You never looked better, mister Spencer!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at February 15, 2008 8:56 AM

Islamophobe (is-slahm-o-fohb): - A non-Muslim who knows too much about Islam.

Posted by: Sounder at February 15, 2008 8:59 AM

That's a really cool pic Robert! You definitely need a light sabre.

Posted by: livefreeordie! at February 15, 2008 9:06 AM

That's not Darth Vader from Star Wars. It's Dark Helmet from Space Balls!

Posted by: dentalque at February 15, 2008 9:07 AM

They did that to you because they know that their Schwartz is not as big as yours.

Posted by: dentalque at February 15, 2008 9:09 AM

I gather that John Esposito got his Ph.D. from Temple University (Activist U.)where he allegedly studied Islam. Nothing I've read from this man's writings convinces me that he knows a single thing about Islamic scripture. Whenever challenged about this, his scripted response is to go ad hominen. Anyone who asks uncomfortable questions from him, gets stonewalled.

I'm outraged that he was bullying towards the Arab Christians who asked him about Islamic violence and discrimination towards them in Muslim lands. How dare they accuse my pet victims of being abusers of humanity! Shut up and sit down! This is always in the Leftist's playbook. When tendentious argument fails, resort to threats and verbal abuse.

I once met Prof. Esposito when he was at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. He struck me as a man who was very impressed with himself. I just don't see anything inside the veneer.

However, the people he calls islamophobes have always impressed me with the substance of their knowledge and the soundness of their critiques of Islam.

Posted by: FredIsinglass at February 15, 2008 9:16 AM

Forget the acronym: Rolling On The Floor, Laughing My Ass Off.

Robert, you made my day. New desktop.

Posted by: undaunted at February 15, 2008 9:19 AM

"Islamic Thinkers Society?"

LOL! That's a contradiction-in-terms! Islamic "thinking" exists about as much as "allah" exists!

Posted by: darcy at February 15, 2008 9:21 AM

Wow ... that picture, it's um, wow ...

Posted by: Lori B. at February 15, 2008 9:21 AM

"Islamic Thinkers Society" ???

ROTFLMAO!!!

Posted by: FredIsinglass at February 15, 2008 9:22 AM

"Esposito's continued peddling of the most absurd excuses and apologetics for the global jihad."

Truer words were never written. I started to read the article, but I got bored and stopped.

Posted by: Abscedere at February 15, 2008 9:23 AM

The Islamic Stinkers Society as an image that says "Stop Copyright." What's that all about?

Islamic thinker - if that is not an oxymoron there is no such thing.

Posted by: Pelayo at February 15, 2008 9:44 AM

Islamic thinker - if that is not an oxymoron there is no such thing.

Posted by: Pelayo at February 15, 2008 9:44 AM

Funny how a few of us have commented on this obvious contradiction-in-terms.

The Islamic Stinkers Society! --Now, that makes sense. Thanks, pelayo!

Posted by: darcy at February 15, 2008 10:02 AM

What does it say about an educated person who insists on being a useful idiot to Barbarians?

Posted by: darcy at February 15, 2008 10:06 AM

In the above article is the son of Darth Vader. And how appropriate is this music as the king comes to the UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Loaj4bXLrD4

Posted by: Mackie at February 15, 2008 10:11 AM

Sorry, but the article is totally lost on me, since I couldn't get past the "Islamic Thinker Society".

Posted by: Kim Hartveld at February 15, 2008 10:23 AM

I respect Darth Spencer more than Chad Vader: Jedi Night Manager.

And infinitely more than John "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Dhimmi" Esposito.

Posted by: Lori B. at February 15, 2008 10:29 AM

Darth Superhero! . . .aka freakin Batman!! . . .LMAO!

Robert Spencer ~ AMERICA's SUPER-HERO!

Posted by: heroyalwhyness at February 15, 2008 10:32 AM

Posted by: Mackie

OMG . . .hysterical laughter . . .move over Monty Python, life immitates art.

Posted by: heroyalwhyness at February 15, 2008 10:38 AM

You know, I don't care which planet you're from......... That photo is hilarious.

Posted by: Wishbone at February 15, 2008 10:43 AM

You go, Cinnamon!

Another well written article from Ms. Stillwell.

Posted by: tanstaafl at February 15, 2008 11:01 AM

What does it say about an educated person who insists on being a useful idiot to Barbarians?

Posted by: darcy

Answer: That he knows who butters his bread.

Posted by: PMK at February 15, 2008 11:09 AM

What does it say about an educated person who insists on being a useful idiot to Barbarians?

Posted by: darcy

Answer: That he knows who butters his bread.

Posted by: PMK at February 15, 2008 11:09 AM

Like Doug Hooper, Esposito is a total loser.

Posted by: darcy at February 15, 2008 11:16 AM

I suppose you could be the "Jabba the Hut" of the World.

See, things could be worse.

Posted by: tanstaafl at February 15, 2008 11:22 AM

Dude you look awsome as Vader, but Vader was never the brains of the outfit. If Esposito had done his homework he would have morphed you into the Emporer. We could morph Esposito into Jar Jar Binks the lacky that unwittingly gets the Sith Lord elected to Chancellor of the Republic. Jar Jar = dupped lacky for the forces of evil. Esposito = duped lacky for the forces of Islamic Imerialism.

Posted by: ethoman at February 15, 2008 11:33 AM

unfortunately I personally find Prof. Esposito
to be an embarrassment to amateur radio operators in the USA. He apparently has his license so you can legitimately can call him a ham though the thought occurred to me, what his sponsors still support someone who is a piece of pork (eg)

Posted by: doglover at February 15, 2008 12:08 PM

"I find your Muslim faith disturbing."

Posted by: non-croyant at February 15, 2008 12:19 PM

No, No, No! That picture looks too much like a bearded Rick Moranis in "Spaceballs."

Sorry, but that's what I see.

Posted by: Pelayo at February 15, 2008 12:27 PM

I tried to Morph Esposito into Jar-Jar. I found a great pic of Jar-Jar on the senate floor when he suggests that the Sith Lord should become the Chancelor, but the software I have at work isn't "cutting" it :-).

Posted by: ethoman at February 15, 2008 12:37 PM

On a more serious note, re: the Cinnamon Stillwell article.

Somebody, somewhere, needs to start drawing up a comprehensive list of all these oil money funded "experts" and front organisations that are nothing more than apologists for and facilitators of Islamic imperialism.

The public has to know these Quislings by name, know whose pocket they are in, know what their aims are and the methods they are using to achieve them.

I'll chip in with CAABU - The Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding. This group was set up in July 1967 - just weeks after Israel's victory in The Six Day War - in order to "strengthen Britain's political, economical and cultural links with the peoples of the Arab world."

In reality, it's a pro-Palestinian, pro-Islam lobby group, very well-connected in media and political circles, with particularly strong ties to anti-Israel elements on the British Left. It has helped organise boycotts of Israeli goods, and is a regular and virulent defender of Hamas and other Pally terror groups in the UK press.

(For all its talk of promoting Arab-British understanding, I couldn't find a single reference to Arab Christians on its website).

Its funding is very shadowy. It is widely thought to be Arab-backed, but details on just who is putting up the money are sketchy. Its website states that: "In 1998 CAABU nearly had to close due to dwindling funds, however, after appealing, we were rescued by two very generous and anonymous donations. On the instructions of the first donor we have set up an Offshore Trust Fund..."

The identity of these "anonymous donors" remains a mystery, as does the extent of their "generosity". But they are certainly getting value for their money - the group boasts that over 100 British MPs are currently members.

http://www.caabu.org/

Posted by: Matamoros at February 15, 2008 12:42 PM

Esposito is a shameless Saudi whore, plain and simple.

Posted by: awake at February 15, 2008 2:13 PM

Esposito is a shameless Saudi whore, plain and simple.

Posted by: US_infidel at February 15, 2008 3:09 PM

D A R K . M A T T E R . R U L E S !

Posted by: John C at February 15, 2008 3:31 PM

Prof. of American history (with emphasis on the history of American foreign policy) Dwight E. Lee, in a scholarly article he wrote in 1942 about "Pan-Islamism", espoused essentially the same views as Esposito.

Prof. Lee’s 1942 thesis reflected, as does Esposito's, one of the major axioms of the PC MC paradigm: namely, that all major Islamic problems and pathologies stem, ultimately, from Western activities and “interference” in the Orient—and that, therefore, there is nothing specifically, fundamentally Islamic about Islamic problems and pathologies.

Posted by: cantor at February 15, 2008 3:45 PM

Hmmmm - Maybe their IS humor in islam.

Posted by: MP at February 15, 2008 4:12 PM

Fitzgerald: A Tribute to John Esposito

"John Esposito did not start out as anything more than a mild-mannered low-level academic; one suspects he had no strong feelings about Islam, and was not prompted by any of the mental pathologies -- antisemitism, hatred of America -- that can produce the apologist for Islam. But as one crook of the Gilded Age, of the kind of Tammany Hall variety, said in his own defense, Esposito has "seen his opportunities, and he took 'em."

If ever that silly bumpersticker "Question Authority" was appropriate, it is in relation to the likes of Esposito, and Michael Sells, and tutti quanti. Whether on the take, or simply ill-informed, or lazy, or stupid, or some combination, they are guides to nothing and to nowhere. But their books could be given as incentives to those who sign up for Al-Jazeera on cable -- the perfect coffee-table accompaniment to so many of its programs.

Esposito has come a long way, the mediocre producer of nondescript texts and prettified couleur-locale "studies" of Islam, those coffee-table concoctions in which the pictures first overwhelm the reader -- those blue mosques, those Iznik tiles, those colorfully turbaned Turks -- and prevent any sober recognition of just how empty or misleading so many of the texts offered in these anthologies, or by Esposito himself, really are. All those pretty pictures make the reader swoon and overlook the fact that he has learned nothing about the actual contents of Qur'an, hadith, and sira.

No one of sense -- no one -- takes John Esposito seriously anymore. Esposito's loaded title The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? pointed the way to his vacuous conclusion -- of course it is a "myth" and not a "reality." That was the book in which he mentioned the word "Jihad" exactly twice. He has tried to do a little better since, but now it is all about blaming one particular group of Muslims, the "Wahhabis."

Of course it was not a "Wahhabi" Muslim who murdered Theo van Gogh. It was not "Wahhabis" who have been killing Christians and Confucians in Indonesia, by the hundreds of thousands, over the past few decades, and destroying, in 2003 alone, more than 3,000 churches. It is not "Wahhabi" Muslims in Bangladesh who have been murdering Hindus -- 3 million since the 1971 war against West Pakistan. It is not "Wahhabis" who conducted, in Col. Ojukwu's words, the "Jihad" against the Christian Ibos in southern Nigeria who felt compelled to declare the independence of Biafra. It was not "Wahhabis" who have been making war on black Christians and animists in the southern Sudan, or now insufficiently "Arab" Muslims in Darfur. It was not "Wahhabis" but that severe and learned theologian of Shi'a Islam, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who set up the murderous, fanatical Islamic Republic of Iran -- about which, if you can stand it, you can find a great deal from many Iranian exiles, at www.faithfreedom.org.

Nobody needs Esposito’s writings. Margoliouth and Schacht have recently been reprinted. Antoine Fattal's book on the legal status of non-Muslims under Islam never went out of print. K. S. Lal is easily obtained. Tritton, Arthur Jeffery, Armand Abel, Georges Henri Bousquet, Snouck Hurgronje -- they are all about to be reprinted, at least in relevant part. Of course, I don't think for a minute that Esposito, or any of his crew, are familiar with any of these great scholars, and dozens more. I doubt they've even read them. They seem actually to believe that the only person to have written about dhimmitude is Bat Ye'or, whom they like to airily dismiss as "polemical" so that they will not have to confront her meticulous, scrupulous, and irrefutable scholarship.

But what may be most interesting is the reply Esposito gave at a Muslim website some months ago, in which he noted that after 9/11 he -- John Esposito -- was "pleasantly surprised" to see that there had been no diminution in the number of "reverts"(or converts) to Islam.

Now we all know how keenly interested Muslims are in the rate of conversion, how important Da'wa is, how much an instrument of conquest it is believed to be -- for one is swelling the ranks of the recruits into the umma al-islamiyya, the Community of Believers, who owe their loyalty to that Community alone, never to the Infidel nation-state. We recall, do we not, that the very first thing Osama bin Laden inquired about on that first tape filmed after 9/11, and which pleased him mightily to discover, was the rate of conversion of Infidels. He was told, and gave a smile when he heard the news, that "people in Holland were converting at an even faster pace" than before.

Now here is John Esposito, now of Georgetown, formerly of Holy Cross. One might expect that he would be a student of Islam, but not an enthusiast, not someone delighted to receive news of the swelling of Muslim ranks. But this is what he said at this website:
"I was pleasantly surprised" to discover that the numbers of conversions [to Islam] have not gone down, but increased."

"Surprised" -- sure.

But "pleasantly" surprised? Why? Why would a certain John Esposito of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (or whatever it is called) be "pleasantly surprised" that there had been no diminishment, because of 9/11, in the number of converts to Islam?

In other words, why did John Esposito express precisely the same reaction as -- Osama bin Laden?

Were I the president of Georgetown, or an alumnus, or a parent, or a Congressman, or a journalist who had been told to "interview John Esposito," that is the question that I would first wish to have answered.

He's got a good thing going. $20 million for his "Georgetown" Center, which means a lot more for lean, mean, jogging John Esposito, and John Voll, and Yvonne Haddad.. And of course John Esposito is hardly alone in having earned, on some future gravestone, that epitaph which so many in the Western world over the past thirty years have earned, in Washington and London and Paris, in their own ways, as they did nothing to prevent Muslim immigration, nothing serious to limit OPEC revenues, and thought only of how to obtain some of those revenues for themselves, their friends, their relatives, their companies:

Shilling for Islam, undoing the West,
Radix malorum cupiditas est.

[Posted by Hugh at March 8, 2006]

Posted by: Hugh at February 15, 2008 5:10 PM

Fitzgerald: Esposito, Georgetown, and the DHS

"Possibly the scandal of Esposito can be brought to the attention of the Vatican. Possibly the Vatican can persuade the administration at Georgetown to sever all ties with the "Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding." Esposito would still have his Saudi money and his lecture fees. He would still be lean, mean, jogging about, the man who seldom even puts in an appearance any more at the office. But at least the Georgetown prestige would no longer rub, wrongly, off onto him. He would simply be alone, with his "Center."

Surely someone on the Georgetown faculty, or in the Catholic hierarchy, or among powerful lay Catholics, can get the ball rolling on this.

As to the shoddiness of his scholarship -- well, forget about it. Margoliouth and Schacht have recently been reprinted. Antoine Fattal's book on the legal status of non-Muslims under Islam never went out of print. K. S. Lal is easily obtained. Tritton, Arthur Jeffery, Armand Abel, Charles-Emmanuel Bousquet, Snouck Hurgronje -- they are all about to be reprinted, at least in relevant part. Of course, don't think for a minute that Esposito, or any of his crew, are familiar with any of these great scholars, and dozens more. They've probably never read them. They seem actually to believe that the only person to have written about dhimmitude (though her work is profound, she recognizes that it also makes use of the previous work of dozens of other scholars) is Bat Ye'or, whom they like to airily dismiss as "polemical" so that they will not have to confront her meticulous, scrupulous, and irrefutable scholarship.

If ever that silly bumpersticker "Question Authority" was appropriate, it is in relation to the likes of Esposito, and Michael Sells, and tutti quanti. Whether on the take, or simply ill-informed, or lazy, or stupid, or some combination, they are guides to nothing and to nowhere. But their books could be given as incentives to those who sign up for Al-Jazeera on cable -- the perfect coffee-table accompaniment to so many of its programs.

Here is what I put up January 10, 2005:

That the Administration at Georgetown, that the Georgetown alumni, have not yet realized what damage an institutional connection between Esposito's "Center" and Georgetown is doing to the image, and name, of the latter, is a pity. When the Administration, and other faculty, perhaps prompted by expressions of alumni displeasure, do come to their senses, one hopes that all institutional ties between Georgetown and Esposito's Center, which benefits so much from the legitimacy conferred by the name "Georgetown," will be severed.
Perhaps a good place to begin is for the President and Trustees and alumni of Georgetown to educate themselves by reading, and assimilating, the articles on Islam by a real scholar at Georgetown -- Professor James V. Schall, S. J.

Professor Schall is neither an Arab hireling, nor an apologist for Islam, nor a sycophantic supporter of Muslim causes, nor a recipient of Arab Muslim support, and lionizing. For James V. Schall, S. J. answers to a Higher Authority, and has no truck with an Arab tycoon in Beirut, a Hamas-supporter in London, or a gaggle of Saudi princelings, all daggers-and-dishdashas, with their sneers of cold command, performing some celebratory dance in Riyadh and Jeddah.

I hope that James V. Schall, S.J. is thinking about this, and that John Allen is thinking about this, and Sandro Magister, and others who can get, somehow, to the upper regions of the Vatican, to call attention to this agent of Islam -- for what else should we call him? -- who is battening on the Georgetown name.

In World War II, anyone who had the kind of connections and "friends" among Nazis or Nazi sympathizers that Esposito does among the supporters of terrorist groups would have lost his job.

John Esposito, however, has not been stripped of his Saudi-supplied wealth; nor has he lost his job. No, instead he has been invited by the Department of Homeland Security to address one of the meetings it has organized in New Jersey. One's worst suspicions about the DHS, and about who is doing what in our government, appear to be justified. Those suspicions not allayed by reports from within the Pentagon about Muslim officers and aides swaggering about, or Pentagon officials who continue to be taken for "briefings" on Islam with John Esposito. We will have to find those who are just as alarmed, but are capable -- in Congress or the Executive branch -- of doing something about it. The Saudi lobby is very powerful; there is nothing else like it.

[Posted by Hugh at September 30, 2007]

Posted by: Hugh at February 15, 2008 5:11 PM

Fitzgerald: Instructions from John Esposito

For John Esposito's article in the Washington Post, a few days ago, here is the Errata Sheet:

For "Islam was seen as a continuation of the Abrahamic faith tradition, not a totally new religion."

read:

“Early Islam naturally appropriated and distorted elements of Judaism and Christianity, which were mixed into the substratum of Arab pagan lore -- the djinn, for example, is still devoutly believed in. (Readers of the Bandar Beacon will want to consult the several anthologies edited by Ibn Warraq on the early Qur'an, including "The Origins of the Koran" and "What the Koran Really Says," as well as his "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad.")

This was because relatively small groups of Arabs, already pre-existing in separate colonies among the much larger, settled, richer, advanced non-Arabs, chiefly Christians and Jews, found useful the construction, no doubt by divers hands (but perhaps special attention should be given to the Marwanid Umayyad Caliph, Abd el-Malik b. Marwan, in Damascus), of a belief-system that could be presented to the conquered Christians and Jews not as a brand-new and alien form of belief, but rather as "a continuation of the Abrahamic faith tradition, not a totally new religion."

The new, revised, much improved Esposito text would then continue as follows:

"The investigation of early Islam is one of the most fascinating and exciting areas of scholarly endeavor in Islamic studies. It is also an area of study conducted entirely by Western scholars of Islam -- les vrais -- and not one in which any Muslims have wished to participate, for the spirit of free inquiry is entirely lacking in Islam.

“That is why this investigation has all been done by Western non-Muslims, from the days of Ignaz Goldziher, who first studied the Hadith in a skeptical manner (and Goldziher was deeply sympathetic to much of Islam), through the great scholars of Islam, through C. Snouck Hurgronje, and Joseph Schacht, right up to the present, with the work of John Wansbrough, and then Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, and so many others, Andrew Rippin and Louis de Premare and Gerd Puin. They all use all kinds of evidence. Their names can be found in the anthologies edited by Ibn Warraq, which I, John Esposito, would like to recommend so very highly. And I would of course like to recommend too that all those who study Islam make themselves familiar with the work of Christoph Luxenberg on the "Syro-Aramaic" (i.e., the Aramaic of Edessa) substratum or underlay for the early Qur'an, which helps us explain the approximately 20% of the text that makes little or no sense even to readers of classical Arabic.

“I'm sorry that I myself, lean mean jogging John Esposito, have had no time to read any of these people, and until now have had not the slightest inclination to recommend them, or make any of these scholars known to my colleagues, to my students, or to those I advise in the corridors of power. (And did I tell you that during the Clinton Administration I was very much on call, my expertise constantly sought?)

“And the reason, you see, is simply time. I do have my jogging. I do have my development work -- my fundraising -- that takes up so much of my time. For I have a whole crew here at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and they need to be paid. There is loyal John Voll, and loyal Yvonne Haddad. There are others, the kind of people who will not let our donors down. There are lectures to be given, and possibly a King Abdul Aziz Prize to fatten my future. There is my own salary, my own take -- and I haven't done at all badly, let me tell you. But that's why I haven't been able to get to any of the books I've mentioned, but have been churning out books with such titles as "Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?" (can you guess from the title what the book might conclude?) and coffee-table stuff, with lots of pictures of tulips and turbans, and the interior of the Blue Mosque looking, as always, positively ravishing.

“A word of advice for "Islamic scholars" who wish to be as successful as I: make sure you have those books on Islam, even those supposedly scholarly ones, full of pretty pictures. Fill them full of that local-color that fills the reader's mind with thoughts of exotica. Along with the Iznik tiles and that perennial favorite, those painted groups of turbanned Turks, the odd camel will do. But please, listen to me, do go very heavy on what, after all, is the only art form that the Muslim world can offer save for calligraphy, that isn't a patch on what the Chinese and others in the Far East can supply. So put in as many of the mediagenic mosques as you can find. You can start by consulting, but only on aesthetic matters, Oleg Grabar. But watch out, he's too much of a real scholar to fully trust. Just borrow his pictures. Make sure you get in some nice Persian examples, and the Taj Mahal, and the Dome of the Rock, and the Umayyad Mosque, and a few examples from fabulous Bokhara. And the less about Islam, real Islam, that is the texts of Islam, that you put in, the better. Please, no hint of Antoine Fattal, not a mention of Bat Ye'or. Just leave any serious discussion of the meaning of the word "dhimmi" out of your work for as long as you possibly can. Look at how I have managed to avoid that subject. But if you must treat it, do it with the old "Umarite Covenant" business. That always gets them.

“Mention as few of the hundreds of great Western scholars of Islam, in the period 1870-1970, as possible. If they never learn even the names of Henri Lammens, St. Clair Tisdall, Georges Vajda, Georges Henri Bousquet, Edmond Fagnan, Samuel Zwemer, and others, so much the better. And if any smart young student finds out about them on his own, and dares to mention them, simply invoke the magical phrases "Orientalism" and "Edward Said" and put on a big show of indignation about these "so-called Orientalists," and that will shut him up and satisfy many of the lemmings in your class. It's always worked for me."

Oh dear. I didn't mean to publish right here those last few paragraphs. They are part of the "Teacher's Guide" that I, lean mean highly-successful-in-every-respect John Esposito, quietly supply to those who use whose names are on the list compiled by my colleagues at the annual meetings of MESA Nostra, the Trusted Ones, the ones whom we can always count on not only to assign my books in their college courses, but to be careful about what the students find out, and careful about what they are never supposed to find out. My god, I hope no one notices this. Let's hope.

[Posted by Hugh at July 23, 2007]

Posted by: Hugh at February 15, 2008 5:13 PM

Matamoros - you wrote, of the CAABU, that 'the group boasts that over 100 British MPs are currently members".

This cries out for investigation. Would it be possible for British regulars/ posters here to start finding out exactly WHICH British MPs are members of CAABU - and WHICH are not - and to circulate that information?

Those MPs who are found NOT to be members could, perhaps, be checked out, and if they show faint glimmers of understanding concerning the civilisational threat of jihad and sharia, could be warned against CAABU (and any similar bodies) while being strongly encouraged to improve their knowledge by reading such writers as Spencer, Bat Yeor, Patrick Sookhdeo (Islam in Britain; also his latest book on Global Jihad), and Majid Khadduri.

Her Majesty's Parliament needs, pronto, a body corresponding to that which has been established by Representative Myrick in the United States.

A further thought: Bishops sit in the house of Lords. Perhaps Bishops Nazir-Ali, Sookhdeo, and Reade (all decidedly non-dhimmi and awake up to the jihad and to sharia creep) could start something among the Lords.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at February 15, 2008 5:25 PM

Isn't it amazing what Saudi money can buy? in this case it is "the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding." Along with the center, of course, they have purchased its director--Esposito--and others employed by that ridiculously named institution.

Why ridiculously? Because the "Center" is a propaganda engine for spreading Islam and apologizing for the violence and evil evoked by it since it was founded on that same Arabian soil.

It's purpose is to make Christians understand that Islam is no danger--if they are willing to either accept it as the only true "religion" or be satisfied to live as "protected"--heavily taxed--dhimmis under Islaic rule.

There is no reciprocal attempt to make Moslems understand Christianity and why Christians cannot accept a god full of hate and fury, such as Allah.

The worst part about these Saudi purchases of our academic institution--and our government officials, elected and appointed--is that the money they are spreading is the money we are paying them for the oil that we found under their sand--OUR MONEY. (Also see Fitzgerald: A tribute to Prince Bandar)

Is there anything that can be done about this? Definitely! Not politically correct, perhaps, but it would put an end to this taking over of our country--the United States--by Islam. See
The Price of Gasoline

Posted by: unicorns62000 at February 15, 2008 5:50 PM

Cute little Devil!

Posted by: champ at February 15, 2008 6:24 PM

Dear Great Leader Mr. Spencer:

Forgive me, Dread Lord and Master of Multitudinous Minions for not having sooner acknowledged and lauded Your Glorious Accession to the title and status of DARTH and Your Stellar Ascendancy to the Heights of Dark Powers and Ultimate Mastery of Sinister Force.

We stand in Your Dark Shadow, which casts all beneath It into Deepest Fear and Awe, from which I offer my profound fealty and singular devotion.

Lest You, Peerless Leader and Imperious Captain of Kuffar, take my woefully inadequate professions of subservience as insolent mockery or cloying jest, I hasten to assure you of my unworthy standing and miserable lack of wit to undertake such.

Yours most truly in obsequious grovelling and self-abasement,

John C

Posted by: John C at February 15, 2008 8:26 PM

Dear Great Leader Mr. Spencer:

Forgive me, Dread Lord and Master of Multitudinous Minions for not having sooner acknowledged and lauded Your Glorious Accession to the title and status of DARTH and Your Stellar Ascendancy to the Heights of Dark Powers and Ultimate Mastery of Sinister Force.

We stand in Your Dark Shadow, which casts all beneath It into Deepest Fear and Awe, from which I offer my profound fealty and singular devotion.

Lest You, Peerless Leader and Imperious Captain of Kuffar, take my woefully inadequate professions of subservience as insolent mockery or cloying jest, I hasten to assure you of my unworthy standing and miserable lack of wit to undertake such.

Yours most truly in obsequious grovelling and self-abasement,

John C

Posted by: John C at February 15, 2008 8:28 PM

Dear RS:

Yeah, I know--I lay it on kinda thick.

Posted by: John C at February 15, 2008 8:30 PM

And, I realize, so does John Esposito!

Posted by: John C at February 15, 2008 8:31 PM

PS: The closing salutation should read, "... and servile self-abasement," and toss in "craven abjectness" for good measure.

Posted by: John C at February 16, 2008 12:45 AM

Hugh,

one thing I don't understand is why would Esposito blame the Wahabites when it is them who fund him?

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at February 16, 2008 3:51 AM

Dumbledoresarmy:

"Matamoros - you wrote, of the CAABU, that 'the group boasts that over 100 British MPs are currently members". Would it be possible for British regulars/ posters here to start finding out exactly WHICH British MPs are members of CAABU - and WHICH are not - and to circulate that information?"

CAABU doesn’t give a list of the MPs who are members. Its website simply states that: “Over 100 Parliamentarians have joined our tailored membership scheme, providing MPs and their advisors with the latest information and specialised briefings via e-mail bulletins. We also arrange seminars with experts on and from the region."

http://www.caabu.org/about/our_programmes/

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily indicate that all of these MPs sympathise with CAABU’s aims - some could have joined just for the “information“. The problem is that the information they are fed by CAABU is an unremitting stream of anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian / pro-Arab (and increasingly pro-Islam) propaganda.

However, if one checks the Parliamentary voting records on Middle East issues, as well as various anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian petitions and newspaper letters to be found online, one encounters the same names over and over again (too many to list here). Always among those names, however, are the following MPs, who are CAABU officials.

(unremunerated) Joint Chairmen of CAABU’s Executive Committee: John Austin (Lab), Colin Breed (Lib-Dem) Crispin Blunt (Cons).

(unremunerated) Executive Committee members: Christine Russell (Lab), Derek Wyatt (Lab), Lord Redesdale (HOL Lib-Dem).

http://www.caabu.org/about/executive_committee/

Posted by: Matamoros at February 16, 2008 12:44 PM

matamoros - thanks for that. Very interesting. I'm sure any other British posters and lurkers here will be taking notes.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at February 17, 2008 5:34 AM

All I can say is "Robert" You look Boss!!

Posted by: aitusa at February 17, 2008 5:50 AM

Nice foto Darth..
i like it..
check out the second edition on this site:

www.myspace.com/peacefulislam

Greetings mr Spencer
& keep up the spirit*
Luke

Posted by: Luke at February 18, 2008 2:17 PM