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James George Jatras, Director of the American Council for Kosovo, here responds to some of the allegations made about Kosovo and about himself on this LGF thread, about which I commented here.
In a recent posting by Michael Totten on Little Green Footballs (“Totten: An Israeli in Kosovo”), and particularly in a number of the comments following, questions have been raised about assertions by myself and others, such as Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer and commentator Julia Gorin, about the relevance of jihad ideology to the violence committed by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija against other communities, notably Christian Serbs.The comments, many of them repetitive, expand the posting to, at my last count, 84 pages, so it will be hard to address all of them. Boiled down to their essence, the criticisms can be summarized as follows:
1. The supposedly “moderate” nature of Islam among secular Kosovo Albanians, and the absence of Islam as an ideological incitement to Kosovo Albanian violence, as opposed to Albanian nationalism;
2. Indigenous Kosovo Albanian resistance to attempts by Saudi Arabia and other external forces to import Wahhabist radicalism into Kosovo;
3. The pro-U.S. (and pro-Israel) sentiments of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo and the merits of U.S. support for a moderate, pro-Western Muslim country; and
4. My purported role as a highly-paid lobbyist for Serbian interests.To take each point in turn:
1. The supposedly “moderate” nature of Islam among secular Kosovo Albanians.
I hesitate to respond in detail to this assertion, mainly because Robert Spencer has done such a fine job of doing so in his comments on LGF. The main point to keep in mind is that there is a world of difference between asserting the existence of “moderate Islam” -- which does not now exist, never has existed, and, I suspect, never will exist -- and the unquestionable fact that many Muslims around the world are indeed cultural Muslims who are either unaware of or do not agree with Islam’s undeniable mandates of jihad, sharia, and dhimmitude. There is no doubt that many of the Albanians in Kosovo fall into the latter category. Primarily a function of the secularizing influence of communist rule following World War II, particularly in urban areas, the residue of this factor can be confirmed by the liberal attitude Mr. Totten experienced in Kosovo, the fact that many nominally Muslim Albanians in Kosovo do indeed drink the fiery local distillate rakija (but generally do not, as asserted by some, eat pork), and consider themselves Europeans, not Middle Easterners.
That tendency, however, needs to be balanced against a few others. To begin with, as has happened in other former communist areas, as well as places like Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan where the local secularizing ideology (respectively, Kemalism, Baathism, and militaristic nationalism) has been weakened, there is a counter-tendency of a once-secularized Muslim population to return to its Islamic roots. This is reflected in Kosovo by the boom in mosque-building, which despite the massive aid poured into Kosovo from the United States, the European Union, and other sources, far outstrips other pressing needs. This has been attested to by Paul Andrew Kirk (see the last comment below the main article here), an American who served two tours with the U.S. military in Kosovo. Kirk says:
Islamic extremism is on the rise in Kosovo. KFOR [the NATO-led military mission] soldiers have been attacked in Gjilan [actual name in Serbian: Gnjilane], Ferizaj [Uroševac], and Prizren when I was there. You just won't see or hear about it in the news. More mosques have been built in Kosovo in the last five years than schools, roads, health clinics, and all other sanitation projects combined. Compliments of Muslim charities from the Middle East.Mr. Kirk’s comments point to another factor: that Islamic violence in Kosovo is systematically underreported because the governments, notably that of the United States, have so publicly committed themselves to the Albanian Muslim cause that they don’t want it reported -- it complicates their black and white, good (Albanian Muslim) and evil (Serbian Christian) caricature. Neither do the laptop bombadiers in the media, who, as they had in Bosnia, cheered on the great Kosovo “humanitarian intervention” in 1999 to stop a nonexistent “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians -- and which led directly to the real eradication of more than two-thirds of the Serbian community, as well as Roma (mostly Muslim, some Orthodox Christian), Croats (Roman Catholic), Jews, and others. This leaves most of the reporting of attacks on Serbs to the Serbs themselves, and as certified genocidal monsters, who cares what they say, or for that matter, what happens to them?
With respect to the nexus in Kosovo between religion (Muslim vs. Christian) and nationalism (Albanian vs. Serb), it needs to be kept in mind that sharia rule under the Ottoman Empire ended less than a century ago, in 1912, when Kosovo (then known as “Old Serbia”) was liberated during the First Balkan War. For the preceding centuries, Muslim Albanians had migrated at will over the mountains from Albania, taking over land from which Serbs had fled from reprisals following repeated unsuccessful revolts against the Ottoman caliphate. (That the Serbs are the original inhabitants in Kosovo is beyond question. There are no pre-Ottoman Albanian structures, no Albanian toponyms. There is not even an Albanian word for Kosovo itself, the Albanian term “Kosova” being merely their rendering of the Serbian name -- derived from kos, “blackbird,” in reference to the famous 1389 battle -- much as we English-speakers call München “Munich” and Roma “Rome.”) As increasing numbers of Albanians moved into Kosovo, their status as part of the umma was inseparable from their establishing mastery over the declining number of Serbian dhimmis. As was the case with conquered Christians elsewhere, Serbs in Kosovo had little ability to defend their churches, homes, and persons against Muslim abuse.As in some other areas that were subjected to Islamic rule, over time religious identity became closely associated with nationality -- for example, Turks vs. Greeks and Armenians, or Arabs and Berbers vs. Spaniards. Even today, with respect to Israel, with the decline of the supposedly “moderate” and “secular” PLO the “Arab” cause against Jews increasingly is indistinguishable from Islamic jihad. Even Arab secular rulers regarded as apostates by many Muslims, like Saddam Hussein, did not hesitate to conflate Arabism with Islam to invoke jihad against non-Muslim enemies. As noted on a posting on muslimstudent.org.uk (since removed), “Fighting and exterminating Israel is an obligation even if the Muslims fighting are Arab armies loyal to regimes of unbelief, like the Egyptian soldiers when they fought Israel during the Sinai war.” By the same token, the prevailing attitude among Kosovo’s Albanian Muslims, even those with no discernable Islamic piety, reflects their sense of entitlement to mastery over the land and its rayah (essentially, “cattle”) inhabitants. The attitude is hardly different from those of Turks with respect to Constantinople or Arabs to “al-Quds,” no matter how secular they may be: “we” conquered it, and no one can take it back from us.
It should not be thought this is a phenomenon belonging only to the distant past. Less than three decades passed between the lifting of Muslim Albanian supremacy in Kosovo in 1912 and its restoration under Axis occupation. It is specious to compare, as some of the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay did, the Nazi recruitment of SS units of Dutchmen, Belgians, Frenchmen, Danes, etc., to that of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia where Islam, as opposed to National Socialist racial dogma, was a specific factor. (Note the Serbian source for the links. No doubt they forged the photos too.) The role of Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was notorious for his hostility to Israel and encouragement of the persistent Nazi-inspired leitmotif in Arab/Muslim anti-Israel propaganda, in encouraging the Muslim SS units in the Balkans as part of the jihad against the Allies is well known. Also of note is the comment of Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, who boasted that in the Nazi sponsorship of Islamic forces,
“ . . . a link is created between Islam and National-Socialism on an open, honest basis. It will be directed in terms of blood and race from the North, and in the ideological-spiritual sphere from the East.”In the present day, all this means that implementing Albanian control in Kosovo amounts to the restoration of the rule of the umma, regardless of how secular or unobservant of Islamic practice many individual Muslims may be. This is entirely in keeping with the vision of other proponents of Islamic power seeking what is seen as the return of once Muslim-ruled lands (again, from muslimstudent.org.uk):
The uniting of Muslim [lands] includes the land that Muslims lost control of, including, Turkistan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and the land that Muslims had lost like Andalous (Spain) . . . Our duty as Muslims . . . [is] to kick the American, British, and Israeli forces from Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and Palestine, and to overthrow all these non-Islamic regimes in order to establish the Islamic state on their ruins.It is perhaps something of a digression to point out that this does not mean, as one commentator to Mr. Totten’s column accused Robert Spencer of suggesting, that “all Albanians are Nazis.” Far from it. Indeed, not in Kosovo but in Albania itself all the indigenous Jewish population was sheltered during World War II, according to information at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, which I recently visited. The role of those brave Albanians considered by Jews to be “Righteous Gentiles” should not be minimized. But neither should it be exaggerated at the expense of that of the Italian Army and the communist resistance in Albania, which operated as an integral part of the Yugoslav communist movement. (This historical observation should not be inferred as approval of either Italian Fascism or communism.) At the same time, given the vilification of Orthodox Serbs and, in one comment, of Greeks (I am of Greek, specifically Spartan, ethnic origin), it is worthy of note that in the wartime Balkans only those two nations maintained an overwhelming anti-Axis orientation.
Finally, as one of the litmus tests of Islamic intolerance, I would be remiss not to mention the subjugation of Albanian women in Kosovo. Marketed as near-chattels and beaten at whim (per the Qur'an, an-Nisa' 4:34), the lot of Albanian Muslim women, notably in rural areas, remains familiar to students of women’s condition in other Muslim areas. While wife-beating is hardly confined to Muslims, and while some anti-woman violence considered “Islamic” may simply reflect tribal attitudes (such as female circumcision, which does not exist in Kosovo as far as I know), its prevalence and persistence is maintained by solid Islamic authority.
2. Indigenous Kosovo Albanian resistance to attempts by Saudi Arabia and other external forces to import Wahhabist radicalism into Kosovo.
In view of the foregoing discussion, the question of Saudi-inspired Wahhabism in Kosovo is something of a red herring. As in other places in the Islamic world, there is of course a tension, and sometimes conflict, between efforts to import what locals regard as an alien and unwelcome influence by petrodollar-rich intruders and the locals’ traditional observances. However, this is a long way from proving the existence of a “moderate” peaceful Islam in Kosovo that stands in opposition to Wahhabism.
The tradition of Islamic violence against Christians in the Balkans and elsewhere long precedes Wahhabism. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab cannot take the rap for the initial Islamic conquest of the Balkans and its attendant massacres, the centuries of subjugation and humiliation, the blood tax, and attempts to revive Muslim mastery during World War II and today. Fingering Wahhabism as the font of the global jihad threat is effectively a ploy to whitewash an indigenous traditions of Islamic violence and to assert a history of tolerance where none exists.
In Kosovo, it is not Wahhabism that has reduced Kosovo from once an entirely Christian Serbian province to one that is edging toward entirely Muslim Albanian. It is not Wahhabism that is responsible for the toll on the Serbian community since the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia. It is not solely Wahhabism that inspires the clearly Islamic animus that focuses on the Holy Cross and icons of Jesus Christ, His Mother, and the saints in attacks on churches, monasteries, and graves that have characterized the Albanians’ demand for an independent state. It is not Wahhabism that explains the beheadings of Kosovo Serbs, as seen in other jihad regions and which has a long pedigree in the Balkans.
This does not mean that there has not been since at least the mid-1990s a major element of outside support for the Kosovo Albanian jihad by outside forces, including the involvement of Osama bin Laden personally. There is evidence that the explosives used in the London and Madrid train bombings were networked through Kosovo. That the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay seem to know nothing about such matters is not my problem. If they wish to educate themselves, they are welcome to peruse the numerous articles on this topic collected on the website of the American Council for Kosovo.
Finally, as with American support for the creation of a Muslim-dominated state in majority Christian (Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic) Bosnia, the attempt to appease Muslim sentiment by separating Kosovo from Serbia needs to be seen for what it is: yet another step in the imposition of Muslim power over the infidel, a way-station in the third invasion of Europe. As the author of the book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime Against God and Humanity, published by the American Council for Kosovo, relates from personal experience:
“On my last visit to Vitina in October 2006 I was accompanied by an American photo-journalist. We visited the new mosque which is called the Medina mosque after the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia which is revered by Muslims. This is the first mosque ever built in Vitina town. We met with the Imam Akram Selimi, who explained that he was the mullah of the mosque. He told us how he had studied Islam at the Azhar University in Egypt for three years and was just newly returned to preach to his flock. His new flock, he explained, were very new, as Vitina was a Serbian town up until 1999. He further explained that the Albanians had lived in the villages and only started coming into the town after June 1999. He even elaborated on this point by telling me that they had ‘taken the town from the Serbs.’ He also pointed out that all women should be covered up as this is the will of Allah.”3. The pro-U.S. (and pro-Israel) sentiments of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo and the merits of U.S. support for a moderate, pro-Western Muslim country.
American officials of both parties who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia in order to create an independent Albanian Muslim state have made no secret that an important part of their motivation is to curry favor with the Islamic world. As part of his insistence that Islam is a “religion of peace and tolerance” and a faith that has “enriched civilization for centuries,” President Bush’s adoption of the State Department’s policy, carried over from the Clinton Administration, must be seen in the context of other pandering, such as his advocacy of for the creation of a Palestinian state (regardless of the accuracy of his claim that he is the first American president to take that position.)
In this regard, he has the support of top congressional Democrats, as well as some Republicans. As stated by the late Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in support of the State Department’s policy:
" . . . just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. . . . the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.” [Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), hearing on Kosovo, April 17, 2007]Not to be outdone, Mr. Lantos’ Senate counterpart holds the same view in support of the Bush policy:
“ . . . adroit diplomacy to secure Kosovo’s independence could yield a victory for Muslim democracy, . . . a much-needed example of a successful US-Muslim partnership . . .” [Former Presidential candidate and Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Financial Times, 1/3/07]The problem is that there is no evidence that any of this has worked. One can search the web in vain for Muslim commentary praising U.S. support for Muslims in Kosovo, or Bosnia for that matter. To the contrary, the one-sided narrative that underlies western support for the Kosovo Albanians actually works against us:
“Most Muslims were simply not interested in hearing that the US government had been a staunch supporter of Bosnian Muslims. By the time I added that prominent American Jews -- among them Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz -- were leading protagonists of intervention on behalf of the Bosnain Muslims, they had switched off. Bosnia and Kosovo were simply subsumed into their broader narrative of Muslim victimhood. My interlocutors were neither stupid nor insincere; it was just that they were wired in such a way that precluded them from seeing the United States as anything other than the global foe of Muslims, and the catspaw of Israel.”The expectation that support for Muslims in Kosovo, or elsewhere, will lead to pro-U.S. attitudes -- and the uncomprehending disappointment when it doesn’t -- is simply further evidence of Washington’s (and London’s, Paris’s, etc.) utter incomprehension of the nature of the jihad ideology. For all our fawning, Kosovo instead registers in the Islamic mind alongside “Palestine,” Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, Mindanao, Bosnia, Xinjiang, etc., in a litany of persecution by an undifferentiated conspiracy of Jews, Americans, Russians, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, and anybody and everybody else. The simple fact is that offering the umma a chunk of kaffir land and sacrificing its inhabitants does not assuage them. It incites them. That doesn’t mean, however, that proponents of policy of appeasement will cease trying, in a textbook case of fanaticism as “redoubling your effort after you’ve forgotten your aim.”
There is perhaps no better proof of Albanian Muslim “gratitude” than the jihad terror plot against Ft. Dix, New Jersey, by six Muslims, four of them Albanians from Kosovo and the adjoining area of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, also a target of irredentist claims. It is interesting that none of the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay made reference to this matter.
In Kosovo, as elsewhere, the western advocates of adoption of Muslim causes as a path to “getting the Islamic world on our side” in order to defeat the “tiny handful of extremists” will not be successful. Their pursuit of “moderate Islam” and “tolerant Islamic democracy” will be as fruitless as Diogenes’ vain quest for an honest man.
4. My purported role as a highly-paid lobbyist for Serbian interests.
Guilty as charged.
This is hardly a matter for detective work. By law, all items distributed by the American Council for Kosovo include the following disclaimer:
“The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, under the spiritual guidance of His Grace, Bishop ARTEMIJE of Ras and Prizren. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington DC.”The work of the American Council for Kosovo is compensated by the Bishop and his community, reported at rates consistent with Washington lobbying activities, which are not inexpensive. At the same time, it should be understood that we are battling the full weight of the Administration, much of Congress, a well-funded Albanian lobby that has been entrenched of decades, almost all think tanks, NGOs, and the media and -- without naming names -- a lot of people who pontificate on the matter based on superficial impressions and biased information. Our job is to provide American opinion-makers and the American people the other side of the story, which we began very late, only in the spring of 2006. On behalf of Bishop Artemije and his suffering community we are grateful to stalwarts on our advisory board, including Robert Spencer and Julia Gorin, who without remuneration (as some have falsely alleged they receive) have been unafraid to stand up to the barbs directed against them by know-nothings.
Posted by Robert at August 7, 2008 7:18 AM
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Islamic thinking...........By contrast, the OIC last month described the arrest of Karadzic as a major step towards ending impunity and delivering justice for the victims of atrocities during the Bosnian war in the mid-1990s.
Karadzic is now before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, where he faces charges relating to the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.
Prosecutors at the ICC – also based in The Hague – in a recent report accused Bashir of involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and murder relating to the Darfur conflict. The U.N. puts the death toll there at up to 300,000 since the fighting erupted in early 2003. http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=33696
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at August 7, 2008 7:40 AM
If “real” Muslims have the duty to kill “secular” Muslims, then the future of “secular” Muslims is not a good one. The very simple reason for this is that it would be much easier for a “secular” Muslim to get in line and become a “real” Muslim than for a “secular” Muslim to go to all the trouble of fighting "real" Muslims for survival.
Isn't this basically what we are looking at in the middle east?
Posted by: Spot on
at August 7, 2008 8:13 AM
It seems that the basic argument that Jatras has to refute is this: "You have questioned US policy, therefore, you are a genocidal Nazi." Am I right?
and Robert,
Will your critics understand "without remuneration?" Not even a penny for your thoughts!
Once again, people do not understand what has been said from the beginning of Jihad Watch which is that while there are moderate Muslims, there is not a moderate Islam. While a liberal Jew can join a Reform Congregation, and a liberal Christian can join an Episcopal or other liberal church, a liberal Muslim does not have that option. Not only is that true as a matter of theology, but also because the Saudis fund mosques around the world. An of course even in saying this I have fallen into the theological equivalence trap. After all, a liberal Christian thinks he should not disapprove of homosexuality; a liberal Muslim thinks he should not kill homosexuals.
Posted by: AnneCrockett at August 7, 2008 8:18 AM
This rebuttal intelligently lays out what is in large part a problem of overcoming views that, once having, because of partial and highly tendentious, and utterly out-of-context reports, become, by dint of repetion, simply the "accepted view" of all "right-thinking people" and will not yield to more accurate information, and a deeper understanding of the problem, and of the wider context -- the world-wide context -- in which victories or defeats, real or perceived, of Islam anywhere are connected to Islam everywhere, in the minds of Muslims if not in the minds of those who hardly understand, even as yet, the meaning, and the menace, of Islam., deeper, and wider information, about the meaning, and menace, of Islam.
I would suggest one tiny correction.
The intended meaning of the phrase "the role of Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was notorious for his hostility to Israel" is clear, but since most of the Grand Mufti's anti-Zionist most deadly activity -- including his incitement of Arab attacks on Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, and his visit to Hitler, and helping set up a Muslim Bosnian S.S. Unit (for which young Izetbegovic was a recruiter)--took place during the period of the Mandate, before Israel became a state, perhaps the word "Israel" should be removed, and the phrase read, in order to reflect the real meaning, thus: "the role of Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was notorious for his hostility to the Jews in Mandatory Palestine and their unwillingness to endure the only status he believed fit for them, that of submissive dhimmis...."
at August 7, 2008 8:37 AM
I hope to become better informed about the history of that region of the world.
Thank you.
Posted by: Josephine at August 7, 2008 9:07 AM
The problem is that there is no evidence that any of this has worked. One can search the web in vain for Muslim commentary praising U.S. support for Muslims in Kosovo, or Bosnia for that matter. To the contrary, the one-sided narrative that underlies western support for the Kosovo Albanians actually works against us.From a purely moral standpoint, I'd have a different comeback: so what if it did work? If acquescing to the abolition of Israel would make us liked by the Islamic world, should we go ahead and do it? Since successive Indian governments seem to be against us anyway, should we recognize not just Kashmir, but Jammu and Ladakh as well as part of Pakistan if it actually brings Pakistan to our side? How about demanding that Thailand cede Yala and Philippines cede Mindanao to Malaysia, if it actually and observably increased pro-US sentiments in Indonesia and Malaysia?
The idea that it would be okay to support jihads against anybody if only the jihadis would end up liking us [fill in the blanks - the West, the Russians, the Indians, et al], is morally bankrupt and fails the elementary Golden Rule test: if it's okay for the US to support Jihad against Serbia, why wouldn't it be conversely okay for the Serbs to support Jihad against the US and Western Europe using the same argument? And from a practical standpoint, the Serbs could make the argument better, since the anti-Serb acts of the US have made Arabs less, not more, hostile to Serbs (since the US is hated anyway), and if the Serbs did a few more things like they did under Milosevic, such as support Saddam against the US, they'd be more genuinely liked by the bulk of Mohammedans that are anti-US.
Also, in addition to Ft Dix, it's worth adding that the SLC mall shooter, who was Bosnian Mohammedan, was given a hero's funeral after his body was returned to Bosnia, and attendees at that funeral included a whole bunch of Bosnians who hardly knew him. The only possible reason they could have attended was that to them, he was a hero, having slaughtered a few infidels in the US.
And finally, congratulations to Jatras for proclaiming what he does in point 4 - guilty as charged! Nobody should be apologetic about being a voice for Serbian nationalism.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 7, 2008 9:21 AM
Afrim Kostrati at a cafe named Tirana. Quote: We are Muslims, but not really"
This is a significant comment.
We at SIOE do not believe in the concept of moderate Muslims.
We believe there are:-
1. Muslims
2. Those who say they are Muslims, but have little knowledge of the Koran and Islam in general. We have had several Iranians, who once fitted into this category, contact us after having read the Koran and being horrified by it no longer consider themselves as Muslims.
3. Those desperate to leave Islam, do not consider themselves to be Muslim, but are fearful to do so because of retribution from their families and communities. Many of these people are legally restrained from leaving Islam, as in Malaysia.
I dislike drawing this analogy because I like octopusses. However, Islamisation is like an octopuss. It uses its tentacles to investigate new territory. If bitten a tentacle is withdrawn only to be placed back at a later time.
If a weaker being is detected that being is restrained by the suckers on the tentacle and if necessary more tentacles used to subdue the prey.
Then the poisonous beak is used to finish off the prey.
Albania is an Islamist tentacle and Kosovo a sucker.
The Albanians would do themselves a big favour by collectively dumping Islam on the Annual International Islam Apostasy Day which falls on the second Friday of October each year.
This year it falls on 10th October - Charles Martel Day.
Posted by: Stephen Gash SIOE England at August 7, 2008 9:25 AM
Stephen of SIOE
You forgot a fourth
4. Muslims who claim to be against extremism when they are talking to Infidels, but have no problems mingling with the Islamic crowd when they are back in Arabic or Urdu mode. Essentially, these are practitioners of taquiyya, and their very existance makes the genuineness of not only categories 2 & 3, but even actual apostates from Islam suspect, since a taquiyya practitioner can even pretend to be a full blown apostate, leaving no one the wiser.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 7, 2008 9:34 AM
"4. Muslims who claim to be against extremism when they are talking to Infidels, but have no problems mingling with the Islamic crowd when they are back in Arabic or Urdu mode. Essentially, these are practitioners of taquiyya, and their very existance makes the genuineness of not only categories 2 & 3, but even actual apostates from Islam suspect, since a taquiyya practitioner can even pretend to be a full blown apostate, leaving no one the wiser."
Yep. I.e., moderate Muslims probably do exist, but we can never be sure which ones are really moderate, so their existence is useless. So why does anybody even talk about their existence, if their existence is useless to us?
at August 7, 2008 11:36 AM
Hugh Fitzgerald says above “the world-wide context”.
100% agree.
In this light, splitting Kosovo from Serbia is a bad move. Just observe what is happening in Turkey as an example of what will happen over time to Albania, Kosovo, and the Muslim population in Bosnia. Observe this story below from 2007:
Saudi Arabia: Kosovo Is Open for Investment
http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20070213031555
Of course there are many more. It is clear the Arabians are involved, and that means money. That means more mosques, more Islamic schools, etc, especially in the rural areas. It takes time and money to re-Islamize a population, but the Arabians (with some others) are well on their way to doing that. To make the situation more dangerous, the west still cannot identify why Islam is a problem. The west can’t even identify Saudi Arabia as a problem. Observe this story about Tony Blair, BAE contracts, and SA…
“Gag Order: How Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar muscled Tony Blair into silence”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/149626
If the former prime minister (was the prime minister when this all went down) of Great Britain, can be pressured, manipulated, coerced, etc., over a military contract, by Saudi Arabia, what do you think the Arabians can do in the case of Albania and Kosovo? It is clear they have put the screws to the USA and Europe to push for this nonsense.
This is why we must get out the Arabian oil business. As long as we are involved we will be slaves to our Islamic Arabian masters, they yell “Jump” and we say…”How high!”.
at August 7, 2008 11:38 AM
Correction above...Saudi Arabia: Kosovo Is Open for Investment link is not working. Just do a google search for "Saudi Arabia" and "Kosovo". It will be a real eye opener.
Posted by: greatcometof1577
at August 7, 2008 11:43 AM
Whether or not the Albanians in Kosovo are "moderate Muslims" (i.e, motivated more by nationalism than religion) doesn't alter the fact that they're guilty of a pretty egregious case of ethnic cleansing directed at Serbs, Jews, and gypsies. Thanks, President Clinton!
Posted by: Seamus at August 7, 2008 11:47 AM
Kosovo is a lost cause. For the West’s and American interests it is a ‘failed experiment’ in bringing civilizing influence of democracy and rule of law, since in the end only Sharia will be allowed to exist. Islam does not allow for any other competing ideology of governance, which it considers inferior to its Allah mandated rule by the Koran, per Mohammet’s diktat to conquer the world for his Allah god. The politics within Albanian Kosovo play second fiddle to the real impetus behind Jihad against the Serbs, and that is nothing less than full implementation of the Ummah’s world conquest ambitions.
Whatever good will or investments are to flow from the West into Kosovo will be undermined by this transnational impetus, a world without borders, all one world for Mohammet’s Allah. That is the real meaning of their world Jihad, and no exception in the future developments within Kosovo. It is lost to Jihad, embellished by Muslim cruelty against the local Serb indigenous populations, everything from murder and beheadings, killing whole families, to destruction of their religious structures and defiling crosses, rape of nuns, and other culture genocidal crimes against humanity. Islam was pushed back in 1912 in Kosovo, but now it is once again resurgent, and we foolishly let it happen through ignorant government policies by both the EU and Bill Clinton’s administration. Bad investment, and supporting the wrong side, so a lost cause.
More importantly, it is a failed experiment in bringing secular constitutional freedoms to Kosovo Muslims. Not really a surprise, knowing what we know of Mohammet’s Islamic call for world ‘submission’, which does not mean peace but surrender. We surrendered Kosovo of our own free will, and now must pay the terrible price of dhimmitude, a form of slavery, to the Ummah. Watch the flow of petrodollars into the region, because their investments (mosques, madrassas, political agitation) is the investment that will yield returns. NATO must now bow in submission, and history will witness our failure.
at August 7, 2008 12:15 PM
Ideological supremacy leads directly to despotism.
There is only room for one at the top, so radicalism is born. Ideas of personal supremacy are fed by the ego, and always cause trouble. This is one reason that religions accept the 'supreme being' idea. It reminds adherents that they are not so supreme after-all.
Of the religions who believe in the one God supreme being concept, only Islam shares the superiority with believers. If muslims do not feel superior by virtue of being muslims, then they are not muslims.
Other religions teach humility and humbleness and love for one another. This is not possible for the sharers of superiority. That 'Allah does not have partners', is false, muslims are his partners.
The Ummah is his headquarters. The Quran his 'articles of incorporation, the ahadith his 'by laws'. 'Fight them until all resistance to me stops, and all worship me', his mission statement.
And the membership will do just that because the reward includes sharing in Islams supremacy, if not material benefit.
The Ummah, and it's supremacy, exists wherever there is even one believer. Kosovo included.
The supreme there will do what the supreme always do...consolidate their supremacy by eliminating the competition. This is fine with Allah, it is following his mission statement...
at August 7, 2008 12:20 PM
"Jatras was also a defense witness in the Hague trial of Milosevic. ...
despite his lawerly disclaimers to the contrary, [Jatras] nevertheless attempted to portray Milosevic as a victim of an international conspiracy, and to cast doubts on the entire scale and nature of his regime's actions."
-MPH
Posted by: popcontest
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022112.php#c565504
Wow, I'm liking Jatras more and more!
Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 7, 2008 12:44 PM
DenverRodeo
Jatras was/is (Robert can clarify which) a member of the JW board of directors.
The point you made about our inability to separate out moderate Mohammedans from the rest, thereby rendering their existance meaningless, was beautifully made by a former poster on this forum. It ran like this - if you were trying to completely eliminate caffeine from your diet, and every afternoon, you found yourself at a table that had a random combination of normal and decaf, and you had absolutely no way of distinguishing one from the other, would your knowledge of the existance of decaf samples on that table be of the remotest use to you? Or would you assume that since any of the cups could be caffeinated, you'd have to miss out on all of them altogether, despite the fact that your desired decaf actually was present in some of the cups. Essentially, you would be acting no differently from how you would have had you known that each and every cup was caffenated.
That's the same point that popcontest was missing yesterday when he accused Robert, Pamela and Gorin of writing off all Mohammedans as a lost cause. Obviously, Robert rejected the argument on everyone's behalf because it sounded extreme, and off the cuff, I don't blame him. However, the point I would make to those buying the arguments of MPH or whatever her name is would be that while all Mohammedans may not be a lost cause, fact is that any Mohammedan can be a lost cause. In the absense of any way of determining the lost causes from the salvagable Mohammedans, our reaction has to be as if any are lost causes, just like in the coffee example above. If our self preservation mattered to us, the end result would be treating all the Mohammedan populations as lost causes, thereby opening ourselves to the charges made, and tacitly conceding that we are guilty as charged.
Bigots? Maybe, but I don't exactly come from the school that says, "Slit my throat if you must, but please don't call me a racist"
Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 7, 2008 1:31 PM
Infidel Pride and DenverRodeo - That's why we don't believe in the concept of moderate Muslims.
#4 are in fact #1 i.e. muslims
Posted by: Stephen Gash SIOE England at August 7, 2008 2:51 PM
Stephen
Point taken, but you are conflating Mohammedans who are open about their hatred of Infidels - the Abu Abdullahs, the Abu Hamzas et al, with the taquiyya artists such as Mohammedan MP Sadiq (?) Khan, Sayida Warshi, et al. For this discussion, we were keeping them separate to illustrate why (2) and (3) too are not above suspicion.
Are Tories at least waking up to what's a threat to Britain, or is it still only the BNP &/or UKIP that is talking any sense on the issue?
Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 7, 2008 2:58 PM
And how long before Kosovo starts demanding more land from Serbia in exchange for peace? And what will our Governments response be then? Encourage the Serbs to work for peace, the way we keep telling Israel to work for peace.
Boy, did Clinton pick the wrong side in that conflict.
Posted by: walterc at August 7, 2008 3:25 PM
"would your knowledge of the existance of decaf samples on that table be of the remotest use to you?"
It would if I like playing Russian Roulette (which I don't being a sane person), and I don't take kindly to other people playing Russian Roulette without my permission with my head on the line too, with their hope of the "moderate Muslim" since that essentially means a gun held to all our heads.
Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 7, 2008 3:40 PM
Looks like I stumbled into a BNP meeting.
Posted by: popcontest at August 7, 2008 5:57 PM
Michael:
Looks like I stumbled into a BNP meeting.
Yes, when bested intellectually and on the basis of evidence, you can always cry "racism!"
It only underscores the utter vacuity of your arguments.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 7, 2008 6:58 PM
Someone mentioned "massacre of 8000 Muslim in Srebrenica", just to clarify:
Usually, msm reports about "8000 Muslim -men and boys-" which, translated to everyday English means a few divisions of -Muslim SOLDIERS- who were fully armed and active in "demilitarized zone". Most of these Muslim soldiers were killed in combat, some of them captured and executed because they did this:
http://real-srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com
And executing POWs is war crime, of course, but those were the worst mujahideen monsters, not "unarmed civilians". People killed by NATO cruise missiles in Serbia were unarmed civilians.
Posted by: LazarOfSerbia at August 7, 2008 7:44 PM
Thank you Robert and Mr. Jatras.
Excellent post to ponder and learn from.
at August 7, 2008 8:05 PM
Robert,
It is your site and it is a free country.
In this thread alone, you have a commenter openly praising Slobodan Milosevic. You have another proudly admitting that he is probably a bigot. On top of that, you have a member spouting off under the name "SIOE England" (headed by a guy named Stephen Gash) which is a group that actually IS hooked up with British nationalists in the English Democrats Party.
So long as these people's comments are kosher by your standards, then my statement stands. Such people would find plenty to agree with at a BNP party conference. That is a not a slur -- it is fact.
If these are the characters who have me "bested intellectually," then good for you and your crew of LGF rejects.
It's been an eye opener -- and kind of fun.
-MPH
Posted by: popcontest at August 7, 2008 10:34 PM
Mike,
You disappoint me. It happens all the time, but I must say I'm always surprised when I see someone like you spout brazen falsehoods.
Why not just tell the truth?
In this thread alone, you have a commenter openly praising Slobodan Milosevic.
In fact, no. There is no such comment here.
You have another proudly admitting that he is probably a bigot.
In fact, no. There is no such comment here.
On top of that, you have a member spouting off under the name "SIOE England" (headed by a guy named Stephen Gash) which is a group that actually IS hooked up with British nationalists in the English Democrats Party.
That may be, I don't know. Comments are unmoderated. After all, you're commenting here. I no more endorse the BNP than I do you.
But why can't you just be honest?
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 7, 2008 11:21 PM
When all else fails, start shouting "Racist!" and "Nazi!"
Posted by: TalkinKamel at August 7, 2008 11:55 PM
Open your eyes before you call me a liar.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022115.php#c565670
Posted by: popcontest at August 7, 2008 11:58 PM
popcontest
Nice of you to have just cited my last statement, without reading anything that preceded it that pretty much blew your contention that one has to, ignoring one's self preservation, accomodate for the fact that 'moderate' Mohammedans may exist, regardless of the fact that it's impossible to know who they are, and how many, given the practice of taquiyya among some of them, duly sanctioned by the sunnah. Even if all Mohammedans aren't Jihadi, the fact that we don't know which of them are, and how many, forces us (if we're at all interested in self preservation) to act as though they all are. In your world, it's bigotry on our part not to be willing to lay down our lives to avoid being unfair to Mohammedans.
Also, your point about SIOE == BNP underscores the very question I put to Stephen. Evidently, in your book, if one is opposed to the creeping Islamization of Britain, one is pro-BNP. If one is opposed to all tombstones in a city cemetery being re-oriented to face Mecca, thereby making Infidel corpses conform to this Islamic requirement, one is pro-BNP. If one is opposed to prison toilets being re-oriented to not face Mecca at public expense, one is pro-BNP. If one is opposed to that mega-mosque outside the stadium that's to host the 2012 Olympics, one is pro-BNP. If one is opposed to Shariah banking in the UK, one is pro-BNP. If one is opposed to the Mohammedan who sued a salon owner because she wouldn't be hired due to her insistance on wearing a hijab, one is pro-BNP. If one is opposed to the Archbishop of Canterbury calling for Shariah law for Mohammedans in the UK, one is pro-BNP. With such low thresholds for BNP support, I actually find it a wonder that that party - racist or not - doesn't find more widespread support, particularly since it seems to be the only party that's wise up to Mohammedans. Also, your statement about SIOE having close links to the BNP sounds about as informed as your statement about 'British nationalists in the English Democrats Party'
Also, FYKI, while I don't know about others, I've never subscribed to nor read LGF. Your slur about me being an LGF reject is at par with Jihadis calling all anti-Islam critics Zionists. Not surprising, since you've demonstrated yourself to operate at their (the Jihadis') intellectual level.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 8, 2008 12:31 AM
Mike:
Open your eyes before you call me a liar.
You said that a comment here "openly praised Milosevic."
That one doesn't.
What was that again about your not being a liar?
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 8, 2008 3:07 AM
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc2m8p62_1896r59bzhs
On January 16, 1999, the bodies of some 45 victims were found at Račak, Kosovo, and documented at the sites where they were found by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Some 23 of the bodies had been found together in a gully, victims of an apparent massacre.
U.S. diplomat William Walker led a group of reporters to the site and charged that Serbian police had killed the 45 Kosovars. Serb officials countered that a battle scene had been rearranged by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to look like an atrocity. Walker has an unsavory reputation from his days in El Salvador, but there is no evidence that he had anything to do with staging an atrocity.
As a European Union Forensic Expert Team was already conducting investigations in Kosovo, its Finnish Director, Dr. Helena Ranta, was asked by the OSCE to help perform autopsies on 40 of the victims who had been moved to Priština. Her initial report on the autopsies by the team was completed on March 17, 1999 and noted that there was "no indication of the people being other than unarmed civilians."[5]
Some skepticism about the Račak event may have been warranted at this time, but Project Censored should have reserved judgment until the forensic research was completed.
Dr. Ranta's EU Forensic Expert Team returned to Račak in November 1999 and March 2000 to recover additional evidence at the gully where the 23 bodies were found.
Newsweek broke a story in its April 24, 2000 issue that the team had discovered bullets in the gully, confirming that the killing was indeed a massacre as earlier reported.[6]
Dr. Ranta presented the final report of the team to the EU's Western Balkans Working Group in Brussels on June 21, 2000. The report was sealed and delivered to the ICTY in the Hague, where it became part of the evidence leading to an indictment of Milošević. Serb officials and their allies continued attempting to spin the interpretation of the Račak killings as a hoax, arguing that the autopsies produced no definitive evidence of a massacre.
As three colleagues of Dr. Ranta's in Helsinki prepared to publish an article in the journal Forensic Science International on the Račak victim autopsies, the Berliner Zeitung repeated the claim that the autopsies showed no evidence of a massacre and that this was the final report on the matter.
In fact, the FSI article, based only on the early 1999 autopsies, made no judgment about whether a massacre had occurred or not. This story was then repeated in the U.S. by the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), by Martin Lee in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and others.[7]
Under pressure in Europe to counter these interpretations, the Council of the EU declassified the Executive Summary of the final report of the EU Forensic Expert Team in Kosovo in February 2001.
The summary notes that bullets and bullet fragments had been found in the gully where photographs taken at the time showed the bodies to be positioned, and that DNA evidence on the bullets connected them to the bodies autopsied. In a separate interview, Dr. Ranta estimated the bodies had been shot from a distance of a couple of meters. The evidence confirmed that an atrocity had been committed.[8]
Posted by: Sebaneau
at August 8, 2008 6:48 AM
[5] See Dr. Helena Ranta's report on the autopsies at www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/kosovo/Kosovo-Massacres2.htm.
[6] Joshua Hammer, "Unearthing the Truth," Newsweek, April 24, 2000, p. 49.
[7] J. Rainio, K. Lalu, and A. Penttilä, "Independent Forensic Autopsies in an Armed Conflict: Investigation of the Victims from Račak, Kosovo," Forensic Science International, Vol. 116, Issues 2-3 (February 15, 2001), pp. 171- 185 (available at http://worldnews2.homestead.com/files/Račakautopsies.htm; Berliner Zeitung, January 17, 2001, available on the web (in German) at www.Berlin Online.de/aktuelles/berliner_zeitung/politik/.html/1510.htm. For FAIR's statement on Račak, see "Doubts on a Massacre: Media Ignore Questions About Incident That Sparked Kosovo War" (www.fair.org/press- releases/Račak.html); also Martin A. Lee, "More Bloodshed in the Balkans: The Bitter Legacy of NATO's 'Humanitarian' War," San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 26, 2001 (www.sfbg.com/reality/21.html).
[8] The Executive Summary of June 2000 is available, along with related news reports and interviews with Helena Ranta, on the Balkan Witness website (www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Račak.h tm).
Posted by: Sebaneau at August 8, 2008 6:57 AM
DenverRodeo didn't praise Milosevic in the same way you didn't call Glenn Reynolds a cultural relativist.
Posted by: popcontest at August 8, 2008 9:32 AM
Until Western media fesses up regarding the myriad of lies it told (and tells) about the Serbs and Serbian history, and also fesses up regarding its tacit support for Nasir Orec's slaughter of Serb peasants from 1992-1995, the 'findings' and 'reports' from this establishment can only be discounted as fabrications and lies--which is what they turn out to be upon deep investigation.
Posted by: jimbob22 at August 8, 2008 9:44 AM
Wars, esp. civil wars, are not genteel affairs. Atrocities are routinely committed by all sides. See any civil war in the last 50 years or so.
The Serbs' major crime is that they got a bad press, their opponents came out (comparatively) smelling of roses. That despite the well known Islamic love and tolerance for infidels. Obviously they had better spin doctors.
The Serbs fought savagely. But their enemy was savage too. Still is, for all I know.
Posted by: Hedgehog at August 8, 2008 10:34 AM
"Serb officials countered that a battle scene had been rearranged by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to look like an atrocity. "
"Her initial report on the autopsies by the team was completed on March 17, 1999 and noted that there was "no indication of the people being other than unarmed civilians."[5]"
Let's see: Muslim mujahideen usually fight without wearing uniforms--take away all weapons from the corpses, dump them in a gully, and all you have left are men (and probably a few teenagers since Muslims also like to use boys to fight battles) wearing ordinary clothes, then some "expert" named "Dr. Helena Ranta" examines the bodies and concludes they were unarmed civilians: one small step for man, one giant leap of "genocide" for Mankind.
Posted by: DenverRodeo at August 8, 2008 12:07 PM
On top of that, you have a member spouting off under the name "SIOE England" (headed by a guy named Stephen Gash) which is a group that actually IS hooked up with British nationalists in the English Democrats Party. ~ posted above
That comment makes sense, LGF bans any and all dissenting opinions along with any poster who would dare post at a site that LGF doesn’t like, thus the yammering, crying and innuendo by this poster.
Posted by: Bar at August 8, 2008 12:17 PM
Bar,
You're falling into the trap of nameless-fool/medaura and her husband mph/popcontest.
It seems to me that the goals of their comment blitz are:
1)generate controversy to attract attention and acclaim to themselves
2)generate controversy to antagonize (variably) "conservative" bloggers (the blogsites) who had heretofore been cordial with each other.
3)generate controversy among the readers and commenters of these blogs to alienate some of these readers from these blogs.
4)generate controversy because it makes them feel good.
5) and last of all, to convince others of the Albanian cause.
They are hoping for readers of one blog (e.g. JW) to make generalized negative statements about another site (e.g. LGF), as you just did. They would be even happier if a thread poster (e.g. Hugh, Raymond or Marisol, here at JW) were to make generalized negative statements about another weblog. A truly sticky ejaculation would result if Robert Spencer fell into their trap. He hasn't.
Posted by: del at August 8, 2008 3:14 PM
Very illuminating. Thank you, Robert, for posting it and thanks to James George Jatras for writing it.
{^_^}
Posted by: jdow at August 8, 2008 3:30 PM
Posted by: popcontest at August 8, 2008 9:32 AM
He can't expect anyone here to take him seriously after the BNP comment, can he?
Posted by: awake at August 8, 2008 4:09 PM
Yawn
Excuse me.
at August 8, 2008 5:44 PM
Mike:
DenverRodeo wrote approvingly of someone else who was characterized as having said that Milosevic was the victim of an international conspiracy.
For you to imply that someone here approves of Milosevic's mass murders reveals most vividly your lack of interest in honest discussion.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 8, 2008 5:48 PM
No, logically popcontest can't expect to be taken seriously, after the BNP comment---but serious debate isn't what he's after.
del, like you I believe that "popcontest" and "medaura" have an agenda. (Assuming these two aren't actually sock puppets of each other, or somebody else.) They push the Albanian cause on conservative websites, and do their best to stir up fights and flame wars. At this point, they're obviously trying to create fights and battles royale between conservative blogs---why? For what purpose? Maybe their agenda is the Albanian cause---and maybe it's something else. (Remember "medaura's" rant about "jewhadis" and "crusaders?" Doesn't sound particularly American, or pro-Western, does it?)
Posted by: TalkinKamel at August 8, 2008 6:37 PM
Michael Totten has been conned.
Posted by: Exposing Islam at August 9, 2008 12:30 AM
TalkinKamel,
I agree with you generally, but mph/popcontest and medaura/nameless-fool (Michael and Kejda, respectively, at their website/blog LiberalFamilydotcom [some of their posts either here or at Totten's site included the link and i first figured they were looking to generate some traffic]) are a complicated and manic (or is that maniacal?)pair. If one prefers not to access their site, A yahoo search on Liberalfamily and a look in the cache provides some information.
Also, a simple search on "medaura" quickly yields kejdadotnet, a name which matches a principal at LiberalFamily, and a look at a cache of her site yields some of her thinking:
"The fathers of Modern American Conservatism, -Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and William Buckley Jr. - are now all dead. Instead of bemoaning their loss as tragically irreplaceable and praying in vain for a second coming, Conservatives should rather adjust their intellectual-heritage rearview mirror until the founders of the American Nation come into clear sharp focus. Ironic corruption of language notwithstanding, it is Liberalism, as it is classically understood, which Conservatives better get in the business of conserving, and in so doing, shed some ideological deadweight of their own."
They see themselves as classical philosophical "Liberals" (that word didn't formerly mean what it does now) and want other "conservatives" to become like them. As such, they seem to wish to disturb various current alignments of readers and blogs or opinion makers, and seem to see themselves as a vanguard. There is no shortage of egotism and pretension in this vanguard-pair, but that seems to be their agenda.
In spite of kejda's regular references to her (partial)Jewish background when useful in an argument, she or her husband have described themselves as non-religious. In fact, they, or at least particularly she, are more accurately anti-religious from which one can understand the scorn with which she threw in the "crusader/jewhadist" garbage, as an insult, in a comment on lgf (from her essay at Kejda.net):
"The inane treatment of Judeo-Christianity as a proxy for Western Civilization should be first to go. Tying the moral foundations of the American Nation with cultural archetypes of prehistoric Biblical Jews, or with those of devout Europeans emulating them is beyond preposterous. The dogmatic authoritarianism inherent in Judeo-Christianity and its ubiquitous tradition of framing Man as a wretched sinful creature fallen from grace since birth, are antithetical to a societal infrastructure built around individual freedom and dignity."
and:
"if religion ever was the opiate of the masses, the “secular” Left is crack cocaine for the ideologically-vulnerable apostates of organized religion. New generations are rightfully laughing Judeo-Christian superstitions out of the cultural scene but they are also inevitably rejecting economic freedom and limited government by association. The Religious Right nearly drowned the baby in the filthy bathwater, and the “secular” Left is ready to throw both out altogether."
These two are not simply categorized (of course, the standard categories don't fit many other people, either). They are not "leftists", nor "conservatives", nor "rightists". I don't think they are pro-muslim, as much as they are anti-Judeo-Christian. They consider themselves to be classical liberals, which is somewhat like "libertarian" in current parlance.
Separate from their political philosophies, their personalities are both manic and very abrasive (as you know and as can be seen from a look at a list of their comments on LGF). They enjoy arguments and enjoy throwing epithets like "asshat", and "douchetard" at the drop of a hat. As such, they "win" arguments by being the only ones left on the field after their opponents realize that the pair are looney and a waste of time to attempt to communicate with.
Its kinda funny that, in grad school 10-15 yrs ago, i was acquainted with an Albanian-American immigrant. I think he was Christian, but we didn't talk religion. He was not a close friend, but we hung out once-in-a-while, talked a little politics and history when hiking and i had some sympathy for Albania and Albanians. I also had sympathy for Serbia and Serbians from talking to a family friend. After reading Kejda and Michael's diatribes, not much sympathy for Albanians remains. I guess that means that medaura and mph "won". Congrats to the newlyweds, eh?
at August 9, 2008 2:35 AM
Michael:
Looks like I stumbled into a BNP meeting.
Yes, when bested intellectually and on the basis of evidence, you can always cry "racism!"
It only underscores the utter vacuity of your arguments.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Well said Sir!
And thank you for educating us on the dangers of Islam, and that there is no "middle ground" or "moderate" Muslims that are willing to fight radical Islam (better known, perhaps, as Jihadists/terrorists).
at August 9, 2008 4:02 AM
"If these are the characters who have me "bested intellectually," then good for you and your crew of LGF rejects."
I'm an LGF reject and I'm proud. LGF is a lynch mob.
Posted by: johndoe at August 9, 2008 10:00 AM
johndoe
I have always liked Charles, but I am surprised and deeply disappointed that he let stand charges that I support genocide.
To his credit, he also let stand my rebuttal. So I suppose that is that. But when he has banned so many, I don't know why he lets the slanderous creeps medaura and MPH continue to post at will.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 9, 2008 10:25 AM
I'm aware of kedja/medaura's/popcontest's (whatever name they're going by this week) hatred for religion of all kinds, and hostility to Christians and Jews (despite "medaura's" trumpeted one-fifth/whatever Jewish background.)
I'm less interested in what their stated agenda is than the fact that they have one (and I don't think it's "liberal", whatever they might say on their website) and that it seems to involve stirring up trouble on conservative which, among other things, attempt to show what's going on with Islam's war against the west. As for their personalities and politics, the two can't be separated. Their abrasive personalities are used as a weapon in support of their politics. And, if they aren't deliberately pro-Islam in intent, then they are by default, since the end result of the flame wars and fights between conservative blogs will be to discredit said blogs, and make them useless in the WoT.
Posted by: TalkinKamel at August 9, 2008 11:03 AM
And, to be blunt, I seriously doubt they even want to drum up sympathy for the Albanian cause. As you pointed out, you don't have much sympathy left for Albanians after reading their site.
If you want to drum up sympathy for a cause, it's really not a good idea to scream at people, offer to spit virtual loogies at them, attempt in one fell blow to change their religous beliefs by shrieking insults at them (hey, that always works in convincing people of the errors of their ways) call them "douchetard", "F****tard", whatever-tard, order them to "shut-up!" and, when challenged, fall into rants about "Zionists!" "Jewhadis!" "Crusaders!" (Doesn't sound very liberal to me.)
Bloggers who really wanted to support a cause, such as the Albanians, wouldn't be so gleeful about alienating potential support.
They've got an agenda alright. It's neither liberal nor conservative.
Posted by: TalkinKamel at August 9, 2008 11:10 AM
Robert
There is a strong anti-Serb sentiment among LGF posters. I was banned for asserting that Serbia is the Israel of the Balkans, having been relentlessly demonised by the media, and had a right to exist and defend itself. I also suggested that Karadzic was innocent until proven guilty in a fair trial. That clinched it. The tone on the threads there regarding this issue is nothing short of hysterical,with some commenters coming up with gems like 'Serbs are pricks' and so on. I was banned for supporting genocide....patently absurd.....and those same commenters slurring the Serbs en masse are still there spewing their hate all over the blog. So yes, I am as disappointed as you that Charles allows such venom on his blog. It is indeed ironic that regular commenters there who are aware of the media prejudice against Israel are just as willingly brainwashed and indoctrinated by the MSM with regard to Serbia and blinded by the presence of the threat of jihad in the Balkans.
at August 9, 2008 4:24 PM
TalkinKamel,
you wrote:"And, if they aren't deliberately pro-Islam in intent, then they are by default, since the end result of the flame wars and fights between conservative blogs will be to discredit said blogs, and make them useless in the WoT."
Yes. Although I would have used "anti-jihad" instead of "WoT", imho, you are correct.
Posted by: del at August 9, 2008 4:54 PM
JohnDoe,
No, Karadzic is a Serb and a Serb is guilty until proven otherwise. But before he can prove anything he will be killed.
Posted by: LazarOfSerbia at August 9, 2008 10:32 PM
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