-Muslims in Muslim countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt who are threatened and terrorized by Muslims. That wouldn't fit this "University Academic Professional"'s paradigm.

He said it. He must be some kind of Islamophobe. "Egyptian Cleric Salem Abu Al-Futuh: We Will Conquer Italy and the Rest of Europe, as Well as North and South America; The West Will Convert to Islam," from MEMRI, August 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Salem Abu Al-Futuh, which aired on Al-Nas TV on August 18, 2010:

Salem Abu Al-Futuh: The nation of Islam will return - despite our current crisis and despite the arrogance of the West. The West is bound to be destroyed. Just like Allah destroyed the Byzantine and Persian empires, He will destroy the West at the hands of the Muslims. This is an unequivocal promise. These countries will convert to Islam. Islam will reach these countries.

[...]

Let us examine the divine sequence: First, the Caliphate will return. Then, the Muslims will live in tremendous prosperity. The economy of the Muslims will be the strongest of all. You are probably thinking that I'm not well today if I say such things. By God, there's nothing wrong with me. I am speaking words of truth.

[...]

By Allah, we will conquer Italy. By Allah, we will conquer Italy and move into [the rest] of Europe. Islam will enter that entire region. Even America, you ask? Yes, even America. North or south America? Both North and South America. We will enter all these countries, and people there will be joining Islam in droves.

When a Congressional candidate in North Carolina seizes on opposition to the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero as a winning issue, you know that Feisal Abdul Rauf's soothing deception campaign isn't registering in the heartland.

Background: "GOP House candidate invokes idea of 'victory mosque' in campaign ad," by Shane D'Aprile at The Hill, September 21 (thanks to Weasel Zippers).

In the West, we're told that only greasy Islamophobes believe that Islamic law forbids music. These guys didn't get the memo. Note that HornAfrik was one of the radio stations that defied al-Shabaab's earlier demand that all stations stop playing music. "Islamist militants raid 2 independent radio stations in Mogadishu," from CNN, September 19:

(CNN) -- Armed Islamist militants raided and looted two radio stations in Somalia's beleaguered capital this weekend, according to statements issued Sunday by the government's Ministry of Information and a Somali journalists' group.

HornAfrik and Global Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) were raided by al-Shabaab and Hibzul al-Islam, respectively.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) said in a statement that al-Shabaab militants entered the HornAfrik station late Saturday, chasing away journalists and destroying cassettes and CDs, both in HornAfrik and in its sister broadcasting house, Capital Voice.

Witnesses said transmitters and computers were removed, along with the rest of the station's equipment.

HornAfrik was launched in the late 1990s and was the first independent broadcaster in Mogadishu. Both a radio and television station, HornAfrik is located near Mogadishu's Bakara market. The area is controlled by al-Shabaab and has been the site of much fighting between Islamists and Somali government forces.

Al-Shabaab, which has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, controls much of southern Somalia and portions of Mogadishu. It follows the strict Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahabi interpretation of Islam, rather than the Sufi Islam of many Somalis.

GBC was raided by militant group Hizbul al-Islam. The station is located in the Heliwa district of northeast Mogadishu. A journalist at the station said the raid was preceded by a letter of notification demanding that the station be handed over to the group. [...]

The weekend's raids bring the number of radio stations seized by militants in Mogadishu this year to five. Less than a month ago, al-Shabaab militants seized another privately-owned Mogadishu station, Radio Holy Quran (IQK), according to NUSOJ. The group said IQK also received a letter from the militants before the raid.

Earlier this year, al-Shabaab and Hizbul al-Islam ordered radio stations in the Somali capital to stop playing music. HornAfrik was one of three stations that defied that ban....

Not that this has anything to do with Islam. "Al Qaeda says it abducted employees of French firm in Niger," from CNN, September 22:

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda's North African wing, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, said it is responsible for last week's kidnapping of five French nationals in Niger, the Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera reported Tuesday.

The news agency broadcast an audio recording of a voice it identified as that of Salah Abou Mohammed, a spokesman for AQIM. CNN was not immediately able to independently confirm the report.

"Even though security was tight in the location and the security guards were many, the soldiers of Islam took control of all security and kidnapped five French nuclear experts that work at the company Areva. And we claim responsibility for this blessed operation," he said, as reported by al-Jazeera.

"And we would like to tell the French government that the mujahedeen will make their demands soon. We warn you against taking any unwise actions."...

And why is he unrepentant? Because as far as he is concerned, the evil she has done has brought shame to the family, and he has cleansed the family of that shame by killing her. This barbaric practice finds sanction in Islamic law's provision that if a parent kills his child, he is not subject to retribution -- hence the relaxed penalties for honor killings in some Islamic countries. "I'd do it again, says honour killer," by Anne Barker for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

There is a growing push in the Arab world to have men responsible for so-called honour killings treated as murderers by the courts.

Every year hundreds of women are killed by their husbands or brothers or another male family member for supposedly bringing shame on their families.

In many countries the honour killers are given leniency. Many men are not charged, or they spend only a few days or weeks in custody.

But Palestinian human rights groups have recently drafted their own amendments to have them treated as murderers.

Khaled Mahmoud, 21, admits beating his sister to death last year in the West Bank.

"She has made very wrong decisions," he said.

"I started drinking then I got crazy. When I saw her I beat her. I smashed her head to the wall."

His sister Asmaa - not her real name - was 23, a university student, and engaged to be married to another Muslim.

As brother and sister they were close, yet Mahmoud says she made the unforgivable mistake of sleeping with another man, a Christian, and brought enormous shame on the family.

"I was telling her that she should stay away from him and she shouldn't talk to him because he was playing," Mahmoud said.

"He wasn't serious with her and he is bragging about what he was doing. I was so ashamed with my sister."

Mahmoud says it is hard to describe how he felt after killing his sister.

"I don't say that I wish I hadn't killed her, but I say I wish she hadn't done that," he said.

"I am really sorry for what happened, but I think even if I'm in the same situation now after this experience and she does the same thing, I would kill her again."

Mahmoud says he found a note belonging to his sister with several phone numbers and rang one to find it was a clinic that restores a woman's virginity through surgery.

He says that was the final straw.

"She was violating rules of the society. Why has she done that?

"She didn't have the right to do that. She shamed our family."...

Whether or not he has really repented of his aspirations to mass murder, he needs to repent of his chutzpah. "Toronto 18 mastermind wants shorter sentence," by Kevin Connor for QMI Agency, September 21 (thanks to Jo):

TORONTO - The mastermind of the so-called Toronto 18 no longer believes in extremist Islamic ideology so his life sentence should be reduced, an appeals court has heard.

Zakaria Amara, 24, was the ringleader of a terrorist group with plans to set off bombs in downtown Toronto, police stations, military bases and at Parliament Hill.

But at least one of the three justices hearing the appeal appeared to take issue with arguments put forward Tuesday in a Toronto courtroom.

"Why should we send a message to society that if you have remorse we will forgive you? I'm hearing poor Mr. Amara but I'm thinking poor to the thousands of Canadians if his plot had worked," said Justice Michael Moldaver.

Amara's lawyer, James Lockyer, is trying to have his client's sentence reduced from life to a range of 18 years to 20 years....

During his trial, Amara said he has "gone from a man of destruction to one of construction."...

Was anyone stabbed at the SIOA rally? Anyone hit on the head with a plank? Anyone threatened and now in hiding? Did any of the speakers call for "war"?

This kind of moral equivalence is ridiculous, but the New York Times is not just some raving and discredited Leftist dupe like Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. The New York Times in making this equation is trying to lend its still-considerable moral influence to the idea that we represent the American non-Muslim equivalent of this violent Islamic supremacist activity. It would thus be so much easier to dismiss us, and to focus law enforcement attention upon us, rather than to deal honestly with the problems we are pointing out, and to focus law enforcement attention upon jihadist activity.

"Indonesian Islamists Fear 'Christianization,'" by Robert Mackey in the New York Times, September 20 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population, is engaged in a debate about religious tolerance that might seem familiar to Americans.

Last week, one day after Americans opposed to the construction of an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan pledged to "Stop the Islamization of America," a group of Islamists rallied in Bekasi, outside the Indonesian capital, to fight the "Christianization" of Indonesia, by blocking the planned construction of a church.

Two leaders of the small congregation of Indonesia Christians in Bekasi were seriously wounded when the rally against their planned church by vigilantes from the Islamic Defenders' Front, or F.P.I., turned violent. Murhali Barda, who leads Bekasi's chapter of the Islamist vigilante group, was arrested on suspicion of leading the attacks on a church elder, who was stabbed in the stomach, and a female priest, who was hit in the head with a plank.

In June, the Bekasi F.P.I. leader told The Jakarta Globe, "All Muslims should unite and be on guard because ... the Christians are up to something." He also suggested that it might be necessary for mosques to establish militias and be prepared to fight a "war" to prevent "Christianization."

As Al Jazeera explained in a video report last week, the small Christian group said that it had obtained all the necessary signatures from local residents who agreed to allow them to build their church, but then the Islamist vigilantes pressed people to withdraw their approval.

F.P.I. vigilantes have attacked a wide range of targets in the past, throwing rocks at members of minority Muslim sects, beating gay people, destroying bars and vowing to track down the editor of Indonesia's short-lived version of Playboy magazine, Erwin Arnada, who is now in hiding....

Here is yet another example of how non-Muslims are compelled to observe Islamic rules and mores when in Muslim countries. And of course we see increasingly that when in non-Muslim countries, Muslims demand special privileges and accommodation for their practices. At no point is there ever any concession or gesture of good will from the Muslim side. Yet this unilateral intransigence is persistently ignored, downplayed or mischaracterized by Western observers. "Algerian Christians under trial for breaking Ramzan fast," from AFP, September 21 (thanks to Mukund):

AIN EL HAMMAM: Two Algerian Christians were tried on Tuesday for breaking Ramadan fasting rules, with hundreds of people protesting outside the courtroom against judicial authorities.

Hocine Hocini and Salem Fellak were arrested on August 13 on the building site where they worked in the northern region of Kabylie after they were spotted eating lunch, which they admit to doing but insist happened in a discreet place.

Muslims are not allowed to eat during daylight hours during the Ramadan holy month, and in Algeria breaking the fast can be punished with three months in jail.

"I am optimistic," Hocini, who is a Protestant, said as he left the courtroom in Ain el Hammam after the hearing.

The verdict is due on October 5.

"We are innocent, and we haven't done any harm to anyone," he said. "We are Christians and we have not eaten in a public place," he said.

Hundreds of people supporting the two accused gathered outside the court and shouted slogans against the judiciary....

He says the video above was...wait for it..."taken out of context." There is no context in which I would express enthusiastic support for Hamas and Hizballah, but Mahdi Bray is no doubt much more versed than I am in matters of "context," since Muslim spokesmen are forever claiming that non-Muslims are quoting them, or the Qur'an, without due regard for it. So judge for yourself. Is Mahdi Bray's support for Hamas and Hizballah in the video above benign in context?

Bray is also, don't forget, a thrice-convicted felon.

"Mosque ally's vid shows 'Hez' true colors," by Tom Topousis in the New York Post, September 21:

Among the Islamic clerics defending plans for a mosque near Ground Zero yesterday was an outspoken critic of Israel who enthusiastically signaled his support for terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah during a rally a decade ago.

At a news conference outside the site of the proposed mosque, Imam Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Washington-based Muslim American Society, was adamant about Muslims' right to build a mosque where they choose.

But he refused to discuss a video, from a rally in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, that shows him onstage repeatedly raising his arms when an unidentified speaker asked how many in the crowd supported Hamas and Hezbollah.

Bray claimed the clip was taken out of context. A spokesman for Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the prime mover of the Ground Zero mosque, declined comment....

Of course. What could he say? Anything he said would only bring more attention to this, and with Rauf the darling of the government and media, he would prefer it ignored.

In Human Events this morning I discuss how Congressman Ellison has just defamed the huge majority of Americans who oppose the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero:

Rep. Keith Ellison (D.-Minn.), the first Muslim in the House of Representatives, has weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque controversy, and in the process defamed the 70% of Americans who oppose the mosque.

After the November elections, Ellison predicted, the controversy will "die down" but not "go away," because "the people who are struck by fear and who are creating a climate of fear with the thought of this Islamic center are not going away."

He compared this "climate of fear" to "people scapegoating Catholics" in the early 1960s, and added: "We have a long history of racial discrimination and scapegoating," naming Jews, welfare queens, black men and Latinos as victims of this scapegoating.

This is the same dishonest narrative we have seen recently from Nicholas Kristof and many others: that Muslims in America today are facing a resurgence of the nativism that earlier targeted Catholics and others.

In the first place, there is no such scapegoating: Hate crimes against Muslims are actually quite rare. But also, the comparison is entirely fallacious because none of the groups Ellison names as previous "scapegoats" were carrying out terror attacks against Americans and others worldwide.

They weren't justifying violence and hatred by reference to Catholic or Jewish teaching. The people who were worried about the pope running the country could point to no action by the pope to try to achieve such power. The Muslim Brotherhood, in contrast, is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within" so that Islam "is victorious over other religions."

The idea that non-Muslims are suspicious of Muslims out of bigotry, rather than out of a legitimate concern for both jihad terror and the utterly supine and often disingenuous response to it from peaceful and ostensibly moderate Muslims is nonsense of such an outstanding character that I wonder if Ellison himself even believes it, rather than simply seeing it as a useful line he can use to bamboozle the besotted leftists who elected him to Congress.

It is rich for Ellison to complain about scapegoating when so many mass murderers and would-be mass murderers point to Islamic teaching as the motivation and justification for their actions.

Think of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas underwear jihadist; Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square jihadist; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden on 9/11; the London jihad bombers of July 7, 2005; and so many, many others. How long will non-Muslims continue to swallow the increasingly less convincing line that none of this violence has anything to do with Islam?...

There is more.

You remember when Rosa Parks took down the Twin Towers? Remember when she murdered 13 Americans at Fort Hood? Remember her Times Square bomb plot? Remember her Christmas underwear plot? Remember when she murdered a soldier at a Little Rock Army recruiting center? Remember her London bombings? Her Madrid bombings? Her Mumbai bombings? Her Beslan massacres? Her Bali bombings?

Ah, there I go again, eh? Painting Muslims with a broad brush. Muslims didn't do any of those things, you see. Even though their perpetrators were all Muslims acting by their own word in the name of Islam, there are other Muslims who condemn them, and so the ones who condemn them cannot be made to share the responsibility for all those crimes and acts of war. Right?

Sure. Except for the fact that the objective of all these acts of violence was to weaken Infidel polities so as to hasten the imposition of Sharia, and Rauf, imam of the Ground Zero mosque, is a proponent of Sharia. And not to mention also that many of these groups are linked to Hamas. So are they really an alternative to the jihadis? Or is their difference with them more about means than about ends?

"Muslim Leaders Stand by Islamic Center Near Ground Zero," by Anne Barnard for the New York Times, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Comparing the planners of the Muslim community center and mosque to be built two blocks from ground zero to Rosa Parks, leaders of numerous American Muslim organizations declared their strong support for the project on Monday, and said it should not move....

"We stand for the constitutional right of Muslims and Americans of all faiths to build houses of worship anywhere in our nation as allowed by local laws and regulations," said the statement read by Al-Amin Latif, president of the Majlis Ash-Shura of New York, also known as the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, which represents 55 mosques and Muslim groups. "Also, we stand against the racism, hatred, religious intolerance and ethnic bigotry directed against Islam and American Muslims."...

"Ground zero is all of ours," said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Ground zero does not belong to a specific group of people or religion. Ground zero belongs to all Americans, and we all share the grief, we all share the healing." He said it was unfair to associate the planned community center or all Muslims with 9/11.

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Washington-based [Muslim Brotherhood front] Muslim American Society Freedom, the civil rights branch of the Muslim American Society, compared those who want the project built elsewhere to those who he said told Rosa Parks: "We want you to move. You offend us being where you are. This is not the right place for you to be."

They should bill the Islamic supremacists who issued the threats. This just reinforces yet again the idea that if I react with irrational violence to something you have done, it is your fault, not mine. That kind of thinking would have gotten John Lennon and Paul McCartney jailed for the Manson Family murders, because of "Helter Skelter."

"City plans to bill pastor for security around planned Quran burning," by John Couwels for CNN, September 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- The city of Gainesville, Florida, plans to send a bill estimated at more than $180,000 to Pastor Terry Jones for security costs surrounding his controversial threat to burn Qurans on the anniversary of the September, 11, 2001, attacks, a police spokeswoman said Friday.

Police agencies spent more than a month working on security plans to ensure the community surrounding Jones' Dove World Outreach Center -- the planned site of the burning -- was safe, according to Gainesville police spokeswoman Cpl. Tscharna Senn.

Jones also told authorities he received numerous death threats because of the planned protest, which he called off amid increasing pressure from world leaders.

The Gainesville Police Department said it spent more than $100,000 while the Alachua County Sheriff's Office spent an estimated $80,000 during the weekend of the planned demonstration.

"We have 286 sworn officers and almost everyone was working either at the Dove Center or at other soft targets," Senn said. "Unless you were sick or injured you were working" the day the burning was to take place.

Officers secured malls in the region, the University of Florida's football stadium and areas around the church in the days leading up to the planned event.

Jones said Friday that the church was "not aware that we would be billed for security."

"If we had known this in advance, then we would have refused to have security," he said....

The crack Sharia Squad of the East Lansing, Michigan Police Department has gotten its man: they've "positively identified" the clown who burned the Qur'an on September 11. Now they just have to figure out what to charge him with, since burning a book is not illegal in the United States. But rest easy, Islamic citizens! Your religious feelings will no longer be hurt by this dastardly individual! And remember -- if you're more concerned about the Lebanese "Chicago man" and his bomb, you're just a racist!

An update on this story. "Police Identify Individual Responsible for Qur'an Desecration," from the City of East Lansing, September 16 (thanks to Comic Relief):

Police have positively identified the individual responsible for the desecration of the Qur'an on Saturday, Sept. 11.

The individual voluntarily surrendered to police officials on Wednesday, Sept. 15 following the establishment of a $10,000 reward fund. None of the reward funds were paid out to obtain the information leading to the individual's identity. The individual continues to cooperate with police and FBI officials. The investigators have determined that this was an isolated incident.

It is expected that the police investigation will be completed early next week. The case will be forwarded to the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office for review. No further information will be released until a decision is made about filing charges.

What charges? Littering?

Got to watch out for those "Chicago men," especially during yet another long summer of frustration at Wrigley, as Sweet Lou Piniella has ridden off into the sunset with no end in sight for the Cub Fan's frustration. It would drive anyone to plant a bomb, now, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it? "Chicago Man Charged by U.S. in Plot to Bomb City's North-Side Neighborhood," by Andrew M. Harris for Bloomberg, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A 22-year-old Chicago man was charged by federal prosecutors with plotting to detonate a bomb near Wrigley Field, home to the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team.

Sami Samir Hassoun, who is identified in a statement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Lebanese-born Chicago resident, was arrested yesterday by members of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Hassoun is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and with trying to destroy real property using an explosive, according to court papers. He is due to make his initial court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Cox in Chicago today, according to Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Hassoun early yesterday morning planted an inert device given to him by an FBI informant, which he was told was a bomb, in a trashcan south of Wrigley Field, according to the government. Prosecutors alleged that he intended to injure people frequenting neighborhood bars and clubs, according to a complaint filed at the federal courthouse....

You know how those "Chicago men" hate bars and clubs.

Bahrain's King has identified Shi'ite clerics, and specifically their preaching in mosques, as a source of political dissent and unrest. Without making any comment at all on the legitimacy or lack thereof of Shi'ite political dissent in Bahrain, it is worth noting that he doesn't hesitate to target mosques and Islamic preaching as a factor in political questions regarding his regime. Yet in the United States, it would be unthinkable to consider mosques as having anything to do with anything political. So the question must be asked: is the political character of Shi'ite mosques in Bahrain incidental to their religious character, or is it a manifestation of an element of both Shi'ite and Sunni Islam that will appear elsewhere in other forms that are still nonetheless political?

"Bahrain revokes citizenship of top Shiite cleric," by Brian Murphy for Associated Press, September 20 (thanks to Block Ness):

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Bahrain's king warned that mosques would be key targets in sweeps against suspected Shiite dissent in his tiny Gulf nation and vital U.S. ally. The first blow was a big one: stripping the citizenship of a powerful Shiite cleric with close ties to Iraq before next month's parliamentary elections....

Bahrain's move on Sunday against Ayatollah Hussein al-Najati -- the Bahraini representative of Iraq's most powerful Shiite figure -- is the strongest swipe against the nation's Shiite clergy. But it was clear something was coming.

In a blunt message last month, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa said "religious forums" would come under scrutiny by authorities. This was an unmistakable reference to Shiite religious leaders seen as fueling the clashes and demonstrations that began in August after security forces arrested a top Shiite political activist....

Al-Najati was born in Bahrain and did religious studies in Iraq and Iran. He and his family obtained Bahraini nationality in 2001 under King Hamad's reforms....

Just hours before the decision on al-Najati, Bahraini officials reportedly issued a two-week ban on sermons by another prominent Shiite cleric, Sheik Abdul Jaleel al-Miqdad, who has denounced the arrests against Shiites....

Islamophobia!

Jihad Watch reader Abdul Ameer sent me this email regarding this story, about the $10,000 reward the East Lansing Police Department is offering for information on the recent burning of a Qur'an there:

Dear Mr. Spencer,

After reading your posting about the $10,000 reward being offered in the investigation by the EWast Lansing Police Department of a Koran burning, I called the East Lansing Police Department. I spoke with three people and asked each one which American law was being violated. The first person didn't know and passed me to another officer in the department. The second officer did not know, either, and passed me to a third officer. The third officer did not know either, and then just hung up on me.

Abdul Ameer

I don't support Qur'an-burning. I don't approve of book-burning in general. I believe that bad ideas should be met with better ideas, not with violent suppression. But the freedom of expression is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Neither the Qur'an nor any other book is protected from burning under American law. So why the huge reward from the East Lansing PD? And why is no one there prepared to answer any questions about their apparent attempt to enforce a Sharia provision rather than American law?

Abdul Ameer adds in a later message:

Call the East Lansing Police Department at (517) 319-6825. Ask them to explain to you exactly which American law was violated by someone having left a burnt Koran on the front doorstep of the East Lansing Islamic Center. Ask for an explanation of why this incident is so important that it is worth $10,000 of the taxpayers' money and many hours of police time.

Please use this as an opportunity to help educate the East Lansing Police Department.

Historic 9/11 Stop the Mosque at Ground Zero Rally: Massive Media Distortion of Massive Rally in New York City
New York, NY September 16, 2010 -- by El Marco 

This year's 9/11 anniversary in New York brought opponents and supporters of the controversial Ground Zero Mosque to lower Manhattan by the thousands. That fact has spawned a new controversy, as the American people yet again were served a false narrative by the dominant liberal establishment mass media.

Exhibit A, in the "media reality distortion case #2478697," is the photo scene below. This photo shows the 9/11 Remembrance/Stop the Ground Zero Mosque Rally hosted by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. According to The New York Times, what is seen here is a crowd of 2,000 persons. According to the New York Daily News, the crowd below contained "hundreds," despite the fact that it stretched jam packed as seen below for three city blocks. Local NYC News Channel 10 reported live that there were 30,000 people at this rally. Channel 10 should be applauded for doing their job, and the rest of the media stands exposed.

But wait! The distortion goes much deeper than just downplaying by a factor of 10 or 20 the size of the Stop the Ground Zero Mosque Rally.

With headlines like Angry Protests Mar Solemn Day, and Both Sides Desecrate Vigil, New York papers painted a scene of divisive struggle between roughly equivalent numbers of protesters at the anti-mosque and pro-mosque rallies. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those at the Stop the Mosque Rally were well apart from the radicals and communists who strutted their stuff and chanted political slogans on the streets of lower Manhattan.

The Stop the Mosque rally hosts, Geller and Spencer, instructed participants not to bring signs, only flags, in order to emphasize the sanctity and solemnity of the occasion. They also emphasized in their promotional blog posts that it was to be a "remembrance rally." That was very much the tone of the rally I witnessed and photographed just next to 51 Park Place, the site of the proposed Cordoba House mosque/community center.

The second rally in question was described by The New York Times as being made up of "supporters of the proposed Islamic center" and "organized by a number of left-wing anti-war and pro-Palestinian groups, including the International Action Center. (IAC)." The IAC is an umbrella group for Marxist, Stalinist, and Castroist groups like the World Workers Party (WWP) which supplied hundreds of professionally printed signs. World Can't Wait was another main sponsor and communist umbrella organization.

I attended the leftist rally up until just before the Stop the Mosque Rally started at 3 p.m., exactly three blocks to the west. I estimated 1,500 leftist protesters inside the staging area at 2:45, with many more arriving at the time of my departure. The AP reported a total of 1,000 leftists.

The signs above were available by the hundreds. Note the signs about freeing Lynn Stewart the "People's Lawyer." All the major themes of the radical anti-American left were on display, including: Bush/Cheney War Criminals, Jobs not Hate, Say No to Tea Party Bigots, Worker Defense Guards Against Racist Anti-Immigrant Attacks. There were also signs denouncing President Obama for continuing with many of the Bush/Cheney Anti-terrorism policies. I saw one group of around 100 protesters chanting "Racists Go Home . . . Leave Muslims Alone" towards an open top double-decker tour bus stopped at a traffic light. It was packed with appalled tourists who looked on in amazement as protesters vented their rage at them.

Over on the relatively secluded side streets where the Stop Islamization of America Remembrance rally was assembled there was a completely different crowd. These are people who share a love of liberty, and country and an acute awareness of the perils America faces from Islamists, and their leftist allies.

Pamela Geller introduced speakers to the huge crowd. Speakers included 9/11 family members, first responders, and refugees from Islamic countries. Geller and her associate Robert Spencer sparked the entire Ground Zero Mosque debate when they held their first rally on June 6, 2010. The corporate media practically blacked out that rally also and but for coverage by bloggers no one would have known of this controversy as the liberal press had determined that you should be kept in the dark.

Fabrizio Bivona and Rosa Leonetti addressing the anti-mosque remembrance rally. Mr. Bivona is a firefighter, paramedic and RN. He was a first responder on 9/11.

Bivona said, "I listened to the imam say he didn't know the pain this was going to inflict. I hear the imam say he wants to bridge gaps and bring Muslims and non-Muslims together. Does that look like it's happening? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn't know then, but he knows now. There should be no doubt in his mind. When seventy-five plus percent of the people say 'Don't do this,' when family members who've been victimized are standing out there and saying 'Please, don't do this' -- so the answer to anyone's question if this guy's doing this to be provocative, or if he's doing it to build bridges, well we're going to find out tomorrow if he continues with this monstrosity, or if he stops this disaster now. . . . Let's honor the fallen."

Rosa Leonetti is a 9/11 family member. Her sister's husband, Lieutenant Joseph Gullickson of the FDNY's Ladder 101 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, perished on 9/11, rescuing the victims of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

"It did not matter to the four hundred and eleven emergency workers (who died) what the race, religion, nationality or ethnicity of the men and women and children were within those towers. . . . We have shown much respect and, above all, tolerance during these very long nine years. . . . tolerance for a mayor who puts his own business interests in the middle east ahead of the long suffering of family members . . . tolerance is not reserved for just one religion or one ideology . . . Do not ask us, the family members, to be tolerant of those who demonstrate selfish self serving behaviors and attitudes."

"Abdel Faisel Rauf is quoted this week as saying that if we don't do this right . . . anger will explode in the muslim world. Well, imam, anger is exploding in America too. He stated that if this situation is not handled correctly, it could become something very dangerous indeed. Does that sound like tolerance to you? It actually sounds more like a threat. Mr. Rauf, Americans do not like to be threatened. Tolerance is not reserved, nor should it be parceled out, to those who use the excuse of building a cultural center when what they are erecting is a rabat. . . . A rabat was typically raised in the midst of the conquered infidel as a symbol of strength and superiority."

When Ms. Leonetti mentioned the word rabat, I was sure that she had also seen the same article as I, just a day or two before in the New York Post by Amir Taheri. He explained much about Islamic supremacist colonialism, and the types of buildings constructed by Muslims historically during the process of conquest.

This is how some in the crowd reacted when Rosa Leonetti said "Mr. Rauf, Americans do not like to be threatened."

There were also video addresses by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and media-man Andrew Breitbart. Bolton reminded the crowd about the Ground Zero imam's many outrageous public statements, including that Osama bin Laden was made in the U.S.A., and that America has more blood on its hands than the terrorists. Bolton brought up questions about the United States State Department's funding of Imam Rauf's trip to the middle east, and that Department's policies concerning Islamism.

Joseph Nassralla, Coptic Christian human rights activist, made a heart wrenching speech on behalf of the much persecuted Christians of Egypt. Robert Spencer wrote:

"Nassralla garnered national attention last June at the first rally Geller and I hosted against the Ground Zero Mosque, when Keith Olbermann and other hard-Left pseudo-journalists trumpeted and misrepresented a misunderstanding between Nassralla and some others in the crowd as a racial incident."

The liberal left media turned what was shrugged off by those involved into a yarn about intolerance in America. Nassralla's startling speech put the lie to the leftist spin as he told of how, after escaping from Egypt, he is terrified by the growth of intolerant Islam in New York City and America.

In heavily accented English Nassralla spoke of the persecution and atrocities that are suffered by the Christian population of Egypt:

Wake up America! I came from Egypt. Egypt was Coptic, was Christian. 1,400 years Islamists conquered our country. You know it's written in the Koran that war is deceiving. They can lie to build this mosque here -- on my dead body. I escaped from Egypt for freedom here. Where I can go? You need me to go to the moon now? . . .

I'm sorry to show you my picture. This is one of our dear friends in Egypt. One of eight -- eight of them on the Christmas night. In the name of Islam, they said "Allah hu akhbar," and they killed them in front of the church.

Three thousand persons buried here, in this same area. . . . In ten years, if this mosque built here, using taqiya, using islamize of this country, you cannot stop them. It's gonna be too late. . . . I'm saying to you, "WAKE UP AMERICA!!" You don't need to be like this picture. Stop islamization of America." 

Sam Khoshbaten is a true Muslim moderate. He is an Iranian activist, organizer of No to Ajmadinejad Committee. Khoshbaten spoke about oppression under the Islamic Republic of Iran and told the crowd, "Together we can eliminate the dark cloud of terrorism, by uniting with the brave people of Iran in their struggle for freedom."

Dutch MP Geert Wilders came from Holland for the rally. His speech was historic and ignored by the MSM.

Excerpts:

"The tolerance that is crucial to our freedom requires a line of defense. Mayor Bloomberg uses tolerance as an argument to allow Imam Rauf and his sponsors to build their so-called Cordoba Mosque.

Mayor Bloomberg forgets, however, that openness cannot be open-ended. A tolerant society is not a suicidal society. It must defend itself against the powers of darkness, the force of hatred and the blight of ignorance. It cannot tolerate the intolerant -- and survive.

"Most Americans do not want this so-called Cordoba Mosque to be built here. They understand that it is both a provocation and a humiliation. They understand the triumphant narrative of a mosque named after the Great Mosque of Cordoba which was constructed where a Christian cathedral stood before the land was conquered by Islam.

"Nine years ago, when the news of the terrible atrocity in New York reached Europe, Muslim youths danced in the streets. In a poll, two thirds of the Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands expressed partial or full understanding for the 9/11 terrorists.

If a mosque were built here on Ground Zero such people would feel triumphant. But we, we will not betray those who died on 9/11. For their sakes we cannot tolerate a mosque on or near Ground Zero. For their sakes loud and clear we say: No mosque here! For their sakes, we must draw the line. So that New York, rooted in Dutch tolerance, will never become New Mecca."

For full speech text, go to my brand-new Communities at The Washington Times column.

Andrew Breitbart was there in spirit via a video address:

"Political correctness got us into this problem in the first place. . . . Many in the media elite have been putting their heads in the sand since 9/11. Radical Islam is not just killing our soldiers. They're also waging a propaganda war against us. Those who have read Bernard Lewis, those who have read Mark Steyn, and those people who have chosen not to act like ostriches have found themselves being called all sorts of names by those who have acted like ostriches. That is what we face today. It's a battle of those who have the will to face up to the challenges that we face in America in 2010, nine years after 9/11. Americans have every right to congregate at Ground Zero at the WTC to represent the majority point of view. Do not let Katie Couric and her cavalcade of the politically correct media elite tell you that you don't have the right to be here. This is a strong message, not just to the radical islamists that we have the backbone to stand up to the war that we face against them, but to those that would cower in the face of that peril, our media elite."

Nelly Braginskaya lost her son on 9/11. She explained, in her heavy Russian accent, that most families who have a grave site for those murdered that day have a small fragment of bone, or perhaps a jacket, or something with only a bit of DNA in the grave. Ground Zero is the real grave site, and for many blocks around, the remains of the victims were scattered with the ashes of the buildings.

"Everybody say "let people pray" like it only about religion. But this is not about freedom of religion. This is about geography. You (Muslims) can pray, but a little bit farther (away from Ground Zero). What's big deal? God will hear you if you will pray." 

Ilario Pantano, candidate for U.S. Congress, addressed the crowd.

"On 9/11 it wasn't New York that was attacked, it was America that was attacked. It was freedom that was attacked. And we can't forget not only what happened, not only the murderous intent that killed 3,000 Americans. We can't forget for a moment that that they wanted to kill 50,000 Americans, or maybe 100,000 Americans. . . . We can't forget that since those attacks, hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world have been killed by jihadists, in the name of radical Islam. From Egypt to Bali, from Baghdad to Kabul, no one can forget there was a car bomb here in Times Square six months ago. Folks, if you think this is over, it's just beginning. . . . So what's my opinion about a mosque at Ground Zero? NO MOSQUE HERE. . . ."

Pantano tied in Iran's actions against Israel with the Gaza Flotilla, and pointed out Imam Rauf's involvement with the Gaza Flotilla, and questioned where the money from the mosque is coming from. 

In the crowd there were families of those murdered on 9/11, military veterans, New Yorkers, and people who had travelled from around the country and from abroad to be here today. Above, three U.S. Marine Corps veterans listened intently to Pantano. 

Attorney Larry Klayman attended the rally. He has filed a suit on behalf of 9/11 first responders. The suit seeks $350 million in damages, against the developers of Park 51, claiming that the plans for the mosque have resulted in "emotional, mental and physical" damage to those impacted by 9/11. 

Wave Chan, a New York Tea Party organizer, has filed a non-profit corporation to raise money to make an offer for the Park 51 property. He got the idea from Debra Burlingame, who was the sister of the pilot of Flight 77 which was hijacked by jihadis and flown into the Pentagon, murdering Burlingame's brother and 188 other souls. Chan hopes to get a memorial built at 51 Park Place. He noticed that the Preview of the 9/11 Memorial doesn't show a single image of an airplane, makes no reference to terrorism or jihad, etc. Chan lives not far from Ground Zero. For many hours on 9/11, 2001, Chan did not know whether his brother, who works in the Financial District, survived the attack.

First responder FDNY firefighter Steve Sharp thanks Ms. Geller for her work. Many off-duty firefighters and police officers from New York City and other parts of the country were in the crowd.

An unnamed source said the female suicide bomber who was prevented from striking is "not necessarily the most worrying thing." That's saying something.

"France at 'imminent' risk of terrorist attack, intelligence indicates," from Agence France-Presse, September 20 (thanks to Thomas Pellow):

AFP - France is at immediate risk of a major terror attack by Islamist radicals and has further reinforced already urgent security measures since last week, officials said Monday.

Asked about reports that an attack might be imminent, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said: "The threat is real, we have stepped up our vigilance."

Separately, a source close to the ministry confirmed that police are probing reports that a female suicide bomber may be preparing a strike in Paris, but added: "That's not necessarily the most worrying thing."

The prior story linked above did not address whether the would-be bomber from last week is in custody.

Instead, he explained, Paris is concerned with intelligence received from an allied foreign spy agency that Al-Qaeda's North African branch, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was planning an "imminent" attack in France.

"It's a threat which we think might target transportation," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity and without giving further details except that the warning was received at 5:00 am (0300 GMT) on Thursday last week.

The interior ministry played down the specific risk to transport, insisting that the threat was "against totally undefined targets."

Meanwhile, according to a police source, authorities have learned that two dormant Islamist networks in France have been revived to receive and host groups of Jihadi radicals returning from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Separately, officials from Paris's Grand Mosque confirmed that their rector, Dalil Boubakeur, had been placed under police protection and provided with an escort as he moves about the city.

Boubakeur is a moderate figure who has worked with France's government on issues of Muslim integration and has been threatened by radicals in the past.

The problems of defining "moderation" aside, this story from late 2004, entitled ""Muslims Staking Out Their Place in Europe" discussed Boubakeur's waning influence.

On Tuesday, hundreds of tourists were moved away from the Eiffel Tower as it was briefly evacuated following a hoax bomb threat.

France's national terror warning plan, known as "Vigipirate", was already at alert level "reinforced red" -- one step down from the highest level, scarlet, which would represent a precise and imminent threat.

The warnings were the latest in a series given over the past 10 days since the head of France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency, Bernard Squarcini, said France had never faced a greater "terrorist threat."...

An update on this story. Next questions: Who helped her? And where is she now? The report does not say she is in custody.

Note also a little-reported statistic on the surge in attacks on Jewish targets in France this year. "Foiled: woman bomber's plot to blow herself up in central Paris," by Ian Sparks for the Evening Standard, September 20 (thanks to Thomas Pellow):

A female suicide bomber plotted to blow herself up in Paris last week, French spy agencies have revealed.

Intelligence services uncovered and thwarted the threat which was planned for a "busy part of Paris" on Thursday, RTL radio said.

French domestic intelligence chief Bernard Squarcini warned at the weekend that France's burka ban had "seriously increased" the risk of a major terrorist attack.

Mr Squarcini said "all the red lights were flashing" over the likelihood that Islamist extremists would bomb French cities.

The risk was as high as in 1995 when a bomb planted by Algeria's Armed Islamic Group killed eight and wounded 80 more at the Saint-Michel Metro station.

Gee, then that wasn't about 9/11, or NATO troops in Afghanistan, or cartoons, or burqa bans...

Mr Squarcini warned: "France's role in Afghanistan, its foreign policy and the debate over the law banning the burka have all increased the risk."

The grievances du jour will come and go. Ultimately, France is in trouble for being French -- free, secular, and proud of it.

The alert over the female suicide bomber was revealed to RTL radio on Monday. The station said: "The intelligence service learned last Wednesday night that a female suicide bomber was plotting to commit a terrorist act in a busy part of Paris on Thursday.

"The intelligence came from agents in Africa and was immediately transmitted to the offices of the president and prime minister. From six in the morning on Thursday the terror alert status was raised and mobile anti-terrorist units began searching for the suspect."

In the interview, Mr Squarcini said French authorities foiled an average of two planned attacks per year, but added: "One day or another, we're going to get hit.

"The risk of a terrorist attack on French soil has never been higher and that objectively, there are reasons for worry."

France passed a new law banning the burka last week, leading to threats of revenge from radical Islamist groups.

Leaders of al Qaeda's North African network wrote on an extremist website: "We will seek dreadful revenge on France by all means at our disposal, for the honour of our daughters and sisters."

French interior minister Brice Hortefeux said security had been stepped up around Jewish institutions in Paris after the arrest of a terrorist who planned to bomb an Israel defence forces fundraising event.

He said there had been 47 physical attacks against Jewish institutions in France this year, and another 190 threats.

The message: transfers of land shall occur on a one-way street, and only in the direction that makes Israel smaller. See also: the "land for peace" scheme. "Palestinians selling land to Israelis face automatic death penalty, court rules," from the Canadian Press, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Palestinian court has ruled that anyone selling land to Israelis will automatically face the death penalty.

The ruling came in response to an appeal from Palestinian public prosecutor Ahmed al-Mughani. The current law says courts can choose life in prison or death.

Demanding more death:

Al-Mughani told the AP on Monday that the law isn't tough enough. In practice, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has not approved executions since coming to power in 2004.

In the past there have been vigilante killings of Palestinians suspected of selling land.

Land sales are deeply sensitive among Palestinians. Many Palestinians sold land to Jews in the beginning of Zionist immigration in the late 1800s.

Some continue to sell their properties to Jewish settlers.

No threats from miscreant misunderstanders of Methodism, oddly enough. No quarrelsome Quakers. No pyromaniac Presbyterians. You get the idea. "France raises terror security, new threat reported," by Elaine Ganley for the Associated Press, September 20:

PARIS - France has stepped up its vigilance against terror threats, a top official announced Monday amid reports of various new threats, including one against the Paris transport network.

"The terrorist threat is real and today our vigilance, therefore, is reinforced," Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said during a visit to the Seine-et-Marne region east of Paris. He did not elaborate on the additional security measures taken.

In the last few days, there has been a false bomb alert at the Eiffel Tower and five French workers and two African colleagues have been kidnapped in Niger, part of the African turf of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Last week, the Senate voted to ban burqa-style Islamic veils in France, a subject that has prompted warnings by al-Qaida's Maghreb group.

Armed guards have been assigned to the rector of the Grande Mosque of Paris, the prominent moderate Dalil Boubakeur, since Friday, because of a new threat, according to the mosque spokesman.

The three guards are with him "morning, noon and evening," spokesman Slimane Nadour said Monday by telephone, adding "we have no information on the nature of the threat."

Similar armed protection was given Boubakeur, who is of Algerian origin, in 1997 when death threats were issued, Nadour said. The threats came in the form of fatwas, or Islamic judicial opinions, when Algeria was engulfed in a brutal Islamist insurgency that continues sporadically today.

It was not immediately clear whether other figures in France were recently given special protection.

RTL radio, citing sources close to the Interior Ministry, reported Monday that French authorities received information early Thursday about a possible suicide bombing attack by a woman apparently on the Paris transport system. Authorities received the alert from French and North African sources, RTL reported.

So credible was the information that Hortefeux canceled a two-day visit outside Paris, and security agents searched the transport system throughout the day but came up empty-handed, RTL said.

That same day, however, Hortefeux held an unusual news conference under the Eiffel Tower to announce that France faced an elevated risk of terrorism.

"An array of clues dating from the last few days and even the last few hours show the terrorist threat is at an elevated level," Hortefeux said at the time. "It is a real threat."

An official with the RATP, Paris' public transit system, said there were "no specific threats" against the French capital's bus and rail network and added "we are not doing any more, or any less than usual" in terms of security. The official declined to provide his name in accordance with RATP policy. The national railway operator SNCF had no comment on the matter.

The Interior Ministry would not comment Monday on the radio report.

French authorities were alerted to threats by Islamist radicals in notes last week by intelligence agents that evoke an "anti-French focus" by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the daily Le Monde reported on Monday....

"Miscreants." Garden variety nogoodniks. That's all. "Miscreants set ablaze church near Chowkandi," from the Daily Times, September 19 (thanks to Zulu):

KARACHI: Anger and tension spread among Christians when miscreants in Shah Latif Town allegedly set a church on fire on Saturday. According to the police, they have registered FIR No 676/10 on the complaint of Priest Peter Shahzad against unidentified persons. The complainant in the FIR [First Information Report] informed the police that some unidentified persons entered the church located near Chowkandi Graveyard, Sector 19-B in the Shah Latif police jurisdiction and torched it before fleeing. Several sacred and holy books burnt in the ensuing inferno hurting the sentiments of the local Christians. Following the incident a heavy contingent of law enforcers were dispatched to the area to avoid any law and order situation. However, no major incident or rioting was reported till the filing of this report.

Of course, it would be "Islamophobic" to note the remarkable uniformity with which jihadists "misunderstand" Islam in places so far removed from one another, whether in attacks inside the U.S., ambushes on churches in Indonesia, or even in Tajikistan. "'Islamist gunmen' kill 23 soldiers in Tajikistan," from BBC News, September 19:

Islamist militants in Tajikistan have killed 23 soldiers in an attack in the east of the country, officials say.

A military convoy was ambushed in Racht valley, about 250km (150 miles) east of the capital Dushanbe.

The soldiers were going to replace guards at roadblocks set up after at least 25 militants escaped from a prison on the Afghan border last month.

In the 1990s Tajikistan had a civil war between the Moscow-backed government and the Islamist-led opposition.

More dishonesty, but no sign yet that the New York political elites are going to reexamine his claims to be a "moderate," despite his advocacy for Sharia and call for restrictions on the freedom of speech in his book What's Right with Islam. "Rauf's vote boast really all bluster," by Tom Topousis and Jeane MacIntosh for the New York Post, September 14 (thanks to Gisela):

The leader of the Ground Zero mosque, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, yesterday said he's a loyal American, and cited his voting record to prove it.

The only problem is that, according to Board of Elections records, Rauf hasn't voted since 2001. In fact, New Jersey records show that he's no longer registered in his home state, The Post has learned.

"I vote in elections, I pay taxes, I pledge allegiance to the flag, and I am a Giants fan -- I am glad they won yesterday," Rauf quipped during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday.

But New Jersey records show that Rauf, once a registered Democrat, voted last in November, 2001, when Jim McGreevey was elected governor....

Khomeini's words ring true for Gaza:

"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."

The primary grievance in this case was the mixing of the genders, along with women being allowed to smoke water pipes. Just for that, the whole thing had to burn.

Priorities. "Gaza water park burned down after shut down by Hamas," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, September 19:

Unidentified gunmen on Sunday set fore to Crazy Water Park, one of the Gaza Strip's most popular entertainment sites.

And you may ask yourself: the "world's biggest concentration camp," as the propaganda goes (despite the briskly economic growth, full markets, and luxury goods), has had a water park?

Eyewitnesses said that at least 25 assailants participated in the pre-dawn attack. The gunmen beat the two night watchmen, bound their hands and confiscated their mobile phones before setting the complex on fire, they said.

Manager Ala al-A'raj said that the water park was closed down by Hamas two weeks ago. He said that no one was injured in the attack, which destroyed the resort completely.

No group claimed responsibility for the arson and the Hamas government, which issued a strong condemnation, promised to pursue the perpetrators and bring them to trial.

Two human rights organizations also condemned the torching of Crazy Water Park and called for an immediate investigation.

"The attackers stormed the resort using a four-wheel drive vehicle," one of the guards told a human rights group. "They along with another group of gunmen, set fire to the two main buildings, Beduin tents and 300 nargilas [water pipes]."

Last week the Hamas government ordered the closure of Crazy Water Park for three weeks under the pretext that the place did not have a proper license.

Last month Hamas policemen raided the resort and expelled dozens of men and women who had gathered for a fast-breaking meal during Ramadan. The owner of the site was summoned for questioning and warned not to hold events where men and women sit together.

Sources in the Gaza Strip said that Hamas has been targeting the water park because the owners violated an order banning women from smoking the nargila in public places.

Last week the Hamas authorities closed down the Sama sea-side restaurant in Gaza City where a woman was seen smoking the nargila.

Human rights activists said that Hamas has recently stepped up its efforts to impose strict Islamic teachings in the Gaza Strip.

Nothing new, actually. Just a continuation of Hamas' implementation of its agenda.

They noted that last week Hamas closed down the Aseel Horse Club, also under the pretext that it was operating without a proper license.

Hamas policemen also raided the Beach Hotel and handed the owner an order closing it down for three days. The decision was taken because one of the hotel restaurants had allowed a woman to smoke the nargila.

Two weeks ago Hamas policemen also stormed two halls in Gaza City where cultural events were taking place and kicked out the guests. The owners of the halls were requested to sign a document pledging that they would not host such events in the future....

In other news, area linguists rioted and burned tires over rumors that "gullible" is not in the dictionary, and had been taken out by Zionists. "Afghan protester shot at military base," from CNN, September 16:

An international forces service member shot a protester who aimed his AK-47 toward a guard tower at a NATO military base in southern Afghanistan, military officials said Thursday.

The man was pulled away by fellow demonstrators before members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were able to determine his condition.

The protest of about 100 Afghans at Forward Operating Base Mirwais was reported to have been held in response to an alleged Quran burning inside the base Wednesday. But ISAF said the suspected burning was a routine burn-pit session in which military documents are destroyed.

The protest turned violent when the Afghans began throwing rocks at the base guards. ISAF said the armed protester was shot in accordance with the rules of engagement.

Backing the strong horse: the supine response of American officials to the prospect of the burning of the Qur'an -- in which no one in power anywhere stood up for the freedom of expression -- and the rush to accommodate the pro-Sharia, Islamic supremacist Rauf and his Ground Zero mega-mosque convey nothing more than a sense of weakness, confusion, and defeat. This Arabic-language article at Al-Arabiya, "180 converted to Islam in Greater Washington during the crisis," attributes the claim to Mohammed Al-Nasser, director of the Islamic Center of Washington. My rough translation:

Mohamed Al-Nasser, director of the Islamic Center of the Washington metropolitan area, which includes five regions of Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC, said that about 180 Americans, men and women of varying ages, converted to Islam at the time of the threats to burn copies of the Qur'an and the protests against the Cordoba House mosque at Ground Zero in New York....

Incidentally, quoted in the article and apparently among those converts was "a U.S. citizen, Robert Spencer, from the safest northeast area of Washington, DC, who is now called 'Abdul Rahman,'" who asserted that over 100 mosques a year have been built in the U.S. in the last 12 years. I am not he, of course, but I couldn't help but notice that Al-Arabiya rendered "Robert Spencer" in Arabic letters as روبرت سبنسر, which is exactly how I wrote it here a few years ago, only to be charged with having made a ridiculously inept and incorrect rendering of the name by Islamic apologists and bloggers Aziz Poonawalla and Ali Eteraz. In reality, as this Al-Arabiya piece again shows, I rendered the name "Robert Spencer" in Arabic in the common, ordinary way it is done by all Arabic news services.

The incident demonstrated the inveterate dishonesty that characterizes so many of the Islamic spokesmen who claim to reveal my "errors." Usually, they've found no errors at all, and are just clever liars looking to dazzle the unwary and ignorant.

What could possibly have gone wrong there? They'd all have been from the Vast Majority of Moderates, right? That is, despite having been fed a steady diet from birth of hatred of Jews and other non-Muslims -- yes, even among our "moderate" "partners for peace" in the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinians, faced with this and an offer of all of the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Jerusalem, "were not prepared to make the extra step," in Olmert's words. And all of the offers that have not been "enough," for the surrounding Arab states all they way back to 1948, should be very telling.

It should be clear -- if the maps without Israel didn't offer some hint -- that peaceful coexistence is not the ultimate goal on the Palestinian side. As such, Israel's right to exist is not part of the equation for them, and they are negotiating in the utmost of bad faith, looking busy for the sake of inducing the U.S. and others to pressure Israel into more concessions.

What comparable compromises have the Palestinian parties offered? The world expects Israel to do the lion's share of compromising and bending over backwards in hopes that, maybe, the next concession will be the one that turns the tide for peace. Then again, compromise is a component of civilized behavior. That the Palestinians are held to a lower standard should insult them, but it doesn't appear to do so.

We are told over and over that Islam is a religion of peace, but wanting peace only on one's own terms, with one's sense of entitlements and every desire for domination and tribute fulfilled, is not working for peace. By those standards, Imperial Japan was in it for "peace."

"Former Israeli premier details failed peace offer," from the Associated Press, September 19:

TEL AVIV, Israel - Israel's former premier has given his most detailed description of his 2008 peace offer to the Palestinians and says if the current talks succeed, a deal would have to look like his plan.

Ehud Olmert says his offer would put the sides "on the brink" of an agreement, though the current premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken it off the table.

Olmert said in a lecture Sunday that he offered the Palestinians Gaza, nearly all the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem.

He says he offered to repatriate fewer than 20,000 Palestinian refugees, while the U.S. was prepared to accept 100,000 more.

Olmert says the Palestinians were "not prepared to make the extra step."

Negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday the Palestinians made a counter-offer but gave no details....

A "British citizen" of Somali descent. Yet he doesn't seem to have become "British" in any recognizable sense. "British terrorism suspect arrested at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport," from the Telegraph, September 19 (thanks to Kristian):

Dutch police have arrested a terrorism suspect at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, the local prosecutor's office said.

The man was from Liverpool, travellling [sic] via Schiphol, en route to Entebbe in Uganda. The Somali Briton was already on the plane when he was arrested by military police.

National police spokesman Rene Claessen said the man was arrested before a flight took off from the airport Sunday.

Amsterdam has a history of being used as a transport hub by suspected Islamic radicals....

Well done, good and faithful servant. When Hamas-linked CAIR is pleased with how well you have done their bidding, you know you've really arrived as a mainstream media journalist. Dave Weigel, Michael Kruse, Mark Jacobson, Michelle Boorstein and the like can only stand by in envy -- but if they keep jumping through Honest Ibe's hoops, their great day will come in due time. "Helen Thomas receiving lifetime achievement award from CAIR," by Bridget Johnson for The Hill, September 18 (thanks to Darcy):

The longtime White House correspondent who resigned from Hearst newspapers in June in the wake of comments she made about Israel will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR is honoring Helen Thomas, who is of Lebanese descent and now 90 years old, at its Leadership Conference and 16th Annual Fundraising Banquet on Oct. 9 in Arlington, Va.

Speakers will also include Oxford Islamic studies scholar Tariq Ramadan.

Thomas started at the White House as a reporter during the Kennedy administration. In a video interview captured at a White House Jewish heritage event for RabbiLIVE.com that spread quickly across the Internet, Thomas advised Israeli Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Poland, Germany, America and "everywhere else."...

Thomas later apologized, saying: "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon."

Conspiracy Paranoia Alert. Note how respectful, even deferential NBC's Andrea Mitchell is toward the Thug-In-Chief, and how anxious she is to show him that Jewish leaders, and clearly she herself, think that a triumphal mega-mosque at Ground Zero would be a fine thing. Contrast that to the confrontational, hostile tone mainstream media interviewers take on when interviewing someone against the Ground Zero mosque or some other foe of Islamic supremacism.

Useful idiot. "Rep. Meeks helped 'jihad' flier," by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein in the New York Post, September 19:

US Rep. Gregory Meeks scolded immigration officials for questioning a Muslim scholar whose nonprofits have been linked to financing terrorism.

The Queens Democrat contacted federal agencies -- finally appealing to then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- asking why Anwar Hajjaj faced "unwarranted scrutiny" when he returned to the United States from trips abroad through JFK Airport.

Meeks described Hajjaj as a "highly regarded" professor of Islamic studies who leads Friday Muslim prayers at the Capitol.

Meeks said Hajjaj was "a pioneer in distance-based learning of Islam" through the American Open University in Virginia, according to a copy of the Sept. 30, 2006, letter to Chertoff, which was obtained by The Post under a Freedom of Information Act request.

But The Post has learned Hajjaj also headed the Taibah International Aid Association, a charity that has been accused of funding Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The group was co-founded by Abdullah A. bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's nephew, who has been investigated for his ties to groups that have funded al Qaeda and Hamas.

Hajjaj is also director of another Virginia-based nonprofit, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth International, or WAMY. It was also founded by bin Laden's nephew and said to support al Qaeda. The group's 2005 federal tax form, the most recent available, is signed by Hajjaj, who is listed as director.

Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said WAMY has been a financial and ideological supporter of Islamic terrorist organizations. A WAMY publication lists people who have attacked Israelis as "heroes of Palestine" and referred to Jews as "humanity's enemies," according to a 2003 affidavit by a customs special agent. [...]

Hajjaj, 65, told The Post that he was routinely harassed and sometimes missed flights when he traveled to and from Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage to Mecca.

"It was an awful experience under the Bush administration," he said. "Now under Obama, I have no complaints."

He said he asked Meeks to write a letter on his behalf. He said he knew the Democratic lawmaker through Jameel Aalim-Johnson, Meeks' chief of staff from 2006 to early 2008.

A few years back, if you spoke about jihadists in the Balkans, you were an "Islamophobe" who denied the patent reality that all Muslims in the Balkans were moderate, peaceful lovers of America. If you dared say anything about this, you were probably a secret supporter of Milosevic and genocide to boot, beyond the pale of decent human beings. Just ask the enlightened dhimmis and jihad collaborators at Commentary.

But as always, the truth will out. "Radical Islam on rise in Balkans, raising fears of security threat to Europe," from AP, September 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SKOPJE, Macedonia - SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- An online music video praising Osama bin Laden has driven home a troubling new reality: A radical brand of Islam embraced by al-Qaida and the Taliban is gaining a foothold in the Balkans.

"Oh Osama, annihilate the American army. Oh Osama, raise the Muslims' honor," a group of Macedonian men sing in Albanian, in video posted on YouTube last year and picked up by Macedonian media this August. "In September 2001 you conquered a power. We all pray for you."

Although most of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority are Muslims, they have generally been secular. But experts are now seeing an increasing radicalization in pockets of the country's Islamic community, particularly after armed groups from the ethnic Albanian minority, which forms a quarter of the population of 2.1 million, fought a brief war against Macedonian government forces in 2001.

It's a trend seen across the Balkans and has raised concerns that the region, which includes new European Union member Bulgaria, could become a breeding ground for terrorists with easy access to Western Europe. Many fear that radicalized European Muslims with EU passports could slip across borders and blend into society.

At the center of the issue is the Wahhabi sect, an austere brand of Islam most prevalent in Saudi Arabia and practiced by bin Laden and the Taliban.

"Wahhabism in Macedonia, the Balkans and in Europe has become more aggressive in the last 10 years," said Jakub Selimovski, head of religious education in Macedonia's Islamic community. He said Wahhabis were establishing a permanent presence in Macedonia where none existed before, and that "they are in Bosnia, here, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia and lately they have appeared in Bulgaria."

It is the first time a high-ranking official in the former Yugoslav republic's Islamic community has agreed to speak openly about the presence and threat of radical Islam....

"He also stressed Taliban to carry on their Jihad (Holy war) against NATO troops, as God Almighty would always grant Taliban the ultimate victory." Will the Imam Rauf or Honest Ibe Hooper or someone of their ilk please travel to Afghanistan and explain to Mullah Omar how he is misunderstanding Islam? "Jihad against NATO forces will continue: Mullah Omar," from Regional Times, September 19:

QUETTA: The central leader of ATT (Afghan Tehreek -e-Taliban), Mullah Omar has affirmed his commitment to carry out jihad (Holy war) against the NATO forces, and has warned them to leave Afghanistan immediately.

In his message, besides stressing Afghans to highlight NATO troops' blatant violations of human rights and their brutalities on global level, he also said that Taliban, despite all brutalities and cruelties of NATO troops, had foiled all their arrogance. He also stressed Taliban to carry on their Jihad (Holy war) against NATO troops, as God Almighty would always grant Taliban the ultimate victory....

Forced conversions of Christian women and girls to Islam abound in Egypt, and so in a characteristic example of their habit of projection and deflection of responsibility onto their victims, Islamic supremacists fabricated a fish story about a Muslim woman being forced to convert to Christianity. "Egyptian Muslim Radicals Fabricated Story of Priest's Wife Conversion," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, September 17:

(AINA) -- After the return of the missing priest's wife to her family by State Security on July 23, Egyptian radicals sheikhs have spread rumors that she converted to Islam, exploiting the issue for an outright smear campaign against the Coptic Church and its Pope Shenouda III. The sheikhs paint an image of "Their suffering Muslim sister in a monastery where she is tortured for having chosen to convert to Islam."

Camelia Shehata, wife of Father Tedaos Samaan, priest at St. Georges Church in Deir Mawas, Minya Governorate, disappeared on July 19, resulting in Coptic demonstrations against State Security for refusing to help her husband find her (AINA 7-23-2010). Father Tedaos accused a Muslim teacher working with her in the same school of being behind her abduction in order to force her conversion to Islam. After 5 days of Coptic sit-ins and the intervention of members of parliament, State Security found her and handed her back to her family.

According to the official version by State Security, Camilia had a row with her husband and left home, staying with one of her relatives in Cairo. The Church kept silent as usual, as per a tacit agreement with Security not to discuss abduction cases.

What re-ignited the "Camilia Affair" a few days later was a video on the Islamist website "Observatory of the Islamic Resistance to Christianizing" which gave a different story. Influential Salafi sheikh Abu Yehya, from Samalut, who is known for his paid activities in procuring Christians for conversion to Islam, said that Camilia fled her marital home and went to him to convert to Islam. He claimed that Camilia had proclaimed the shahada, or declaration of Muslim faith, 18 months earlier and has secretly studied the Koran. Allegedly he traveled with her to Cairo and went to Al-Azhar to register her conversion officially, however, they were delayed there until the police arrived and arrested them both.

The website showed Camilia clad in a veil but this was disputed by various Coptic organizations, who claim the photo was reworked in Photoshop, in a similar fashion to photos of Marilyn Monroe and Angelina Jolie, who are portrayed wearing veils, though they have never worn them.

This story was taken up by other Salafi radical sheikhs who appeared on Islamic TV channels, after adding to it that the church was imprisoning Camilia in one of the Coptic monasteries in Ain Shams (there are none there), where she was given mind altering drugs "until she became insane" according to Sheikh el-Howeiny.

The media joined in the smear campaign against the Church, accompanied by Muslim demonstrations outside mosques during Ramadan in Cairo and Alexandria against the Coptic Patriarch and Church and the infidel Christians, demanding that Camilia, as a Muslim, should be "freed from her captivity in the Coptic monasteries, to practice Islam" and calls for her appearance in public.

Previously Pope Shenouda had confirmed that Camilia never converted to Islam, and no one had the right to know where she is....

Read it all.

When did it become illegal to burn the Qur'an? Sharia Alert from East Lansing, Michigan: "$10,000 Reward In Koran Burning Case," from WLNS.com, September 15:

The East Lansing Police Department is seeking the publics [sic] help to find who is responsible for burning and desecrating a Koran. The incident happened on September 11. It was found at the front door of the Islamic Center of East Lansing.

The department is offering $10,000 for any information that would lead to the identification and prosecution of those responsible for this act.

Those with information are asked to call Det. Sherief Fadly at 517-319-6814.

Is Detective Sherief Fadly more interested in enforcing American law, or Sharia? Does he know that Americans have a right to freedom of expression, including that which others find obnoxious or offensive?

According to Compete.com's Site Analytics, Jihad Watch has more daily visitors than the Daily Kos and Hot Air:

UPDATE: Heh.

Worth committing mass murder for

Instead, it blew up in his face.

Motoon Rage just goes on and on: "Bomb suspect 'targeted' Danish paper Jyllands-Posten," from the BBC, September 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Danish police think a man hurt in a blast was making a letter bomb to use against a newspaper which published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The man was arrested in a park in Copenhagen on 10 September after a small explosion at a nearby hotel.

Police spokesman Svend Foldager said the device would have had the explosive force of a hand grenade.

He was "reasonably confident" Jyllands-Posten had been targeted by the suspect, who denies any crime.

The suspected would-be letter bomber pleaded not guilty to firearms charges and putting lives at risk when he appeared in court on 11 September.

He has been named by police as Lors Dukayev, born in 1986 in Chechnya and now living in Belgium....

The Rape of Serbian Women
by Stella L. Jatras

(Letter to Phyllis Chesler of Chesler Chronicles)

Dear Phyllis,

I apologize for the length of my letter, but there is so much to be covered on this subject in order to do it justice.

In your commentary of 28 July entitled, "Is Marital Rape a Crime in America or Is It a Muslim Religious Right?," Chesler Chronicles, you wrote: "In this regard, rape was declared a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. [ICTY] I was tentatively supposed to testify about Rape Trauma Syndrome in the case in The Hague, but there was no funding to either protect or relocate the women who were prepared to testify, and thus, these trials were canceled."

My concern is the distorted application of the rape declaration by the ICTY. Anything from the ICTY, a bought and paid for tool of the western powers, can only be seen in light of the objectives of those powers, especially Washington. A major objective -- which was achieved -- was to make the Muslims the victims in Bosnia and Serbs the villains. Paradoxically, that contrived victimization is itself a weapon in depicting any concerns about Islam here -- including victimization of women, not as helping protect human rights, but as a propaganda tool to justify discrimination, racism, etc.

In that context, the accusations of mass rape - and specifically of "Serb rape camps," which were never shown to have existed anywhere -- was part of a calculated campaign of depicting Muslims-white-hats and Serbs-black-hats. I draw your attention to a letter written by Herb Brin of Heritage Southwest Jewish Press to President Clinton on 14 April 1994: "When I visited the Serbian front a year ago, I learned to my dismay that the rape story was a total concoction. In wars, rapes occur--but in the hundreds of thousands and as a means of so-called 'ethnic cleansing?' This was incredible and false." Certainly rapes are committed in wartime, even worse in communal wars. There is no evidence that Bosnia was any worse (or better) than anywhere else where comparable conflicts have taken place. Tragically, the crime of the actual rapes that occurred was compounded by the use of false accusations of rape as a propaganda weapon, which is what the west and the Muslims did. Such false accusations both paste a damning accusation on the party not guilty of the wrongdoing, while devaluing the horror of actual rapes committed.

The fact that the ICTY declares rape a crime against humanity -- a fact obvious to any normal person, ICTY or no ICTY -- should not be given much weight, given the source. In fact, it serves to devalue the problem of rape during wartime because the ICTY shamefully used what should have been a principled legal finding as a blatant political propaganda weapon.

There is no question that even one rape is unspeakable, but with all due respect, I would like to present the other side of the story regarding the rapes that occurred in Bosnia, specifically the rape of Serbian women which were deemed to be insignificant by the media and by The Hague. Instead of being honest brokers in a nasty civil war, we took sides against the Serbian people. Here I quote Yohanan Ramati, Director of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense, "This organized anti-Serb and pro-Muslim propaganda should cause anyone believing in democracy and free speech serious concerns. It recalls Hitler's propaganda against the allies in World War II. Facts are twisted and, when convenient, disregarded."

I offer the following:

"Former Yugoslavia: MANIPULATED HORROR. (Translated From French) 'Ethnic cleansing, rapes: the war in the Balkans is already sufficiently horrible without the need to exaggerate the consequences'." [Source: Le Point, March 13, 1993, page 34]

For Envoye Special, Jerome Boney went to investigate on the spot by going to Tuzla, the city mentioned in all the reports. He confided his astonishment in the last February 4 broadcast: He reported, "When I was 50 kilometers from Tuzla, I heard: 'Go to the Tuzla gymnasium, there are 4,000 raped women.' At 20 kilometers the figure went down to 400. At 100 kilometer there were no more than 40. And on the spot I found 4 women who agreed to testify." - Jacques Merlino (France 2).

Unnoticed by the media was the submission on December 18, 1992, of the length report #S24491 by the UN Security Council to the General Assembly. The report included depositions by Serb rape victims. Yet while that report was receiving minimal circulation at the UN, the news media were focusing on undocumented claims that Serbian soldiers had committed as many as 60,000 rape of Muslim women.

The Jan 4 1993 issue of Newsweek reported that up to 50,000 Muslim women had been raped in Bosnia. Tom Post, a contributor to the article, explained that the estimate of 50,000 rapes was based on interviews with 28 women. #S24491 which was filed three weeks before this January 4th 1993 article appeared in Newsweek was not mentioned.

So which is it, 60,000 as reported by the majority of the news media, or 50,000 rapes as reported in 1993 by Newsweek, considering both exaggerated the numbers, or whatever number the spin doctors felt would make the best headline?

Jewish publication ISRAPUNDIT reported: "Such was the false tale spread of rapes by Serbian soldiers of Muslim women to supposedly increase the Serbian population in Kosovo and Bosnia. While rapes by Serbian soldiers were not proven in the end, there were rapes of Serbian women by the mujahedeen and members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Both were funded by Saudi Arabia and Iran. You know the Saudis, they're the ones whose 'road map for peace' is what Israel is adhering to as the same Saudis who fund Hamas (with the Iranians) to fire missiles at Israeli day care centers. The US State Department calls all that diplomacy."

Jared Israel (Emperor's Clothes) offers, "Susan Sontag and the rape of American thinking," (5/30/00) where he states that Sontag claims that Bosnian Serb troops indulged in: "The rape by military orders of tens of thousands of women throughout Serb-captured Bosnia. By military order, mind you," writes Israel. He continues. "Now keep in mind that the Bosnian Serb army numbered somewhere around 30,000 men, "many of whom were engaged in desperate military engagements."

"Aside from the absurdity of this small, hard-pressed army, stretched out along a one thousand mile front, raping tens of thousands of women, the mass rape stories rely on a false impression, carefully cultivated by the Western media: that the Bosnian Serb army was an aggressive invading force that "captured territory". This is wrong on both counts: they were mainly a defensive force and they were in fact defending their own territory."

In her article 'Yugoslavia Seen Through a Dark Glass," analyst Diana Johnstone offers the following:

"No one denies that many rapes occurred during the civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, or that rape is a serious violation of human rights. So is war, for that matter. From the start, however, inquiry into rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina focused exclusively on accusations that Serbs were raping Muslim women as part of a deliberate strategy. The most inflated figures, freely extrapolated by multiplying the number of known cases by large factors, were readily accepted by the media and international organizations. No interest was shown in detailed and documented reports of rapes of Serbian women by Muslims or Croats. The late Nora Beloff, former chief political correspondent of the London Observer, described her own search for verification of the rape charges in a letter to The Daily Telegraph (January 19, 1993). The British Foreign Office conceded that the rape figures being bandied about were totally uncorroborated, and referred her to the Danish government, then chairing the European Union. Copenhagen agreed that the reports were unsubstantiated, but kept repeating them. Both said that the EU had taken up the "rape atrocity" issue at its December 1992 Edinburgh summit exclusively on the basis of a German initiative. In turn, Fran Wild, in charge of the Bosnian Desk in the German Foreign Ministry, told Ms. Beloff that the material on Serb rapes came partly from the Izetbegovic government and partly from the Catholic charity Caritas in Croatia. No effort had been made to seek corroboration from more impartial sources. Despite the absence of solid and comprehensive information, a cottage industry has since developed around the theme. See: Norma von Ragenfeld-Feldman, "The Victimization of Women: Rape and the Reporting of Rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-1993," Dialogue (Paris), No. 21, March 1997; and Diana Johnstone, "Selective Justice in The Hague," The Nation, Sept. 22, 1997, pp. 16-21."

And then there is also the case of a pregnant Bosnian Muslim woman who was registered in Switzerland as an asylum seeker and a victim of rape by Serbian soldiers who subsequently gave birth to a black baby. Nothing more was heard of the case.

Although I am not Serbian, I have complete empathy with the sentiments of a Serbian lady friend who wrote: "I still hurt whenever I remember all of the false accusations leveled against Serbs for having run 'rape camps' in various parts of former Yugoslavia. Those accusations were lies. Later on, life began to imitate the dark art of propaganda journalism, when slave-brothels and trafficking in women indeed began flourishing under the NATO/Muslim occupation. Nobody ever came back to apologize to the Serbs for those false accusations, even though the evidence was transparently concocted and thoroughly refuted."

I believe you answered your own question regarding, "is it a Muslim Religious Right?" It appears to be so.

Respectfully submitted,
Stella L. Jatras

As a career military officer's wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about other cultures but also became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs and world politics. With the advent of the war in Bosnia, Mrs. Jatras immediately recognized the bias of the Western media and the Clinton administration's flawed foreign policy in the Balkans and began her efforts to present to the American people a more accurate view of that tragic situation. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years (where her husband, George, was the Senior Air Attaché), and while there, worked in the Political Section of the US Embassy. Stella has also lived in Germany, Greece, including eight years in Saudi Arabia. Her travels took her to over twenty countries.

$13,350 from the group that wants to destroy the West from within

A remarkably dishonest and self-pitying interview from the Muslim Brotherhood's favorite Congressman. "Rep. Keith Ellison Talks About Beating the Anti-Islam Industry,'" by Seth Freed Wessler in ColorLines, September 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] Commenting on the controversy surrounding the Park 51 Islamic cultural center in downtown Manhattan, NYC Mayor Bloomberg recently said, "This whole issue, I think, will go away right after the next election." Do you think that these attacks are going to go away after elections?

I do think it'll die down but I don't think it will go away.

Why Not?

Because the people who are struck by fear and who are creating a climate of fear with the thought of this Islamic center are not going away. Yes, it's going to have a tougher time catching the public mind and it is going to have a tougher time getting any news. But you have to understand that there are some people who make their living trying to say, "The Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming." It's important to bear in mind that these folks are not going to stop and pack it in just because the elections are over. ... They are just going to find something else to make a big deal about.

I don't think it's completely separate from elections either. Certainly certain people like Rick Lazio will try to exploit the upsurge in anti-Islamic ideas to their political advantage. But I don't think it's rooted in the election cycle. I think it's rooted in the idea that there are urges in society from time to time based on a multitude of factors that make some people want to scapegoat others.

In the early 1960s, you had people scapegoating Catholics, saying we can't have Kennedy be the president because then the pope will running the country. Of course we have a long history of scapegoating Jews as well. And we have a long history of racial discrimination and scapegoating. We've seen conservatives and people who want to keep America for people who have traditionally benefited. We've seen these elements scapegoat. We remember Reagan talking about welfare queens. He scapegoated single moms who are poor and tried to say that America's problems are because of them. And then George Bush said, "Well no, the problems are not because of them, but because of black men like Willie Horton and liberals like Dukakis, who let these guys run around." And then we went from there to, "Well the problem is with the gays, they're the problem. They're trying to get married and they're causing the problem." And then it's because of the Latinos, they're taking our jobs.

There is always a scapegoat de jour when fearful people blame the problems of society on a distinct groups that usually does not have much political power. [...]

This is the same dishonest narrative we have seen recently from Nicholas Kristof and many others: that Muslims in America today are facing a resurgence of the nativism that earlier targeted Catholics and others. I wonder who is feeding all these people their talking points. But in any case, the comparison is entirely fallacious: Catholics, Jews, blacks, Hispanics, welfare queens -- all the groups Ellison names as previous "scapegoats" -- weren't carrying out terror attacks against Americans and others worldwide. They weren't justifying violence and hatred by reference to Catholic or Jewish teaching. The people who were worried about the pope running the country could point to no action by the pope to try to achieve such power. The Muslim Brotherhood, in contrast, is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within" so that Islam "is victorious over other religions."

The idea that non-Muslims are suspicious of Muslims out of bigotry, rather than out of a legitimate concern for both jihad terror and the utterly supine and often disingenuous response to it from peaceful and ostensibly moderate Muslims is nonsense of such an outstanding character that I wonder if Ellison himself even believes it, rather than simply seeing it as a useful line he can use to bamboozle the besotted Leftists to whom he is talking in ColorLines.

So why right now are Muslims being targeted? What is particular about this moment that Muslims are made the targets of scapegoating and fear?

Gee, ColorLines, I can't imagine. In the first place, there is no such scapegoating: hate crimes against Muslims are actually quite rare. But even if they weren't, do you really have to ask this question? Are you really unaware that when so many mass murderers and would-be mass murderers point to Islamic teaching as the motivation and justification for their actions (think of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas underwear jihadist; Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square jihadist; Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden on 9/11; the London jihad bombers of July 7, 2005; and so many, many others), that non-Muslims will continue to swallow the increasingly less convincing line that none of this violence has anything to do with Islam?

Of course, many will continue to do so, and they will continue to do so because of articles like this one, which claim victim status for Muslims and do their best to divert attention away from jihadist crimes. Ellison does mention a few of these jihad attacks farther down, but says nothing about the belief-system that motivated them, or what can and should be done within the Muslim community in the U.S. to help ensure that there will be no such attacks in the future -- that is, if that were on the Muslim community in America's to-do list.

Anyway, in response, the Congressman breaks out some half-baked Saidism:

One factor is that in Western thinking the Orient and people from the Orient are somehow foreign or different. Long before 9/11 occurred, you had a whole set of films where the villain is some Arab Muslim guy. Whether it's "True Lies" or it's "Back to the Future," whether it's Libyans who are blowing up something, whatever it is, it is deeply rooted stuff over the long term. What is Islam but the religion of the Orient? So there's that.

Remember The Sum of All Fears? The novel that featured jihadist villains, who became neo-Nazis in the film after Hamas-linked CAIR mau-maued the filmmakers? Has Ellison seen that one?

Then you have other things like 9/11 that make these things more pointed. Of course 9/11 was not the last thing. Like when Faizal Shahzad tried to blow up a bomb in Times Square or when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit or Nadal Hassan did what he did in Fort Hood. These things are incredibly damaging to the way that Americans feel about their Muslim and Middle Eastern neighbors.

No kidding, really? In any case, note that Ellison doesn't even come close to addressing the ideological wellsprings of such attacks.

The Muslim world is incredibly diverse. You have people who are Bosnian Muslims who are white as the moon and Liberian Muslims that are as black as the night. You have white Americans whose families have been here for generations and they have converted to Islam. One example is Hamza Yusuf who is a noted and brilliant scholar. So there is a broad diversity of Muslims. That's just the reality. You know, Islam is not all foreign. When I swore in on the Quran, I swore in on Thomas Jefferson's Quran....

Which he owned, of course, to study the beliefs of those who were menacing American ships in the Mediterranean.

In Park51 you have people who want to bring us back but there are more people who want to bring us forward. You can never suppress people who have reactionary, fearful ideas who want to divide people. But the people who stand up and do the right thing will prevail if they stick to it. It's like MLK said in the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail": "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." But in the case of Park51, the good people have spoken up.

Should Obama and other leaders have moved faster to speak up?

I think the president has done a good job. He has spoken out clearly and properly on this issue of the mosque and the issue in Gainesville Florida. I am proud of the president. That is one of the good sides of the story. When you have a leader standing up and saying we are not going to divide Americans based on religion. I don't have any complaints about what Obama, Gates, Petraeus or Nadler has said.

They could have ducked and covered but instead they have contributed to the marginalization of people who make their living on this stuff, like Pam Geller and Robert Spencer. ...

Note that we're not marginal enough for Ellison to refrain from mentioning us at all. He would certainly like to see us marginalized, since I have been the one calling attention to his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. As I noted in December 2008, when it was first revealed that Ellison's Hajj was paid for with $13,350 from the Muslim American Society:

The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

What does that have to do with Congressman Ellison? Everything. The Muslim American Society paid for his Hajj. And what is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood.

"In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004.

Imagine if a conservative Congressman had taken a trip that had been paid for by a Christian group that was, according to one of its own documents, dedicated to "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house" so that Christian law would replace the U.S. Constitution. I expect we would hear more of an outcry than we ever heard about Ellison's Brotherhood-funded hajj.

But I'm going to keep talking about it here. No wonder he wishes we were marginalized.

All Jewish Jihad Watchers, may you have an easy fast.

It's going to be a tough year. Pray hard. But with so many good, true and beautiful things that we are defending, we must prevail, and we will prevail.

"Moscow is the only place in the world where over one million Muslims are served in only four mosques. We lack premises for praying. Muslims are allowed to conduct their religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches, but we would rather avoid this extreme measure." In other words, give us more mosques, or we will take over your churches. Orthodox churches, with their proliferation of icons, are about as unsuited for Islamic prayer, with its abhorrence of shirk -- the association of partners with Allah -- and furious iconoclasm, as a building can possibly be. If Muslims begin praying in such churches in large numbers, they will begin demanding that the icons be taken down or covered up -- and eventually the places will become mosques in due course, like so many former churches in the Middle East.

"Moscow imam reminds that Muslims may pray in Orthodox churches," from Interfax, September 15 (thanks to Bruce):

Moscow, September 15, Interfax - The lack of mosques in Moscow may drive Muslims to visit Orthodox churches, imam-hatyb of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque Ildar Ayautdinov expresses his concern.

"Moscow is the only place in the world where over one million Muslims are served in only four mosques. We lack premises for praying. Muslims are allowed to conduct their religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches, but we would rather avoid this extreme measure," he said in an interview to the Moscow issue of Metro daily.

He referred to the concerns voiced by the opponents of constructing a mosque in the Tekstilschiki District of Moscow that such mosque would threaten dog owners and said that "nothing threatens dogs, this is just ridiculous."

"Ibn Mughaffal reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and then said: what is the trouble with them (the people of Medina)? How dogs are nuisance to them (the citizens of Medina)? He then permitted keeping of dogs for hunting and (the protection of) herds. In the hadith transmitted on the authority of Yahya, he (the Holy Prophet) permitted the keeping of dogs for (the protection of) herds, for hunting and (the protection of) cultivated land....." -- Sahih Muslim 3814

At the same time, he noted that if any dog's spittle marked clothes of a Muslim, he was not allowed to pray in such clothes, but should go and wash it.

"Another thing is important: more attention is given to animals than to the problems of human neighbours. There is a need to construct mosques, otherwise something bad will supersede spiritual development," Alyautdinov noted.

Threat noted.

The way this is shaping up, Rauf will either get his mosque or make a handsome profit for putting it a block or two away from Ground Zero. As Pamela Geller says, "I hate the idea of paying the jizya (or blackmail, for that matter), but the idea of a 15-story mega mosque on Ground Zone is more abhorrent." "Russian chess chief bids for Ground Zero mosque site," from AFP, September 16 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

MOSCOW - The eccentric Russian head of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) on Thursday announced a 10-million-dollar bid to buy the site of a controversial mosque project near Ground Zero in New York.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said he had sent a letter on FIDE's behalf to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg "with an offer to buy this land for 10 million dollars," the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The land near the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks, would be used for an international chess centre and academy, Ilyumzhinov said.

"We named the sum of 10 million dollars because last week billionaire Donald Trump gave an offer of 7.5 million dollars and we decided to outdo him," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

Property developer Trump last week offered to buy the site two blocks from Ground Zero where a Muslim group wants to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre, but the offer was turned down....

Which in itself indicates that they're not interested in building bridges or promoting harmony at all.

And people actually fall for this Orwellian nonsense. Also, what was a Hamas operative doing in the West Bank, which is supposed to be Fatah territory? "Israeli troops kill Hamas militant in West Bank," by Matti Friedman for Associated Press, September 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant on Friday during a raid in the West Bank, where violence has increased since a new round of Mideast peace talks began this month.

Hamas vowed to avenge the death of Iyad Abu Shilbaya, 37, who the Islamic militant group said was a local leader of its armed wing in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm.

"The blood of our martyr will be a curse," said Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida. He blamed both Israel and Hamas' rivals, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, for the killing.

The Islamic group vowed to avenge the militant's death. Gunmen from Hamas, which opposes the peace talks and has threatened to use violence to derail them, killed four Israeli settlers in a Sept. 1 shooting just as the talks were getting under way.

Israel's military said soldiers were trying to arrest Abu Shilbaya in Tulkarm when he ran toward the soldiers, ignoring orders to halt. The military said troops feared he had a weapon and shot him.

The man's brother, Mutasim Abu Shilbaya, said troops burst into his brother's house around 3 a.m. and killed him in his bedroom. A floor mat in the room and the bed were stained with blood.

Israel's military said Abu Shilbaya was wanted for "recent activity" but provided no further details. A Hamas statement said Abu Shilbaya served several stints in Israeli and Palestinian Authority jails. It said he was responsible for leading several militant attacks, but gave no other information....

Still, some 3,000 Hamas loyalists gathered to march in Abu Shilbaya's funeral, waving the group's green flag and chanting "revenge, revenge!"...

Though the Palestinian Authority and Israel share Hamas as a common enemy and have cracked down on the militant group, the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, condemned Abu Shilbaya's killing.

"(It) increases the weakness of the credibility of the peace process, which is already shaken," Fayyad said in a statement....

See, taking out a jihadist harms the peace process. Jihadists should be allowed to operate freely. That will help the peace process.

Reposted by popular demand.

Other videos from the great day:

Geert Wilders

Ilario Pantano

John Bolton

Mike Gallagher

9/11 Family Members

Taps, National Anthem, opening prayers

"I have nothing against you guys. I'm religious, too. I'm Muslim." He doesn't seem to have mentioned the Qur'an's designation of the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82). However, the thugs' retailing of the antisemitic caricature that "Jews have money" indicates that he has been drinking from the poisoned wells of antisemitism, and given the one attacker's proud self-identification as a Muslim, probably the antisemitism of his acquaintance has been Islamic. "'Jews have $': Yeshiva thugs," by Jamie Schram and Chuck Bennett in the New York Post, September 17 (thanks to Pamela Hall):

Armed bandits who invaded a yeshiva dormitory in Queens and forced eight students into a bedroom at gunpoint claimed to be Muslim and angrily barked to the victims, "Jews have money," sources said yesterday.

The terrifying robbery occurred at around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, when the two men knocked on the dormitory door at Yeshiva Zichron Aryeh in Far Rockaway, saying their car broke down, sources said.

Then they stuck the gun against the neck of a student, Yisrooel Sterns, 19, and forced their way into the house on Mott Avenue house in the Bayswater section.

"'You guys are bunch of Jewish kids. Where is everything?' " one thug snarled, Sterns said. Before they left, one thug reportedly said, "I have nothing against you guys. I'm religious, too. I'm Muslim."

How reassuring!

UPDATE: All were freed without being charged.

Unfortunately, it was almost entirely predictable that something like this would turn up during the Pope's visit. It is also not unlike a report from a few weeks ago in which jihadists posing as rail workers were to be pre-positioned to wreak havoc during the 2012 Olympics. What remains to be seen, of course, is any affiliation these five may have with larger jihadist groups -- in this case, particularly Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

More on this story. "Five Street Cleaners Held Over 'Pope Plot'," by John di Paolo for Sky News, September 17:

Five street cleaners have been arrested over a potential threat to the Pope, Sky News sources say.

Armed counter-terror officers swooped on the central London agency to which they were registered in the early hours of the morning.

The suspects, who are aged 26, 27, 36, 40 and 50, are being held and questioned under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The firm where the arrests were made is now being searched, as well as homes in north and east London.

Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt said he understood the men were Algerian nationals employed by the agency to work for Westminster City Council.

He said they were due to clean streets around the House of Commons, where the Pope is due to speak, prompting police to launch the operation to arrest them.

Brunt said: "I was at a briefing last week around the whole issue of the Pope's security and the point was made then that there was no known threat or intelligence to suggest a plot against the Pope.

"What the police are dealing with today is something that has cropped up in the last 24 hours."

Dr Leith Penny, Westminster City Council's director for city management, said: "The UK's security is obviously of critical importance and can never be taken for granted and so our congratulations must go to the police authorities for their swift action today.

"While police investigations are ongoing and no charges have been brought, we can confirm that the people at the centre of the investigation work for one of our contractors, Veolia Environmental Services, who employ 650 on-street staff to keep Westminster's streets clean and free from rubbish.

"Veolia and Westminster City Council work closely with the relevant authorities to constantly ensure that all the people working on their behalf are subject to right to work checks as prescribed by the Home Office to assess their eligibility to work in the country.

"We are confident that these checks are robust and we will continue to work with the police and other authorities during this investigation."

The Pope was told of the arrests this morning, but a spokesman for the Vatican confirmed the itinerary would not change.

"We are calm, the Pope is happy and we go on with the same joy we have had until now," he said.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "Initial searches have not uncovered any hazardous items.

"Today's arrests were made after police received information. Following initial inquiries by detectives, a decision was made to arrest the five men....

UPDATE: All were freed without being charged.

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

They no doubt want to kill him because of his Regensberg address, in which he quoted the 14th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos: "He said, I quote, `Show me just what (Islamic Prophet) Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'" And so to prove that Muhammad didn't bring what was evil and inhuman, they want to murder the Pope.

That'll show us, all right.

"Pope visit: Five suspected Islamist terrorists arrested over assassination plot," by Duncan Gardham in the Telegraph, September 17 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Police have arrested five suspected Islamist terrorists planning to assassinate the Pope.

The men were arrested during raids at 5.45am at a business premises in central London based on an intelligence tip off received overnight.

The suspects, aged 26, 27, 36, 40 and 50 were arrested by officers from Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

They are said to be from a variety of nationalities including a number of Algerian origin.

The men have been taken to a central London police station where they will be interviewed by detectives.

Searches are being carried out under the Terrorism Act 2000 at the business premises and at residential premises in north and east London....

Yesterday when this story broke I was in transit and so wasn't able to post it, but by now the whole world has seen the footage above of public school students praying inside a mosque. Now the school has apologized for allowing this to happen, and that's fine -- but why isn't anyone calling the Islamic Society of Boston to account for its role in making this happen as well? Or is it simply understood that they will try to convert Americans to Islam by hook or by crook whenever possible, and no one can expect them to adhere to basic rules of civility or decency in doing so?

And would the school have apologized if this had not come to public attention? Or would they cheerfully have allowed it to happen again and again, with other groups of students?

"Praying by pupils at mosque decried: Wellesley chief calls it a mistake; group releases field trip footage," by Erica Noonan and Katrina Ballard in the Boston Globe, September 17 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

WELLESLEY -- Wellesley's school superintendent apologized yesterday for allowing middle school pupils to participate in a prayer service during a field trip to a Roxbury mosque last spring.

The apology to parents was made after a group that has been critical of Islamic Society of Boston Community Center -- New England's largest mosque and Muslim cultural center -- released a 10-minute video featuring footage of Wellesley pupils bowing their heads during a prayer service.

The group, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, received the footage from a mother of one of the pupils, its director, Dennis Hale, said yesterday. The woman, whom they would not identify, went on the May 27 trip as a chaperone for her son's sixth-grade class, he said.

Superintendent Bella Wong said yesterday that allowing the children to participate in the prayer service was a mistake, and apologized to parents in a letter.

Five middle schoolers participated in the Muslim midday prayer at the mosque, she said. Some can be seen in the video imitating some of the movements.

"It was not the intent for students to be able to participate in any of the religious practices,'' Wong said. "The fact that any students were allowed to do so in this case was an error.''

A community center spokesman said no one from the organization asked the pupils to participate in the prayers.

"Certainly in our tours we do not invite kids to take part, but if someone wants to come pray and take part, we shouldn't prevent them,'' said Bilal Kaleem, president of the Muslim American Society of Boston, which manages and runs the cultural center. "It's more an issue with the school.''

Kaleem said that the cultural center offers tours and that Wellesley educators had set up the field trip....

An update on this story. Also in this report is news that a priest who had come under threat earlier because his schools' performance surpassed Muslim ones is now under police protection. "Kashmir: Muslims try to burn a Christian school (only in name)," by Shefali Prabhu for Asia News, September 15:

Mendhar (AsiaNews) - A mob of Muslim radicals have tried to burn a school with a Christian name (St. Francis School), unaware that it is governed by Muslim and Christian in name only. The police managed to stop the arsonists, but fired into the crowd, killing four people and wounding 19. Christian leaders say "these people are being manipulated.

The protest against the "Burn the Koran" campaign is spreading in several areas of Kashmir and has already left 22 dead and hundreds injured. The events used the announced (but subsequently cancelled) desecration of the Koran in the United States, to increase the tension against the Indian government, which refuses to grant autonomy to the region, also disputed by Pakistan.

After three days of demonstrations and violence, protests erupted yesterday in Mendhar, about 60 km from Poonch near the border with Pakistan. From 10 am at least 3,000 people gathered also from nearby villages, marching towards the school of St Francis and the residences of teachers.

The crowd were stopped by the police who used firearms, batons and tear gas grenades. In the clashes four demonstrators were killed and 19 wounded. The mob destroyed dozens of government offices, the police station and burned at least eight cars.

The irony is that the school targeted is Christian in name only and is owned by local Muslims, even if the teaching staff is made up of Christians from Kerala.

Mgr. Peter Celestine, bishop of Srinagar tells AsiaNews: "The so-called St Francis School has nothing to do with Catholic Protestant or evangelical institutions. They only use the Christian name to attract students. This shows that even for the local Muslims, Christian educational institutions have a very high standard".

That's got to stick in the craw of the supremacists; it's very bad for business.

"These people - he added -are rounded up from nearby villages and incited to attack, inflamed by religious zeal."

In recent days, however, some Catholic schools were affected. Among them the Good Shepherd's School of missionary Jim Borst, in Pulwama. The mob burned the main building and two other buildings were looted. Witnesses said the protesters were from villages under the influence of "Allahwales" and Devbandis "fundamentalist groups close to the Wahhabis.

Local people, Muslim, expressed solidarity with the missionary and say they are ready to help re-start the school. Fr. Jim, for his part, sent a letter to the families linked to the school, promising to reopen immediately as soon as the curfew ends. Meanwhile the priest is under police protection to prevent attacks against him.

On 14 September another school risked being burnt: it is the Christ School in Poonch. Only police intervention stopped the mob just 500 meters from the building.

Fr. Matthew, the principal told AsiaNews: "We have 1522 students and only 40 are Christians, 40% of the students are Muslims, then there are Hindus and Sikhs. We have always enjoyed a deep respect from the locals. Many Islamic authorities have expressed their displeasure at the attempt to burn the school and condemned the attack. But people are manipulated and have been driven to a frenzy by false news reports".

That ability to be so easily "driven into a frenzy" aggravates underdevelopment in the area: it's hard to develop anything stable, let alone an educational system, in a "frenzy"-prone area. Hence, here is another study in jihad and its accompanying attitudes and sense of entitlement causing poverty, rather than the other way around.

And Obama is chuffed. "Israel analysts see Turkey radicalizing, becoming 'Iran No. 2,'" from the World Tribune, September 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

TEL AVIV -- Israel's defense community has assessed that Turkey was moving toward becoming a radical and nuclear Islamic state.

Officials and leading analysts asserted that the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was rapidly dismantling the secular Turkish state. They said Erdogan could turn Turkey into another Iran, a radical Muslim state with nuclear weapons.

"There could be a deep strategic change," Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, said.

Officials cited Turkey's referendum that would revise the secular constitution. They said the 26 amendments approved by 58 percent of voters on Sept. 12 would significantly increase the authority of Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party while marginalizing Turkey's military.

Leading officials expressed concern over Erdogan's growing power in Turkey and his success in intimidating the once-powerful Turkish military. They said Erdogan could use his referendum victory to expand Turkey's alliance with neighboring Iran and Syria while fomenting another crisis with Israel....

"If there is not a change in personality, then Turkey will become Iran No. 2," former National Security Council director Uzi Dayan said.

When in Muslim countries, non-Muslims should conform their behavior to Islamic sensibilities. When in non-Muslim countries, non-Muslims should conform their behavior to Islamic sensibilities. Once you have grasped this basic principle, all will be well. "Cover up for pool event during next year's Ramadan," by Padraic Murphy in the Herald Sun, September 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

UPDATE 12.35pm: A PLAN to force families to cover up to avoid offending Muslims at a public event has triggered furious debate.

An overwhelming 94 per cent of heraldsun.com.au readers disagree with the legal ruling approving the contentious ban during next year's Ramadan.

So far the Premier John Brumby has refused to weigh into the debate about the event, saying he will wait to see the VCAT [Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal] ruling before making any comment.

VCAT has approved a ban on uncovered shoulders and thighs for a community event to be held at the Dandenong Oasis, a municipal pool.

"Participants aged 10 and over must ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee and the entire torso extending to the upper arms," a request by Dandenong City Council and the YMCA states in an exemption application to the Equal Opportunities Act.

"Participants must not wear transparent clothing."

This issue has also sparked a huge community debate, with well over 500 people commenting on heraldsun.com.au this morning.

Many readers feel the administrative ruling has gone too far to appease minority interests, and even senior Islamic figures have raised concerns about the precedent....

As long as Westerners keep bowing to violent intimidation, Islamic supremacists will keep engaging in it. "Nightclub forced to change its name from Mecca after threats from Muslim extremists," by Tom Worden in the Daily Mail, September 16 (thanks to Kristian):

A popular Spanish nightclub has been forced to change its name from Mecca after sparking a furious reaction around the Islamic world.

Intelligence chiefs warned owners they were being targeted by extremists who claim the disco is insulting to their religion.

Hackers broke into the nightclub's website and posted a video threatening 'a great war between Spain and the people of Islam' if the venue did not change its name.

The controversy then spread around the Muslim world with media in the Middle East and north Africa picking up on the story.

Today the owners, said to include former Real Madrid goalkeeper Santiago Canizares, agreed to change the club's name after meeting with local Muslim leaders.

La Meca (Spanish for Mecca), was the most popular disco in the coastal city of Aguila, in Murcia, southeastern Spain, in the 1980s and 90s before it closed down a decade ago.

It re-opened on June 18 with the same name, sparking the current controversy.

Last week Spain's intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), alerted the owners to threats being made online.

Moderate Spanish Muslims also called for the name to be changed.

Mohamed Ali, head of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities said: 'Muslims pray towards Mecca and it is there that the prophet received the holy Koran.

'Calling a place for dancing and drinking by that name shows disregard to the feelings of Muslims.'...

And of course Muslims are always so sensitive to the feelings of non-Muslims. Just look at Feisal Abdul Rauf.

In secular Turkey, the military has always been the foremost defender of secularism. It has carried out coups in the past against regimes that tried to weaken Kemalist secularism and impose Sharia. Now Erdogan is moving to make that impossible, and Barack Obama is pleased.

More on this story. "Obama welcomes Erdogan's referendum victory," from the World Tribune, September 15 (thanks to Rosanne):

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has praised Turkey for revising its secular constitution.

Obama telephoned Prime Minister Recep Erdogan during the referendum that called for the revision of Turkey's constitution on Sept. 12. About 58 percent of voters supported Erdogan's drive to reform the constitution to reduce the power of the military and increase the influence of the prime minister's pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party.

"The president also acknowledged the vibrancy of Turkey's democracy as reflected in the turnout for the referendum that took place across Turkey today," a White House statement said on Sept. 12.

Officials said Obama regards Erdogan as one of the president's leading allies in the Islamic world. They said the administration viewed the referendum as a reaffirmation of Turkish democracy and government control of the military.

On Sept. 14, the British daily Daily Telegraph reported that Iran has agreed to donate up to $25 million to Erdogan's Justice and Development Party. The newspaper said Iran, in negotiations with Erdogan himself, has pledged to donate $12 million to the ruling Turkish party, with an additional $13 million to be relayed later in 2010. Turkey has denied the report....

In contrast, the administration has supported Erdogan's drive to eliminate the military's influence on the Turkish government as well as civilian life. Officials said the prime minister's effort was serving as a model for Islamic democracy.

"We hope that through these reforms, it will further enhance Turkey's democratic processes and human rights protection," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "This was a choice for the Turkish people, and there was a very strong, decisive vote to move towards greater civilian oversight of these democratic institutions."

Molly Norris conceived of "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" as a joke, but it went viral in part because it was a gesture of defiance in the face of violent threats and intimidation: if Islamic supremacists were threatening to murder Motoonists Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks, and anyone else who dared to draw Muhammad, then if everyone drew him, the thugs couldn't possibly kill us all, could they?

Well, no, they couldn't. But Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American-born imam who is linked to so much jihadist activity in the United States, including the Fort Hood jihad assassin, the Christmas underwear jihad bomber, and even 9/11, called for her death. And so now she has disappeared. There is no more Molly Norris: she has changed her name and gone into hiding.

This is the sort of case that the President of the United States should be talking about. Instead of wringing his hands about the prospect of Muslim rioting over Qur'an-burning, the President should go on television and give a brief lesson about how freedom of speech is a foremost bulwark against tyranny and a cornerstone of any society that respects the dignity of the human being. He should say that the idea that Molly Norris would have to live in hiding because of a cartoon, or series of cartoons, is unconscionable, and tell the Islamic world that neither Muslims nor their prophet are harmed by cartoons depicting him, and that their violent rage over such depictions is the only thing that makes people care to draw him in the first place. He should say that to threaten people with death and to kill people over cartoons of Muhammad is sheer madness, and is a form of violent irrationality that is destructive to free societies -- and as such, it is something that the U.S. will do everything it can to resist. Molly Norris and others who are threatened will be given full round-the-clock protection, and if violent protests and riots over cartoons or Qur'an-burning break out in areas where American troops are deployed, those troops will put down those riots and protect the innocent to the fullest possible extent.

Maybe in January 2013 we will have a president who will see the need to do such things, and move to protect and defend Western culture and civilization.

"On the Advice of the FBI, Cartoonist Molly Norris Disappears From View," by Mark D. Fefer in the Seattle Weekly, September 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

You may have noticed that Molly Norris' comic is not in the paper this week. That's because there is no more Molly.

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, "going ghost": moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program--except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It's all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoon....

And, he added, "integrity!" Said one resident: "he doesn't take care of this building or the building around the corner, and he's going to take care of a mosque?"

Indeed, the backers of the most aggressive, insensitive, and insulting development project in recent history have shown themselves to be breathtakingly incompetent in all things real estate: we've seen the eviction of Sharif el-Gamal for non-payment of rent, back taxes owed by the same thug on the mosque property, the revelation that the mega-mosque backers don't even own all the land they intend to build on, and now this.

Meanwhile, in Union City, New Jersey, residents will be the first to observe that platitudes about peace don't clear up the toxic hazard of a mold infestation, wipe out the bedbugs, fix the sprinkler system and fire alarms, or pay the officers who are working overtime to watch the properties in case one catches fire, so Rauf's tenants don't die.

But... "peace." You just remember that, and turn that frown upside-down. "Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Rauf is a no-show in New Jersey court," by Tom Topousis for the New York Post, September 15 (thanks to Twostellas):

While the Imam behind plans for a mosque near Ground Zero was jetting around the globe and advocating for his Downtown project, a pair of dilapidated apartment buildings he owns in New Jersey fell into such disrepair that cops have to stand watch in the event of a fire.

The fire watch, at taxpayer expense, was revealed during a court hearing today when Union City lawyers asked to have two buildings owned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf placed into receivership so that rents could be used to fix dozens of violations, including inoperable alarms and sprinklers.

Rauf skipped today's hearing as did his wife Daisy Khan. Their lawyer, Tomas Espinosa, said he didn't know why the Imam didn't come to court.

Never mind the imminent danger to the tenants, Rauf and Daisy are stressed out:

"There have been a lot of stress on these people," Espinosa said when asked after the hearing to explain why Rauf was a no-show "The legal process will show that my client is an honorable man that has taken care of his property."

Asked why he was confident that Rauf would prevail, Espinosa said of the Imam, "There is integrity and character," adding, "He is a man of peace."

If he's a man of integrity, he should go live in one of his slums -- after all, if they're apparently okay for the people who live there, they should be good enough for Rauf and his wife.

For that matter, a man of integrity would have set his own proverbial house in order before rushing headlong into Lower Manhattan. But such things can't wait for the impulses of Islamo-hubris.

But Union City officials insist Rauf is a slumlord.

Christine Vanek, a lawyer for Union City, said cops were put on fire watch rather than evict tenants from 16 apartments in one of the buildings after a Sept. 7 inspection determined there was an imminent hazard. Rauf, she said, did not respond to an order to hire a private fire patrol.

"The city immediately put a police officer there and sent a detail officer, which means we have to pay over-time," Vanek said of putting an extra cop on duty just to watch Rauf's building. She did not say how much it is costing Union City, and other officials did not return calls for that information.

Espinosa, however, said he was told a fire alarm contractor has been working at the building and is putting together a plan to fix the alarms and sprinklers.

But Judge Thomas Olivieri bristled when Espinosa said he had no documents to show what work was done or what might be planned and then asked the judge for more time "to come here with a total picture of what has been done."

"The allegation here is that nothing has been done," Olivieri said. "The city is spending taxpayer money to put a fire person, man or woman, at the building that is occupied to monitor it so that there's not a fire that occurs."

Olivieri then blasted Espinosa for coming to court empty-handed.

"There is no reason whatsoever, none, in the last 48 hours why your client could not have submitted something to you that hyou [sic] could have submitted to the court. this is serious. I am somewhat suprrised [sic] that I have nothing from the defense -- nothing.

"And I reject that you were busy and they were busy," the judge said....

There is more at the Post's website. More on what's wrong with Rauf's slums: "Residents of N.J. building owned by imam in Ground Zero clash have list of complaints," by Bob Considine for the Star-Ledger, September 15 (thanks to Ron):

In the third-floor Union City apartment where Paola Leiva and Wendy Lopez live, the back wall of the tiny shower is stripped of its tiles and covered by a black garbage bag. Mold is everywhere. In the ceiling, there's a hole the size of a fist.

"It's from leaking in the bathroom," Leiva said. "It's a big problem. The kids cannot take a shower. I pay the rent every month, but I don't know why the guy never come to fix it."

Today, The Star-Ledger was permitted access to one of the 16 apartments at 2206 Central Ave., a building owned by Feisal Abdul Rauf. Multiple, unaddressed complaints of leaks, mold, bedbug and rodent infestation and fire hazards at the dwelling are why Union City is suing Rauf, the imam leading efforts to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center, Mayor Brian Stack said.

The city claims Rauf, named as the sole officer of Sage Development LLC, has failed to properly maintain two apartment buildings at the corner of Central Avenue and 22nd Street. It is asking the court to appoint custodial receivership that would collect rents and apply the funds to correct repairs and hazards, while also settling fines imposed by the city.

Rauf has not been available for comment, but he and/or his attorney are scheduled to appear for a hearing in Superior Court in Jersey City. Some tenants say they are eager to hear whether their complaints will be heard.

As the Post said above, Rauf didn't show.

"I've been here since the building opened (in 1990) and it hasn't been peaceful with this owner," said Cindy Balko, who lives on the first floor. "He cares nothing about the people who live in this building. Not a thing."

Balko did not allow The Star-Ledger access to her apartment, but complained of "leaks galore" and said she has asked for repairs repeatedly over the past eight months. She also said her complaints were not motivated by the imam's controversial position to build the mosque.

"It's fine and dandy that he can build a mosque," Balko said. "But he doesn't take care of this building or the building around the corner, and he's going to take care of a mosque?"

The Star-Ledger was allowed inside the apartment shared by Leiva and Lopez and their children. In addition to the mold and leaky bathroom, the living room window did not have any child-safety protection. Leiva said she had made a request for such protection with the landlord, but it has gone unheeded in the eight months she has lived in the building.

Inside the building, the yellow-colored hallways were clean, although there was a musty odor. Repairs were being made to a hallway light. On Monday, signs were posted on all residents' doors that a fumigation for bedbugs would take place Sept. 18.

A second adjacent building that Rauf owns, at 618 22nd St., which once had 32 apartments, has been vacant since a fire on Feb. 8, 2008. Union City says it issued 12 fire code violations Rauf ignored prior to the fire. It also said Rauf boarded up the building and barred residents from their apartments after the fire, rather than address previous violations.

Although Stack singled Rauf out as the city's worst landlord, Union City spokesman Mark Albeiz said the city files similar lawsuits against other landlords "several times a year."...

Our freedoms hang by a slender thread. Five justices can decide to interpret away a basic right by hedging it all around with exceptions, and that right would be essentially obliterated. The Organization of the Islamic Conference has been trying for years to compel Western nations to restrict the freedom of speech by introducing "hate speech" laws and criminalizing "incitement to religious hatred." The problem is that "hatred" is a matter of interpretation, and hate speech laws can easily become tools in the hands of authoritarian rulers to silence dissent.

So when Breyer says this, it sounds immediately sensible, because Qur'an-burning probably appears to most people to be simply an obnoxious act, an unnecessary provocation. One problem here, however, is that if burning the Qur'an is singled out as a crime of greater magnitude than burning the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita or the Granth or what have you, the Sharia goal of establishing Muslims and Islam as a superior class with rights and privileges beyond those of ordinary citizens has advanced to a significant degree. And that would be the kind of law that Breyer must envision, because he is speaking about forbidding something that would provoke violence and mayhem -- and burning the Bible or other holy books doesn't do that. Breyer is also here essentially encouraging Muslims to make more threats and commit more irrational acts of violence against innocents. After all, if it gets them what they want, why not?

"Justice Breyer Suggests That Burning a Quran Could be Like Shouting 'Fire' in a Crowded Theatre--Thus Not Protected by 1st Amendment," by Chris Neefus for CNS News, September 15 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

(CNSNews.com) - Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said on Tuesday that globalization may change the way the First Amendment applies in the United States, and he suggested that Pastor Terry Jones' proposed Quran-burning may or may not be protected under the First Amendment.

Breyer -- appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America" to promote his book "Making Our Democracy Work" -- made the comments to anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton when Breyer was elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994. The ABC anchorman asked the justice to explain whether globalization, and Jones's ability to broadcast his actions, poses "a challenge" to the First Amendment.

"[W]hen we spoke several years ago, you talked about how the process of globalization was changing our understanding of the law," Stephanopoulos began. "When you think about the Internet and when you think about the possibility that, you know, a pastor in Florida with a flock of 30 can threaten to burn the Quran, and that leads to riots and killings in Afghanistan, does that pose a challenge to the First Amendment--to how you interpret it? Does it change the nature of...what we can allow and protect?"

"Well, in a sense, yes; in a sense, no," Breyer replied. "People can express their views in debate, no matter how awful those views are -- in debate, a conversation, people exchanging ideas. That's the model so that, in fact, we are better informed when we cast that ballot."

While the "core values remain," Breyer continued, "how they apply can change" over time, he suggested.

Breyer pointed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion in a 1919 case testing the limits of First Amendment protection. Holmes argued that shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater would not be protected speech because people could be trampled in the rush to escape a burning theater.

"And what is the crowded theater today?" Breyer asked. "What is being trampled to death?"...

Well, increasingly, it is the freedom of speech and expression, and other rights and freedoms that Westerners enjoy that are denied by Sharia.

Is a transcript of this debate available? It could be exceedingly illuminating, particularly if those who were against the Islamic validity of such attacks did not object to them merely on prudential grounds, but on Islamic theological grounds. If so, this would be one of those rare sightings of that ever-elusive unicorn, an Islamic theological and juridical basis for rejecting jihad violence. Everyone must believe, on pain of charges of "Islamophobia" and "bigotry," that such a unicorn exists, but few, if anyone, have actually seen it. "Terror attacks debated at Melbourne mosque, court told," by Ian Munro in The Age, September 16 (thanks to Raven):

Worshippers at a Melbourne mosque last year were discussing whether it would be allowed under the rules of Islam to attack government institutions in Australia, the Supreme Court heard today.

Defence counsel John O'Sullivan, for Abdirahman Ahmed, one of five men on trial over alleged plans to attack Holsworthy Army Barracks in Sydney, said his client was intending to put an end to any debate about whether violence in Australia was allowed under Islam.

Mr O'Sullivan said there was no dispute there was a number of people connected with the mosque which Amhed attended were debating the possibility of acting violently against government institutions in Australia, but he said Mr Ahmed opposed the attack.

Earlier this week, the court was told that Ahmed said it would be catastrophic for Australian Muslims if the attack went ahead.

"In Ahmed's trial the defence does not dispute that there were a number of people associated with the mosque he attended who were debating the question of whether it was permissible according to the teaching of Islam to engage in armed conflict with government institutions in Australia," Mr O'Sullivan said.

But Mr O'Sullivan said the one dispute in Ahmed's trial was his reason for trying to get a religious authority to answer that question.

"The defence says he was in fact intending to put an end to any further debate about the question."...

In FrontPage this morning I ask the question: if the media doesn't cover a rally, did anyone attend?

The photographs don't lie: at the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance against the Ground Zero mega-mosque, tens of thousands of people filled the streets. Flags were everywhere, along with numerous homemade signs. Meanwhile, two blocks away, at the counter-protest in favor of the mega-mosque, photographs show that the demonstration was much smaller, and printed signs were in abundance - an unmistakable indication of an astroturfed, professional protest, orchestrated by Communist and Socialist groups (whose printed signs abounded). Yet the mainstream media consistently portrayed these two demonstrations as "dueling rallies," and even claimed that the pro-mosque ralliers outnumbered those against the mosque. It was yet another indication of how the ostensibly objective press tries to manipulate public opinion.

The Rally of Remembrance, which was organized by Pamela Geller and me as an effort of our Freedom Defense Initiative/Stop Islamization of America organization, featured a great deal that any truly objective reporter might have considered newsworthy. The foremost human interest story of the afternoon was the rousing speech given by Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla. Nassralla garnered national attention last June at the first rally Geller and I hosted against the Ground Zero mosque, when Keith Olbermann and other hard-Left pseudo-journalists trumpeted and misrepresented a misunderstanding between Nassralla and some others in the crowd as a racial incident. Olbermann, Reason magazine's Cathy Young, and other blinkered ideologues used this incident as proof that those who opposed the mosque were all racist, "Islamophobic" bigots. Indeed, many news outlets ignored the rally altogether except to note the alleged mistreatment of Nassralla.

But when Nassralla appeared at Saturday's demonstration, declaring in impassioned terms his opposition to the mega-mosque, his love for America, and his grief at the persecution of Christians in Egypt, Olbermann and the others who had so earnestly publicized his alleged mistreatment at the June rally remained silent. Objective journalists, of course, would almost certainly have been interested in telling their audiences that Nassralla did not come away from the June incident believing that all mosque opponents were racists, and that he also was a featured speaker at Saturday's rally against the mosque. But none of those mainstream media outlets that took note of the rally at all mentioned Nassralla's presence....

There is more.

Because nothing -- nothing! -- says "Religion of Peace and Tolerance" quite like beating up on a bunch of monks!

At issue here once again is the provision in Islamic law that forbids dhimmis, or non-Muslims subjugated under Islamic law's holy protection racket, from repairing their houses of worship or building new ones, as notably described in the Pact of Umar.

Again, apologists have insisted to us and to others that the Pact of Umar is a dead document. Say what they will, pooh-poohing the Pact for Western consumption does nothing to improve the treatment of religious minorities in Muslim lands, where the practices it outlines have a curious habit of persisting.

And we sure didn't make them up. "Egyptian security forces storm the Monastery of St Macarius, three monks badly injured," from Asia News, September 15:

Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Hundreds of Egyptian security forces, backed by a large number of cars and armoured vehicles, attacked the monastery of St Macarius of Alexandria in Wadi Rayan, Fayoum Province, 150 kilometres south of Cairo. The action began at 8 pm on 7 September, but news about it only filtered recently. About 300 agents took part in the assault, using tear gas, batons and stones against monks, three of whom were seriously wounded.

According to the AINA news agency, security forces prevented the delivery of limestone bricks for the construction of cells for the monks inside the ancient Monastery. They also tried to seize the bricks already delivered but the monks sat on them, refusing to move.

The issue concerns the ownership of the area and its use, with monks and the government holding different positions.

The authorities claim that Wadi Rayan is a conservation area that cannot be touched. The monks say they must build cells inside the monastery, which goes back long before it was ever designated as a conservation area.

Excessive force, to say the least, for a putative land use/code compliance issue.

Security forced surrounded the Monastery until 12 AM the following day, but withdrew "after seeing the insistence of monks to assert their rights," said Fr Boulos el-Makkary, one of the 85 monks living in the monastery. "They left with the commander promising to be back soon."

"The monks believe that the government wants to prevent any construction on the premises to prevent any increase in the number of monks living there, even though cells for the monks are badly needed," Father Boulos added.

At present, cells are shared by five to eight monks even though each should have his own.

The Monastery of St Macarius, also known as the "Buried Monastery" since most of its cells are caves in the mountain, has been uninhabited for a long time because of the lack of electricity and water. However, in 1996 monks began living there permanently and obtained permission from the Minister of Environment.

Despite the same tired religion-versus-culture excuse trotted out at the end of the report below, this is not merely a "cultural" practice, as amply demonstrated by its persistence in Islamic countries far removed from one another. It persists because Muhammad, as a "beautiful pattern of conduct" per Qur'an 33:21, made the practice sacrosanct:

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Sahih Bukhari 7.62.88.

Apologists have repeatedly claimed that this is all a misunderstanding -- that Aisha was 16, 19, or thereabouts, or that she was apparently only "9" in Galapagos tortoise-years or some such. Of course, it's not our reporting on how, oddly enough, these cases keep happening, that drives the practice in the Muslim world, so their indignation is quite misdirected. It's just so much easier to blame the messenger than, well, the "Messenger."

"Judge blocks 14-year-old girl's arranged marriage," by Peter Mickelburough for the Daily Telegraph, September 15 (thanks to DJM):

A 14-year-old girl has been banned from leaving Australia and has had to surrender her passport to save her from an arranged marriage.

Just days before the girl's father planned to whisk her overseas to marry a man she has never met, the Family Court ordered she must stay.

The Melbourne teenager is one of a number of Australian girls forced into arranged marriages overseas each year.

Her plight came to light when child protection officers received a report in June that the then-13-year-old had been taken out of school ahead of her intended marriage.

In a landmark decision published on Monday, the Family Court barred the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, from travelling abroad until she turns 18.

Federal Police were ordered to place the girl's name alongside the names of accused serious criminals and tax cheats on the official Watch List at departure points around the nation.

Her family, who are believed to be Muslims from the former Yugolsav Republic of Macedonia, has had to surrender the girl's passport and cannot apply for a new one.

According to court documents, the girl had been interviewed by two child protection workers at her home while her parents were at work.

One of the officers said the girl told them she had been engaged for a month to a 17-year-old boy from another country but did not know what she felt about marrying him because she had never met him and had only ever seen a photograph of him.

The officer said he formed the opinion the girl had not considered the prospect of having sex with her new husband or the possibility of being abused.

He said the girl indicated she had not discussed her feelings with her parents and did not know her mother's opinion of the marriage.

"It is my belief that it would not be in [the child's] best interests to travel . . . to be married as she is a child and she does not appear to understand the consequences of marriage," the officer's affidavit concluded.

"Furthermore she would be deprived of a school education and she may be at risk of sexual exploitation and emotional harm."

Islamic Council of Victoria vice-president Sherene Hassan said arranged child marriages were a perverse practice not mandated by Islam.

"Not mandated." There's a big difference between "not mandated" and "not permitted."

"According to Islamic law a woman must give her consent to marriage without any form of collusion," she said yesterday.

Did Hassan perhaps mean "coercion?" More importantly, however, when is a "woman" a "woman," and what constitutes free and informed consent?

"Sadly there are some Muslims that fail to discern [the difference] between culture and religion."

Islamic practices and values are necessarily suffused with Muhammad's culture and personality, and the culture that grew up around imitating him. The practice of child marriage is but one consequence of that.

All "Islamophobes"?

They ignored the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance, too -- not surprisingly. "MRC Study: ABC, CBS and NBC Tilt Ground Zero Mosque Debate by Smearing Americans as 'Islamophobic,'" by Rich Noyes for NewsBusters, September 15:

By a wide margin -- 66 percent to 29 percent, according to the most recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll -- the public is opposed to building that proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Towers. This is not a lightly-held opinion: more than half (53%) told ABC news they are "strongly opposed" to building it near Ground Zero, vs. only 14 percent who report being "strongly" in favor. (Scroll to Question 30.)

So in the face of such obvious public sentiment, are the big broadcast networks reflecting such public sentiment in their coverage? Or are journalists implicitly repudiating their viewers by touting accusations that opposition to the mosque is motivated by America's supposed "Islamophobia"?

To find out, MRC analysts reviewed all 52 stories about the Ground Zero mosque on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from August 14 through September 13 -- the first month after President Obama propelled the issue into the headlines with his remarks at a White House dinner.

The results show that the networks have tilted in favor of mosque supporters and against public opinion, with more than half (55%) of all soundbites or reporter comments coming down on the pro-mosque side of the debate, vs. 45 percent for opponents.

Even those overall numbers fail to show how the debate has grown increasingly tilted over time. During the first week (August 14-20), the networks actually provided more visibility to mosque opponents -- 55 percent of soundbites, vs. 45 percent for mosque supporters. But in the following weeks (August 21 to September 13), the networks' coverage lurched in the other direction, with mosque supporters receiving a 63 percent to 37 percent advantage....

There is much more. Read it all. Honest Ibe Hooper of Hamas-linked CAIR, among others, makes an obligatory appearance.

They said they were doing it to further the cause of Islam, but of course everyone knows that this has nothing to do with Islam. "Five Muslim men planned attack on NSW army base, Supreme Court told," by Norrie Ross in the Herald Sun, September 13 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

FIVE Muslim men planned an armed terrorist attack on a Sydney army base to further the cause of Islam by killing as many people as possible, a Supreme Court jury heard today.

Prosecutor Nick Robinson SC said the men took a number of steps in preparation for the attack, including sending one of their number to Somalia to obtain a fatwa or religious decree to permit the plan to go ahead....

The plan was that five or six men armed with high powered weapons would enter the Holsworthy Army Base and fire at and kill as many people as possible before they were either killed or overwhelmed.

They planned to use weapons that could fire at least 60 bullets.

On trial are Saney Edow Aweys, 26, Mr Khayre, 22, Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed, 25, and Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, 33,and Nayef El Sayed, 25....

Mr Robinson said the men believed Islam was under attack from the West and that Australians and the Australian government were oppressing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan.

They were also upset that another man had been convicted of terrorist acts in this country.

"The Crown case was that this was to advance the cause of Islam," he said....

Before the trial commenced, Justice Betty King warned the jury that the trial was about the alleged commission of a criminal offence, not about Islam.

"The Islamic faith is not on trial," Justice King said. "It isn't about being a Muslim."...

Of course! What does Islam have to do with a gang of thugs intending to commit violence in fidelity to the teachings of...uh...never mind...

War is Deceit, said Muhammad -- and we have seen this kind of thing from his followers before, notably Aafia Siddiqui and Nuradin Abdi. "NY judge says terror defendant is faking illness," by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, September 14 (thanks to Block Ness):

NEW YORK (AP) -- A defendant in a terrorism trial who claims he sees ghosts, dead people and even the Virgin Mary is faking mental illness, a judge concluded Tuesday as she ordered a resumption of the trial of four men accused of plotting to blow up New York City synagogues and upstate military planes.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon made the ruling concerning 28-year-old Laguerre Payen, who sat in court chained to a wheelchair with handcuffs and shackles.

But it remained unclear whether the trial will proceed Wednesday with or without him. Lawyers for the other three defendants said they would prefer to proceed without Payen in the courtroom so that a mistrial could not occur if he acts up.

"I'm torn about exactly what to do," McMahon conceded. "I don't want a mistrial. Nobody wants that."

She spoke to Payen even as he appeared not to be listening.

"Mr. Payen, I am, as you know, convinced that you are lingering [sic], as has been your habit. ... You are in fact making a spectacle of yourself in the courtroom," she said, before adding: "But, I have to tell you Mr. Payen, there is no way that you're not going to be tried."

The judge noted that Payen had dodged trial after an arrest seven years ago in another case by being found incompetent to stand trial, only to exhibit no symptoms of psychiatric disorder when he arrived at a mental health facility.

She also credited a report that a fellow inmate housed with Payen once said Payen had counseled him on how to fake mental illness.

"For now, I am convinced quite frankly beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mr. Payen is just faking that way," she said the defendant, who was born in Haiti and came to the United States at age 8.

Elissa Miller, the chief psychologist at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Payen is housed, testified earlier that mental health workers at the lower Manhattan federal lockup had concerns that Payen might be faking mental illnesses.

She said he sometimes would be chatting, joking, laughing and being social with inmates just before he appeared unresponsive in a visit with a mental health professional.

She called his reported visual hallucinations "very unlikely."

She said they included "seeing fogs, lights, the Virgin Mary, ghosts, dead people, bugs crawling on him and people demanding to play chess."

Miller added: "Some of these symptoms are improbable and they're inconsistent."...

Blame the Zionists! "IMF: Gaza's economy shot up by 16% so far in 2010," by Avi Issacharoff for Haaretz, September 14 (thanks to Benedict):

The International Monetary Fund expects the Palestinian economy to grow by 8 percent overall this year, after the West Bank economy grew by 9 percent in the first half and the Gaza Strip by a whopping 16 percent.

This compares to growth of only 1 percent in Gaza for all of 2009, and of 8.5 percent in the West Bank for all of last year, according to a World Bank report published in April.

The IMF's report attributed Gaza's impressive growth in the first half of this year both to the easing of Israel's blockade - though most of this occurred only during the final month of the half - and to the fact that the comparable period of 2009 was so poor, due in part to the Israel-Hamas war that ended in January 2009.

"It's starting from a very low base after a very tight blockade," said Oussama Kanaan, the IMF representative in the West Bank and Gaza.

The assistance of international organizations, which launched various projects in Gaza during the first half of 2010, also contributed to the Strip's economic growth, the report said....

The superb El Marco has an illuminating photo-essay at the Washington Times on Geert Wilders's speech at the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.

Illume has a series of excellent, exclusive photos.

The sane LGF, Lumpy, Grumpy, and Frumpy, has photos of the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance and the Communist/Islamic supremacist counter-protest here, here, and here.

In "The Specter of Muslim Disloyalty in America" at Pajamas Media (via RaymondIbrahim.com), September 13, our old friend and former colleague Raymond Ibrahim explores the mandate for Muslims to be loyal to fellow Muslims and Islam above all other allegiances -- including the American government:

Islamist enmity for infidels, regularly manifested in the jihad, is by now moderately well known. Lesser known, however, but of equal concern, is the mandate for Muslims to be loyal to fellow Muslims and Islam -- a loyalty that all too often translates into disloyalty to all things non-Muslim, including the American people and their government.

This dichotomy of loyalty to Muslims and enmity for infidels -- which, incidentally, corresponds well with Islamic law's division of the world into the abode of war (deserving of enmity) and the abode of Islam (deserving of loyalty) -- is founded on a Muslim doctrine called wala' wa bara' (best translated as "loyalty and enmity"). I first encountered this doctrine while translating various Arabic documents for The Al Qaeda Reader. In fact, the longest and arguably most revealing document I included in that volume is titled "Loyalty and Enmity" (pgs.63-115), compiled by Aymen Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two.

I say "compiled" because most of the words are direct quotes from the Koran, the Muslim prophet Muhammad, and Islam's jurists (i.e., this doctrine is not an "al-Qaeda" phenomenon but rather permeates the Islamicate worldview). Those interested are urged to read the whole treatise. For our purposes, however, a few key scriptures must suffice:

Koran 5:51 warns Muslims against "taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies ... whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them," i.e., he becomes a non-believing "infidel," the worst thing in Islam. According to authoritative Muslim exegete, al-Tabari, Koran 5:51 means that the Muslim who "allies with them [non-Muslims] and enables them against the believers, that same one is a member of their faith and community." Similar scriptures include Koran 3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 58:22; the latter simply states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims -- "even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin." Conversely, according to Muhammad, "A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim. He neither oppresses him nor humiliates him nor looks down upon him.... All things of a Muslim are inviolable for his brother in faith: his blood, his wealth, and his honor" -- precisely those three things Islamic law singles out as not being vouchsafed to free infidels.

The problem here is that these scriptures are not mere words; American Muslims act on them. Consider the ongoing case of Nasser Abdo, an infantryman assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan: "I don't believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don't believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim.... I can't deploy with my unit to Afghanistan and participate in the war -- I can't both deploy and be a Muslim." And why is that? "Abdo cited Islamic scholars and verses from the Quran [no doubt such as the above] as reasons for his decision to ask for separation from the Army." Indeed, his loyalty to foreign Afghani Muslims is such that, if he does not get discharged, "he will, apparently, be facing a prison sentence."...

Read it all.

Surprised? Really? War Is Deceit Update: "Israel's Partners for Peace: What They Say in English vs. What They Say in Arabic," by Khaled Abu Toameh for Hudson NY, September 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A number of senior Palestinian officials who do not have much credibility among their own people are now trying to sell themselves to Israelis as "partners for peace."

This is the same group of Palestinians who in the past advised Yasser Arafat to reject then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer during the botched Camp David summit in 2000. They were among Arafat's inner circle when he walked out of the Camp David summit and initiated the "Second Intifada."

These are also the same officials who, back then, justified the eruption of the intifada as a "natural response" to Israel's refusal to comply with 100% of the Palestinians' demands.

Saeb Erekat, Jibril Rajoub and Yasser Abed Rabbo are now trying to persuade the Israeli public that Israel does have partners for peace on the Palestinian side. And who are the new-old partners? Erekat, Rajoub and Abed Rabbo, of course.

With the help of US taxpayers' dollars, the three, together with other Palestinian officials, are sending their "peace" messages to the Israelis in English. The campaign, according to Palestinians, is being funded by the US Agency for International Development [USAID].

The campaign targets only the Israeli public. No similar messages are being sent to the Palestinians despite promises that they would....

New Jersey Transit enforces Sharia: burning the Qur'an is not against American law. It may be obnoxious, but it is not illegal, it harms no one, and if we don't stand up for freedom of expression now, we will surely lose it. Free Expression Death Watch Alert: "Koran burner Derek Fenton booted from his job at NJ Transit," by Alison Gendar, Kevin Deutsch and Pete Donohue for the New York Daily News, September 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The protester who burned pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero has been fired from NJTransit, sources and authorities said Tuesday.

Derek Fenton's 11-year career at the agency came to an abrupt halt Monday after photographs of him ripping pages from the Muslim holy book and setting them ablaze appeared in newspapers.

Fenton, 39, of Bloomingdale, N.J., burned the book during a protest on the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11 outside Park51, the controversial mosque slated to be built near Ground Zero....

"Mr. Fenton's public actions violated New Jersey Transit's code of ethics," an agency statement said.

"NJ Transit concluded that Mr. Fenton violated his trust as a state employee and therefore [he] was dismissed."

Fenton was ushered from the protests by police on Saturday and questioned, but he was released without charges.

"He said, 'This is America,' and he wanted to stand up for it, in a Tea Party kind of way," a police source said.

Another police source said Fenton described himself as a "loyal American" exercising his "right to protest."...

"Good for him for burning the Koran," neighbor Jacqui Marquez, 40, said.

"Everybody's entitled to their opinion ... by firing him, they're sending a message that there's no freedom of speech. They're completely wrong for doing this."...

If Fenton was fired for burning the Koran while off-duty, his First Amendment rights probably were violated, Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union said.

"The Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to burn the flag. As reprehensible as it may be, burning the Koran would be protected as well."

Good for the NYCLU.

The real lesson that Prothero misses is that freedom of expression must be protected. To ask people to curtail their activities, however one may dislike them, because of the threat of violence, is only to encourage that violence. "My Take: The Quran burning that wasn't: 7 lessons learned," by Boston University religion scholar Stephen Prothero for CNN, September 14:

1. There are extremists in every religion. Islam has them. Christianity has them. We shouldn't let our perceptions of Christianity be determined by Pastor Terry Jones , or our perceptions of Islam by al Qaeda. [...]

So Terry Jones is the Christian equivalent of Al-Qaeda? This sort of equation is common, of course, and is not unique to Stephen Prothero, but that doesn't make it any more coherent or excusable. What mass murders has Terry Jones committed? What high rise buildings has he taken down with hijacked airplanes? Whom has he blown up? Whom has he beheaded? Anyone who thinks about this for five minutes will realize that this equation shows more of the difference between Christianity and Islam rather than the similarity, but probably Prothero has not taken that much time on the topic.

3. We need stories about interfaith cooperation to balance the stories about religious conflict. Yes, conflict sells newspapers and captures eyeballs. And God knows there is plenty of conflict to cover. But the hard work of religion is being done every day by people like Zeenat Rahman of the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, who challenges her readers in the Chicago Tribune to seek out their Muslim neighbors and ask them what they believe. [...]

Does she encourage them to read the Qur'an and investigate the teachings of Muhammad and Islam? Or would she just prefer that they take the answers of their Muslim neighbors at face value? And would Stephen Prothero and Zeenat Rahman regard a healthy skepticism about those answers, and a determination to investigate for oneself, as evidence of "Islamophobia"? Probably -- but should they?

Here is a glimpse into Prothero's willful ignorance and naivete:

6. Religious illiteracy is rampant, not least about Islam. It is easy to wag a finger at Pastor Jones for condemning a book he has by his own admission never read, but Americans as a group admit to being almost ignorant about the world's second largest religion. According to a poll released last month by the Pew Research Center, 30% of Americans say they know "not very much" about Islam and 25% say they know "nothing at all." Are we going to continue to get our "information" about Muslims and the Quran from Terry Jones, Franklin Graham and Newt Gingrich? Perhaps it is time we started listening to Muslims themselves--to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Park51 project , Ingrid Mattson of the Islamic Society of North America, and Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison.

So Prothero is recommending that we learn about Islam from an open proponent of Sharia and restrictions on the freedom of speech, a man who refuses to denounce Hamas (Rauf); the leader of a group that admits ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and was an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case (Mattson); and a Congressman who accepted funds from the Muslim Brotherhood for his Hajj (Ellison).

7. We need to have an informed conversation about Islam. After 9/11, that conversation died aborning, collapsing into uninformed platitudes about how Islam was "a religion of peace" or "a religion of war." We need to get beyond the platitudes by informing ourselves about, among other things, the Quran.

I'm all for that. Ready when you are, Mr. Prothero.

This provides yet another golden opportunity for "moderate" Muslim spokesmen to explain exactly how their jihad differs from Zawahiri's. Honest Ibe? Brave Ahmed? Anyone? Anyone? "Zawahiri Urges Jihad in Speech Marking 9/11 Anniversary," by Robert F. Worth in the New York Times, September 15:

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command, released an audio message on Wednesday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, urging Muslims to embrace jihad....

In the 44-minute speech Mr. Zawahiri also says that the past nine years have made clear that there are two "orientations" for Muslims: the path of jihad, and the path of surrender and defeat. The latter, he said, is exemplified by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who has been campaigning for reform in Egypt.

The thuggish, in-your-face aspect of the desire to build a mosque at Ground Zero has by now been amply documented: belying their claims to be building it only to affect reconciliation and peace, mosque leaders have smeared all opponents of the mosque as racists and bigots and refused all entreaties to put their mosque elsewhere.

And the thuggishness goes way back, apparently. The waiter-turned-millionaire developer (a transformation not yet satisfactorily explained) Sharif El-Gamal has said that "when you beat up someone physically you get exercise & stress relief," and it appears he spoke from experience. And the questions about his finances continue to grow more urgent.

"Sharif El-Gamal, developer of Ground Zero mosque, evicted from SoHo office for racking up back rent," by James Fanelli for the New York Daily News, September 15 (thanks to herr Oyal):

Sharif el-Gamal, developer of the mosque near Ground Zero, is being evicted from his office in SoHo for racking up $39,000 in back rent.

The developer of the Ground Zero mosque is being bounced from his SoHo office, the Daily News has learned.

Sharif El-Gamal, who runs the real estate firm Soho Properties and is heading the project two blocks from Ground Zero, was slapped with eviction proceedings last month after tallying up $39,000 in back rent, a Manhattan Housing Court filing shows.

The management company that runs 552 Broadway, where El-Gamal leases space, said in the filing that he was warned in July and given until mid-August to pay up.

But when the August deadline passed, management company Royal Crospin Corp. filed the eviction notice.

It's not the first time El-Gamal's company has fallen behind in rent.

Royal Crospin sued Soho Properties last year for nearly $89,000 in back rent. El-Gamal's firm paid $56,000 to settle....

Our rally: patriots everywhere (Photo from Looking At the Left)

Their rally: A handful of Communists and tools of Islamic supremacists (Photo from The People's Cube)

Media bias has been especially egregious regarding our 9/11 Rally of Remembrance and the counter-rally of Communists and dupes of Islamic supremacism; the New York Post and AP both claimed that the Leftist/Islamic supremacist rally was larger than ours, and focused on minutiae instead of reporting on what the speakers actually said.

Unfortunately for the media, however, we have the videos, posted below, and photos such as those above. For the full story, see Atlas Shrugs, Looking At the Left, and The People's Cube. And I will keep you posted as more becomes available.

An update on this story, after the lower house of parliament passed a ban in July. The ensuing spate of bomb threats at the Eiffel Tower and subway near Notre Dame Cathedral is more than curious: coincidence, or more stellar anger management from adherents of the Religion of Peace?

"French Senate passes ban on full Muslim veils," by Elaine Ganley for the Associated Press, September 14:

PARIS - The French Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil on public streets and other places, a measure that affects less than 2,000 women but that has been widely seen as a symbolic defense of French values.

The Senate voted 246 to 1 in favor of the bill in a final step toward making the ban a law -- though it now must pass muster with France's constitutional watchdog. The bill was overwhelmingly passed in July in the lower house, the National Assembly.

Sneakily equating concerns about the Islamization of Europe with antisemitism (but never mind Islam's own robust traditions there):

Many Muslims believe the legislation is one more blow to France's No. 2 religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate. However, the law's many proponents say it will preserve the nation's values, including its secular foundations and a notion of fraternity that is contrary to those who hide their faces.

In an attempt to head off any legal challenges over arguments it tramples on religious and other freedoms, the leaders of both parliamentary houses said they had asked a special body to ensure it passes constitutional muster. The Constitutional Council has one month to rule.

The bill is worded to trip safely through legal minefields. For instance, the words "women," "Muslim" and "veil" are not even mentioned in any of its seven articles.

"This law was the object of long and complex debates," the Senate president, Gerard Larcher, and National Assembly head Bernard Accoyer said in a joint statement announcing their move. They said they want to be certain there is "no uncertainty" about its conforming to the constitution.

France would be the first European country to pass such a law, though others, notably neighboring Belgium, are considering laws against face-covering veils, seen as conflicting with the local culture.

And values.

"Our duty concerning such fundamental principles of our society is to speak with one voice," said Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, opening a less than 5-hour-long debate ahead of the vote.

The measure, carried by President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party, was passed by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, on July 13.

It would outlaw face-covering veils, including those worn by tourists from the Middle East, on public streets and elsewhere. The bill set fines of euro150 ($185) or citizenship classes for any woman caught covering her face, or both. It also carries stiff penalties for anyone, such as husbands or brothers, convicted of forcing the veil on a woman. The euro30,000 ($38,400) fine and year in prison are doubled if the victim is a minor.

The bill is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women's dignity and security, as well as upholding France's secular values -- and its way of life.

Some women, like Kenza Drider, have vowed to wear a full-face veil despite a law. Drider says she prefers to flirt with arrest rather than bow to what she says is an injustice.

"It is a law that is unlawful," said Drider, a mother of four from Avignon, in southern France. "It is ... against individual liberty, freedom of religion, liberty of conscience," she said.

"I will continue to live my life as I always have with my full veil," she told Associated Press Television News.

Drider was the only woman who wears a full-faced veil to be interviewed by a parliamentary panel that spent six months deciding whether to move ahead with legislation.

Muslim leaders concur that Islam does not require a woman to hide her face. However, they have voiced concerns that a law forbidding them to do so would stigmatize the French Muslim population, which at an estimated 5 million is the largest in western Europe. Numerous Muslim women who wear the face-covering veil have said they are being increasingly harassed in the streets.

However, the bill has its Muslim defenders, like a women's rights group active in heavily immigrant neighborhoods.

"How can we allow the burqa here and at the same time fight the Taliban and all the fundamentalist groups across the world?" said the president of NPNS, Sihem Habchi. "I'm Muslim and I can't accept that because I'm a woman I have to disappear," she told APTN. ...

"This incident and previous incidents clearly show that what the global arrogance is attacking today is the foundation of Islam and the Holy Koran." And yet the global arrogance has bent over backwards to make sure that no one got the idea that it is attacking Islam or the Qur'an. Khamenei assumes that the global arrogance is behind Terry Jones because in his country, no Terry Jones-like figure could arise without government backing.

Here again, the American government has a chance to condemn the madness of murdering and threatening murder over someone saying he was going to burn the Qur'an, and to stand for the freedom of expression. But it will once again squander this opportunity.

"Ayatollah Speaks of Plot to Abuse Koran," by Robert F. Worth in the New York Times, September 13 (thanks to Benedict):

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a fiery address on Monday accusing the United States government of orchestrating desecrations of the Koran by right-wing American Christian groups last weekend, Iranian state news agencies reported.

The speech appeared to be part of an effort by Iran's hard-line leaders to amplify Muslim outrage over scattered gestures to burn or tear pages of the Koran, in the wake of the threat -- later withdrawn -- by Terry Jones, a Florida pastor, to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In Tehran, about 1,000 protesters chanting "Death to America" and "U.S. pastor must be killed" clashed with the police and threw stones at the Swiss Embassy, Reuters reported. The Swiss have handled American interests in Iran ever since the United States severed diplomatic relations with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After Iran's state-owned Press TV ran reports about Koran desecrations in the United States, India blocked local cable operators from broadcasting the station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where angry anti-American protests have taken place in recent days.

In his speech, Ayatollah Khamenei said "the leaders of the global arrogance" -- a code for the United States among Iranian conservatives -- had engineered the plot to desecrate the Koran, Press TV and other agencies reported. He added that "Zionist think tanks which hold the most influence in the United States government and its security and military organizations" were also involved.

Ayatollah Khamenei warned people not to believe that isolated right-wing American Christians were to blame, calling them "puppets" of the government. "This incident and previous incidents clearly show that what the global arrogance is attacking today is the foundation of Islam and the Holy Koran," he said....

Of course! Who else could be behind it? "Iran says Quran burning shows new Zionist conspiracy emerging," from the Iranian Students News Agency, September 14 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

TEHRAN (ISNA)-Iranian Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani condemned insult to the Holy Quran, saying that a new Zionist conspiracy is emerging.

"Insult to the Holy Quran in front of the White House was an organized measure in line with war against Islam and it was an insult to monotheistic religions," he said in a statement.

"The disgraceful measure of insult to the Holy Quran was something beyond an unwise action by some ordinary operatives, it showed a new plot by the World Arrogance led by international Zionism to cover its military and political failures in international particularly in regional scene to secure its illegitimate interests."...

Hamas-linked CAIR actually claims here, in a fine Orwellian twist, that to feature Islamic prayer rather than an "interfaith moment of silence" would be a gesture of "equality." An update on this story. "Conn. Muslims ask for equality from city council," by Everton Bailey, Jr., for the Associated Press, September 14 (thanks to Block Ness):

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The Hartford City Council's decision to replace a scheduled Islamic prayer with an interfaith moment of silence before its meeting sends the wrong message to Connecticut's Islamic community, Muslim leaders said.

Mongi Dhaouadi, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the canceling of Monday's Muslim prayer just days after the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks unfairly singles out state residents who practice Islam. Dhaouadi, along with about 50 other Muslim leaders and supporters, held an Islamic prayer session outside of City Hall on Monday in protest of the council's decision.

"We are not asking for special treatment," he said. "We are just asking for equal treatment, just like everyone else."

Sure. Yet prayer from other religions is not going to be featured, either. So what was that you were saying about not wanting "special treatment"?

City Council president rJo Winch said she decided to cancel the scheduled prayer in favor of a moment of silence before the council's meetings this month after receiving negative e-mails and phone calls.

Winch and fellow council member Luis Cotto denounced the negative comments, which they said were filled with harsh and sometimes bigoted language, during a news conference last week.

Dhaouadi said he believes the majority of the outcry came from misinformed people who believed the council had never held prayers before its meetings and that only Muslim prayers were going to be allowed.

But both Winch and Dhaouadi said past council meetings have begun with prayers led by a rotation of religious leaders, including Muslims.

Dhaouadi said earlier Monday that he was disappointed when Winch informed him of the prayer cancellation on Friday, which was the end of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.

"Why reward ignorance?" he said. "We understand, of course, that politicians are always going to try and seek the middle ground, but in this incident, we think this is a case of caving in to bigots and an immoral position."

Winch, a Democrat, said the backlash made her rethink the council's approach.

"We represent everyone in the city of Hartford," she said earlier Monday. "So in an effort to not isolate or mistreat anyone, my decision was made to hold a moment of silence because that way everyone can participate and nobody is infringed upon."...

Sunni/Shi'ite Jihad Update. "Amid Shiite unrest, explosion hits cars in Bahrain," by Brian Murphy for Associated Press, September 14 (thanks to Maxwell):

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Security officials in Bahrain say an explosion has damaged at least two cars in the first such attack since the country's Sunni-led rulers began a crackdown on suspected Shiite dissidents last month.

The officials say Tuesday's blast struck vehicles belonging to Sunnis, including an employee of the Interior Ministry. No casualties were reported in the mixed Sunni-Shiite area south of the capital, Manama....

Laurie Goodstein, who reports for The New York Times on Islam in America without, apparently, ever thinking she has a responsibility to study the texts and tenets of Islam, and to learn about, and be keenly aware of, the arts of Taqiyya and Tu-Quoque in which Muslim spokesmen are so well-versed so that she, too, may not be fooled, has done it again: given evidence of her journalistic malpractice.

For example, on November 23, 2009, round about Thanksgiving (a non-Muslim holiday and thus one Muslims are instructed not to observe), Laurie Goodstein published a piece entitled "Three Clergyman, Three Faiths, One Friendship." The title alone promises naive nonsense. The loaded phrase of "three faiths" - seemingly so neutral, so innocent -- must cause your heart to sink, as it caused mine. You steel yourself, don't you, perhaps taking a walk around the kitchen, before actually plunging into the promised idiocy. And you think of Laurie Goodstein writing this stuff, and her editors vetting this stuff, and the readers, the unwary and ill-prepared readers, that is, being subject to this deeply sinister stuff.

And here is Laurie Goodman in "Three Clergymen, Three Faiths, One Friendship" article:

What distinguishes the "amigos," who live in Seattle but make presentations around the country, is a unique approach to what they call "the spirituality of interfaith relations." At the church in Nashville, the three clergymen, dressed in dark blazers, stood up one by one and declared what they most valued as the core teachings of their tradition The minister said "unconditional love." The sheik said "compassion." And the rabbi said "oneness."

The room then grew quiet as each stood and recited what he regarded as the "untruths" in his own faith. The minister said that one "untruth" for him was that "Christianity is the only way to God." The rabbi said for him it was the notion of Jews as "the chosen people." And the sheik said for him it was the "sword verses" in the Koran, like "kill the unbeliever."

"It is a verse taken out of context," Sheik Rahman said, pointing out that the previous verse says that God has no love for aggressors. "But we have to acknowledge that 'kill the unbelievers' is an awkward verse,' " the sheik said as the crowd laughed. "Some verses are literal, some are metaphorical, but the Koran doesn't say which is which."....

As the crowd laughed.

And a good time was had by all. And Laurie Goodstein has refrained from informing us as to whether that "awkward verse" is in fact ever taken as metaphorical by Muslims, or whether they receive it -- Reader Response is not just for MLA papers anymore -- as literal. And surely that is important. Why didn't she? Some try, as Sheik Rahman did, to confuse unwary Infidels, in this case not by hiding the verse, but by deliberately quoting it, and in so doing, making his audience think that of course it cannot possibly mean what it appears to mean, for if it did, he -- Sheik Rahman -- would certainly not quote it, would he? In this case, and in so many others, the audience apparently has failed to understand the most obvious trick in the book. When you know that sooner or later, one way or another, your audience is going to find out about something despite your best efforts to prevent that, you might as well give it to them yourself, and at the same time provide such a mountebank's accompanying patter-and-chatter that the "reception" of that new information will be molded by Groupthink, as it was in this case: "As the crowd laughed."

And that is how, in this telling case, Rahman, the Muslim amigo, handled, or rather manipulated, his Christian amigo, and his Jewish amigo, and all his mainly potential amigos laughing away in the audience.

Christians in Bekasi, as in other parts of Indonesia, have been unable to secure a place of worship due to a permit system in the country that stacks the deck against non-Muslims. Lacking a building, they went to worship in a field, and that site has been attacked as well, with jihadists even punching female members of the congregation. It has been soiled with human feces, and worshipers there have been constantly harassed with shouts of "Infidel," and told they deserve to be stabbed to death. On this past Sunday, one worshiper was stabbed in the stomach, and the pastor was beaten over the head with a wooden plank.

It is clear the Muslims in the area (are any at all speaking out in defense of non-Muslims' free exercise of their religion?) do not want to see Indonesian Christians gathering to worship anytime, or anywhere, and accept bloodshed as a cost of doing business.

Meanwhile, President Yudhoyono makes the whole affair sound like a suburban homeowners association dispute, and steers conspicuously clear of assigning culpability to anyone at all. As head of state, if he cannot or will not speak frankly, he is a liar, or he is not truly in control of his office and his country, or both.

Lastly, just a few days ago, Yudhoyono called on Barack Obama to stop the Qur'an burning in Florida just a few days ago. That was urgent. But as for people being beaten savagely and denied freedom of worship in Indonesia? Not so much, apparently.

"Indonesia: President breaks silence over church attacks," from Adnkronos International, September 14:

Jakarta, 15 Sept. (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono broke his silence on Tuesday and spoke out against Sunday's violent attacks against two Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) church figures in Bekasi, West Java.

And a frenzy of minced words ensued:

The president said he was concerned with the violent acts, which fell upon Hasian Sihombing and Rev. Luspida Simanjuntak.

He should be outraged. It is telling that he isn't. In another report, he does call for the arrest of the perpetrators, but without saying who they are, showing he has his blinders firmly on as to the nature of the broader problem.

"Why am I being unhappy? Because (it took place) when we strive to continuously maintain harmony and good relations among religious followers and when we try to prevent any violent acts in the community," Yudhoyono said after receiving coordinating minister for politics, legal and security affairs Djoko Suyanto, national police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri and secretary general of religious affairs Ministry Bahrul Hayat.

At the press meeting the president explained about the real problem in connection with the attacks as reported by Djoko and Bambang Hendarso.

"In broad outline, as reported to me this morning, there was a problem with the place of worship for the HKBP church followers. For the house which has been used as a place of worship for the last 19 years, local residents have given a kind of tolerance even though they think the housing complex is not the place of worship," Yudhoyono said as quoted by kompas.com.

But where is the congregation supposed to go? Of course, in a perfect Sharia-run world, they'd just go away.

Note also the use of passive voice, and uselessly vague talk of "steps being taken":

"For 19 years there have not been any problems. But when the number of the church followers is growing with more intense ritual activities, the residents think it would be better to search for other places to do so. Up to this point, actually there wasn't any problem. A thorough solution was sought," the president said.

"The solution, however, was not easy to get so that the local administration took a number of steps to settle the problem, even though no appropriate solution was taken. At the central government's level, there has actually held [sic] integrated meetings in search for the above-mentioned solution," he said.

"When the solution had not been reached, [there] was a tension. HKBP church followers in the area preferred to do religious rituals in a certain place. [A field! -ed.] This also sparked tension. It ended with the Sunday's violent incident," the President said.

Translation: after they were chased out of their building by Muslims, they were pursued even in a field, and viciously attacked.

The president further said that he already asked Bekasi city administration, Bekasi regent, Communion of Churches in Indonesia and religious figures to jointly take further steps.

Islamophobes! Don't they know this is unnecessary, insulting, and humiliating because Islam is so tolerant? In all seriousness, though, it is long overdue, and every country that calls itself "free" should have taken on this cause long ago.

However, in today's U.N., whether a resolution that is not watered down to the point of being meaningless can be passed remains to be seen, let alone a resolution leading to substantive action. "Pakistan: Italy to press UN for religious minority protection," from AdnKronos International, September 13:

Rome, 13 Sept. (AKI) - Italy will present a resolution to the United Nations that protects the rights of Pakistan's religious minorities, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said in Rome on Monday. He made the announcement following a meeting with Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister of minority rights, who is a Catholic.

"The subject of religious minorities is extremely important," he said. "We can't forget that in Pakistan over the last few months there have been murders of Christians that have shocked Europeans, including in Italians [sic]."

Two people, including a policeman, were injured late Sunday during a bomb blast at a Christian church near Mardan in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkh, Dawn News reported.

Sectarian assaults have especially targeted Pakistan's minority Shia Muslims. Earlier this month more than 70 people were killed during a suicide bombing in the western city of Quetta at a Shia rally.

Of the 95 percent of Pakistanis that are Muslim, 75 percent are Sunni and 20 percent Shia.

Frattini also said he will travel to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad next month to discuss millions of euros in aid Italy has pledged to give the south Asian country following deadly flooding....

Are any steps being taken to ensure aid makes it to religious minorities who have been denied access by Muslims?

He said it. "Gambian president: Islam is the best religion," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, September 14 (thanks to Twostellas):

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh on Monday said Islam is not a religion of violence and that true Muslims are noble and honorable.

President Jammeh, a stanch Muslim himself, made the remarks during his annual traditional meeting with Banjul Muslim elders at State House in the Gambian capital Banjul.

He also used the forum to speak against Terry Jones in the United State who vowed to burn the Muslim holy book Quran.

"The people in the West. I want to send you a message. The message is that Islam is the best religion, and that there would be no other prophet after the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW)," said the president.

He said there is a lot of double standards in the West. "Your security cannot be guaranteed by fighting Islam. We Muslims will defend our religion with our blood, and we will never be intimidated," said Jammeh.

President Jammeh stressed that he has never seen any demonstration where the holy Quran is being burnt. "Any country that allows any copy of the holy Quran being burnt, Bilahi Walahi Talayi, you will regret it," he declared.

The Gambian leader asked if denying the holocaust is crime, then why not caricaturing the holy Prophet of Islam.

He further noted that such an action could endanger world peace, warning that anyone who plays with it would surely pay the price.

Insulting any religion is not freedom of expression, neither is caricaturing the holy Quran, he said.

"Caricaturing the holy Prophet (SAW) is unacceptable, and we will not accept it and there would surely be consequences. If you want your security respected then respect the security of others; if you want to be dignified, respect the dignity of others," he added.

The Gambian leader made it clear that Islam has nothing to do with the Sept. 11 World Trade Center bombing. Muslims, he stressed, do not commit suicide.

He blamed those who claimed to be Muslims and rally behind the religion in the name of Jihad to terrorize innocent people, describing such people as Kafiri (unbelievers).

Jammeh said he has given powers to the Gambia Supreme Islamic Council to deal with "those troublemakers."

"We are true Muslims, and that is why we live side by side with Christians," he said.

Intolerance, he said, would not be accepted in the country, and does not care what the international community will say.

And still no defense of the freedom of expression from Obama or anyone else in the West. "Iran Ayatollahs Issue Fatwas Against Koran-Burners," by Ali Sheikholeslami for Bloomberg, September 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Two Iranian grand ayatollahs issued fatwas calling for the killing of those who insult the Koran, including anyone who burns the Islamic holy book, the state-run Fars news agency reported.

No one was specified in the decrees, which were issued by Nasser Makarem-Shirazi and Hossein Nouri-Hamedani in response to questions asked by student groups from universities in Tehran, Fars said. Such an action against any individual could only be carried out with the authorization of an Islamic religious judge, they said.

"Undoubtedly, the blood of a person who burns the Koran should be shed," Makarem-Shirazi was cited by Fars as saying. Everybody should "strongly condemn" such an act....

Students who protested outside the Swiss Embassy in Tehran today set fire to the U.S. flag, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The Swiss Embassy represents U.S. interests in Iran. They also destroyed a coffin that had the phrase "Liberal Democracy" written on it....

No doubt the Queensland University of Technology is upset about the prospect of all those enraged Christians rioting, burning tires and Alex Stewart in effigy, chanting "Death to Australia," and all the rest -- no, wait...

Moral Equivalence Alert: "Australian lawyer smokes pages of Bible and Koran, asking 'Which is best?,'" from the Telegraph, September 13:

An Australian lawyer, Alex Stewart, has smoked pages torn from the Koran and the Bible, posting the video on YouTube just days after an American Pastor's threat to burn the Muslim holy book caused worldwide outrage.

In a 12-minute clip entitled "Bible or Koran - which burns best?" Mr Stewart, who works for the Queensland University of Technology, holds up the two religious texts before ripping them apart and lighting the rolled up pages.

At one stage he inhales deeply from one of the roll-ups before blowing out the smoke and commenting: "Holy".

The video, which has since been deleted, was posted on the video-sharing site over the weekend, coinciding with the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks....

Mr Stewart, a member of an atheist group in Brisbane, has begun a period of leave following a meeting with his employers today. He insists he wasn't smoking drugs in the video but had sprinkled grass cuttings into the rolled up pages.

"The university is obviously extremely, extremely unhappy and disappointed that this sort of incident should occur," Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake said.

Islamic groups urged Muslims not to react to the provocation[.]

"There is no need for this kind of thing, just to create disunity and disharmony among people living in Australia," said Sheik Muhammad Wahid, president of the Islamic Association of Australia.

In a featured piece at Human Events this morning, I discuss the media blackout on our 9/11 Rally of Remembrance:

The controversy over the Ground Zero mosque should be over and yet it is raging more heatedly than ever. The New York political establishment has lined up solidly behind the mosque, and the mainstream media is busy telling the uninformed that anyone who opposes the mosque is an enemy of religious freedom, a bigot, a racist, and probably a torturer of cats to boot, unwelcome in the company of decent people.

The only problem with this scenario is that the American people refuse to accept it--as illustrated by the thousands who attended the September 11 Rally of Remembrance against the Ground Zero mosque.

Pamela Geller and I hosted the rally as an effort of our Freedom Defense Initiative/Stop Islamization of America organization. It featured Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders and video messages from the feisty former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and journalistic gadfly Andrew Breitbart. Highlights of the afternoon included rousing addresses by talk radio luminaries Mike Gallagher and Steve Malzberg and Marine Corps veteran and North Carolina congressional candidate Ilario Pantano.

And in a striking twist, Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla left the crowd spellbound with an impassioned account of the Muslim persecution of Copts and the dangers of the Islamic law that is so forthrightly defended by the "moderate" Ground Zero mega-mosque imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf.

Nassralla gained national attention last June at the first rally Geller and I held against the Ground Zero mosque, when Keith Olbermann and other hard-left journalistic ideologues misrepresented a misunderstanding between Nassralla and some others in the crowd as a racial incident that supposedly proved that those who opposed the mosque were all racists. Indeed, many news outlets ignored the rally altogether except to note the alleged brutalizing of Nassralla.

One might have thought that Olbermann and the other journalists who featured Nassralla's story might have been interested in telling their audiences that the same man did not come away from the June incident believing that all mosque opponents were racists, and that he also was a featured speaker at Saturday's rally against the mosque. But none of the mainstream media accounts of the rally mentioned Nassralla's presence at all.

Even fewer mentioned the rally itself. When they did, they minimized the size of the crowd, and invariably stated (contrary to the testimony I heard from numerous eyewitnesses on the day itself) that the pro-mosque counter-demonstration that was going on at the same time was larger.

One would think an appearance by Europe's most controversial politician--Wilders--and America's most controversial journalist--Breitbart--would have been newsworthy in itself. Add in two wildly popular radio hosts--Gallagher and Malzberg - and a host of other passionate, effective speakers, and the media blackout becomes even more extraordinary. Clearly, it was agenda-driven--part of a larger ongoing effort to sway public opinion onto the side of the Ground Zero mosque....

There is more.

The foremost exponent of the new journalism addresses the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance via videolink.

Sahand Khoshbaten is a human rights activist and Iranian freedom fighter. He is an organizer with the "No to Ahmadinejad committee," which sends protesters to stand for human rights when the President of Iran appears at UN headquarters.

A crowd favorite, popular radio host Steve Malzberg addresses Saturday's 9/11 Rally of Remembrance against the Ground Zero mosque.

Joseph Nassralla became the media star of our June 6 rally against the mega-mosque because of a misunderstanding between him and some others in the crowd, which the mainstream media seized upon to smear the rally as a gathering of racist, "Islamophobic" bigots. He spoke at our Rally of Remembrance Saturday, and was a crowd favorite.

Here is his statement about the incident at the June 6 rally. Will anyone who smeared us because of what happened to him at the June rally note that he spoke at the rally Saturday? Keith Olbermann? Charles Johnson? Cathy Young? Anyone? Anyone?

Dear Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer,

I am Joseph Nassralla, a Coptic Christian activist from Egypt and founder of The Way TV, a Christian Satellite TV station.

I attended the 10,000 person protest rally against the building to the ground zero mosque which took place at ground zero in NY on Sunday June 6th. We Coptic Christians wanted to express our full support to your initiative and to this important rally.

There was a minor incident at the rally that was blown out of proportion, when my partner, Mr. Karam El Masry, and I were distributing material with some Quran verses and we were also speaking Arabic thus we were mistaken by a few people in the huge crowd, for being Muslims infiltrators trying to disrupt the event. This misunderstanding was clarified when we explained who we were and that we are there to support the crowd against the building of the mosque. I was a little frustrated initially for being identified as a Muslim infiltrator, but was glad that the issue was resolved later. My partner, Mr. El Masry, was even able to freely speak to the crowd after our identity was clarified. He explained how Christians are tortured, killed and oppressed in Egypt at the hands of Muslims who are encouraged to persecute Christians from the pulpit of mosques by Muslim preachers.

The reason I am writing to you, is because I am very disappointed in the mainstream media who used this minor incident to make a blanket generalization about all the attendees of the rally as Muslim haters.This kind of generalization was unfair to the good American people who legitimately stand against the building of a mosque next to ground zero and who are against Islamist agenda in the US. I am very well aware of such an agenda which has destroyed the Christian and Jewish existence in the Middle East.

The same mainstream media who denounces painting all Muslims with a broad brush, is doing the same thing they claim to stand against. They shamelessly use our incident to paint with a broad brush that everyone in the rally was a Muslim hater. I want to make it clear that we are not haters of Muslims, but we are against the Islamist agenda in America, the same agenda that drove us out of our homeland Egypt. We have the right to expose Muslim hate and oppression against us, the minorities in the Middle East who are oppressed on a daily basis by the Muslim majority. This mosque should never be built next to ground zero, it is an insult to the memory of the 3000 fellow Americans.

We did not mean to cause any misunderstanding at the rally, on the contrary, we came to support you and your organization. We come from a Muslim country where we suffered from Muslims and the Islamic Shariaa ourselves. That's why we felt burdened to attend this rally and flew for 9 hours to be part of it.. We do support you with our heart and soul, and will always support you and everyone who is opposing Islam. We do honor Mr. Robert's invitation to attend your next rally in September, God's willing, and are looking forward to seeing you there.

We have come to America to seek refuge from the oppression of Islam and expose to the American public what kind of instigation we suffered at the hands of hateful Muslim preachers who incite the worshiping crowds to burn our homes, kidnap our girls and suppress our freedom to practice our religion. We will never allow media misrepresentation to stop us from our mission.

Yours truly,
Joseph Nassralla

How the media is ignoring and minimizing the success of the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance. "Countering the Lies of the MSM: The Ground Zero Mosque War in the Information Battlespace," by Pamela Geller at Big Journalism, September 13:

Tens of thousands attended the Rally of Remembrance for the 9/11 victims and against the Ground Zero mega-mosque on Saturday. The crowd was so large, it stretched as far as the eye could see; you could not see the horizon from our stage.

Yet AP reported that the pro-mosque counter-demonstration drew around a thousand "activists," while "a smaller group of opponents rallied nearby, chanting, 'USA, USA.'" The New York Post was only marginally more honest, numbering our rally attendees at 2,500: "The estimated 3,000 pro-mosque demonstrators outnumbered the mosque opponents by about 500."

New York 1 did a story on the rallies, but only showed footage of the pro-mosque rally. The Post likewise only published pictures of the pro-mosque rally. AP ran an aerial photo of the rally, but one that was so poorly framed that one-third of it was dominated by a large gray building, and the crowd was cut off on the other side.

No one ran accurate photos of the rally, showing the full size of the crowd stretching beyond the horizon. Why didn't anyone think to take aerial shots of both rallies? That would have settled all questions. The pictures don't lie, but the media does. AP and the Post were not alone in their depiction of our rally and the pro-Islamic supremacist one as "dueling rallies." Their coverage of our immense rally versus the tiny counter-protest is dangerous and absurd.

What's more, the media is missing a bigger story: that some who attended our rally say that New York police were actually keeping people away from the rally. An Atlas Shrugs reader who was at the rally wrote to me speculating that police "must have been given orders to knock down the numbers." She reported: "I was there and they were chasing us away - I was moved 7 times! I was moved so far away I had to go around the block and could not get back. The truth is they finally refused access to thousands."...

Read it all.

Nearly 3,000 dead at Ground Zero. The landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes severely damaging the building he wants to tear down to build his mega-mosque. But those things don't make the ground hallowed ground. Maybe only the presence of a nice big triumphal mosque will do that. Feisal Abdul Rauf continues to show his true Islamic supremacist colors: "Mosque site near Ground Zero not 'hallowed': imam," from AFP, September 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK (AFP) - The imam leading the controversial plan for an Islamic center near Ground Zero on Monday rejected arguments from 9/11 survivors that he was seeking to build on "hallowed" ground.

"It's absolutely disingenuous... that that block is hallowed ground," imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said, noting that the immediate area, a busy commercial district, contained a strip club....

Abdul Rauf, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York, said that radicals had hijacked the debate and spread "deliberate misinformation and harmful stereotypes."

"I regret that some have misunderstood our intentions. I am deeply distressed that in this heated political season some have exploited the issue for their own political agenda," he said.

The imam refused to say whether he might move the center further from Ground Zero, as opponents demand, but indicated that he is considering this.

"We are exploring all options as we speak right now and we are working through what will be a solution, God willing, that will defuse this crisis," Abdul Rauf said. "Everything's on the table."

Asked if suspending the project -- which calls for a multi-faith community center with sporting and cultural facilities, as well as a mosque -- was possible, he said: "Our advisors have been looking at every option, including that."...

"Jews and Catholics, Irish and Italians, blacks and Hispanics -- in time each group has overcome these challenges and our core values have been affirmed," Abdul Rauf told the Council on Foreign Relations. "Now it is our turn as Muslims to drink from this cup."

Yes, you remember all those Jewish, Catholic, Irish, Italian, black and Hispanic terror attacks. Everyone has had to drink from this cup.

Pamela Geller says this:

Our keynote speaker, Geert Wilders, personifies moral courage in an age when such courage is an extremely rare commodity the possession of which can threaten one's life. He is one of the few who truly deserve the label of hero, he is my personal hero, -- and yet it must be said that all he has done to become heroic is something that we all can do, should do, and must do: he has spoken the truth. We live in so cheap and tawdry an age that all one must do to be a hero is speak the truth -- and yet there are so few heroes. Geert Wilders is that hero. He has done this at immense personal cost, such that he now must be accompanied by armed guards at all times. One would think that the constant threats made against Geert Wilders would wake people up to the true nature and lethal character of the enemy we face, when they are so threatened by the telling of the truth that they're willing to commit murder in response. Yet even as Geert Wilders is defamed, vilified, and marginalized, he is being proven right by the events of every day -- and the light of the truth he tells shines more brightly all the time.

Says Pamela Geller: "One of the highlights of our 9/11 Rally of Remembrance was the fiercely righteous, fearless truth teller Ilario Pantano. His courage and willingness to tell the truth about issues the mainstream media dubs 'controversial' shows that the old guard is done. It is politicians with political courage like Ilario Pantano who actually speak for the people. And they are few. Pantano is one of them."

From Pamela Geller's introduction of John Bolton, who addressed the rally via videolink:

Our next speaker could not be with us in person today, but he believes so strongly in the cause of freedom that he comes to us via video link. Here is a man who is unafraid to stand for principles that the political and media elites would prefer to sweep under the rug. Here is a man who went into the world's foremost hotbed of anti-American, anti-freedom sentiment, the United Nations, and stood fearlessly and unflinchingly for justice and human dignity. Here is a man who faced down accomplished practitioners of violent intimidation, enemies of freedom, apologists for authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and stealth jihadists....

"This is the face of the United States of America": Mike Gallagher is an American radio host and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Mike Gallagher Show, a nationally-syndicated radio program that airs throughout the United States on Salem Radio Network. According to Talkers magazine, Gallagher is the eighth most-listened-to radio talk show host in the United States.

911 family members Nelly Branganskya and Rosa Leonetti speak at the 9/11 Rally of Remembrance Saturday.

Bugle is played by Tom Butterfield, a descendant of General Daniel Butterfield, who wrote "Taps" during the Civil War. Then Sarah Lee Michaels sings the Star Spangled Banner, followed by prayers from Fr. Christopher Manuele, Rabbi Steven Axelman, and Dr. Jim Garlow.

Fr. Christopher Manuele is a Melkite Greek Catholic priest. He serves a congregation including many Christian Arabs--one of the religious groups most subject to Islamic persecution throughout the world. Rabbi Steven Axelman is a trained psychotherapist and a Talmudic scholar. Dr. Jim Garlow, a pastor, was appointed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to be the Chairman of ReAL (Renewing American Leadership), based in DC. He founded and led the California Pastors Rapid Response Team, a group of pastors committed to religious, personal and economic freedoms.