They have their converts to Islam who get involved in terrorism. We have our ex-Muslims exposing Islam for what it really is. Let's see who has more influence.

We should take on a little of our own triumphalism. Islam cannot win the battle of ideas, and in the west, ideas win in the end. It does not hurt that western converts are as susceptible to Jihad as other Muslims. Clearly it is not racism that motivates terror.

Quijybo

Posted by: Quijybo at October 11, 2005 12:19 PM

These "blue-eyed" murderers put one in mind of the famous final lines in E. E. Cummings's poem about Buffalo Bill:

how do you like
your blue-eyed boy
mr death?

The other day allusion was made at Jihadwatch to Buffalo Bill's grandson, once a Cold Warrior and operative out of Paris and points east.

Some may recall the previous mention of E. E. Cummings at Jihadwatch, in which reference was made to him as a boy gazing from his window across the road at the house inhabited by William James (until 1910, when E. E. Cummings was eleven, and James died). The context was a lively discussion of that often proper noun "Underwood," as in typewriters, Mandelshtam, Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, and things like that. Disparates yoked together, as when you throw rotten eggs at candidates from both parties because none of them seem able to discuss or even to think about that often improper noun, Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at October 11, 2005 12:30 PM

...because they lacked the cultural grounding to distinguish between true and distorted versions of Islam.

True version of Islam: Quran, Hadiths, Sira, fatwas from al-Azhar ulema condoning suicide bombing, and declarations from Osama bin Laden.

Distorted version of Islam: CAIR press releases, MESA Nostra pablum, and speeches by Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy.

The Islamic world is soon I believe to understand the cultural grounding of the American median voter as he begins to comprehend the threat to his way of life from the "true" Islam.

The American Joe is a stubborn lot. But once he decides to do something, no power on earth can stop him. In December 1941 he decided to erase the fascists in Europe and the imperial militarists in Asia. Overnight, the world's largest economy mobilized from butter to guns. It probably will happen again soon.

Apologies to e.e. cummings for the following modification:

[plato told]
by e.e. cummings

plato told

him:he couldn't
believe it(jesus

told him;he
wouldn't believe
it)lao

tsze
certainly told
him, and general
(yes

mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or

not)you
told him:i told
him; we told him
(he didn't believe it, no

sir)it took
an islamicized bit of
the old twin

tower;in the top of his head:to tell

him

Posted by: Hulegu Khan at October 11, 2005 12:36 PM

Mohammed (Piss Be Upon Him) once said:
Beware of the 3 jews from the west for they art stooges. They come to slappeth thee, pulleth thy hair and poketh thine eyes. Cutteth their throats with glee but cleaneth up the mess with Bounty (not Brawny) towels.

Posted by: JanuaryMan at October 11, 2005 12:48 PM

Dislodging the hold jihadism has on the Muslim mind is likely to prove a fool's errand.

First, Islam preys on the darkest and most cryptic facets of the human personality. It knows that deep down lurking in primordial crevices of the human psyche there exists in some of us an urge to kill. Islam takes full advantage of that by disguising killing as a legitimate response to an alleged grievance that the rational mind then adopts as valid and absorbs into the consciousness. Muslims would have to be shown (convincingly) first that the killing they are brainwashed into performing in jihadist wars is NOT legitimate. See below why I think that any change in this situation is unlikely to be occur despite the western world's best efforts.

Secondly, another aspect of Islamic jihad's hold on the Muslim mind is that it utilizes the human's deep-seated need for power and tendencies toward megalomania. There are people out there, not all in the Muslim world, who would rather cling to power than do what is deemed 'right' by the rational mind. There are people out there and always have been who would rather die than give up the power they use and abuse(Saddam Hussein would be a good example of the sort I am referring to). Many Muslims who have tasted megalomania and its fruits are unlikely to let jihad disappear into history simply because it makes them feel powerful. And that is no accident--Islam preys upon humanity manipulating people this way. Getting rid of jihad might well include eliminating Islam. Those who drink from Islam's well of megalomania are just too drunk with power to change their jihadist ways for us.

Thirdly, as mentioned, the western world's largely Christianity-derived reverence for the value of human life that condemns and outlaws all unnecessary killing (as exemplified in Islam's jihadist wars) is alien to Islam itself. For the western world to impose this approach toward human life in the Muslim world would require a media penetration of Islamic societies that is NOT going to be permitted by any Islamic government I know about. Islam is totalitarian and it fully intends to remain as such. Forever. Or until it finally extinguishes humanity (which is what it is actually designed to accomplish).

Posted by: pythagoras at October 11, 2005 1:44 PM

I would like this befogged expert to go through the Koran and label the verses 'ok' and 'distorted' so these Muslims would know which ones to avoid and not read. Let's just redact those distorted verses and make the Qur'an a brochure.

Posted by: John Sobieski at October 11, 2005 1:50 PM

I would like this befogged expert to go through the Koran and label the verses 'ok' and 'distorted' so these Muslims would know which ones to avoid and not read.

Posted by: Beagle at October 11, 2005 2:17 PM

Hulegu Khan, you hit the crux of the problem.

What bemuses me, however, is how our own scholars repeatedly buy into the notion of "radical Islam."

Daniel Pipes, for example.

Perhaps we need to deprogram our own experts first, then turn our attention to morons like Russert, O'Reilly, and the like. And then, finally, the masses.

Posted by: Shaughn at October 11, 2005 2:17 PM

"Islam takes full advantage of that by disguising killing as a legitimate response to an alleged grievance that the rational mind then adopts as valid and absorbs into the consciousness..."

If one goes back to the days of the Satanic Verses in Mecca, you have Mohammed threatening and insulting the pagans. Vituperation day in and day out. And all the while Mohammed exhorting his Moslems to withstand the horrible persecution they were suffering for some unknown reason.

Finally, after years of such abuse (and several failed visits to his rich uncle, the guy who at the time controlled that seedy tourist trap called the Ka'aba), finally the pagan Arabs leveled some threats of their own.

I tellya, Mohammed invented and perfected victimism.

Posted by: Shaughn at October 11, 2005 2:24 PM

It is strange that Westerners are surprised to learn that there are fair haired, blue-eyed Muslims, converts or otherwise. There have been blue-eyed JIhadists for centuries. Millions of Christian children taken as tribute were "reverted" for the cause of Jihad. Thousands of Christian captives were taken off ships in the Mediterranean and whole civilizations were swallowed up in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Muslims have never given up the goal of world domination. Islamic conquest has been in the quiet interval between battles, waiting for a propitious moment to strike.

Posted by: epg at October 11, 2005 2:27 PM

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Anti-terrorism TV show assailed by some Arabs

DAMASCUS, Syria — A new television series being broadcast around the Middle East tells the story of Arabs living in residential compounds in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic extremists who want to blow them up so they can collect their rewards in heaven — 70 beautiful virgins.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Anti-terrorism TV show assailed by some Arabs

DAMASCUS, Syria — A new television series being broadcast around the Middle East tells the story of Arabs living in residential compounds in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic extremists who want to blow them up so they can collect their rewards in heaven — 70 beautiful virgins.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002553111_syria11.html

Posted by: otterfisher at October 11, 2005 2:28 PM

The excellent Peter Hitchen's(Christopher's more sober brother) Has written about white native converts in Britain. I believe the article is archived on this site. Theo Dalrymple has also written extensively on conversions in prison. His conclusion why mainly Black Brits convert is that this is the ultimate revenge against the host community.
A certain Yusef Smith, a British convert, used to visit this site, his blog is at www.blogistan.co.uk
Aukai Collins a white thug who converted in prison, and ended up in Chechnya doing the Jihad thing with the late commander Khattab, wrote a book about his experience entitled "My Jihad" Mr. Collins has two wives, an American and Chechen, who was sixteen years old when they tied the knot. After finishing this almost unreadable book I felt that this bastard should be expatriated tout suit to Mr. Putin's Russia.
As a former Muslim this whole conversion business scares the hell out of me and I get so bloody angry when I meet converts who have come to Islam voluntarily. I was at an Iftar a few nights ago and there were probably half-dozen apostates there. Granted half of them came to Islam because of marriage I still felt that the traffic is all one way.(I have only met a handful of Muslim apostates)

Posted by: spencerd at October 11, 2005 3:03 PM

Don't forget Yvonne Ridley the dozy bint for whom the phrase 'Stockholm syndrome' could have been invented.

Up to a point, I can see the attraction of Islam for disgruntled, rebellious or criminal men. They can justify their criminal or deviant behaviour as a religiously sanctioned jihad against Kafir society, or working class rebellion against café society. The big attraction too, and I think Theodore Dalrymple mentions this, is the God given right to behave as they please while demanding the most stringent moral standards from their wives. This is something that thuggish, neanderthal men of all religions and cultures would like, and Islam gives it to them and tells them it has Allah's approval.

What the attraction is for Western women I just cannot imagine. But it may, in some cases, be a kind of Marie Antoinette syndrome - assuming they are not so stupid as to marry a Saudi, they know that they can stop this nonsense any time they want.

Or perhaps it's because of this New Improved Koran. It cuts out the nasty bits, reducing Islam to what all the taqiyya merchants say it is.

Posted by: Interested at October 11, 2005 3:21 PM

"A certain Yusef Smith, a British convert, used to visit this site, his blog is at www.blogistan.co.uk"
-- from a posting above

Yes, he's the one who was so vicious about the Qadianis (Ahmadiyas). He seems to have just done a housecleaning of his site, so as to get rid of all sorts of stuff that might, by some, be held against him. He's a simple soul, with simple tastes. Islam answered his Spiritual Search. You know, when you are looking for something to regulate your life and give meaning to existence and things like that. Lots of people are like that. It's called finding The Answer. That's always to have: The Answer. And if it can separate you, or signify your alienation from, the circumambient society with its certifiable dreck, so much the better. And the company, the companions, the umma. How few people are willing to attend the Party of Life unaccompanied by a creed, and the more manacling it is, the more totally regulating it is, the more, perversely, it can seem like freedom.

Is that the only choice -- the utter idiocy of Western decadence, or the utter idiocy of Islam? Is there no Third Way? Or for that matter, Fourth, or Fifth, or Sixth?

Posted by: Hugh at October 11, 2005 3:21 PM

The Middle East is full of people who clearly are the descendants of Europeans taken as slaves. Just look at the red-haired Al-Douri, one of the few left from the deck of cards the Americans wanted to use to play Fifty-Two Pick-Up.

The converts in Europe and America, those that are among the psychically marginal looking for The Answer to Everything, and susceptible to the inveiglements of Muslim missionaries, whether in prisons or college campuses or even outside the confines of total institutions, are often more dangerous than those normal people whose only psychic difficulty comes from being born into Islam, and having somehow, being normal people, to deal with that difficult and sometimes mind-wrenching fact. For the most morally and intellectually advanced, apostasy may be the only way out (see, by the way, the testimonites of apostates at www.apostatesofislam.com).

The very best leave Islam either for Christianity or often nothing at all, while those who convert to Islam are often the least impressive members of Western society, the most unable to cope (save for that special category --the innocent female who marries a plausible Muslim spouse, without really understanding the nature, or peculiar hold, of Islam).

The converts strike me as as on the whole more dangerous. And anyone who converts to Islam now is making a statement: a statement of alienation, a statement of disloyalty. That should be clear.

Posted by: Hugh at October 11, 2005 3:58 PM

"those who convert to Islam are often the least impressive members of Western society, the most unable to cope (save for that special category --the innocent female who marries a plausible Muslim spouse, without really understanding the nature, or peculiar hold, of Islam)"

Posted by: Hugh at October 11, 2005 03:58 PM

Come on, Hugh. Young "western" women today should be a whole lot more savvy about the potential to be abused by a spouse who comes from a culture fairly well known to be regressive and mysogenistic, more wary of being snowed by a schmoozer, and generally disinclined to be hitched at all costs than females of earlier generations who dreaded the potential shame of being left an "old maid" and doomed to a mundane existence due to their limited potential to support themselves through traditional modes of female employment.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at October 11, 2005 4:10 PM

Oh noes. I reckon them white folks are going to be after you all now too, huh?

Posted by: Issac Ali Kharish at October 11, 2005 4:25 PM

Is that the only choice -- the utter idiocy of Western decadence, or the utter idiocy of Islam?

Hollywood has done more to 'justify' and, ironically, enable the jihad than any other institution. Flight Plan is just the latest in a long line of movies which attempts to deflect attention from the jihad. Kingom of Heaven and Sum of all Fears, among many other films, were ruined by Hollywood's efforts to avoid offending Muslims. In the meantime, Hollywood creates enough smut to overwhelm a supercomputer at the NSA.

Posted by: Beagle at October 11, 2005 4:30 PM

OT, but interesting, considering how the islamic clerics attributed the NO hurricane to allah punishing us. Earthquakes in the last 50 years,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100800472_pf.html

Posted by: Carolyn2 at October 11, 2005 4:41 PM

I think this URL sums up the traditional muslim evidence completely.

http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/defending_civilians.htm

Posted by: Optics at October 11, 2005 5:15 PM

It's a street gang masquerading as a religion, much as the slo, the nation of islam, or the aryan nations are street gangs with some kind of ostensible "higher purpose" to make the thugs feel better about themselves. It will always attract the morally bereft, the angry misanthropes who usually through their own fault, laziness, and unwise decisions find themselves alienated from society. Just as some women are attracted to and write letters to infamous serial rapists and murderers in prison, others join mohammud's cult of theives, rapist and murderers.

Posted by: NonProphet16 at October 11, 2005 5:17 PM

The utter idiocy of Western decadence as reflected in reality shows like Big Brother is harmless compared to beheadings put out on the internet. I know which reality show I would rather watch.

Posted by: londongirl at October 11, 2005 5:32 PM

Nothing new here. The same thing happened when the barbary pirates, who were all Muslims, (something history usually omits or glosses over) were capturing white slaves. The book White Gold by Giles Milton reveals this bit of lost history in detail, especially the works of Moulay Ismail, a sultan who was attempting to build a super palace stretching 300 miles from Meknes to Marrakesh. Apparently his native Muslims were too stupid to do the work properly so he had his corasair pirates raid coastal towns in England and Europe and hijack crews from ships at sea to get the manpower he needed. When the crews were captured many were forced to convert to Islam by being hung by their heels and beaten on the soles of their feet (a torture called "bastinado"). Even after they publicly professed the shahada and converted to Islam, THEY WERE STILL HELD AS SLAVES. Muslims owned Muslim slaves. The modern pirates, AKA terrorists, simply see their new converts as slaves to be used as they see fit.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at October 11, 2005 5:36 PM

Folks,

I need some assistance my friends.

I'm trying to locate a story pertaining to the display of the Quran under glass at a NYPD precinct. I easily found the orininal story. What I need is the URL to the story reporting the State (or Federal) Court's ruling that the display was not unconstitutional because it was in "keeping with our multicultural character."

It might have even been posted here at DW, but several searches yielded no results. Please help.

Posted by: Cornelius at October 11, 2005 9:25 PM

All the more reason to modify racial profiling.

As for people like al-Douri, red hair in the Middle East doth not a descendant of captives make. The ancient Egyptians knew of blond people; red-haired mummies have been found in Eastern Turkistan; and there are enough blond Kurds to make me suspect that the genes have been there since long before anyone even dreamed of either jihad or crusade.

Posted by: Kepha at October 11, 2005 9:32 PM

Kepha:
Read anything from Speros Vryonis in regards to ethnology of Byzantine Anatolia before the Turkish conquest. That large peninsula has been settled by many waves of europeans including: Gauls, whole German tribes settled by both Roman and later Byzantine emperors, Saxons after the Norman conquest in 1066, Normans a full century before the first crusade(Read John Julian Norwich) all types of slavs and of course parts of Western and Northern Asia Minor were Greek as the Pelepones.

When the Ottoman's lost most of their European domains hundreds of thousands of Slavic Muslims decided they couldn't live under the Cross and chose to settle in present day Turkey. The blood tax, known as the Devshirme system existed for about 300 years. It consisted of a regular levy of Christian children from the Christian population of the Balkans.(Mainly Serbs. Ivo Andric's novel The Bridge over the Drina sheds light on this practice) This and the above examples probably explains the many sandy-haired Turks and Kurds one meets today. Even the Gin-soaked Taki Theodoracopoulos in one of his High Life articles in the Spectator noted this in a Turkish port of call.

Posted by: spencerd at October 11, 2005 10:52 PM

There is a tradition that King David had red hair, although the New English Version of the bible I use translates that description as "ruddy" which suggests rosy cheeks rather than ginger hair.

Examination of his mummy showed that Ramesses II also had ginger hair, although as he was quite old when he died the suggestion is that his hair was dyed, possibly to the same colour he had in youth.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 12, 2005 4:03 AM

Granny:

As the blue-eyed Levite daughter of two blue-eyed Jews and four brown-eyed Jewish grandparents (in total defiance of Mendel's theory it would seem), I'd note that the Sanhedrin were also known to have blue eyes.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at October 12, 2005 9:17 AM

Don't know when I've been so blue
Don't know what's come over you
You've found someone new
And don't it make my brown eyes blue

Posted by: Interested at October 12, 2005 10:30 AM

Hi Waterdragon
They can't keep that blue/grey eyes and red hair gene down!
My father and his brothers were all ginger and blue or grey eyed. I was born ginger and have the freckles to prove it but, probably because of my brown eyes, went chestnut by age 11. And my brown haired cousins have produced ginger (sorry, auburn!!!) children. Apparently the old idea of brown nearly always dominating blue has been revised since recent research on the DNA genomes.

Interested - are you a van Morrision fan?

All along the water fall, with you
My brown eyed girl,
You my brown eyed girl.

Do you remember when we used to sing,
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 12, 2005 12:05 PM

Granny:

Thanks for the update on DNA and "recessive" genes.

Could you ever forget that schlocky '60s tune, "Blue Spanish Eyes"?

Posted by: waterdragon52 at October 12, 2005 12:19 PM

Waterdragon,

It is NOT as you say "in total defiance of Mendel's theory". It only indicates that your grandparents were not "pure" brown-eyed persons.

An offspring of a pure brown-eyed and blue-eyed will with certainty be brown-eyed.
But there is one-in-four chance that the offspring of two brown-eyed persons, each with one blue-eyed parent, will be blue-eyed.

So, Waterdragon, do you know eye colour of your eight great-grandparents?
Well, because as long as you don't the theory of hr. Mendel can not be discarded.

Cheers,

Thomas H.

Posted by: thomas. h at October 12, 2005 12:22 PM

I had.
Until now!

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 12, 2005 12:23 PM

Optics writes:
I think this URL sums up the traditional muslim evidence completely.

http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/defending_civilians.htm

Well, that's interesting, and positive, I suppose,
but I feel about that the same way I did when I searched the archive about the death penalty for apostates. Sure, some unbelievably tiny fraction of "Muslims" opposes it, but they're scarcer and less repesentative of mainstream islam than snake handlers are of American Christianity. Capital
punishment for apostacy is really the mainstream of islam, as is killing Infidels.

Interested writes:

Don't know when I've been so blue
Don't know what's come over you
You've found someone new
And don't it make my brown eyes blue

Ha! How about this (apologies to Sugarloaf)

Blue eyed muslim, convert muslim
Strolling slowly, towards a bus

Blue eyed muslim, convert muslim
Killing people, without a fuss

Blue eyed muslim, convert muslim
Dressed in hate, he wants to kill you and me

etc.

Posted by: American at October 12, 2005 2:25 PM

I'm not familiar with Sugarloaf.
I saw Meatloaf once (briefly) at Reading Festival. Someone in the crowd offended him so he stormed off after only one song.

What sort of singer is Sugarloaf

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 12, 2005 2:35 PM

Granny Weatherwax,
The tune I parodied was "Green Eyed Lady", a
well known (to me anyways) 70s rock tune. I think
Sugarloaf was a one trick pony, like Looking Glass,
who did that famous tune "Brandy".

Yes, I'm a walking jukebox, but I'd have been no match for Sonny Stitt (RIP), who knew thousands of
tunes by heart and could play them beautifully.

All the talk of the decadent West is a bit silly
sometimes. All of popular culture is not a sewer, and I consider some popular music (well, mostly very old popular music) to be worthy additions to the Western canon. Detest jazz? I think not! Surely there are many more examples.

Posted by: American at October 12, 2005 3:17 PM

And Brandy wears a braided chain,
made of finest silver,
from the north of Spain, a locket that bears the name,
of the man that Brandy loves.
And Brandy your'e a fine girl...etc

That one I do remember, for reason's I won't bore you with.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 12, 2005 3:28 PM

It was " fire when you see the WHITES of their eyes "...wasn't it? Never mind ..open fire!

Posted by: pismopal at October 12, 2005 8:42 PM

Spencerd: I suppose what I was trying to say was that there have been people of light coloring in the Middle East since time immemorial; and that they were indigenous rather than the descendants of captives or invaders. Then again, if you've got a history stretching back 4,000+ years, there's no telling who came in and out of your gene pool. Even China had periods of extensive immigration from lands of curly and light hair, light eyes, and the like (there are actually lots of Chinese with ruddy skin, especially up north) back in the Tang and Yuan times. I suspect that the only "pure race" you have on the globe are certain Negrito tribes in interior New Guinea; and possibly the Inuit.

Posted by: Kepha at October 13, 2005 2:04 PM