I watched that segment on the O'Reilly factor.
You handled everything very well. Ms Lekovic
just used the same old worn-out replies that we
are so tired of hearing -- "That's not true"
"That never happened" and on and on.
Well done Bob

Posted by: ibrahim224 at November 24, 2006 10:00 AM

The next time someone has the bright idea to promote Hamid Mir's little career as sensation-monger (that South Carolinian agent making the rounds, the Truth Forum people thinking it would be a swell idea to have Hamid Mir make headlines with "Al Qaeda nuclear bomb inside America" rather than engaging in the less glamorous act of intelligent pedagogy), that someone should think again, or be shunted aside.

This is not a business where mountebankery is to be encouraged, especially not if it is malevolent mountebankery by sly or not-so-sly apologists for Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at November 24, 2006 10:02 AM

I watched that segment as well....It's their only means of defending their bass ackwards belief system: Throw as much dump at the wall and see what sticks.

Posted by: DCWatson at November 24, 2006 10:05 AM

Taqqiya, taqqiya, taqqiya. Like, location, location, location, it should become the catch phrase for Islam, then people would ask us about it at cocktail parties and around the water cooler.

Robert, I once read a book on Purgatory by a Fr. Schuppe who writes about an incident when God allowed St. Catherine of Sienna to view the different areas of hell. She said that it was set up in levels, each lower level reserved for a specific sin. Know what the bottom level was reserved for? People who lie.

Just remember, ping pong balls under water. Truth comes up, incessantly and on schedule.

Good one for asking them to retract what they said! Robert, you're the bomb!!

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 24, 2006 10:06 AM

Isabellathecrusader,
"Robert, you're the bomb!!"... good pun.

Posted by: TheOmegaMan at November 24, 2006 10:15 AM

Oh gosh, I didn't even see that. Good catch, Omega Man!

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 24, 2006 10:32 AM

But on the show, Laura Ingraham described Ms. Lekovic as a 'moderate' muslim. Wouldn't a moderate welcome the chance to correct a mistake she made when describing your position?

Posted by: Goob at November 24, 2006 10:36 AM

Ms. Lekovic oh! oh! oh! you cant bother her now Robert she is busy praying for all christians and jews everywhere. Also she is founding homes for lost kittens and giving young jewish children candies.
ANd she is probably busy writing a long letter of complaint to "Mr Osama"

In my opinion the letter would read: "

"Dear Mr Osama sir.

BIG FAN.

However sir, you shouldnt do jihad you naughty naughty man!

Dont you know our religion is one of peace! you have to skip all those passages of universal commands to kill kafir~! Unlike those christians and jews holy books ours says to kill kafir for all time but we have to ignore it okay...wait what am I saying? Ignore the words of allah ! oh dear. Er.. Mr osama can I be your wife no 4? If you dont like me I have a little NINE YEAR OLD niece..."

--------------
*shudder*

Okay now moderater before you erase the above message did I REALLY say anything that contradicts the guran/hadith?

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 10:52 AM

guran lol the GORE-an perhaps would have been more apropos.

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 10:54 AM

They wont retract anything...Muslims and apologists are absolutely correct 100% of the time. They realise that the weakest link in the chain, in defending Islam, is telling the truth. Once they have to admit they are wrong about something, the chain of protection breaks, and Islam is open to more challanges. The only choices for them then, is to ignore the retracting request, or go on another self/Islam protecting rampage. They will probably do both...

Posted by: duh_swami at November 24, 2006 11:11 AM

"Okay now moderater before you erase the above message did I REALLY say anything that contradicts the guran/hadith?"

ALLIES - yes i believe you did, when you said "ours says to kill kafir for all time".

That seems to be repeating the falsehood that Hamid Mir is claiming that Spencer made. Rather, sura 9:29 gives Christians and jews a choice of paying the jizya and living in dhimmitude under Islamic rule (instead of conversion or death). That's all Spencer has ever said and I suspect Hamid Mir knows that. Apparently Hamid Mir, however, thinks the rest of us don't know what Islam actually says about the fate of Christians and jews in Islam, which is why he apparently think he can get away with this straw man argument.

Posted by: Caroline at November 24, 2006 11:23 AM

Caroline I stand corrected maybe that part of the imaginary letter should have read: "our quran says to kill kaifir EXCEPT chrisitans and jews if they pay jidza tax--in that case you can just mistreat them and steal their land until they convert or leave (you know like we musliims did in Istanbul in the last 30 years and brought down the number of Christians who could realistically live there from 100,000+ to under a 1000 currently.)

But know this: the verses say IF THEY (christians and jews ) ACT PROPERLY thus you are allowed to kill christians and jews if they dont and what is properly under dhimmitude but being basically taxed-to-death slaves?

And yes I know that our Robert Spencer did not say that islam commands killing of christians and jews
. It does not IF they dont resist (you can kill them in jihad when establish Islamic rule!) and IF after a successful jihad they accept dhimmitude and continue to act like good little dhimmis.

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 11:42 AM

correction of last statement
sorry bad grammer: Islam says you can kill christains and jews during JIHAD (in order to establish Islamic rule, but you must send the ruler a invitation to islam letter first which is why osama got some flak during the first attack by various imams)

And Islam says you cannot kill them if they act as proper dhummis (if they do not you may kill the christians and jews under various shiira law courts depending on what the 'sin' is). If you are rebuilding a church (shira condemns this as Egptian christians all too well know) then you might only be jailed for a time. If you try to marry a muslim woman as a christian on the other hand... etc etc

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 11:46 AM

More on MPAC and their open anti-semitism here:
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/cat_anti_fascism.html#006391

You can also look at their homepage, but the precis on HP is easier to read than Bukhari's deluded rant.

Posted by: EvilAunt at November 24, 2006 11:50 AM

some Reference quotes for my above post

Qur'an quotes:
Surely the vilest of animals in Allah's sight are those who disbelieve (8:55)

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah...And the Jews say Ezra is the son of God; and the Christians say Christ is the son of God; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; Allah's curse be on them; how they are turned away!" (Koran 9:29-30)

And fight with them until there is no more persecution and RELIGION SHOULD BE ONLY for Allah (8:39) [an allusion to jihad which by implication allows fighting christians and jews if it means establishing islam as the only religion]

When the sacred months have passed away, THEN SLAY THE IDOLATERS WHEREVER YOU FIND THEM, AND TAKE THEM CAPTIVES AND BESIEGE THEM AND LIE IN WAIT FOR THEM IN EVERY AMBUSH, then if they repent and keep up prayer [become believers] and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them (9:5)

And if they intend to act unfaithfully towards you, so indeed they acted unfaithfully towards Allah before, but He GAVE YOU MASTERY OVER THEM (8:71)

8:71 has been applied to shairia laws when dealing with Christians and Jews in shaira law courts and other hadith/quran verses though Mr Spencer would obvioulsy know more about that!

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 11:56 AM

obviously (and hopefully) verse quran sura 9:5 above
re: idolaters applies to christians and jews in jihad times but not under dhimmi status. I know that but if such a large scale ever occured they arent taking this kafir quietly...

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 11:59 AM

waiting for retractions
*
*
*
waiting
*
*
*
crickets chirping.

Posted by: s at November 24, 2006 12:01 PM

"Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir wrote this about me: "Robert Spencer claimed that Islam is a violent religion, which orders Muslims to kill all the Jews and Christians"

And Hindus as well. By the way hamid mir, to which province of pakistan do you belong ? And have you read history, do you understand that your ancestors were converted to islam at swordpoint, that most of the Hindus of North Western India were either killed (an entire mountain range, the Hindukush (meaning "massacre of Hindus" was named thus by muslims after that massacre), or converted to islam thus. Do you know about the bloodsheds in this part of Asia that have taken place since 712 ? pakistan is already fragmenting. waziristan is already controlled by the taliban, and baloochees seek their freedom from the punjabi muslims who currently control pakistani army, headed by a muhajir, pervez mussharraf.

hamid mir, you do not know about your origins, and your history, and the history of your miserable country. You do not know about the history of your so called religion. You, a so called journalist, have not the right, neither the moral and human grounds to question Mr. Robert Spencer, who quotes from the koran and the hadiths.

And the actions of your fellow religioniss, all 1385 years of them, speak volumes for themselves.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at November 24, 2006 12:02 PM

Robert:

I suspect you'd be more likely to hear back, particularly from MPAC's lackey, if the request for a retraction came on a lawyer's letterhead. But I suspect you know that yourself.

Who was the lawyer who successfully represented Andrew Whitehead in his countersuit against CAIR?

Posted by: waterdragon52 at November 24, 2006 12:23 PM

Keeping with waterdragon52's idea, if those people you mentioned fail to issue a retraction, you could likely succeed in suing them for defamation. You are engaged in the profession of Islamic scholarship, writing books and speaking on the topic around the world, and these defamatory statements have a negative impact on the size of your audience and the seriousness with which your work is viewed. This should have a fairly easily demonstrable impact on the number of paying speaking invitations you receive (some organizations would fear their names being linked to these defamatory claims), on the number of books you sell, and on the number of page hits you receive on your website, for ad revenue purposes.

Even if courts hold that your prominence in Islamic scholarship makes you a public figure for the purposes of a defamation suit, you might still be able to show that these lying critics acted with actual malice by demonstrating they made defamatory statements with reckless disregard for the truth. If they continue to make defamatory statements after you have contacted them, stated your exact position, refuted their specific claims as ungrounded, asked them for evidence for their claims, and requested a retraction of those claims in the absence of such evidence, I think your case strengthens. It might be economically advantageous to accumulate enough defamatory critics who have crossed this line that you could file one single lawsuit against a large number of defendants, saving on legal costs and providing more pockets from which to collect on any judgment. I definitely hope you have at least spoken with a licensed legal profession about this matter, as they could offer you specific advice. It seems to me, though, that you could make a decent case against these slanderers.

Take a page from the Scientologists' handbook on inter-religious conflict: sue, sue, sue! As long as you make your best effort to remain truthful in your criticisms of Islam and modern Islamic culture, you are judgment proof, at least in the United States.

Posted by: Grant at November 24, 2006 1:17 PM

The Allies Shall Win: "on the other hand... etc etc.."

Allies - I hear you and the part of your post I've put in quotations above sums it up quite well actually. In other words, yes islam creates a loophole for Christians and Jews but for all practical purposes ("on the other hand...etc etc...", as you put it) it amounts to the same thing. No GENUINE choice. The lengths that Muslims go to in order to deny to themselves that the ultimate goal is to convert all non-Muslims to Islam either by death or by "hook or by crook" are pathetic and utterly transparent to the rest of us. But still, when debating these folks, it's important not to let them get away with setting up straw man arguments which can easily be shot down and in the process provide ammunition to them and their apologists.

The likes of Hamid Mir should be bluntly asked what they think sura 9:29 means and if they should dissemble regarding its meaning they should be presented with quotes from islamic orthodox sources regarding its meaning. That's one thing that was so terrific about Spencer's recent appearance on Fox with Laura Ingraham - the way he potentially made sura 9:29 a household word. (I can envision some bumper sticker possibilities here but I'm not creative enough to pull them off.)

Posted by: Caroline at November 24, 2006 1:29 PM

Caroline said:

"No GENUINE choice"

...exactly. I said "on the other hand etc etc, because its a long and complex list, these punishments for nonmuslims in an Islamic state (as you know there are many punishments up to and including death depending on what laws were broken: everything from lashes to hand cutting to stoning, hanging, to imprisonment, to heavy fines AND lashes to "etc etc" ! lol

Caroline said:
"But still, when debating these folks, it's important not to let them get away with setting up straw man arguments ..."

EXCELLENT you are right on. I attended several debating classes at school but its this topic of ISLAM that gets me angry enough that I slip up (plus the fact I have not had enough coffee today). On any account I agree we must be make sure all the arguments are valid and cogent with these people. And thank God their qur'an/hadiths make it so easy to do that. There's enough fertilizer there to grow an entire Ontario crop.

----

Here is another reason to be angry:

Last night I met with another local politician where I live (he knows our business is quite large here so he readily accepted my offer for coffee). but he didnt get one of my free politically incorrect guides to Islam by Robert because he refused to read it. Actually he said to me (and I am telling you the exact quote):
"I know all about Robert Spencer sir. I refuse to read the Qur'an or his book because I know you are right and I can't afford to be against Islam in my jurisdiction."
yeah because he'll lose mucho votes in the next local municipal elections in my particular ward in Toronto West. I told him I will support his opponent in the next local elections.

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 2:12 PM

so if he doesnt 'read' it he can keep saying its a religion of peace? I blasted this idiot actually becuase if you say you KNOW Robert is right then why would you not read his book? He shrugged. But the thing is it has to do with 1) votes and taking a position that doesnt offend muslims in his ward and 2) he can speak about 'peaceful' islam if asked with a good conscious. (yes I know its hypocritically since he is implying he knows that it is not peaceful but if he doesnt read the material he wrongly assumes he is not guilty of lying (at least thats what I think--he only shrugged at that point)). what a tangled web we weave. He is known as a very liberal thinker and I can email the name if anyone is interested but I will not post it on here.

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 24, 2006 2:17 PM

yes. I too watched the O'Reily factor when she raised those rheotorical charges against Spencer. She threw it out when she was challanged about what the Koran says, and whether there is justification in the Koran for violence and domination. She expressed some platitudes and generalizations about peaceful religon. Spencer then pointed out the passagaes in the Koran that are in direct conflict. So when it was clear to her that her generalizations would fall flat and she could not argue what was printed in her book, then she turned to the personal attack, that left Spencer to deny that he ever said anysuch thing, in the final seconds of the segment, while on the spit screen her face displayed a beaming smile. Robert, just like US Air, you got set up. If I were you I would expect Hooper, or any other Muslim representative sharing a split screen with you, to say the same thing.

It is the Nazi, "Big Lie" propaganda strategy. In Mein Kamp, Hitler first expressed the concept of the Big Lie. In an OSS report from WWII, Hilter's Big Lie strategy was aptly described in the following, "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. - OSS report page 51"..Wikipedia

Good luck Robert, get ready for more unsupported allegations of Muslim hate speech, the more you fight it the more wide spread and credible (in some eyes) the lie will become. Based on this they have identified you as the enemy and singled you out for special treatment.

Posted by: GrimReaperxxx at November 24, 2006 2:17 PM

"yeah because he'll lose mucho votes in the next local municipal elections in my particular ward in Toronto West. I told him I will support his opponent in the next local elections."

THE ALLIES SHALL WIN - Just tell me he's not in Ward 13.

Posted by: Josephine at November 24, 2006 3:17 PM

Nicely done, Mr Spencer. You are a champion.

Since it was on her show, it would have been good also to cc the letter to Laura Ingraham.

Posted by: Brett_McS at November 24, 2006 5:22 PM

How about you raise the tone by example, Nariz, instead of lowering it even further?

Posted by: Brett_McS at November 24, 2006 9:12 PM

Strategy of this Bosnian woman and this Pakistani journalist is all so known.
First they present themselfs as moderate muslims. Next step is to try to take some kind of moral high ground playing the tolerance card. And all that so they could say that everyone, who is concerned about Islam, is an islamohater. Well Mrs Lekovic, that fake PC correctness is not working anymore.Tolerance was used to blur our vision of what islam really is. But no more.
Using lies and puting words into someones mouth in order to present him as some loony for your propaganda purpose is a dirty game.
Save that propaganda for your fellow muslims!

Keep on rocking' Bob!

Posted by: Voice at November 27, 2006 9:39 AM