MICHAGAN RASH OF GUN STORES ROBERYS?? COULD THIS BE BECAUSE WE HAVE STOPPED THEIR FLOW FROM ACROSS THE BORDER?? nOW THEY HAVE TO RISK HAVING MAKE DO? 35 GUN STORES 300 GUNS??

WHAT'S IN MICHAGAN BUT TONS OF MUSSIS??

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH,WISDOM,SIGHT AND COURAGE TO STAY THE COURSE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM AMEN

Posted by: Catherine at December 11, 2004 1:59 PM

WHAT'S IN MICHAGAN BUT TONS OF MUSSIS??

Whites? Blacks? Lots and lots of people who aren't "MUSSIS"?

Have you ever been to Michigan? I lived near Detroit for two years, and a string of robberies wouldn't leave me thinking about Muslims, but of the run-of-the-mill criminal class.

Posted by: Robert Crawford at December 11, 2004 2:07 PM

Interesting news. This reminds of one year ago when 12 terror suspects were arrested in the Netherlands. Some of them had ties with al-Qaeda and took diving lessons at a local diving school. They were all acquited! Not because they weren't invloved with Jihad but simply because at the time the legal system had no answer to Jihad. It still doesn't.

www.dutchdisease.com

Posted by: Leveller at December 11, 2004 2:15 PM

Interesting article about Deerborn, Michigan:

http://www.americancity.org/article.php?id_article=72

Notice the 1976 coup that planted a "conservative Wahabbi" Imanm in their main mosque.

Posted by: Andrew at December 11, 2004 2:17 PM

Deerborne=Dearborn (whoops!)

Posted by: Andrew at December 11, 2004 2:21 PM

Posted by: Robert Crawford at December 11, 2004 02:07 PM

Sit in your Bubble ???

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength,Wisdom,Sight and Courage to stay the course to Defeat ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Open the Worlds Eyes to their Threat Amen

PS
Here is some of what mussis believe??

Read and learn about the peace they bring to your door??

Tabari VII:148 “Amr said, ‘Let’s wait here until the cry has died down. They are sure to hunt for us tonight and tomorrow. I was still in the cave when Uthman bin Malik came riding proudly on his horse. He reached the entrance to our cave and I said to my Ansar companion, ‘If he sees us, he will tell everyone in Mecca.’ So I went out and stabbed him with my dagger. He gave a shout and the Meccans came to him while I went back to my hiding place. Finding him at the point of death, they said, ‘By Allah we knew that Amr came for no good purpose.’ The death of their companion impeded their search for us, for they carried him away.”

Tabari VII:149 “I went into a cave with my bow and arrows. While I was in it, a one-eyed man from the Banu Bakr came in driving some sheep. He said, ‘Who’s there?’ I said [lied], ‘I’m a Banu Bakr.’ ‘So am I.’ Then he laid down next to me, and raised his voice in song: ‘I will not believe in the faith of the Muslims.’ I said, ‘You will soon see!’ Before long the Bedouin went to sleep and started snoring. So I killed him in the most dreadful way that anybody has ever killed. I leant over him, struck the end of my bow into his good eye, and thrust it down until it came out the back of his neck. After that I rushed out like a wild beast and took flight. I came to the village of Naqi and recognized two Meccan spies. I called for them to surrender. They said no so I shot and arrow and killed one, and then I tied the other up and took him to Muhammad.”

Tabari VII:150 “I had tied my prisoner’s thumbs together with my bowstring. The Messenger of Allah looked at him and laughed so that his back teeth could be seen. Then he questioned me and I told him what had happened. ‘Well done!’ he said, and prayed for me to be blessed.”
Ishaq:434 “Amr and an Ansari waited until they were asleep. Then Amr killed them, thinking that he had taken vengeance for the Muslims who had been slain. When he came to the Messenger, he told him what had happened. The Prophet said, ‘You have killed men for whom I shall have to pay blood-money.’”

Tabari VIII:22 “Hassan was with the women and children. A Jew passed by and began to walk around his settlement. There was no one to protect them while the Apostle and his Companions were at the Meccans’ throats. So I said: ‘Hassan, this Jew is walking around. I fear he will point out our weakness while the Muslims are too busy to attend to us. So go down to him and kill him.”

Tabari VIII:22/Ishaq:458 “‘Allah forgive you, daughter of Abd al-Muttalib,’ Hassan said. ‘You know that I am not the man to do it.’ When he said that to me I saw that nothing could be expected from him. I girded myself, took a club, and, having gone down from the fortress to the man, I struck him with the club until I killed him. When I had finished with him, I returned to the fortress and said, ‘Hassan, go down to him and strip him—only his being a man kept me from taking his clothes.’ Hassan replied, ‘I have no need for his spoils.’”

Ishaq:464 “The Jews were made to come down, and Allah’s Messenger imprisoned them. Then the Prophet went out into the marketplace of Medina, and he had trenches dug in it. He sent for the Jewish men and had them beheaded in those trenches. They were brought out to him in batches. They numbered 800 to 900 boys and men.”

Tabari VIII:40 “The Messenger commanded that furrows should be dug in the ground for the Qurayza. Then he sat down. Ali and Zubayr began cutting off their heads in his presence.”

Tabari VIII:38 “The Messenger of Allah commanded that all of the Jewish men and boys who had reached puberty should be beheaded. Then the Prophet divided the wealth, wives, and children of the Banu Qurayza Jews among the Muslims.”

Tabari VIII:90 “Abu Basir went out with his companions. When they stopped to rest he asked one of them, ‘Is this sword of yours sharp?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘May I look at it?’ Basir asked. ‘If you wish.’ Basir unsheathed the sword, attacked the man, and killed him. The other Muslim ran back to the Messenger, saying, ‘Your Companion has killed my friend.’ While the man was still there, Abu Basir appeared girded with the sword. He halted before Muhammad and said, ‘Messenger, your obligation has been discharged.’

Posted by: Catherine at December 11, 2004 2:59 PM

Posted by: Andrew at December 11, 2004 02:17 PM

Gold Star for you Today!!

In the Way of the Prophet: Ideologies and Institutions in Dearborn, Michigan, America's Muslim Capitol
by Patrick Belton

Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim: on Fridays in America’s Muslim capital of Dearborn, Michigan, the ancient Islamic sentence of invocation wafts over the blighted streets of greater Detroit, drifting out from residents gathering for prayer.

The blighted streets lined with hourly-rental motels that lead from Detroit into the suburb of Dearborn gradually give way to busy avenues dotted with mosques and thriving small businesses. Arabic signs advertise attorneys and physicians, passers-by speak Levantine and Gulf dialects of Arabic, and on the sidewalks women wear the colorful headscarves of hijab.

Dearborn is a microcosm of the Middle East planted in the Midwestern United States. The roughly 40,000 of Dearborn’s 100,000 residents that are Arab American defy the myth many Americans hold of a unified Muslim world, filled with parading masses bearing the likeness of Ayatollah Khomenei. While there are some radical Islamists, Dearborn’s growing Muslim population runs the gamut from international traders to educated professionals to local business owners. Every Arab nationality and religious sect is found here, from Yemeni traditionalism to secular modernity.

DON'T SOUND LIKE MY KIND OF PLACE??

Dearborn Mosque–the second mosque ever built in the nation–was gradually raised on Southend’s Dix Road between the 1930s and 1950s. In 1976, it saw the conflict between Americanizing and Arabizing ideologies come to a head when Palestinian-born Hajj Fawzi, leading a group of Yemeni and Palestinian immigrants called the musalee’een, broke into the mosque one Friday when it was closed for prayer and occupied it. Later, they wrested legal control of the mosque, through board elections and litigation, and invited to the imamate a young Yemeni sheikh of the conservative Wahhabist tradition. The new imam banned a women’s group from the mosque when they protested his prohibition of weddings and fundraising events from the mosque’s basement. And he required women who wished to attend the mosque to enter through a side door, don hijab, and keep to certain areas of the mosque.

YEA WOMEN THROUGH THE SIDE DOOR HERE IN THE GOOD USA??

The community’s constellation of organizations is rounded out by a highly active American Arab Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1992, a newspaper, the Arab American News (or Al-Watan), published since 1984 by Osama Siblani, and Muslim and Arabic-language programming on public-access cable channel 15. Two of the larger village communities have formal institutions: the Bint Jbeil Cultural Center and the older, larger American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine. As Hammoud says, “There’s not one Arab organization that the entire Arab American community embraces.”

Starting with the School Board

In February of 2001, Dearborn Public Schools began accepting proposals from halal food distributors to provide food to its 28 public schools. “The whole point is to give foods they can eat, so they’re nourished and can function in the classroom,” Bob Cipriano, the district’s business manager, told the New York Times. Eight years earlier, Dearborn schools banned pork from their lunches to accommodate Muslim dietary guidelines.

Pressure from the city’s school board, organized groups of parents, and the federal and state governments has resulted in further accommodations to Muslim students in Dearborn’s public schools. Parental advocacy forced the separation of gym classes by gender in one Southend school. And the federal Office of Civil Rights has been responsible for several expansions of bilingual instruction for Arab-speaking students.

YEP NOT MY KIND OF PLACE ALL SCHOOL CHILDREN SHOULD BRING THEIR OWN LUNCHES AND IF NON-MULSUM PORK SANDWICH!!

Muslims and the Broader Community

Despite the successes, Arab exclusion from municipal administration and the police force is nearly total, and the city is led by a mayor, Michael Guido, who first won office in 1985 running against “our Arab problem.” He has since moderated his public stand toward the community, but still makes periodic political recourse to anti-Arab sentiment to solidify support among his graying, white ethnic base. According to Hammoud, “What the mayor does is he makes sure that he doesn’t mention anything positive about the Arab American community. He says things like diversity is great, but he never says that the Arab American community is contributing to Dearborn.”

Politically engaged Muslims say that greater Muslim and Arab influence in local governance is a demographic inevitability. They criticize the present mayor for failing to knit together the growing Arab, the declining Italian American, and other white ethnic communities. They have no organizations in common–civic, religious, or otherwise. Consequently, unspoken suspicion combined with outspoken protests of any governmental support tends to be the watchword from white ethnic leaders.

AS TAUGHT IN THE QU-RAN PLAY THE VICTIM UNTILL YOUR ARMY IS STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE OVER??

Yemen

Unaccompanied Yemeni males had been migrating to Dearborn since the beginning of Arab immigration, but in the mid-1970s they began to arrive in larger numbers. Less educated and less fluent in English than other Muslim immigrants, they hold unskilled positions in Dearborn and send remittances to their families in Yemen. Rather than bring their families to Dearborn, they themselves return to Yemen–frequently and, with time, permanently. More strictly religious than many of the other groups, the Yemenis shun what they regard as the corruptive influence of American society. They concentrate in Southend with other Yemenis, with the result that the neighborhood now shows the influence of the Yemeni countryside in dress, its absence of women from public spaces, and the centering of male social life around the neighborhood’s coffeehouses. From the mid-1980s on, an increasing proportion–rising from a tenth to a quarter–of Yemenis have immigrated as intact families rather than solitary males.

DON'T SOUND TO GOOD TO ME??

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength,Sight,Wisdom, and Courage to stay the course to Defeat ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Amen

Posted by: Catherine at December 11, 2004 3:24 PM

"al-Oitibi (a maritime attack specialist) was just promoted as the head of Al Qaeda's operations in Saudi Arabia."

I think that means he gets the 3rd floor corner office with the bonsai plant, the 4 live-in secretaries, and the life-sized Godzilla suit complete with foam-rubber model of New York City.

Posted by: CornHolio at December 11, 2004 4:12 PM

These Al qaeda types have kinda developed a taste for spectacular attacks, eh? More like an addiction really.

Osama helped drive out the tired, failing soviet state outta Afghanistan and now thinks he can fell the other great superpower as well....

Osama orchaestrates the spectacular 9-11 attacks and sees insurance costs skyrocket and now thinks he can keep doing the spectacular stuff.

The spain bombings didn't quite fit the spectacularity bill though I thought the vanity that al-qaeda can remove a western govt (imagine that!) would embolden them enought to try a really, stupid stunt in America before 2/nov, that thanklfully didnt happen but for how long?

Sadly, fact is the high seas are largely protected ONLY by the uS maritime fleets, no other country even approaches the kind of projection capability the US has built. In that sense we subsidize a lot of the world's ocean security premiums. But after the next attack, expect the chinese, the russians, the indians and(gasp!) even the euro-weenies to have an interest in poicking up part of the maritime security tab else its their precious exports to america that get mugged on the seas, eh?

Posted by: voletti at December 11, 2004 4:36 PM

I'm sure you're familiar with the Khadr family that now live in Canada,the son from Afghanistan
that had a Al-Qeada father that sent him to a terrorist training camp and allowed him to grow-up around Osama Bin ladin.
Well the news has reported that the Lawyer for thess Muslims that praised the 9/11 hijacker and wished more were murdered,has won the first step
in a battle to get the Terrorist-trained Khadr a new passport since he has the Constitutional right of "Freedom of movement" and desires to visit the USA as a tourists.

My Canadian Governemnt is going to get allot of people killed for its PC stance on terrorism,the P.M. increased his RCMP security force that protects him yet claims there's no increased risks to Canadians.
My City's Councillors insist there's no crime problem dealing with guns yet they approved the Police Budget to give Police Officers Bullet-proof
vest for security while doing frontline Policing.

The high salaries and generous benefits and pensions have attracted people that want to stay in power to reap that Pot-o-gold and taxpayers can go to hell if they think democracy has a place in politics.

Even M.Moore fooled the people and got rich with his movie about those rich people he abhors so much that control the world,thank God for the 500,000 American soldiers left on the battlefields of Europe so one day an obese bearded slob in his fifties can mock the Country that allowed him to make the movie claiming there's Government censorship on democratic opinions and views in the media.
Moore should skip a few meals and donate the food to the starving children in Africa,oh wait,they're Blacks and Moore feels we have no right to be in other Nations affairs.
Guess Moore want Bush to cancel the 19 Billion in aid to fight the hiv and AIDS crisis in Africa,that's what Moore's hero Bill Clinton didn't do for the Aids problem in Africa.

Posted by: ala-sux at December 11, 2004 7:18 PM

We are giving these terrorists way too much credit...

The attack on the USS Cole was an arberration to be sure. It was a bunch of idiots on an explosive-laden skiff.

I love the reference to a "maritime attack specialist." Do these guys have Silkworms or something? It's laughable.

Screw al-qaeda.

Posted by: Aloysius at December 11, 2004 8:11 PM

They can get the fissile material and build a small nuke and mail it to a city. We may be giving the terrorists too much credit, but we are not taking them too seriously. To the contrary.

Posted by: ed at December 11, 2004 10:00 PM

The timing of this article is very coincidental for me. I was having lunch at a waterside restaurant in Galveston, TX recently. Nearby was a very large cruise ship preparing for another cruise. While I looked at it, it occurred to me what an easy target this would be. It could be boarded after it was maybe 100 miles off the coast. (This could be made easier by having a few "insiders" either as crew or passengers already on board.) The terrorists would have 3000 - 4000 hostages and could be filmed dropping dead bodies over the side on a regular basis. The publicity would be huge. It would ruin the cruise industry. It would put the U.S. in a very difficult position deciding what action it could take that would end the crisis while limiting the loss of life of the passengers and crew. If you think that an airliner - that no one can see during a hostage situation - with only a couple hundred passengers on board is bad; wait until this happens. Do not take this lightly.

Posted by: noprisoners at December 11, 2004 11:16 PM

Not exactly sure how we can know for sure that al-Qaeda is planning anything. But I have learned that Qaeda/Qaida means "base" and the base of everything is Islam, so they are good Muslims. As to the plans, how do we know they are doing anything? Could be just JihadTV trying to get some viewers. Publisicity stunt.

Sorry, I'm so friggin' tired. If there are sp. errors, this is why.

Posted by: Ibn Rushd at December 12, 2004 12:00 AM

voletti
Why does there not exist a 'left wing' in muslim countires? These commie-leftists, scourge of every free society on earth, are miracoulously mising from the happening islamic scene. How come?
The answer to this could be a very a bitter pill for you and lot good folks on this site and for a lot of Americans in General to swallow.
So get a spoonful of sugar,to help this go down.
We had about 14 years of peace pior to the WTC
We had beaten the COMMIES-RUSKIES.Im the cold war the Ruskies had two fronts they where fighting on,one being us and the other islam.And America and Europe saw this and started helping many Islamic regimes and dictatorships to get rid the commie left.
We only have to to look at Afganistan,where we even went as far as to arm what was to become our worst enemy
We only have to look at the Balkans,even though the commies where beaten,we bombed the Serbs,partly becase of a slight leftist element in Serbia,and some very shady dealiing in the Clinton Goverment[Riady Affair and more],Clintcn even went as far as to take one terrorist groups of the blacklist.The destruction and killing is still going on today,while one man who really did see the truth of islam and was to prepared to go all the way to stop it is now in the Hague facing war crimes.Milosovic is one of the few people who realise that human rights and rules of war gannot apply to creatures who choose to live outside the parameters of being human.
The war on the COMMIES-RUSKIES-LEFISTS has been fought in a lot of islamic nations.Here is one example I can show
CIA-organised holocaustThe 'Jewel of Asia
The bloody coup in Indonesia was the outcome of the drive by US imperialism to gain unchallenged control of the immense natural wealth and strategic resources of the archipelago, often referred to as the "Jewel of Asia".

The importance that United States imperialism attached to Indonesia was emphasised by US President Eisenhower in 1953, when he told a state governors' conference that it was imperative for the US to finance the French colonial war in Vietnam as the "cheapest way" to keep control of Indonesia.

Eisenhower detailed: "Now let us assume that we lose Indochina. If Indochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malay peninsula, the last little bit of land hanging on down there, would be scarcely defencible. The tin and tungsten we so greatly value from that area would cease coming, and all India would be outflanked.

"Burma would be in no position for defence. All of that position around there is very ominous to the United States, because finally if we lost all that, how would the free world hold the rich empire of Indonesia?

"So you see, somewhere along the line, this must be blocked and it must be blocked now, and that is what we are trying to do.

"So when the US votes $400 million to help the war (in Indochina), we are not voting a giveaway program. We are voting for the cheapest way that we can prevent the occurrence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the United States of America, our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesian territory and from South East Asia.

Indonesia is estimated to be the fifth richest country in the world in terms of natural resources. Besides being the fifth largest oil producer, it has enormous reserves of tin, bauxite, coal, gold, silver, diamonds, manganese, phosphates, nickel, copper, rubber, coffee, palm oil, tobacco, sugar, coconuts, spices, timber and cinchona (for quinine).

By 1939 the then Dutch East Indies supplied more than half the total US consumption of 15 key raw materials. Control over this vital region was central to the conflict in the Pacific between the US and Japan during World War II. In the post-war period the US ruling class was determined not to have the country's riches torn from their grasp by the Indonesian masses.

Following the defeat of the French in Vietnam in 1954 the US feared that the struggle of the Vietnamese masses would ignite revolutionary upheavals throughout the South East Asian region, threatening its grip over Indonesia.

In 1965, just prior to the Indonesian coup, Richard Nixon, soon to become US president, called for the saturation bombing of Vietnam to protect the "immense mineral potential" of Indonesia. Two years later he declared Indonesia to be the "greatest prize" of South East Asia.

After the coup, the value of Suharto's dictatorship to the interests of US imperialism was underlined in a 1975 US State Department report to Congress which referred to Indonesia as the "most strategically authoritative geographic location on earth":

"It has the largest population of any country in South East Asia.
"It is the principal supplier of raw materials from the region.
"Japan's continued economic prosperity depends heavily on oil and other raw materials supplied by Indonesia.
"Existing American investments in Indonesia are substantial, and our trading relationship is growing rapidly.
"Indonesia will probably become an increasingly important supplier of US energy needs.
"Indonesia is a member of OPEC, but assumed a moderate stance in its deliberations, and did not participate in the oil embargo.
"The Indonesian archipelago sits astride strategic waterways and the government of Indonesia is playing a vital role in the law-of-the-sea negotiations which are vital to our security and commercial interests."

In preparation for the coup, US officials had spent at least two years compiling death lists which were handed over to the military with a clear instruction: exterminate them all. Suharto's men were ordered to report back after each set of killings so the names could be checked off on the CIA's lists.

Some of the American officers involved described what took place. "It really was a big help to the army," said a former political officer in the US embassy in Jakarta, Robert Martens. "They probably killed a lot of people and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad.

"There's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment."

Martens headed an embassy group of State Department and CIA officers who, from 1962, compiled a detailed who's who of the leadership of the PKI. They included, he said, names of provincial, city and other local PKI committee members, and leaders of PKI-backed trade union, women's and youth groups.
The operation was masterminded by former CIA director William Colby, who was then director of the CIA's Far East Division, and thus responsible for directing US covert strategy in Asia. Colby said the work to identify the PKI leadership was a forerunner to the CIA's Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which attempted to exterminate supporters of the National Liberation Front in the late 1960s.

Colby admitted that the work of checking off the death lists was regarded as so important that it was supervised at the CIA's intelligence directorate in Washington. "We came to the conclusion that with the sort of draconian way it was carried out, it really set them (the PKI) back for years."

Deputy CIA station chief Joseph Lazarsky described with undisguised relish how Suharto's Jakarta headquarters provided the US embassy with running reports on the roundup and killing of PKI leaders. "We were getting a good account in Jakarta of who was being picked up. The army had a 'shooting list' of about 4,000 or 5,000 people.

"They didn't have enough goon squads to zap them all, and some individuals were valuable for interrogation. The infrastructure was zapped almost immediately. We knew what they were doing. We knew they would keep a few and save them for the kangaroo courts, but Suharto and his advisers said, if you keep them alive, you have to feed them."

All this was conducted with the approval of Green who was later appointed US ambassador to Australia, where he played a leading role in the preparations for the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975.

At least one million people were slaughtered in the six month holocaust that followed the coup. This was the estimate of a team of University of Indonesia graduates commissioned by the army itself to inquire into the extent of the killings.

Instigated and aided by the army, gangs of youth from right-wing Muslim organisations carried out mass killings, particularly in central and east Java. There were reports that at certain points the Brantas River near Surabaya was "choked with corpses". Another report from the east Javan hill town of Batu said there were so many killed within the narrow confines of a police courtyard that the bodies were simply covered over with layers of cement.

On the island of Bali, formerly considered to be a PKI stronghold, at least 35,000 were killed by the beginning of 1966. There the Tamins, the storm-troopers of Sukarno's PNI (Indonesian National Party) performed the slaughter. A special correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung told of bodies lying along the roads, or heaped in pits, and of half-burned villages in which peasants dared not leave the charred shells of their huts.

In other areas suspects were forced to kill their alleged comrades with their own hands to prove their loyalty. In the major cities anti-Chinese pogroms were conducted. Workers and public servants who went on strike in protest at the counter-revolutionary wave of terror were sacked.

At least 250,000 workers and peasants were thrown into concentration camps. An estimated 110,000 were still held as political prisoners at the end of 1969. Executions continue to this day, including several dozen since the early 1980s. Another four prisoners, Johannes Surono Hadiwiyono, Safar Suryanto, Simon Petrus Sulaeman and Norbertus Rohayan, were executed nearly 25 years after the coup, a clear sign that the Suharto regime still fears the resurgence of the Indonesian proletariat and poor peasantry.
So America had an alligator for an allie to destroy the
COMMIES-RUSKIES-LEFISTS block
SO!!!!! voletti the USA was not doing its home work concernig the greater war which has been going om for more than 1000 years
Until September 11, 2001, there wasn't much known about the Muslim Religion by the American people. We, here in the United States, believed that the Muslim's were just another mid-eastern religion, something like Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. We have all heard about Muhammad, and the fact that the Muslim's believed in covering their women, and lived as though they were in the 12th century. We have all heard stories of harems, eunuchs, oil, and lots of sand. We have also heard about female mutilation, both in the East and in Africa. The Muslim religion was claimed to be of GOD, and supposedly believed in basic fundamentalism. Music and fun were not allowed. Prayer to Muhammad and Allah to be the most important. But do you know the REAL STORY about the Muslim religion?
That story can be told with one word
FEAR

Posted by: shiva at December 12, 2004 4:38 AM

sorry about double posting but I would like to make a small correction
Do you know the REAL STORY about the Muslim religion?
That story can be told with one word: Terror
this is how they have been able to hold onto power
for so long Terror is islams best friend

Posted by: shiva at December 12, 2004 4:58 AM

ALERT
They already have the know how and experience to pull off an attack tomrrow.The muslims have been doing the Long John Silver
unabated for a long time,from the time of the Barbary Wars until now.
Piracy on the high seas has reached record levels and Indonesian waters are the most dangerous in the world, an ocean crime watchdog said Friday.

The International Maritime Bureau, or IMB, said the number of reported ship attacks leaped to 344 in the first nine months of this year, 26 percent more than the 271 recorded in the same period in 2002.

"This is the highest number of attacks for the first nine months of any year since the IMB Piracy Reporting Center began compiling statistics in 1991," said IMB director Captain Pottengal Mukundan.

Pottengal said there had also been an alarming rise in violence, with pirates using dangerous weaponry like sub-machine guns and rocket propelled grenades.

It said 20 crew had been killed compared with six in the same period in 2002. Cases where guns had been used jumped to 77 from 49, and knives from 99 to 115.

"This increase in violence is of great concern. Despite all the information now available on piratical attacks, there are hardly any cases where these attackers are arrested and brought to trial.

"It is only when the pirates face a greater risk of getting punished that we will begin to see a reduction in these figures," he said.

Indonesian waters again topped the list, with the most attacks at 87 for the first nine months of the year. Bangladesh was second with 37 attacks.
Attacks in the Malacca Straits, one of the most strategically important passages of water in the world, jumped to 24 from 11 in 2002. Thirty percent of the world's trade and 80 percent of Japan's crude oil is transported through the narrow corridor between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The IMB also warned recently that politics could be behind some attacks on ships.

It said separatist rebels from Indonesia's Aceh province could be behind a surge in attacks on oil tankers in the strait.

In July it reported three attempted boardings in less than a week, with pirates firing automatic weapons at two gas tankers and an oil tanker.

Western intelligence agencies and maritime security experts have gone further. Some have linked al Qaeda, or militant groups associated with it, to piracy in Indonesia's waters.

Some experts say al Qaeda showed its nautical strategy and sophisticated seaborne attack capability by bombing the Limburg oil tanker off Yemen in 2002 and U.S. warship USS Cole in 2000.

Jemaah Islamiyah, a group whose goal is to create an Islamic state enveloping Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the southern Philippines, has also been identified by experts as capable of hijacking a supertanker and exploding it in the strait.

African waters too are highlighted as dangerous, particularly off the coast of Somalia.
Attacks in waters off Nigeria soared 300 percent to 28 from nine in 2002.

By contrast the IMB said the record of countries such as Ecuador, Guyana, Malaysia and Thailand had shown a marked improvement. It said Malaysia had had no incidents in the last three months.

It also reported a decrease in hijackings.

Posted by: shiva at December 12, 2004 6:37 AM

Oh, I see. The USA was the real bad guy during the Cold war. And the Soviets were heroically fighting a war against Islam.
Sorry dude but that is a classic Chomsky-style interpretation of history-- taking individual events and quotes out of context, and lying by ommision of others pertinent to an objective appraisal of history.

Posted by: kentim at December 12, 2004 6:41 AM

AN OPEN REPLY TO ROBERT SPENCER.

Dear Mr. Spencer

First of all, thanks so much for titling a piece you did about me "Noam Chomsky as Rock Star":
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID= 16220)

This is the best blurb I've gotten yet for my forthcoming book!

For the record, while at one time I would have liked to have been a rock star, that sad truth is that marriage and children have made constant touring out of the question for the foreseeable future. And while I admire Noam Chomsky, I have never to my knowledge wanted to be Noam Chomsky. Linguistics is just way beyond me; just knowing a few languages is hard enough. Also, I have heard he drinks a lot of coffee. My stomach tolerate take more than a cup a day.

More seriously, however, it seems that you did not read most of what I have written before writing your critique of my work. I say this because I have discussed in detail most every thing you have accused me of not discussing--the origins of Hamas, the immorality and futility of suicide bombings, hatred for Israel and the like. It would be nice to be accused of something that I didn't do, instead of being accused of not doing something I have in fact done. Then at least I could learn from the criticism, which is always a good thing. Perhaps you just googled a few recent articles of mine and made your judgements from those? It wouldn't be the first time a conservative has done that. Once the right-wing talk show host Dennis Prager called me a liar on national radio when I told him on his show that I'd witnessed Palestinian marches against suicide bombings. He did so after doing a google search during a commercial break. Unfortunately, the evidence was not googlable because the articles were too old, but was findable on Lexus-Nexus, as I explained to him after the show. He promised to have me on his show again to apologize but has yet to make good on this offer (I have written about the dangers of Google history in war time, if you're interested:
http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/
03/28/news-levine.php).

You could also have checked my CV, which is online, and found articles in Le Monde, the Christian Science Monitor and Tikkun magazine dealing with these issues. May I suggest that it might be time for you to hire a new research assistant?

Your main issue with me, beside my taste in music and linguists, seems to be that I naively argue for a "hudna" or truce between Americans and Muslims, especially radical Muslims. This is certainly debatable advice on my part. In fact, I offered it precisely so it would be debated. However you, your criticism sadly does not contribute to a much-needed debate; instead it falls into the orientalist trap of trying to use Islamic legal compendiums dating back well over 600 years (Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, the author of the source you cite for your analysis of "hudna," 'Umdat as-Salik, died in 1386) to define for all times what Muslims think about a particular issue. This is probably not the best way to understand what Muslims think about various issues today; just as basing the opinions of Jews solely on the writings of Maimonedes or even Americans based solely on the views of the authors of the Declaration of Independence (or better, the Magna Carta) would likely produce a distorted understanding of contemporary views. But such thinking is among the primary ideological moves in Orientalism and the larger discourse of imperialism (if saying this makes me a "Saidist"--a term I've never encountered before. Shouldn't it be "Saidian"?--then so be it), as evidenced so well in James Mill's 1817 primer for British imperial rule of India, the History of India, which argued with great fanfare, and just as great error, that the thousands year old "Laws of Manu" were a primary basis for understanding, and so governing, Hindu society.

This doesn't mean that some, or many Muslims, might want to use a truce to regroup or grow stronger in order to better attack "us" later. Nor does it mean that some extremist Muslims use medieval texts to justify terrorism or violating agreements (what the US Government uses to justify these things is an equally interesting matter, but it seems not to interest you). But if I were you I'd be a lot more worried about a billion plus Chinese with the fastest growing economy in the world, a huge percentage of America's debt, burgeoning high-tech sector and a lot of nuclear weapons, than a billion plus Muslims, if you're looking for the main strategic threat to whoever it is you think the "West" is in the near future.

Moreover, you seem to think that all you need to do to understand Muslims is read religious texts and look at extremists. The 99.9% of Muslims who don't engage in violence against the West, the vast majority of whom don't base their life of the 'Umdat as-Salik (however important it might be for religious scholars), whose lives are incredibly diverse, complex and conflicted, and whose dreams for their futures and those of their children and their societies are in fact quite close to ours, just don't seem to count much to you. That's too bad--and if you don't believe me, believe the report by the Defense Science Board released last week
(http://www.truthout.org/
docs_04/120104V.shtml)
that warns President Bush that Muslims don't hate our freedom and ideology but rather our support for all those supposedly "moderate" regimes which are in fact incredibly repressive and corrupt governments whose continued existence is owed to US backing.

But let's get back to your arguments about the untrustworthiness of Muslims when it comes to honoring any hudna "they" might "sign" with "us." Let's leave aside the fact that Muslims might have some pretty good reasons not to trust us--in fact, a lot more reasons than we have not to trust them. Let's just take the example of Hamas, since you seem so knowledgeable, or at least interested, in this group. I have interviewed Hamas people who've discussed the truce issue and I have called them on it too. In fact, last time I met with a senior leader in Gaza I asked him whether the death of Oslo meant Hamas would join the calls for a one or binational solution being increasingly advocated by Palestinian and Israeli academics, or even push harder for an explicit Islamic state solution, as mentioned in various core documents of the movement. He looked at me like I was crazy, and actually said, "Are you crazy? We want a divorce, not to live closer to Jews." You can interpret it however you want. His interpretation, offered in his next sentence with a lot of exasperation, was "Just give us a state and leave us alone already."

However you want to interpret it, though, the reality is that Muslims have as little ability to "destroy the west" as Hamas has to destroy Israel. In fact, the Asian avian flu that Sec. of Health and Human Services Thompson is suddenly worried about after resigning could easily kill exponentially more people in the next year than Muslims could kill westerners in a hundred years of jihad. Sorry, i know that the threat of jihad to what you call "the West" is your big thing... If you're worried about loss of life, though, better to change your group's name from "Jihad Watch" to "Asia Avian Flu Watch". You'd save a lot more lives that way.

On a few other notes, who exactly do you mean by "aging rock glitteratti" that I supposedly hang "hobnob" with? And what exactly is "hobnobbing"? And since when has Noam Chomsky's star "faded." Please correct me if I'm wrong, but last I saw he had lot more bestsellers in the last three years than you and all your friends put together have had in your entire careers. As for Edward Said, didn't your mother tell you not to speak ill of the dead? And while I would love to take credit for making Chomsky and Said "cool again," can you show me when they went out of style? You also accuse me of making "no mention of the fact that Chomskyites and Saidists have placed Middle East Studies departments in American universities into an ideological straitjacket that would have made Stalin blush." That's because they have done more to open the field from the "ideological straitjacket" of the first three decades of its life as a Cold War invention than almost anyone else. Your argument that they've put it in a straitjacket is one made by someone who never has actually read them in any detail and in fact knows absolutely nothing about the field of Middle Eastern studies, most of whose practitioners predicted exactly the terrorism that happened with 9/11 when our Government and spy agencies were busy elsewhere, and who rightly predicted exactly what would happen when the US invaded Iraq (so far that makes it Middle East Studies 2, Bush/Neocons 0 by my count).

In the same way you clearly haven't read my work in any detail. In fact, this may come as news to you, but Opeds do not the sum total of a scholar's intellectual production make. We also write articles in journals and even edit and write books, of which mine deal with the very issues you accuse me of not dealing with. How can I accuse you of this? Well, you write "LeVine owes his status [as wunderkind] to his willingness to place the responsibility for the strife between the West and the Islamic world squarely on the shoulders of the West." And where exactly did I write that I "place responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the West"? Can you please show me where I've written that? I'm not saying I haven't, but I sure don't remember doing so (perhaps all those years on the road have taken their toll). If I did write that somewhere, then that was not very smart of me and I appreciate your calling it to my attention.

But one think I do know is that almost everything I write I make sure to discuss exactly how and why blame has to be shared, and Muslims like Americans (or Israelis and Palestinians) need to take responsibility for their actions. In my chapter in the book Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation
(http://percevalpress.com/
twilight.html)
that I co-edited, I specifically argue this. But now that I think about it, I say that in the very "Truce with the Muslim World" article that clearly got you upset enough to spend 10 minutes or so writing your article about me!

Perhaps you should have read it to the end. Here's the link: http://www.tomdispatch.com/
index.mhtml?pid=1663.
What I did write was, among other things, "Clearly, a different kind of truce is needed; one that signals the first step in a genuine reappraisal of US (and to a lesser extent European) core positions and interests as well as those of Muslims, so that genuine peace and reconciliation become conceivable." More to the point, I wrote, "Beyond the criminal minority, the 9-11 report was right to demand that Muslims worldwide confront the violent and intolerant version of their religion that is poisoning their societies and threatening the world at large. Religious leaders and ordinary citizens alike must engage in soul-searching about the toxic tendencies within their own cultures similar to the one they demand of Americans and the West more broadly... Muslim political leaders should begin a process of rapid development of participatory civil societies and hold internationally monitored elections within specified (short) time periods or their regimes will face censure and sanctions by the international community. This is the surest way to build a foundation for defeating terrorism. "

I dunno, but I think that this is pretty much what you accused me of not writing, isn't it? And you didn't have to look any farther than the very article you read. Is it inappropriate for me to suggest that you get some tutoring in effective reading strategies before your next expose?

And while we're at it, you quoted but never answered or rebutted the following argument of mine: "Not just Palestinian activists, but foreign peace activists and even Israelis are routinely beaten, arrested, deported, or even killed by the IDF, with little fear that the Government of Israel would pay a political price for crushing non-violent resistance with violent means…. Not surprisingly considering this dynamic, a poll I helped direct earlier this year revealed that Hamas has now surpassed the PLO as the most popular Palestinian political movement.” I think it's a good argument, so thanks for publicizing it. But can you rebut it? I don't think so...

It's getting late and my wife is kicking me to stop typing and go to sleep already--I wonder if rock stars and Noam Chomsky have to worry about this when they want to work late. Let me close, Mr. Spencer, by saying that I would be happy to debate you publicly if you'll take the time actually to read what I write rather than going off about what you wish I'd have written. You have a standing invitation to come to UC Irvine anytime. I'll get a nice big room and some bottled water. You make arrangements with C-SPAN, as I assume you have better connections there than do I. Not being a rock star, and considering the budget cuts at the University of California, I can't offer you a free dinner, sorry. However, since you seem to need help thinking straight how about inviting Daniel Pipes and Bernard Lewis along to help you? I'd love to get the three of you on a stage. For that, I'll spring for dinner.

I assume you know how to reach me, although I'm not sure why you didn't bother to do so before writing your wonderfully titled expose.

Best and peace,

Mark LeVine -- That's LeVine with a capital V, not Levine.
History
University of California, Irvine

Posted by: Debby_the_Practical Republican at December 12, 2004 7:05 AM

Dear Dr. LeVine (with a capital V, as you may not have noticed I wrote it consistently in my article; the headline, which I sent in with a capital V, lost the capital when it was printed):

Thanks so much for your reply. It is good to hear from you.

A few notes below:

You say: "First of all, thanks so much for titling a piece you did about me "Noam Chomsky as Rock Star": (http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID= 16220) This is the best blurb I've gotten yet for my forthcoming book!"

Please feel free to use it! You can credit me as "director of Jihad Watch and author of 'Islam Unveiled' and 'Onward Muslim Soldiers.'" Thanks.

You say: "More seriously, however, it seems that you did not read most of what I have written before writing your critique of my work. I say this because I have discussed in detail most every thing you have accused me of not discussing--the origins of Hamas, the immorality and futility of suicide bombings, hatred for Israel and the like. It would be nice to be accused of something that I didn't do, instead of being accused of not doing something I have in fact done. Then at least I could learn from the criticism, which is always a good thing."

Well, let's talk seriously, indeed. In fact I did read what you had to say about those issues, but it all seemed to me to be overshadowed by your call for a "hudna," and other issues I mentioned in my piece. You are here accusing me of something I didn't do, because I do not say that you never discuss these issues. What I actually said was this: "Glaringly absent from this analysis, and from most of what LeVine also writes, is substantive respect for these 'mosquitoes' as actors in their own right in today’s great global drama." "Most," as the great linguist Chomsky could tell you, is not the same word as "all."

You say: "Perhaps you just googled a few recent articles of mine and made your judgements from those?"

In fact, no.

You say: "You could also have checked my CV, which is online, and found articles in Le Monde, the Christian Science Monitor and Tikkun magazine dealing with these issues. May I suggest that it might be time for you to hire a new research assistant?"

Thanks, but I do not have a research assistant, and I read the LeMonde, CSM, and Tikkun pieces, as well as other material linked at your CV. Nice page.

You say: "Your main issue with me, beside my taste in music and linguists, seems to be that I naively argue for a 'hudna' or truce between Americans and Muslims, especially radical Muslims."

Precisely.

You say: "This is certainly debatable advice on my part. In fact, I offered it precisely so it would be debated. However you, your criticism sadly does not contribute to a much-needed debate; instead it falls into the orientalist trap of trying to use Islamic legal compendiums dating back well over 600 years (Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, the author of the source you cite for your analysis of "hudna," 'Umdat as-Salik, died in 1386) to define for all times what Muslims think about a particular issue. This is probably not the best way to understand what Muslims think about various issues today; just as basing the opinions of Jews solely on the writings of Maimonedes or even Americans based solely on the views of the authors of the Declaration of Independence (or better, the Magna Carta) would likely produce a distorted understanding of contemporary views."

Thank you for calling me an "Orientalist." May I use your "Falls into the Orientalist trap" as a blurb on my forthcoming book?

Meanwhile, your point about the age of 'Umdat as-Salik is irrelevant. Al-Azhar in 1991 certified that it "conforms to the practise and faith of the orthodox Sunni community." That is, today, not 600 years ago. I use it because it is readily available in English, so that readers can verify the truth of what I am saying. But I am sure that you know that what it says about a hudna is not eccentric, and is echoed in numerous other legal manuals used by Muslims. Are you willing to declare flatly that Hamas does not by a hudna mean a 10-year respite to gather strength?

You say: "But such thinking is among the primary ideological moves in Orientalism and the larger discourse of imperialism (if saying this makes me a "Saidist"--a term I've never encountered before. Shouldn't it be "Saidian"?--then so be it)"

I do indeed prefer "Saidist," but I cannot claim credit for the marvelous term. I believe it comes from Ibn Warraq's evisceration of the late poseur:

http://www.secularislam.org/articles/debunking.htm

You say: "This doesn't mean that some, or many Muslims, might want to use a truce to regroup or grow stronger in order to better attack 'us' later."

Great. Thanks. That's my point.

You say: "Nor does it mean that some extremist Muslims use medieval texts to justify terrorism or violating agreements (what the US Government uses to justify these things is an equally interesting matter, but it seems not to interest you)."

Let me make sure I understand: you are accusing the US government of terrorism?

You say: "Moreover, you seem to think that all you need to do to understand Muslims is read religious texts and look at extremists. The 99.9% of Muslims who don't engage in violence against the West..."

I invite you to read more of what I write, and you will find that you have mischaracterized my positions.

You say: "Let's just take the example of Hamas, since you seem so knowledgeable, or at least interested, in this group."

Ad hominem attacks are so much fun, aren't they?

You say: "He looked at me like I was crazy, and actually said, 'Are you crazy? We want a divorce, not to live closer to Jews.' You can interpret it however you want. His interpretation, offered in his next sentence with a lot of exasperation, was 'Just give us a state and leave us alone already.'"

At the risk of raising more of your contempt by citing yet another text, are you suggesting that Hamas has abandoned the goals stated in its Charter?

You say: "On a few other notes, who exactly do you mean by 'aging rock glitteratti' that I supposedly hang 'hobnob' with?"

Robert Plant.

You say: "And what exactly is 'hobnobbing'?"

I suggest Dictionary.com, or Merriam-Websters online.

You say: "And since when has Noam Chomsky's star 'faded.' Please correct me if I'm wrong, but last I saw he had lot more bestsellers in the last three years than you and all your friends put together have had in your entire careers."

Do you really know who my friends are? Anyway, I don't know how you can say this when you quote me, just a few lines later, acknowledging that Chomskyites and Saidists have total control of the Middle East Studies establishment today. The "faded" reference was in terms of their credibility.

You say: "As for Edward Said, didn't your mother tell you not to speak ill of the dead? And while I would love to take credit for making Chomsky and Said 'cool again,' can you show me when they went out of style?"

As for speaking ill of the dead, what do you think of Arthur Jeffrey? D.S. Margoliouth? A.S. Tritton? As for Said, see the Ibn Warraq link, cited above.

You say: "Your argument that they've put it in a straitjacket is one made by someone who never has actually read them in any detail and in fact knows absolutely nothing about the field of Middle Eastern studies, most of whose practitioners predicted exactly the terrorism that happened with 9/11 when our Government and spy agencies were busy elsewhere, and who rightly predicted exactly what would happen when the US invaded Iraq (so far that makes it Middle East Studies 2, Bush/Neocons 0 by my count)."

I suggest that you may have overlooked the fact that there are not just two horses (MES and Neocons) in this race. As for the accurate predictions, I remember Esposito's (now substantially revised) book on the Islamic threat too well to be able wholeheartedly to agree with you. Cf. also Martin Kramer's work.

You say: "How can I accuse you of this? Well, you write "LeVine owes his status [as wunderkind] to his willingness to place the responsibility for the strife between the West and the Islamic world squarely on the shoulders of the West." And where exactly did I write that I 'place responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the West'? Can you please show me where I've written that? I'm not saying I haven't, but I sure don't remember doing so (perhaps all those years on the road have taken their toll). If I did write that somewhere, then that was not very smart of me and I appreciate your calling it to my attention."

Well, this passage does seem to suggest that the US can end terrorism by changing its policy. Certainly what else must be done is not specified: "Let's only hope they will have the courage to explain to president Kerry (or even Bush) that, without both an acceptance of responsibility for past policy and the transformation of future policy toward the Islamic regions of our planet, there will be no solution to terrorism, only continued violence and war."

You say after that that I should have read the article through to the end, and that you do say Muslims must reappraise their positions. Unfortunately, the sentence I quoted above is what is actually at the end of the article.

You say: "What I did write was, among other things .... 'Beyond the criminal minority, the 9-11 report was right to demand that Muslims worldwide confront the violent and intolerant version of their religion that is poisoning their societies and threatening the world at large.'"

Yes, I saw that. I have called for that many times myself. I didn't quote it in the article because your call for a hudna seemed to deprive it of any substance. Perhaps you can explain how they go together.

You say: "Is it inappropriate for me to suggest that you get some tutoring in effective reading strategies before your next expose?"

Yes, I think it is, but thanks. See above about the hudna.

You say: "And while we're at it, you quoted but never answered or rebutted the following argument of mine: 'Not just Palestinian activists, but foreign peace activists and even Israelis are routinely beaten, arrested, deported, or even killed by the IDF, with little fear that the Government of Israel would pay a political price for crushing non-violent resistance with violent means…. Not surprisingly considering this dynamic, a poll I helped direct earlier this year revealed that Hamas has now surpassed the PLO as the most popular Palestinian political movement.' I think it's a good argument, so thanks for publicizing it. But can you rebut it? I don't think so..."

I know that Hamas is now most popular. The point I was making was clear in the article -- that you place responsibility for Hamas' popularity on Israel, at the expense of other salient causes.

You say: "Let me close, Mr. Spencer, by saying that I would be happy to debate you publicly if you'll take the time actually to read what I write rather than going off about what you wish I'd have written. You have a standing invitation to come to UC Irvine anytime. I'll get a nice big room and some bottled water. You make arrangements with C-SPAN, as I assume you have better connections there than do I. Not being a rock star, and considering the budget cuts at the University of California, I can't offer you a free dinner, sorry. However, since you seem to need help thinking straight how about inviting Daniel Pipes and Bernard Lewis along to help you? I'd love to get the three of you on a stage. For that, I'll spring for dinner."

Let's not debate your work; let's debate the facts of the situation that confronts us. Contact me at director@jihadwatch.org to set it up. I don't know Lewis, and I am happy to go it alone, if you don't mind. What exactly do you propose we debate?

Best regards and thanks again,
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at December 12, 2004 9:05 AM

This article caught my interest. Here is a person who represents something essential in any modern marketing strategy, including that of the leftist/Islamist alliance- image matters. That explains the title of Mr. Spencer’s article “Mark LeVine: Noam Chomsky as Rock Star”. Of course ideas matter too regardless of whether or not they are substantive.

Mr. Levine is a professor of modern Middle Eastern history and Islamic studies at UC, Irvine. I am concerned about this after briefly reading his views from several 'Google' http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/03/28/news-levine.php sites. I don't need to go very much further to see that he is a biased player in the area of his chosen profession and a potentially dangerous one at that, considering his position of responsibility as a professor.

It makes all the sense in the world that this article appears in David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine, considering his concern about educational leftism and indoctrination in American universities-of which Mr. LeVine will certainly contribute to with the aid of a cheerleading press.

The danger I see with Mr. LeVine is of the usual bias and distortions specifically designed to shape public opinion with regard to Muslims and the Islamist agenda, which if the title of his book "Why They Don't Hate Us" is any indication, seeks to explain and blame in all the usual fuzzy ways that which should have been long ago discredited. One can almost hear Professor LeVine singing "Kumbyah" around the fire.

But it gets better. His resume is full of references to his musical prowess and experience as a performer in various Blues, Jazz R&B and Hip Hop groups. With all his musical experience and adventure, i.e., "Living next door to Hamas mosques, standing against bulldozers, dodging terrorist bombs”, I wonder what exactly qualifies him to be the voice of a new generation of mid east professors?

He certainly appears to be leftist, pacifist and utopian, choosing to ignore Islamic history of the last 1,450 years and instead focuses, as his title implies, on "Modern Middle Eastern" history, seemingly ignoring all the rest as though Islam is a fickle and easily distracted as the Western mind-set. Of course, modern history to him is all together separate and distinct from the tenants and teachings of Islam in the Koran, Hadith and other sources. Historic experience with Islam, world wide, does not indicate a pattern to this professor who has apparently lived extensively in the region and surely has seen that much of the Islamic world’s problems originate in the Islamic world.

Being promoted like a prophet by his “progressive” backers who embrace his message; "We need an Axis of Empathy", is not that difficult a feat considering the media and academic bias that denies despite all reason and experience that such appeasement can only lead to our eventual destruction which I have not had the time to see if he even addresses.

He covers his rear by making the grey-blanket statement that "the idea that most Muslims hate the United States or the West is a useful fabrication that helps fundamentalists on both sides...". Such a comment is designed to give the impression that we in the West, in Europe or America for example, have anything remotely resembling Islamic fundamentalists, i.e., bloody beheading jihadists and radical hate spewing clerics as a natural by-product of our civilization.

It is typical putrid leftism and disinformation, spread by a focus group caricature, self-designed to appeal to Gen X and Y hipsters . He is peddling intellectual dishonesty and morally relativistic fantasies as illustrated by his article "10 Things to know About Terrorism", ( http://www.alternet.org/story/11647 ). Notice the Chomsky-esque stab at equating America not only as a terrorist state by virtue of its own definitions of the term, but also a chief enabler and supporter of terrorism throughout the world.

This recalls the Chomsky film I saw recently in Munich where "Chompers" himself famously states about America, "Want to stop terrorism? It's easy, stop being a terrorist!" How can LeVine possibly be taken seriously when his protégé is an anti-American leftist and his solutions refuse to admit the problem without blaming those who are resisting the jihad?

The greater danger of course is that this cool "gig" seeking performer/"I feel your pain" professor, has the power to influence an entire generation to blindly accept as truth, his flawed and above all biased, understanding of Islam and its eventual cultural hegemony over the Western world.

A Critical Voice of the new (cough) Generation, LeVine’s Resume:
http://www.meaning.org/levinebio.html

Posted by: Andrew at December 12, 2004 9:13 AM

Mr. LeVine,

This was susposed to be posted above the previous archival comments I made about you. I apologize for the error in order. This is to be read first, then the previous above post, "LeVine: Chomsky as Rock Star".

Regards.

Mr. LeVine with a capitol "V",

I assume you saw my post about you, but in case you haven’t, I'll post it here again for you to ponder as you check in from time to time to see what everyone is saying about you.

I'll admit, I never heard about you before the Spencer Front page Article and I needed to do some research about you before making any comments. As you will notice, I saw the importance you placed on your "GOOGLE" counter-attack to the charges of Dennis Prager and I ask you, so what does that point mean? One not delve too deeply into you history to quickly see you are a leftist liberal in the Chomsky tradition, everything else is all window dressing.

The thing that I am most concerned about with people such as yourself, is your complete inability to objectively assess yourself in a completely honest fashion. Additionally, you are a skilled deceiver as the admittedly limited amount of information I have read about seems to indicate. But as I've said in my response the Mr. Spencer's post, I don’t have to delve in to deeply to see what it is you are really all about.

The media campaign to sanitize and distort the truth of the Islamic agenda ("99.9 percent rejects Islamism", as a professor, please tell me where you obtained this figure) has apparently taken a liking to you. In the end, the reality of Islam's genuine face and its legions of deceptive, pseudo-intellectual apologists will come to light as the Islamification of the west (You mocked this in your response to Mr. Spencer, why?) is made an undeniable reality.

By the way, I was unable to find out where you blocked bulldozers, can you provide a link? Where they D-9 Caterpillars in the West Bank by any chance and how does that action speak to your objectivity?

Thank you.

Posted by: Andrew at December 12, 2004 9:21 AM

Oh, I see. The USA was the real bad guy during the Cold war. And the Soviets were heroically fighting a war against Islam.
Sorry dude but that is a classic Chomsky-style interpretation of history-- taking individual events and quotes out of context, and lying by ommision of others pertinent to an objective appraisal of history.
Posted by: kentim at December 12, 2004 06:41 AM

I do not think was I trying to to make the USA a bad guy,and the soviets heros.I was using a few incidents that did happen during the cold war,in an attempt to answer a simple question as to why the Commie-left block does not exist today with-in the Islamic world .During the cold war a lot of people where killed in different incidents that,on tha surface did not appear to have any connection to the main war, EAST-WEST.
Did I say America was right or wrong,,,,,NO
Did I say USSR was right or wrong,,,,,NO
It was a dirty war but it was not on an open battle field,and what happened in Indonesia is something that cannot be un-done
I would like to say that I am thankful that the Commies-left where beaten.
I can understand why a lot of people in Asia hate us.There are still people being killed today thanks to the the American and UN policies of 50 years ago
I was making a comment,not an essay,I do not have the time or talent to go into all the details.May-be you do not know everything what America had to do to win the last war.But I can inform you that whle you can enjoy the freedom you are enjoying today in America,Here on this island [JAVA] where I live,there are107 million people who are now living under the curse of Islam,and 50 years ago 1,000,000 lives where wasted for a battle the USA lost. SO please before you start comparing me to PORK CHOMSKEY,just google SOCIALISM CIA ISLAM.From an islamic perspective not very good reading.But it should give u a good insight as to why many people celebrated when the towers toppled,and the stars and stripes are set ablaze,and OBL is the #1 face seen on T-shirts all over asia.
Sorry to say this but before 9/11 u yankie dudes where sleeping with dogs and it is only now that some of you are beginning to feel the itch and start scratching.There are a lot of people who hate you,and there are a lot of people who are becoming more powerful by propagating that hate,and thats a fact.American did do a lot of shit in the cold war,and a lot of the shit landed in the face of an old enemy that has been at war with us for more than a thousand years,an enemy that u dumb fucks are only waking up to now is it going to take a much larger 9/11 before u bring out the flea powder
Do not forgrt your history/because it is your history that fuels the hate of our present enemy.

Posted by: shiva at December 12, 2004 12:28 PM

More on Dr. LeVine, with a capital "V" by Silas

"I spent some time and took a deeper look at the author and his writings and I felt a sense of urgency to respond. This type of exceptional stupidity should not go unanswered."

http://answering-islam.org.uk/Silas/levine_truce.htm

Posted by: Andrew at December 12, 2004 12:37 PM

LeVine's ad hominem digs in what looks like a formal response to Robert's article are disturbing; and he holds a chair at Irvine? Jeez...Well, I guess incivility from a prof. at Irvine is better than the chaos and absurdity that is Ramadan and Notre Dame.

I am looking forward to the debate.

Posted by: JTF at December 12, 2004 8:20 PM

Guys like this LeVine and of course dear old Chomsky are as good as any "seaborne attack" that our Islamic enemies could stage.

The U of Cal at Irvine was where Hamas green sashes were worn during graduation to show solidarity with the "Palestinian" Arabs, the darlings of such as LeVine and like "intellectuals." Good thing that they can only infect the minds of some of our youth and not get a hold of the rudder of our ship of state.

When push comes to shove, it will be Catherine and her kin and associates--that can shoot the eye out of a gnat at 500 yards--who will decide whether we point our rear-ends up five times a day or our enemies take another five or optimistically at least a thousand centuries to regroup and try and force their garbled trash down our throats once again.

LeVine and the other apologists-for-our-Islamic-brothers will be hoisting their skirts and heading for safe ground while they let others fight and die to protect their freedom to say what they please.

Posted by: unicorns62000 at December 12, 2004 9:42 PM

The link given above to www.answering-islam.org.uk/Silas/levine truce.htm contains an excerpt from what can only be LeVine's own description of himself, found at www.meaning.org/levinebio.htm:

"Mark LeVine is an emerging leader of the new generation of historians and analysts of the modern Middle East and Islam.

... taught Qur'an to Muslim Brothers,

LeVine trusts no one, is suspicious of all sources and all authority. He is not afraid to tell the truth based on the facts and data he can personally confirm, and will challenge the actions and opinions of rulers and ruled, oppressed and oppressor alike.

His wide and deep knowledge of the politics and history of the entire region (from North Africa to Afghanhistan), its religions and its cultures, gives him unique insight into the broader dynamics that have produced the events that constantly dominate the news."

Need anything else be said?

Perhaps you thought that reading Qur’an and hadith and sira, accompanied by hundreds of articles, and dozens of books, might help one to understand a belief-system that, unlike Mark LeVine, is not “suspicious of all sources and all authority” and indeed, is based entirely on “sources” and “authority.” From what do Sheikh Tantawi, Qaradawi, the “Sunni scholars” of Anbar Province,Ayatollah al-Sistani, Ayatollah Khomeini, the imams with their khutbas in Saudi Arabia receive their authority, if not from their familiarity, and understanding, of the canonical texts? When, on a thousand websites, inquiring Muslims write in, asking for opinions on taxes and hairstyles and avoiding interest and the calculation of zakat and the possibility of permanent peace with Infidels, on what do those offering their opinions and formal rulings base them – if not the authority of the texts, and the commentators on those texts. How can someone like Mark LeVine, who rushes about the wide world, who is a great believer in his own experiences – teaching Qur’an to Muslim Brothers, interviewing Hamas members, and whatever else it is that he has done – aside from boring book-learning in the stacks – to become part of the “new generation of historians and analysts” who somehow, though suspicious of “all sources” and “all authority” (one wonders by what criteria he decides to stop being suspicious, and to accept, for example, any scholarly work by anyone – at what point, for example, would he say that Snouck Hurgronje or Antoine Fattal, to take two disparate examples, have passed all of Mark Levine’s tests and need not be read with such a total refusal to accept “all sources” and “all authority.” It appears that Edward Said and Noam Chomsky are among those who, as “sources” and “authority,” have passed some Mark-LeVine tests. What tests would those be – for perhaps others can apply the same criteria?

And who else meets the test? Does John Esposito? Does Ibn Warraq? What does Mark LeVine think, since he reads German, of Christoph Luxenberg? And since he reads Italian, this polymath, what does he think of the cofanetto of four works by Oriana Fallaci, all on the subject of Islam,and the islamization of Europe? Anything? Nothing?

Mark LeVine believes that “the West” – or more specifically, America, or Amerika, is also guilty of “terrorism.” It is things that America has done that explain hostility to it. It has nothing to do with America being perceived as an Infidel power. Nor do the world’s Muslims bear any animus to anyone outside the West, such as Hindus and Buddhists (or the Zoroastrians of Persia), whom they have always gotten along with so swimmingly. And if a handful of historians, such as K. S. Lal or Sita Ram Goel or Francois Gautier, , suggest otherwise, they are simply puppets of the BJP and Hindutva fanatics.

He believes that we all need a cooling-off period. There is nothing in Islam itself, as a belief-system, to worry about. Nothing about the behavior of Muhammad, and then of Muhammad as a model, to worry anyone. Nothing in the hadith, and of course nothing in the Qur’an, that might, just might, cause Believers to behave in a way that might represent a permanent danger to Infidels.

That is because he doth bestride the world like a colossus. He knows languages – many many languages (just try him out in a debate – try speaking to him in French, or Turkish, -- and of course he can also make out Ottoman script as well as modern Turkish – and Italian, and of course Arabic and Hebrew and Persian. A. K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, S. D. Goitein – these people have nothing on him, and he is not about to submit to their “authority.” Goitein spent a few decades trying to understand the weight of the jizya on the Jews, and finally felt he had done so, after a lifetime of underestimating it as a burden – and Mark LeVine, however, doesn’t have to know what Goitein learned, because he has traveled to the Middle East, and spoken to Hamas members, and even “taught Qur’an to Muslim Brothers.” Did Goitein, did Snouck Hurgronje, did Margoliouth, did Joseph Schacht do that? Can anyone who hasn’t wandered through North Africa and the Middle East really and truly undrerstand it? Books are so overrated. The study of the past is so overrated. The study of immutable doctrines, and the hapless attempts by some “reformers” to overcome the immutability of those doctrines, is so overrated. What couns is Experience.

It is a little like Nabokov. He once regretted that he had, in his life, only been a writer, whereas so many American writers had been lumberjuacks, soda jerks, oil field hands, taxi drivers, short order cooks and all those other experiences which, of course, hadcause their prose to be immortal and his prose – well, you can forget about him. And didn’t James Joyce also have a dozen different occupations as well?

So Mark LeVine indeed does represent the newest stage in scholarship – the scholar who doesn’t have to bother with scholarship. There is no past. The past exists only if we let it. Say No to the Past. Stick with the present. See what you can see. And since you cannot see into the minds of men, and do not know what it is – what texts, what sermons and societies and atmospherics and attitudes that are based on, or emerge from, those texts – that forms their minds, they will always be a mystery.

Did Arafat mention on at least four occasions the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya? So what? What is that supposed to mean?

And so what if Majid Khadduri wrote a book which many consider to be the last word on the subject – “War and Peace in Islam” – in which he sets out clearly the impossibility of any Muslim people or polity making a permanent peace with any Infidel people or polity. And when Khadduri explains that a “hudna” is to be used only in order to strengthen the Muslim side, or to rescue it from a currently untenable position. For example, it is clear that some members of Hamas believe that the Israeli counter-offensive has been quite damaging, and that Hamas needs a timeout. Yes, but why should Israel give it to them?

And it is also clear that many Muslims are now worried about Infidels learning just a bit too much, and becoming a bit too alarmed, about Islam – about its doctrines, about what Muslims believe, and about the future of Infidel countries where there are large and growing Muslim immigrants. Transparent attempts to protect Islam and Muslims from critical scrutiny, such as the invention, and widespread use, of the scare-word “islamophobia,” are eveidence of this fear. The “Conflicts Forum” of Alistair Crooke, Patrick Seale (who has been in the business of supplying every – and I mean every – desire of Arab paymasters since he was throwing parties for important Arabs, and inviting some attractive young English girls, of a special sort, at his house in Eton Square in the 1970s), and the propagandist and public reliations adviser to Arafat & Co.,, Mark Perry, discussed elsewhere at this website, is another example.

And now comes Mark LeVine, to embody this new mode of anti-academic academics, where deep familiarity with the texts can be dispensed with, as one can learn so much more from real life, in Beirut and Gaza, in Cairo and Damascus. Scholarship without scholarship – that is the new motto for a new age. And why not?

Perhaps you prefer Mark LeVine to Schacht, Margoliouth, Antoine Fattal. Perhaps you think Mark LeVine’s understanding of the “hudna” is superior to that of Majid Khadduri. But why?

Mark LeVine must really tell us what it is about Snouck Hurgronje on Mecca and Islam in the Dutch East Indies, what it is about Fagnan and Dufourcq and Bousquet and Bat Ye'or on Jihad and dhimmitude, what it is about the Indian historian K. S. Lal and about Francois Gautier, Haish Narain and Sita Ram Goel and a dozen other historians of India under Muslim rule, and what it is about Rumanian historians of Islam (Maria-Matilda Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru) and Bulgarian students (Bistra A. Cvetkova; Snegarov)and Greek historians (Speros Bryonis Jr. and Apostolos E. Vakalopoulos and Vassiliki Papoulia), and Serb historians (including the celebrated writer Ivo Andric, whose Ph.D. thesis, "The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia Under the Influence of Turkish Rule” has recently been published in English) that makes him so distrustful of all of them. Is it some internal inconsistency? Is it that they did not know the relevant languages? Is it that they had not had the life experiences, talking to Hamas members, lecturing to members of the Muslim Brothers, that Mark LeVine has had?

And how well, really, did Majid Khadduri know Arabic? And what did he know about how Muslims think of war, and peace, with Infidels? Did he talk to Hamas members? Or lecture members of the Muslim Brothers? Just how long had Majid Khadduri been studying Islam before he wrote his own book on “War and Peace in Islam”? Did he get on "Nightline"? Why not? And for that matter, did Elie Kedourie? Or J. B. Kelly? What about his views on Saudi Arabia -- do they have any resemblance to reality? Doesn't the Aramco Handbook tell us so much more, being written as it was for the edification of the real-life oil workers and engineers who spent years right there in Saudi Arabia -- even more time in the midst of Arab Islam than Mark LeVine, and so, presumably even greater experts than he?

And since Mark LeVine is apparently impressed with Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, those two lifelong students of Islam, could he explain what it was about each that made him trust in them as sources, and in their authority? Was there something about Said’s "Orientalism" that escaped the historian of British India Clive Dewey? Or that Ibn Warraq failed to notice in his own review of Said's work? Or Keith Windschuttle? Or Bernard Lewis in his celebrated reply to Said, “The Question of ‘Orientalism’”? And what was it that caused Mark LeVine to have such confidence in Said’s own“The Question of Palestine”? For example, was it the way Said used, or did not use, the testimony of Western travellers, beginning in the late 18th century, to the area known to the West as "Palestine"? Why, for example, does he quote Volney in his "Orientalism" but for some reason leave Volney out of "The Question of Palestine"? Anything about the use of sources there that got Mark LeVine's antennae quivering? What about the quotations, or lack of quotations, from the eyewitness accounts of the Holy Land, of which there were so many? Does Mark LeVine find at all strange the difference, for example, in how Lamartine and Chateaubriand and Mark Twain and Melville are quoted, or not, in Said's book, and how they are quoted in a book of equal length, Katz's "Battleground"?

And as for Chomsky, what with the Sandinistas, and syntactic structures, has Chomsky ever had time to study Qur'an and hadith and sira -- or to take seriously a belief-system, and attempting to understand what prompts Muslims to see the universe as many do, by actually looking at the texts upon which that belief-system is so thoroughly based? Does Mark LeVine worry the least bit about a belief-system that offers a Total Explanation of the Universe, and divides that universe mainly into two groups -- Believers and Infidels? Or is this all a fantasy of Donald Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by such neo-con Likudniks as Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the late Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, right-wingers all?

Yet, these criticisms surely must be unfair. For otherwise, how could tAssistant Professor Mark LeVine possibly have concluded the following about Assistant Professor Mark LeVine:

"Mark LeVine is an emerging leader of the new generation of historians and analysts of the modern Middle East and Islam.

... taught Qur'an to Muslim Brothers,

LeVine trusts no one, is suspicious of all sources and all authority. He is not afraid to tell the truth based on the facts and data he can personally confirm, and will challenge the actions and opinions of rulers and ruled, oppressed and oppressor alike.

His wide and deep knowledge of the politics and history of the entire region (from North Africa to Afghanhistan), its religions and its cultures, gives him unique insight into the broader dynamics that have produced the events that constantly dominate the news."

Mark LeVine is an updated academic version of Dickens' Mr. Podsnap in "Our Mutual Friend":

" Mr. Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr. Podsnap’s opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good inheritance, and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was quite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with himself.

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness – not to add a grand convenience – in this way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards establishing Mr. Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr. Podsnap’s satisfaction. “I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t admit it!”

Perhaps you trust Mark LeVine, who doesn’t want to know about all those scholars, doesn’t choose to discuss them at length, doesn’t admit the justice of their decades of scrupulous research. He knows better. He has been to the Middle East. He has talked to Hamas members and Muslim Brothers. They tell him things. What more does anyone need?

And that is why Mark LeVine can dispense Joseph Schacht, David Margoliouth, Antoine Fattal, and a hundred other scholars of Islam in the past who would certainly have found LeVine's views -- without authority, without study of the sources -- simply naivety dressed as realism, anti-intellectualism (no mere book-learning for this professor), - and political tendentiousness (Said, Chomsky). Perhaps you find Mark LeVine’s instinctive understanding of the “hudna” and its uses superior to the detailed discussion and analysis in the study by Majid Khadduri.

Perhaps you agree as well with Mark LeVine’s guiding motto, that mental bumper-sticker which tells him always to “Question Authority.”

Why should you?

Posted by: Hugh at December 12, 2004 11:26 PM

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness – not to add a grand convenience – in this way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards establishing Mr. Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr. Podsnap’s satisfaction. “I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t admit it!”

LOL!! Thank you Hugh, for yet another masterpiece.

Posted by: Susanp at December 13, 2004 1:07 AM

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness – not to add a grand convenience – in this way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards establishing Mr. Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr. Podsnap’s satisfaction. “I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t admit it!”

LOL, thank you Hugh, for yet another masterpiece.

Posted by: Susanp at December 13, 2004 1:08 AM

Hat is off to Robert, Andrew, and Hugh for superb refutations of LeVine. After several years of actively debating these "anti-academic academics" (good coinage, Hugh), I've come to the conclusion that the metaphysics of their thinking and rhetoric can be summarized as follows:

The work of Stanley Fish has freed the Left-wing academy of all rational constraints. Since texts are not to be considered objectively, indeed all knowledge and truth is born of subjectivity. Thus, rationalization need only be useful in fleshing out through the mechanisms of deduction sophistic rhetoric that reinforces the subjective conclusions. And what are these conclusions? It doesn't really matter. Subjectivity implies that truth is changeable. Thus, truth becomes the whim of the moment -- i.e. the seductive postmodernist philosophies emanating from France, the visceral hatred of America and perceived imperialistic tendencies.

This subjectivity also frees the mind of the disciplines that would otherwise hinder fallacious reasoning. Thus, the anti-academic academics engage in argumentum ad hominen, false analogy, and false moral equivalence among other ill-conceived rhetorical methodologies.

And thus, the club of the anti-academic academics devolves into self-congratulatory groupthink -- for who can argue with them. They are indeed released from objectivity. Thus, they become narcissists in their ivory towers, believing whatever suits their fancy, for remember, the texts cannot be understood in an objective context. Exegesis, indeed learning and truth as well, are but spontaneous emissions from this grey matter within each individual cranium -- and who's to say that Newton or Einstein is any more correct than, well, let's try LeVine on for size?

One final note. An example of fallacious reasoning (overlooked so far) from Mr. LeVine's diatribe is: "Muslims might have some pretty good reasons not to trust us--in fact, a lot more reasons than we have not to trust them." The implication here is that we are wronger and they are righter due to the asserted quantity of complaints.

This is a fallacy of false importance of quantity vs. quality. In fact, America really only has one problem with the Muslim civilization -- survival. We are engaged in a war that will keep an aggressive totalitarianism from taking our freedom from us -- in that respect, quite similar to WW2 and the Cold War. The war is long and multifaceted. The enemy could line up 50 million arguments against our one -- yet the quality of our one argument is superior to their arguments no matter how many they are. As Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death."

Thus, the conflict comes about through irreconcilable civilizational philosophies. If Europe goes the route of Eurabia, then they will have lost the the philosophical conflict, and thus, the war. America will not take that course.

Posted by: ted at December 13, 2004 3:17 AM

Mr. Fitzgerald,

Thank you for your exceptional insights into the anti-intellectual world of Dr. Mark LeVine. He is presented as the Indiana Jones and "new Breed" of scholar who looks at things just a bit differently, enabling the rest of us to break the "cycle" of ill will and "misunderstanding" of the Islamic world.

He of course does not recognize a "west" because to him the west was taken from someone else and so the story goes, to him the very legitimacy of AmeriKKKa is illegitimate.

To your points of his newfangled "scholastic" approach, please read what a traditional professor who reviewed his book on music had to say about his approach and handling to the subject matter at hand:

"[3] Presumably, Levine has written this book as a reference tool
for the jazz musician. The format does not directly adapt to
classroom use, since no exercises are included and material is
not presented in order of progressive difficulty."

http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto.00.6.1/mto.00.6.1.rawlins.rev

Not only that as well, but don't let me spoil a very good read on this mid east expert.

Mr. Fitzgerald, you rhetorically state "Need anything else be said?" after an introductory quote into the mindset of Dr. Mark LeVine. I respectfully say yes. I invite you to read a very telling email written by LeVine himself for deeper understanding of his intellectually vacuous and morally relative leftist world:

"the existence of terrorism on the part of
Palestinians does nothing to diminish the much greater use of terrorism by the israeli state
and citizens against palestinians... the existence of terrorism on the part of palestinians does
nothing to diminish the much greater use of terrorism by the israeli state
and citizens against palestinians..."

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/cgi-bin/spoons/archive_msg.pl?file=postcolonial.archive/postcolonial.0103&msgnum=156&start=18274&end=18406

There’s more...

"but this only will work if we all join the palestinians in this sort of non-violent "terrorism" against the occupation. all of us with the ability to get to israel/palestine should go at least once and stand in solidarity with them against the bulldozers and tanks."

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/cgi-bin/spoons/archive_msg.pl?file=postcolonial.archive%2Fpostcolonial.0103&msgnum=165&start=19457

As you see, Mr. LeVine thinks we should all make our annual pilgrimage to "Mecca" to "stand in solidarity against the occupation.

He is a walking talking cliché of elitist, liberal leftism and I dare say his words despite his stated caveat, hint of heavy anti-Israeli bias.

This is what passes the sniff test to become a professor at the UC, Irvine? He and his University should be ASHAMED of themselves.

Posted by: Andrew at December 13, 2004 3:23 AM

Mea Culpa

About the reference above to leVine as writing a book for Jazz, scratch that, that was a different Levine.

The emails are correct as far as I can tell.

Apologies to Dr. LeVine with a "V" for pinning this book on you.

Thats what research is about, admitting one's mistakes and moving forward in the spirit of good will and seeking the truth.

Moralizing off/

Posted by: Andrew at December 13, 2004 4:21 AM

A small point, but think about this:

Why the insistence on the capital "V"?

Posted by: CGW at December 13, 2004 6:57 AM

CGW

Hhmmmm...

Posted by: Andrew at December 13, 2004 7:03 AM

Andrew:

I can't tell from your answer if you got my point! :-)

Posted by: CGW at December 13, 2004 7:10 AM

CGW

I get it loud and clear.

Posted by: Andrew at December 13, 2004 7:18 AM

In the words of that OTHER (besides LeVine) illustrious "Middle Eastern Expert and Scholar", Bugs Bunny:

"What a maroon!"

Posted by: CGW at December 13, 2004 7:21 AM

CGW

Ludwig van Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Victory:

http://www.mishalov.com/Blades.html

Posted by: Andrew at December 13, 2004 7:28 AM

CGW

What do you imagine he is teaching his students?

His appointment to the UC, Irvine indicates a very serious change for the worse, in scholastic standards indeed.

He should be an embarrassment and regarded as a threat to genuine scholars in the field of mideast studies.

But as others here have pointed out, Dr. Mark LeVine is sheltered within the shadowy world of the Arab controlled Islamic studies field, so he can sleep comfortably with his wife and kids without any fear of retribution (did you think his mentioning that to RS was a dig?) because he is basically a paid mouthpiece of the Saudis.

AND AN EMBARRASSMENT TO UC, Irvine.

Posted by: Andrew at December 13, 2004 7:38 AM

Unfortunately, this trend in endemic in academia today.

But I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Posted by: CGW at December 13, 2004 7:58 AM