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It may well be that the Dutch government has a point in its decision to cease paying for Dutch security personnel to live in the United States, and to guard Hirsi Ali -- especially if she is now making money giving lectures, in which case it may have been felt that she can pay for some of this herself.
But Hirsi Ali is also a weapon in the counter-Jihad. And if the Dutch understood that she in awakening the most powerful member of the West to the threat of Jihad (and not merely that "war on terror" that Bush thinks has Iraq as its "central front" and that can be won, or partly won, by "bringing democracy" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East), they would probably reinstate that protection. Hirsi Ali is of great, possibly unrivalled value, given her mediagenic appearance and her own history.
But in any case, what has the American government been doing? Has it offered to pay for her protection? For that matter, has the American government thought about establishing a permanent security force that can be called on whenever speakers on Islam feel the need for such protection? Otherwise, the situation will become like that in Europe, and in the Netherlands itself -- where many will simply fall silent, and a large part of what constitutes free speech will have been silenced.
We have seen examples of people being shouted down in North America, in Montreal and San Francisco, for daring to present a point of view favorable to Israel. We have seen examples of death threats being made. The F.B.I. should be at work, with the police, and all those who make such threats tracked down, charged, and prosecuted.
Even one threat is one threat to many, and should be cause for prompt deportation in the case of a non-citizen. And in the case of someone who managed to become a citizen, then it should be cause for stripping someone of citizenship for "acting in a manner that tends to give aid and comfort to the enemy." (And that enemy can be defined as consisting of all those who "believe in, or support, or participate directly or indirectly in the effort to ensure that Islam comes to dominate the world”). This might be worked on by the legislative drafters to ensure that it will be approved.
But it is not the Dutch government alone that may be too hasty, or not sufficiently appreciative of the force and fervor and power of Hirsi Ali. Even more shameful has been the failure of the American government to immediately step in and offer to take over. If Blackwater can be paid billions to protect State Department bureaucrats planning to hand out still other billions in Iraq, then some security firm in this country can be employed to protect Hirsi Ali. She is worth many dozens of battalions, if only what she does and says and stands for were properly understood and promoted.
But who does properly understand? So many in Washington can conceive of "war" merely as Boots On The Ground, or Bombs Away. That's it. Bush and others keep telling us that this war is an "ideological war," and then proceed to show by their actions that they haven't the faintest idea how to conduct that "ideological war" that they think they have identified. They think that the "ideology" they are fighting is not Islam: Islam is fine, Islam is swell, Islam is one of the world's great religions, let's not touch Islam. Rather, it is some strange modern mutant, something that comes from weird "takfiris" who will be solemnly analyzed by the likes of that Hero of Baghdad, Frederick Kagan, sudden scholar. Kagan is like so many on the think-tank-and-lecture-circuit gravy train, who now recognize that they have to start talking about Islam with an air of great authority. Just read the My Weekly Standard piece by Kagan, the one published a week or two ago, in which he describes those brand-new "takfiris" and the brand-new ideology that explains "Al Qaeda" with not a hint of understanding that this is all classic Jihad doctrine, facing not "modernity" but rather the current conditions of the world, a world in which Jihad can now be pursued using instruments far more effective than direct military combat would be at this point. This is not because some "new" and "fringe" variant -- in the kaganish understanding -- of Islam has appeared to conduct this thing that new and fringe group calls “Jihad,” but because Jihad can be pursued by traditional Muslims but in untraditional ways, in ways that take advantage of OPEC trillions (ten trillion dollars since 1973 alone), and immigrant-Muslim tens of millions, who pursue this Jihad through their own inexorable overbreeding compared to the indigenous non-Muslims. This overbreeding is supported by the generous subsides in medical care, in housing, in education, in unemployment benefits, in everything, paid for entirely by those same non-Muslim taxpayers and the system of entitlements they created, long ago, for their own poor, having no thought of what a Muslim underclass determined to become a permanent overclass everywhere they went would mean for them, those Infidels, and their children, and their grandchildren.
So Ayyan Hirsi Ali, brilliant and beautiful, who should have been on talk-shows, who should have met with Congressional leaders, who should have addressed audiences of generals and other officers at the Pentagon, who should have met with Bush and the National Security staff and the upper (and lower) echelons of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., who should have met with the Clintons and Barack Obama and all the other Democratic candidates, who should have addressed the Senate, instead was denied what she needed -– a life-and-death matter for her -– that security detail. And not a billionaire in America, now busily organizing to “support the Iraq war effort,” not a single person in the Pentagon or in the Executive Branch or in Congress or in the media, appears to have taken note and demanded that she be protected. And not just she, but all others who have proven themselves to be articulate enough to be valuable, or invaluable, in the real war effort.
Meanwhile, in Tarbaby Iraq, where no one can explain how keeping Iraq together, and bringing toys and good things to eat to the boys and girls, the “Iraqi people,” on the other side of the goddam mountain will help us. No one can explain, so they don’t explain. They simply force us to accept. And the opposition, unsure of itself but determined not to “look soft” on “terrorism” (in other words, not to analyze the problem, not to speak forcefully out about that carefully-unnamed “ideology” that is tip-toeingly alluded to), keeps Tarbaby Iraq going by the failure to present the devastating and unanswerable critique that can be made, and has been made here, at this website, about a thousand times. And part of that critique was a presentation of What Should Be Done.
And What Should Be Done is for Infidels to arm themselves: arm themselves with a knowledge of Islam, not the Islam of the armstongs and espositos and ernsts and bulliets and safis and assorted MESA-nostrans, but rather the Islam of C. Snouck Hurgronje, and Joseph Schacht, and Antoine Fattal, and K. S. Lal, and St. Clair Tisdall and Henri Lammens, the Islam of Ray Ibrahim and Bishop Moubarec and Habib Malik and Charles Malik and Youssef Ibrahim, the Islam of Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq and Irfan Khawaja and Azam Kamguian and Wafa Sultan and mediagenic, brilliant and beautiful Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whom the government of this country simply couldn’t afford to protect, just couldn’t be bothered. After all, it needs the money to win hearts, to win minds, in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Pakistan. Or Jordan. Or Egypt. Or the so-called “Palestinian” territories.
Amazement. Fury. Contempt.
Posted by Hugh at October 5, 2007 7:21 AM
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Most important:
"... has the American (and European) government(s) thought about establishing a permanent security force that can be called on whenever speakers on Islam feel the need for such protection?"
Posted by: LazarOfSerbia![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 5, 2007 7:38 AM
Powerful essay Hugh.
When you're good, you're very good.
Posted by: Cornelius at October 5, 2007 7:45 AM
"We have seen examples of people being shouted down in North America, in Montreal and San Francisco, for daring to present a point of view favorable to Israel"
...shouted down and run out of town.......In San Francisco/Oakland.....we have even seen US Marines returning from combat not even allowed enter the airport as US Citizens....disgusting....shame....anger....and yet they allow MUslims reciting from the Qur'an and wearing BUrkas to move freely about.....wrong priorities....
.....sometimes I feel like I am in the twilight zone......someone is in control and it is not you.....
....Ban Muslim Immigration....
at October 5, 2007 8:31 AM
It's very simple. No one wants Ayyan Hirsi Ali. Why? Because she knows the truth and tells the truth about how Islam has affected her life, and the lives of others whom she has known.
Everyone wants to feel good, and Hirsi Ali, who bears both the literal and figurative scars of how kind the 'Religion of Peace' has been to her, doesn't make everybody feel good about Islam's brand of peace. The truth, her truth, is ugly.
Ms. Ali didn't get her injuries on the battlefield. Rather, she was harmed by the people in her close family, the very ones who should have sheltered her, as a result of their devotion to Islam, and as a result of what pious Muslims do to their girl children in her former world.
Nobody wants to hear what she has to say, because it doesn't fit the paradigm of beautiful multiculturalism. If it did, I'm quite sure that some wealthy person, or some conscientious organization would find a way to ensure her safety.
Face it. Ayyan Hirsi Ali--a bright, brave, and beautiful survivor of non-radical Islam is not welcome anywhere.
Hirsi Ali would take the battlefield of ideologies, and make a difference, at least among the more intelligent of the combatants, and 'allah' forbid she should do that.
at October 5, 2007 8:45 AM
Abscedere, it's a fact that "Truth-Tellers" aren't loved - until after they're dead. That's the price that comes with being a Truth-Teller: People hate you for telling UNPLEASANT truths. A very sad and pathetic characteristic of humanity.
"The Truth-Teller must have one foot in the stirrup." --Armenian proverb
Also, don't forget what the masses-in-denial did to the child who told the truth in "The Emperor's New Clothes" by saying, "But, he hasn't got on any clothes!"
They killed him. The crowd set upon and killed him. That's the original of Hans Christian Anderson's fable.
Posted by: darcy at October 5, 2007 9:32 AM
Oh, beg pardon, I left out an important word in the Armenian proverb:
"The Truth-Teller must ALWAYS have one foot in the stirrup." Like Hirsi Ali.
Posted by: darcy at October 5, 2007 9:37 AM
I don’t think the problem is that the US Gov has no way to legally protect someone they really want to protect, it’s just that the brilliant & beautiful Ayaan Hirsi Ali is just too problematic diplomatically for the US Gov to protect her precisely because she vociferously states that Islam is an evil force and advocates trying to end Islam – not “radical Islam” but Islam as a whole claiming that there can be no moderate Islam. She implies that all true Muslims must be non-peaceful & dangerous. The official position of the US gov is opposite and claims that Islam is by nature a peaceful religion and the radicals have a rogue, evil version. US Gov protection of Ayaan would be official protection of an anti-Islam propagandist & activist.
It is surprising though if there are no wealthy benefactors who would anonymously foot her protection bill in the USA. Personally, I think she should be in the Netherlands anyway and under their protection as their moral responsibility to make some amends for their irresponsible immigration policies and their naïve past tolerance of Muslim radicals.
A powerful moral anti-Islam force for good like her needs to be in Europe.
at October 5, 2007 10:56 AM
It is repulsive to me that our government would not protect Hirsi Ali because that would interfere with the "ROP" Party Line. I'm very, very ashamed of the PC U.S. government.
Posted by: darcy at October 5, 2007 11:02 AM
Where is AEI in all of this with their millions? Have they offered to help foot the bill? Or has she made even them uncomfortable?
Posted by: Drum at October 5, 2007 11:05 AM
...Winston Churchill told the early truth about the Nazis, and his countrymen generally called him a wacko warmonger.....
Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 5, 2007 11:50 AM
"Where is AEI in all of this with their millions? Have they offered to help foot the bill? Or has she made even them uncomfortable?"
-- from a posting above
Of course she makes the think-tankers, at AEI or anywhere else, for that matter, uncomfortable. She's well-educated. On top of that, she's self-educated. She is very very smart. She is no sufferer of fools. She is sure of herself, not because she is arrogant, but because she has lived through a lot, seen a lot, read a lot, thought a lot. Think of the time-servers, with their sinecures, their occasional papers, their desperate Op/Eds designed to show the others at AEI that they are "doing something" (and how carefully they list each little Op/Ed, each little speech given, each little appearance as a "guest" on a talk-show on radio or an interview on television), as proud of those Op/Eds that presume to tell us about the Big Picture, or the Little One, as if they had just produced something by Spinoza or Hume. And that is true of all these places, with the apparently life-time sinecures, and the nubile secretaries, and those salaries and expense-accounts.
And then along comes Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the real thing. Of course she makes them uncomfortable. And their allies outside the think-tanks, the kristols and kagans. She doesn't fit their bill. She doesn't fit into their scheme of things. She's a danger to Muslims, but she's also a danger to the kind of people who may call themselves "conservatives" but are brothers, under the skin, to those at other think-tanks, who call themselves "liberals." They deserve each other, and they don't want someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali coming along and not letting herself be used, or modified, or pigeonholed. She's a permanent army-of-one, not somone prepared to wear the prefabricated uniform, or parrot the prescribed pratings, all well within certain carefully unstated but clear limits and notions of face-saving politesse. One more reason she is to be admired -- an unrepeatable individual, among a herd of those who offer their vaporings on "individualism" which for some reason always end up being defenses of privilege, and of Nafta-worshipping free-market fundamentalism.
Posted by: Hugh at October 5, 2007 11:53 AM
But Hirsi Ali is also a weapon in the counter-Jihad.
That's the problem. The people who don't want to see Islam as a problem don't want to listen to Ms. Hirsi Ali.
That includes President Bush, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack O'Bama and all the other Democratic presidential candidates.
Admitting that her message carries any weight would require all of them to rethink their positions on Islam. It might require reevaluating our immigration policies and changing our views on who is desirable in a free society. Ditching their political correctness comes at too high a price. They'd rather sacrifice all those who speak the truth than take off their blinders.
When ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.
at October 5, 2007 12:01 PM
Greetings:
A) "So Ayyan Hirsi Ali, brilliant and beautiful, who should have
been on talk-shows,"
So, where is Oprah Winfrey when we need her?
B) "The Truth-Teller must have one foot in the stirrup." --
Armenian proverb"
Or, in the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed is dead.
at October 5, 2007 1:52 PM
Thank you for this. She really is brilliant.
She needs a movement that will support her (in every way, not just financially) but she would have to create one herself.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister; Christian churches and organizations joined with him, supported him and fought with him in the civil rights movement.
I hope Ayaan Hirsi Ali lives a very long time. She has much work to do and I feel she's only just started.
Posted by: Josephine at October 5, 2007 1:56 PM
darcy,
I had no idea that the Emperor came to such an end!
Posted by: Abscedere at October 5, 2007 8:43 PM
It ain't a just or fair world which is why the beautiful and brilliant Ms Ali is being shoved from country to country like a stick of unwelcome
dynamite. All she speaks is the TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM,what happened so tragically to her and what happens to millions of other Muslim women.
Regard then the attitude our craven Western Leaders and cannot wonder that Apostates and
marvellous women such as Ms Ali are sickened by Western hipocrisy
and cowardice-they have the courage to tell it as it is -only for our Governments to deny everything,even refusing
these brave ex Muslims shelter & protection. Indeed Ms Ali must be convinced that the West is DECADENT!
at October 5, 2007 9:00 PM
Does anyone know if a protection fund has been set up on Mrs. Hirsi Ali’s behalf? If this has not been done, does anyone know how this could be done? I will gladly make a contribution.
She is a beacon to the world.
at October 5, 2007 10:15 PM
I think the Dutch have already clearly spoken as to the 'value' of Hirsi Ali. They have unequivocally signalled that they want no part of fighting for their own rights or values and that anyone who does is not welcome there.
They're running scared of their 'restive' 'youths' and they don't want the boat rocked -- somebody might get hurt.
Posted by: Goob at October 5, 2007 11:40 PM
I believe the Dutch PM told her to get out of Holland today! Can you imagine?!! We must help her; maybe she could come and live in Undisclosed Locationville near Mr. Spencer. She might have to stay out of sight for a while, but I'm sure a generous benefactor would eventually emerge and pay for her protection.
Where will she go if they don't want her in Holland? We need her here and we must try to get her back and keep her safe. I can only imagine how this poor woman must feel; all but expelled from her own country and now a homeless, walking target for rabid muslim fanatics wherever she goes. She is probably the most valuable asset alive today in the struggle to educate the West about islam.
I would gladly give her every room but my office on the second floor of my house for as long as she needs it. She could live incognito and in indefinite obscurity if she could stand the isolation. But I doubt if Ms. Ali would adapt very well to isolation.
Posted by: Susanp at October 6, 2007 12:19 AM
PBS' Bill Moyers' Journal Stumps Against Zionism, via Action on Iran
Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS used the premise that military action against Iran would (not weaken but) fortify support for the Mullahs' regime- to bolster his smear-agenda against escatological Christian Zionist supporters of defending Israel from Iran.
Watch the program via DemoCast.TV
Posted by: DemoCast at October 6, 2007 2:06 AM
It's the has-been loser, bill moyers...
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=932
...'nuf sed.
at October 6, 2007 4:19 AM
susanp, I agree with you. Ms. Ali needs the help of those who agree with her. I will send money if someone legitimately sets up a fund to help her.
Posted by: imamerican at October 6, 2007 8:59 AM
My heart aches for Hirsi Ali, having read her book. Laura Bush loves to read! Can't someone in Washington send her a copy? Surely there are some readers of JihadWatch who live in Washington or vicinity and could take this responsibility. W and laura NEED TO KNOW WHAT ISLAM REALLY IS!!!
Posted by: youngtimer at October 6, 2007 10:05 PM
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8S3OAJ80&show_article=1
In the Netherlands, the first act of the new parliament elected in November 2006 was to halt deportations set in motion by the previous government. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's new government declared an amnesty for up to 30,000 people. New asylum seekers and illegal immigrants still face a tough regime, kept in camps while their cases are handled. Even legal immigrants must pass language tests before coming and take citizenship classes in order to remain.
Kindly place Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's image in the dictionary with the definition for hypocrisy.
Posted by: heroyalwhyness at October 6, 2007 11:27 PM
I've read Hirsi Ali's "Infidel"--a marvelous book with an important message.
Yes, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has told her they don't want her in the Netherlands, even though the attempt to revoke her Dutch citizenship brought down his predecessor's government. No one wants this "Cassandra"--especially because her message is so important. Here's a link for the story at Little Green Footballs:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=27381&only&rss
Her wanderings are sadly starting to remind me of the infamous journey of the St. Louis, the ship full of Jewish refugees before WWII fleeing Nazi violence. The US, Cuba, Britain and other nations refused to take the refugees in. Finally, Belgium grudgingly accepted them. Of course, Belgium proved no haven. Most of the refugees were completely penniless by this time. Few of the refugees survived the Holocaust.
Few wanted to believe that the refugees were in any real danger--it was easier and more politic to believe that they were not.
It is easier to believe that with Hirsi Ali, also. How much clearer does the threat to her have to be, when it was secured by a dagger in the just-murdered body of her collegue?
I hope it is possible for her to return in safety to the US. I suggest people write to government officials--Senators, Congress people, Governors and the Department of Homeland Security on her behalf.
Posted by: gravenimage at October 7, 2007 8:30 PM
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