| FrontPageMag.com | Articles By Robert Spencer | Articles By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Robert Spencer Bio |  |
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
Yet another 1938 Alert from Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 28 – A senior Iranian cleric has approved attacks on foreign embassies in Tehran over the publication of insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European dailies, a website belonging to the office of hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reported.“Muslims must take the most ferocious stance against insults to Islamic sanctities”, the senior cleric told Ayatollah Dorri Najaf-Abadi, the country’s Chief State Prosecutor, according to the Persian-language website Khedmat.
“If setting fire to embassies of countries that insult the Prophet aims to show that these countries no longer have any place in Islamic countries then this act is permissible”, the senior ayatollah was quoted as saying.
The Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry says that real Qur'an-believing Muslims abhor violence and suicide bombers, and instead live in peaceful co-existence, mingling freely with peoples of other religions and races.
Well, that's a relief. But I do wish that Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz would go farther. Here again the flat assertion is made. No attempt is made to refute the jihadist exegesis of the Qur'an and Sunnah. We are told again and again that the true Islam is peaceful. But the jihadists are the ones quoting chapter and verse of the Qur'an: 2:190-193; 3:139; 5:51; 9:5; 9:29; 22:39; 47:4; 61:9; 98:6; so many others. On the other side? 2:256 (with no indication of any awareness of the exegesis of Qutb and others) and 5:32 (without 5:33). What are we to think? Must we just ignore this because Rafidah is saying what we want to hear? Can we not ask for more -- some sign that she can actually convince Muslims to lay down their arms and stop waging jihad? Without that ability, her fine words are essentially meaningless.
"Wrong To Equate Terrorists With Fundamental Muslims," from Bernama, with thanks to Nicolei:
MILAN, Feb 28 (Bernama) -- The West, which is seen as being on a collision course with the Muslim world, is completely wrong in equating Muslim trouble-makers with fundamental Muslims, Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz, said.Clarifying what is surely a common misconception among westerners, no thanks to terrorists and trouble-makers resorting to violence and killings in the name of the religion, Rafidah said "fundamental Muslims are those who follow closely the teachings of the Holy Quran."
Muslims who follow the fundamental teachings of the Quran abhor violence, suicide bombers, and instead live in peaceful co-existence, mingling freely with peoples of other religions and races, she said when touching on religious tolerance during a seminar on "Business Opportunities in Malaysia" here Monday....
Rafidah told the 300 participants at the seminar from Italy that "you are completely wrong in regarding Muslim trouble-makers as fundamental Muslims."
"Next time, you hear of a fundamental Muslim, think of me. I am a fundamental Muslim. I play golf, I dress this way (in a baju kurung), and go all over the world doing my work. Please do not equate fundamental Muslims and terrorists, there's a big difference," the minister said.
"I do not look like (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden," she said to the obvious amusement of the audience.
CAIR again comes out against freedom of speech. "We believe that responsibility comes with freedom of speech." In other words, there is no freedom of speech at all when it comes to Islam. For if there is no right to speak what may offend this or any group, there is no right to speak about it at all except in the most laudatory manner. If these mild cartoons can provoke such a reaction, any criticism, most likely including any honest investigation of the causes of Islamic violence, would be ruled out.
From The Detroit News, with thanks to Nicolei:
Muslim groups sharply criticized the online publication of controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Monday by a Michigan State University instructor and a group of students."We need to differentiate between freedom of speech and respect for each other," said Mahmoud Mousa, president of the Lansing chapter of the Muslim American Society.
"If it was about any of the great messengers of God, whether Moses, or Christ or the Prophet Muhammad, people would be offended at the same level."
The caricatures are published on spartanedge.com, an online newspaper published by journalism instructor Bonnie Bucqueroux.
In posting the controversial caricatures, Bucqueroux, said she perceives a clear difference between describing them and displaying them.
"The circumstance is that free speech really requires giving people information, and the information is to be able to look at the cartoons," she said....
"We believe that responsibility comes with freedom of speech," said Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan.
"The right to free speech and free speech does not give us the right to print things or say things that are intentionally provocative, distasteful and have the potential to provoke hatred for any group, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim or otherwise."
A fresh steaming pile of taqiyya. These cartoons don't provoke hatred for Muslims. Some of them poke fun at the manifest connection between Islam and violence. If that is "hatred," and CAIR succeeds in ruling it out of court, our ability to resist that violence will be severely threatened.
"...illegal arms, alcohol, and unethical items..." Another 1938 Alert from Iran Focus (thanks to JE):
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 28 – The United States and Britain are illegally smuggling arms into the Islamic Republic via its western neighbour Iraq in a bid to destabilise the Islamic Republic, Iran’s police chief said on Tuesday.“100 percent of all illegal arms, alcohol, and unethical items enter onto Iranian soil via Iraq”, Brigadier General Ismaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam told reporters.
“The entry of illegal weapons into the country is a completely organised enterprise by the big powers based in Iraq”, Ahmadi-Moqaddam said.
1938 Alert: "Exclusive: Terrorist training camps in Iran," from Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:
London, Feb. 27 – Iran Focus has obtained a list of 20 terrorist camps and centres run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).The names and details of the training centres were provided by a defector from the IRGC, who has recently left Iran and now lives in hiding in a neighbouring country. Iran Focus agreed to keep his identity secret for obvious security reasons.
The former IRGC officer said the camps and the training centres were under the control of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force, the extra-territorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards.
“The Qods Force has an extensive network that uses the facilities of Iranian embassies or cultural and economic missions or a number of religious institutions such as the Islamic Communications and Culture Organisation to recruit radical Islamists in Muslim countries or among the Muslims living in the West. After going through preliminary training and security checks in those countries, the recruits are then sent to Iran via third countries and end up in one of the Qods Force training camps”, the officer said.
A list follows at Iran Focus.
More unsavory news about our friends and allies in the UAE. Why can't the President at least threaten to kill this deal unless the ports firm ends its boycott of what is an actual American ally? "Exclusive: Dubai firm boycotts Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to all who sent this in:
The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.
"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.
"If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem," he said.
"Imam's son embraces rap," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
London - The son of jailed radical Islamist imam Abu Hamza al-Masri is embracing rap music to sing the praises of Hezbollah and Hamas, the Sun newspaper reported on Tuesday.The best-selling daily said it sent reporters under cover to meet Mohammed Kamel Mostafa - who goes by stage name Al-Ansary in the rap duo Lionz of Da Dezert - in a recording studio in north London.
"I want to put out an album for the mainstream market, then make a CD featuring hardcore lyrics," the British-born 24-year-old was quoted as saying, adding that he can "easily make more than a million" pounds.
In one of his songs, The Sun said, Mostafa raps: "I was born to be a soldier/Kalashnikov in my shoulder/peace to Hamasa and Hezbollah/that's the way of the lord Allah ... we're jihad through/defend my religion with the holy sword".
I believe that Zalmay Khalilzad is painting a bit overly rosy a picture, as other details in this article suggest. However, it is good to see that Abou al-Farouq was captured on a tip from residents. Muslim-on-Muslim violence always arouses a disgust with the mujahedin that violence against non-Muslims does not arouse, and it may be that he found his former protectors turning on him after the destruction of the Golden Mosque. From AP:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi security forces announced the capture of a senior al-Qaida in Iraq figure as they sought to deflect criticism of their handling of a surge of sectarian violence. The U.S. ambassador said the risk of civil war from last week's crisis was over.
Wow, that's terrific. Just like that, civil war averted. Ancient hostilities smoothed over. I feel so much better.
In Tikrit Tuesday, a bomb exploded at the mosque where Saddam Hussein's father is buried in northern Iraqi, police said....Meanwhile, violence throughout Iraq killed 36 people Monday, as fierce fighting broke out between Iraqi commandos and insurgents southeast of the capital. But sectarian clashes have declined sharply since the bloodletting that followed the destruction of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, and Baghdad residents returned to their jobs after three days of a government-imposed curfew....
"That crisis is over," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad declared.
"I think the country came to the brink of a civil war, but the Iraqis decided that they didn't want to go down that path, and came together," the ambassador told CNN. "Clearly the terrorists who plotted that attack wanted to provoke a civil war. It looked quite dangerous in the initial 48 hours, but I believe that the Iraqis decided to come together."...
The captured al-Qaida figure was identified as Abou al-Farouq, a Syrian who financed and coordinated groups working for Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, according to an Interior Ministry officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media.
Acting on a tip from residents, members of the Interior Ministry's Wolf Brigade captured al-Farouq with five other followers of al-Zarqawi near Bakr, about 100 miles west of Baghdad, the ministry officer said....
Sunni leaders accused the Shiite-dominated police and army of standing by as Shiite militiamen sprayed their mosques with machine-gun fire and took over some of them.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that more than 1,300 Iraqis were killed in the violence following the Samarra shrine attack, according to Baghdad's main morgue, far higher than previously reported. Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an official with the Interior Ministry, which collects statistics from police nationwide, put the figure Tuesday at 216.
The Defense Ministry said Monday that a curfew in Baghdad and three surrounding provinces curtailed the violence....
Interior Ministry commandos fought a three-hour gunbattle with Sunni-led insurgents near Nahrawan, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, after about 15 Shiite families were driven from their homes in the nearby village of Saidat, police said. At least eight commandos and five insurgents were killed in the fighting, which also injured six commandos and four civilians, police said.
The body of an official with Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim political group was delivered to the Health Ministry morgue Monday with signs of torture, his party said. Waad Jassim al-Ani, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was seized from his home Saturday by an unspecified "security agency," the party said. Sunni leaders accuse Iraq's Shiite-led Interior Ministry of running death squads that target them — a charge denied by the ministry.
Internet Jihad Update from a Washington Times editorial today (thanks to Gnosis):
A troubling video of an insurgent sniper in Iraq known only as "Juba" is spreading across the Internet. As National Public Radio describes it, in the professional-quality video, "Juba" is quiet, efficient and ruthless as he trains his sights on American soldiers and pulls the trigger. Jihadist messages accompany the grisly footage -- in English. The video's colloquial American vernacular strongly suggests the video was either made in the United States or by people deeply familiar with this country -- and skilled in the use of the latest technologies."Juba" is just the latest indication of the frightening success of the Internet jihad. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... our country has not," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said despondently earlier this month. Whether the United States is "losing" this high-technology war is debatable, but clearly we suffer critical losses the moment a "Juba" video in English comes into existence and spreads around the world.
Read it all.
A few days ago I wrote briefly about a Wall Street Journal article about Yenny Wahid, the daughter of the former President of Indonesia, who reasserted the familiar tropes that the true Islam is a religion of peace and that the global mujahedin are misusing it. Now Sheikh Qaradawi, who has been praised as a reformist by Saudi-funded Islamic "expert" John Esposito, asserts a very different view of Islam and the Qur'an. What would Yenny Wahid say to him? If she sincerely wants to spearhead Muslim reform, she should have some response to this.
"Leading Islamist Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: We are Fighting in the Name of Islam...This Jihad is an Individual Duty of the Entire Muslim Nation...They Fight Us With the Torah...We Should Fight Them With the Koran: 'There is a Jew Behind Me, Come and Kill Him,'" from MEMRI:
The following are excerpts from a television program with Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, aired on Qatar TV on February 25, 2006. Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), and the spiritual guide of many other Islamist organizations across the world, including the Muslim Brotherhood. TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1052 .[...]
"We are fighting them in the name of Islam, because Islam commands us to fight whoever plunders our land, and occupies our country. All the school of Islamic jurisprudence - the Sunni, the Shi'ite, the Ibadhiya – and all the ancient and modern schools of jurisprudence – agree that any invader who occupies even an inch of land of the Muslims must face resistance. The Muslims of that country must carry out the resistance, and the rest of the Muslims must help them. If the people of that country are incapable or reluctant, we must fight to defend the land of Islam, even if the local [Muslims] give it up.
"They must not allow anyone to take a single piece of land away from Islam. That is what we are fighting the Jews for. We are fighting them... Our religion commands us... We are fighting in the name of religion, in the name of Islam, which makes this Jihad an individual duty, in which the entire nation takes part, and whoever is killed in this [Jihad] is a martyr. This is why I ruled that martyrdom operations are permitted, because he commits martyrdom for the sake of Allah, and sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah.
"We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam."
[...]
"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews. It says 'servant of Allah,' not 'servant of desires,' 'servant of women,' 'servant of the bottle,' 'servant of Marxism,' or 'servant of liberalism'... It said 'servant of Allah.'...
Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer (left) with Douglas Murray at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague last week
The English writer Douglas Murray reports in The Times of London about the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, where I had the pleasure of meeting him and hearing his superb address last week. I stayed in the hotel under an assumed name also. Security was indeed very tight; how ironic that a conference on the defense of freedom had to be held under fortress-like conditions.
‘Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?” asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.
Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam’s current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.
Both Ye’or and Warraq write and speak under pseudonyms. Standing at the hotel desk I confessed to the girl that I didn’t have any other name, couldn’t think of a good one fast. I was given my key and made aware that the other person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out — the security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door.I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial conference on what would have been Fortuyn’s 58th birthday. I said I would talk on the effects of Europe’s increasingly Islamicised population and advocate a tougher European counterterror strategy. There was no overriding political agenda to the occasion, simply a desire for frank discussion.
The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam’s violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below “national emergency”.
This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.
Read it all.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the increasingly common misapprehension that Hamas, once in power, will moderate:
This business that Bush has been repeating, of how the responsibilities of rule will likely lead to a "moderation" of Hamas’ views can only be uttered by someone ignorant of history, and ignorant of a Total System. Sane people, Western man for example, even Western Political Man, is used to the give-and-take of compromise. One says "No New Taxes" and we read his lips, but new taxes is what we get. Another says "we will transform Social Security," but fortunately, given that particular person's ideas, it does not happen. Horse-trading goes on. Those who are American, in particular, are used to the various limits on power -- the system of federalism that divides power among sovereignties (so that one school district may assign Great Expectations and the next one, Garfield the Cat), and the famous checks and balances that every schoolboy learns about. And compared to European societies, the role of ideological clash is limited -- both parties accept, a bit too readily, the Gospel of Economic Growth in a way that would do the author of "Acres of Diamonds" proud.With this kind of background, how could Bush conceivably understand fanaticism? Or not fanaticism, but merely a belief-system that is both a Complete Regulation of Life and a Total Explanation of the Universe? How could he understand, given his limited understanding and experience, and his own comprehension of the word "religion" -- a word which evokes such automatic respect in so many -- could he begin to understand the "religion of Islam," for the word "religion" does not fit the case of what is in fact a religio-politico-geopolitical system for organizing all of life, invididual and collective? And the very idea of the "nation-state" means little to the Believer, for Islam is all about the collective, not the individual, but the collective is always the universal trans-national community of the Believers, the umma al-Islamiyya, to which one's exclusive loyalty as a Believer is owed. The world is divided between Believers and Infidels; the most distant Believer is owed a greater loyalty, by the good Muslim, than the Infidel next door.
How could he, Bush, or Rice, or all the others not fall for what they’re being told by so-called Muslim "reformers"? They’re being told that at least Hamas is not corrupt, so give it a chance, at least the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not corrupt, so Egyptian "reformer" Saad Eddin Ibrahim reassures us (see David Brooks's recent column, not for his confused interpretation of facts, but for a few of those facts) and so he, Saad Eddin Ibhrahim, is sanguine about their rise. But Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a Muslim, and we are Infidels; our interests differ. He wants less corrupt government within Egypt. We want an Islam that is less of a threat to us, in our lands and around the world. He does not wish to divide and demoralize the camp of Islam. He does not wish to keep the Muslim presence in Infidel lands to a minimum. Why should he? But we do. Of course all those Muslim "reformers" never did mind Islam as much as they should, for if they did, they would have gone the route of the full apostates -- Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Azam Kamguian. And they haven't. In talking to Infidels, they continue to deny the tenets, the attitudes, the atmospherics of Islam. Some because they really dismiss the views of the primitive Muslims who are so unlike themselves -- but so much more numerous. Some out of embarrassment or filial piety. Some out of a fatal inability to cut the cord with Islam, and to think that the phrase "I'm a cultural Muslim" will be enough to cover their case, and to justify themselves to all concerned. But not any more. Infidels need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Islam.Think of all those nice Iraqi exiles who assured us that we would be greeted as liberators and there would be no problem. Even Bernard Lewis, who relies for insight and inside dope upon all those nice, Westernized, attractive Muslim informants, could confidently predict in print (in 2002) that if the Americans were to liberate Baghdad, the joy that would be expressed would make the celebrations that had taken place previously in Kabul "look like a funeral procession."
So now Bush is gradually sliding into the line that they will all be too busy jockeying for positions, and divvying up the non-civil service positions to wage jihad. After all, aren't all countries sort of, kind of, the same? Iraqis will be too busy running for dog pound manager, board of aldermen, court officer, elevator inspector, the whole Mayor-Daley or Tammany Hall works -- because in the end, according to the sentimental and the terminally simple, basically People Are the Same the Whole World Over.No, they aren't. What goes into their brains, what they learn from birth, what imbues every conversation, what is their source of inspiration, the supplier of all historical and literary and personal allusion? What offers the model of the Perfect Man? What ties people down to a past, both real and mythical, so that what happened in 622 or 628 or 632 or 661 A.D. may be more important than what happens today? Imagine if Western leaders and peoples kept referring to what happened in England in 632, or in France, or Italy, or the United States, and that this haunted them, this divided them, this was realer than real to them.
There is a failure of intellect. There is a failure of effort. There is a failure of imagination.
The whole business of these Hamases and Muslim Brotherhoods coming to power, and then being "modified" by the new tasks, shows the usual ignorance of history. When the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, he had time to set in motion the killing -- first of members of the ancien regime, and the heads of the Jewish and Baha'i communities, and then to continue, with Judge Khalkhali distinguishing himself. He had time to pass laws. The very first law was that reducing the marriageable age of girls to nine years old (Query to Bush and Rice and David Brooks and Tom Friedman and every commentator in America: Why nine years? why not eleven, or thirteen?). And for 27 years, despite having to fight off the aggression of Saddam Hussein in an eight-year-long war, and despite the killing within the country (that aged couple, for example, of celebrated intellectuals, who were decapitated and their heads carefully placed at opposite ends of their mantelpiece, a little touch for friends and family of the murdered), and the murders of enemies in Paris and elsewhere, there is no sign that the regime is weakening. Ahmadinejad won overwhelmingly. And though to listen to some (e.g. Michael Ledeen) one would think that the regime is about to topple any minute, it's nonsense. It is the corruption of the Muslim clerics that has aroused opposition, but not, among the Iranian masses, the Islamic basis of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed, Ahmadinejad was the successful mayor -- a can-do mayor, a Giuliani-Stratton kind of mayor -- of Teheran, which is why he was elected. Not appointed -- elected.
There are so many examples of a totalitarian regime that comes to power and, if it is not sufficiently opposed, within and without, proceeds by degrees to do exactly what its leaders say. Hitler did carry out what he set down in Mein Kampf. The surprise was that it was a surprise. Mussolini, after the March on Rome, after coming to power, did not disband the Fascists. He did not cease to kill opponents (Matteotti, the fratelli Rosselli), or force them into exile (the young Pertini, in southern France). He had time to drain the Pontine marshes, time to improve agriculture, time to invade Ethiopia, and still had time for Fascism, Fascism, Fascism. He still had time for the leggi razziale, and still had time to meet with Hitler at the Villa Madama, and still had time to enter World War II.
And the Japanese Kodo-regime did the same.
Even in the New World, we have examples that perhaps Bush can understand. There is Fidel Castro. Oh, he spoke at the Harvard Law School Forum (outdoors, in back of the Coliseum) in 1959. Funny. A crowd-pleaser. But what happened? For 47 years he has ruled Cuba, and made it not nearly as severe as the Soviet model, because he lacked the resources -- but still, it has been for many a close-to-unendurable 47 years. And then there is Chavez, the dictator in the making, propped up by his oil wealth, as Castro was propped up by Soviet aid. Would Bush, for whom the examples of the Nazis and the Fascists and Iran may just be a little too distant, possibly grasp that the same argument is used about every totalitarian regime in the making, at the early stages?
And could the Infidels begin to grasp that "reform" will always, in a Muslim country, assume a Muslim form? Could they grasp that it will require a "return to Islam" or "more Islam"? Can they understand that whatever this means for the local Muslims -- it may indeed mean, for a while, less corruption -- for Infidels it means something quite different?
We are not, we Infidels, here to make the world wonderful for Muslims. We are here to protect ourselves from the Jihad that is not tangential but central to Islam. We must, therefore, engage in acts of mass pedagogy so that the still largely uninformed Infidels, wherever they may live, will grasp the significance of what is contained in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, and will find out what Muslim conquest of non-Muslim lands always meant for the conquered non-Muslims.
If our current leaders are not up to this, they must be pushed aside. Someone has been consistently misinforming Bush about Islam -- for example, that someone who gave him Sura 5.32 to read, but failed to inform him about Sura 5.33. Or was Bush himself attempting to mislead the American public, by such selective and misleading quotation? One would like to know who is learning what, and who is teaching what, about Islam, at the highest levels of government.
Or is no one learning anything? Is it all on a wing and a prayer?
1938 Alert from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Several hundred hard-line students threw stones and firebombs at the British Embassy in Tehran on Sunday, blaming Britain and the United States for the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Iraq.A few windows were broken in the embassy, and firebombs went off outside its walls during the two-hour protest, before Iranian police wielding sticks dispersed the students.
Nearly 1,000 students gathered outside the embassy in the morning and held a peaceful protest, chanting 'Death to America' and 'Death to Britain' and blaming the two countries in Wednesday's bombing of the shrine in the Iraqi town of Samarra.
'We hold the occupiers of Iraq responsible,' one banner read. They also held signs denouncing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were printed in European papers.
The larger demonstration ended without incident. But several hours later, around 400 students returned and attacked the embassy.
From our Bridge For Sale Department: Hamas, after insisting that it would not change or moderate one bit, is now suddenly, and for the first time in its history, singing a different tune. I would suggest that taking them at their word might be foolhardy at best, but I expect Western pols will be falling over themselves in their rush to do so. "Hamas plans for peace in stages," from The Australian, with thanks to JE:
HAMAS is prepared to establish a gradual peace with Israel under certain conditions, Palestinian prime minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh said in an interview yesterday.Attempting to project a moderate image for the Islamic organisation, whose principal declared goal up until now has been the destruction of the Jewish state, the Hamas official told The Washington Post that Hamas did not harbour animosity towards Jews and did not wish to throw them into the sea.
"If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages," he said, beginning with a long-term truce.
He declined, however, to commit himself when asked if Hamas would recognise Israel's right to exist, a commitment implying permanent peace rather than a period of truce followed by war.
"The answer," he said, "is to let Israel say it will recognise a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release prisoners and recognise the rights of the refugees to return to Israel...."
The 1967 borders, of course, provide little or no military security. I crossed the Sea of Galilee on a boat in November and ate lunch at a restaurant in an area that used to be fired on regularly by Syrian troops in the Golan Heights. To retreat to those borders in the context of a truce offered by Hamas, particularly given the fact that Islamic law only allows for a truce in order to give the Muslims the chance to gather strength to fight again more effectively, would be the prelude to the total destruction of Israel.
This business about the war on terror not being a fight against Islam is repeated endlessly, but rarely examined closely. Of course, Downer and all the others who say this mean that the war on terror can and should be pursued without impinging on Muslim belief and practice, and that Muslims themselves should join it. On the other side, jihadists, because they argue that what they are doing is justified by and essential to Islamic belief and practice, routinely characterize the war on terror as a war on Islam.
That fact indicates that it is not non-Muslims like Downer, but actually Muslims in pluralistic societies who claim to be moderate, loyal citizens of the countries in which they reside, who need to establish that the war on terror is not a war on Islam. They can do this by joining it wholeheartedly, seeking out and exposing the jihadists among their ranks, and demonstrating through their deeds that they can oppose jihad violence and its goal of the imposition of the Islamic social order and the subjugation of infidels, while continuing to practice Islam in some fashion. The burden of proof is on them. Downer and other Western pols shouldn't waste one second reasurring Muslims that the war on terror is not a war on Islam; instead, they should be asking them: "Show us that the war on terror is not a war on Islam. We don't want to go to war with the Islamic world in general, but we cannot ignore or deny the fact that those who have determined to destroy us are operating according to Islamic principles. Show us that you do not hold to the advancement of those principles either by violent or peaceful means, and that you will join us in combatting them."
So far, Muslim organizations in America and Europe seem primarily concerned with obstructing anti-terror efforts. Nor have they done anything to formulate a non-jihadist, non-Sharia, pluralist Islam, although they continue to assert loudly and regularly that such a thing exists, and is in fact the Real Thing. Why is it beyond politicians like Downer to say, politely but firmly, Show me?
"Fighting terrorism is not a fight against Islam: Downer," from Australia's AFP, with thanks to JE:
Fighting terrorism must not be characterised as a fight against Islam or support for terrorists will be boosted, Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says.Delivering a keynote address to an international seminar in Jakarta looking at ways of building cooperation against terrorism, and in particular suicide bombings, Mr Downer emphasised the damage extremists sought to wreck in Muslim nations.
"One of the greatest challenges of our age is to ensure that as we fight terrorism, extremism and intolerance, we do not at the same time trigger broader conflict between civilisations," he said.
"To characterise this fight against terrorism as a fight against Islam is to invite not just a clash of civilisations, but the broadening of support for terrorists," he said, adding that this was not a struggle of Islam versus Christianity either.
All of South-East Asia's suicide bombings have occurred in the world's most populous Muslim nation, beginning with the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Tiny Minority of Extremists and Cartoon Rage Updates from AP (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
KARACHI, Pakistan - About 25,000 people rallied in Karachi against Prophet Muhammad cartoons Sunday while authorities rounded up scores of Islamic hardliners to stop them from demonstrating in another Pakistani city.Pakistan banned anti-cartoon rallies in Lahore after several demonstrations turned deadly, but protests were allowed to go ahead in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and economic hub.
Protesters chanted “Down with the blasphemer,” “Death to America,” and “End diplomatic ties with European countries.”
About 25,000 people joined the rally organized by Tahafuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat, a Sunni Muslim religious group, said Shaukat Shah, a Karachi police officer.
The protest was the biggest in the port city since 40,000 rallied there on Feb. 16 against the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.
In Lahore, police thwarted an illegal rally by arresting or detaining without charge some 150 people, including clerics, opposition lawmakers and religious school administrators on Saturday and Sunday, police official Amir Zulfiqar said....
Nearly 100 of Ahmed’s supporters stood near the police blockade chanting “Punishment for insulting the prophet is death.” There was no violence.
That is, no violence this time.
Another sign of how deeply jihad sentiments are embedded within Saudi society. From SIA News (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
(Washington DC, February 25, 2006)... In a sign of weakening loyalties to the ruling tribe of Al-Saud, two Saudi suicide bombers who attacked the Abqaiq gas plant Friday, hail from two leading Saudi Najdi families with numerous members occupying leading official positions in the absolute monarchy.The first suicide bomber Abdullah AbdulAziz AlTwaiajri's, is relative to AbdulAziz Al-Twaijri, King Abdullah's closest advisor for over 50 years, and among the most influential men in the country. Khalid and Abdul Mohsen Al-Twaijri are secretary and advisor for the King consecutively. Ahmed Othman Al-Twaijri is a member of the Shoura Council, and Major General Saad Al-Twaijri is the head of the Saudi Civil Defense. Numerous other members of Al-Twaijri family occupy political and security positions.
Similarly is the case of Mohamed Saleh Al-Ghaith, who is a relative of Wahhabi cleric Ibrahim Abdullah Al-Ghaith, the head of the Saudi religious police.
Of course, this is what many others in other parts of the world have been saying openly for years. From Israel National News, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Sheikh Ismail Nawahda, preaching to Moslem masses on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday, has brought it out into the open: the call to restore the Moslem Khalifate, or, "Genuine Islamic Rule."A plan for the "Return of the Khalifate" was published secretly in 2002 by a group called "The Guiding Helper Foundation." The group explained that it wished to "give direction to the educated Muslim populace in its increasing interest in the establishment of Islam as a practical system of rule."
This past Friday, Feb. 24, however, the plan went public. Sheikh Nawahda called publicly for the renewal of the Islamic Khalifate, which would "unite all the Moslems in the world against the infidels."
The Khalifate system features a leader, known as a Khalif, who heads worldwide Islam. Assisted by a ten-man council, his decisions are totally binding on all Moslems.
According to the Foundation's vision of the Khalifate, significant punishment can only be meted out for 14 crimes, including "accusing a chaste person of fornication," "not performing the formal prayer," and "not fasting during Ramadan."
This past week I have, more or less back to back, spoken at two conferences: the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture's Restoration Weekend in Phoenix, Arizona. I hope to be writing a bit here about both as soon as time permits, but briefly: in my addresses at both conferences I emphasized the importance of realizing that the global jihad is not being advanced only by military means, and that the official refusal to acknowledge that many share the goals of the mujahedin but are pursuing them by peaceful means is hindering our defense against that particular line of attack.
To wit: in the course of these travels, which for various reasons involved stops in some other places as well, I took a cab in an American city. The driver was a Muslim who, after peering at me for awhile in the rearview mirror, advanced the theory that I was a Pakistani Muslim. I let him talk, and didn't hasten to reveal to him my true identity; I did tell him I was not a Muslim, but he then simply assumed that I had lapsed and began exhorting me to read the Qur'an and return to full observance of the faith. I took the opportunity to ask him about some matters that I told him I found troubling, such as the unreasonable violence of the global cartoon rage. He explained that it was true: innocent people should not have been killed. Only the cartoonists, he said, should be killed.
If he holds to Islamic blasphemy law, and the necessity of enforcing it on non-Muslims in a non-Muslim state, it is very likely that this man also holds to the same vision of Islamic law, Islamic supremacy, and the ultimate subjugation of the infidels, that motivates Osama bin Laden. Is anyone paying attention to the prevalence of this ideology among Muslims in America?
As for me, I'm hoping that strawberries will sprout through the snow on the pine tree out back. From The Australian, with thanks to JE:
US President George W. Bush suggested overnight that being in government might have "a moderating influence" on the radical group Hamas in the wake of its victory in Palestinian legislative elections."As democracy takes root, the responsibilities of governing will have a moderating influence on those who assume power in free elections. It's easier to be a martyr than a mayor or a cabinet minister," he said.
Since the President is so fond of postwar Germany as an historical model for present-day Iraq, perhaps he will pause to consider a point from German history of a few years earlier: the responsibilities of governing didn't have the slightest moderating influence on the National Socialist German Workers Party.
Lackawanna, NY jihadist escapes from jail in Yemen. From Newsday, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A former Lackawanna resident has been placed on the FBI's list of 26 "most wanted" terrorist suspects.Jaber A. Elbaneh, 39, is accused of training with the "Lackawanna Six" in 2001. He was among a group of 23 suspected terrorists who tunneled out of a prison in Yemen Feb. 3. He still has relatives in the city of Lackawanna, near Buffalo.
"He's an individual who has not only associated with al-Qaida, but has taken part in a prison breakout with al-Qaida," Buffalo FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said. The most wanted list is headed by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the Shi'a and their role in American policymaking toward the Middle East:
The only surprise -- and this is only a surprise to those who have not been paying attention -- about the attempted attack in Saudi Arabia is that it is being claimed by, and promptly attributed to, Al-Qaeda.One would not have been surprised had the attack come from Shi'a living in al-Hasa province. For it is they, several hundred thousand of them, who for a very long time have had to endure Wahhabi malevolence, Wahhabi discrimination, Wahhabi contumely. They might have been inspired by the Shi'a ascendancy in Iraq, which they can hardly have remained unaware of, and the Shi'a ability to now fight back. Nor will the Shi'a in Bahrain, who make up 70% or more of the population, and are now chafing under Sunni rulers, fail to be inspired. Nor will the nearly half of the population in Yemen that is Shi'a, nor the Shi'a in Afghanistan, the Mongol-descended Hazaras, who were killed, or if women taken as sex slaves by the Sunnis of the Taliban. Nor will the Shi'a in Pakistan, whose professional class has long been a target of Sunni attacks, especially by members of two groups, Sipha-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi, somehow remain immune to news of the Sunni-Shi'a conflict in Iraq. Even without fighting, these groups will be inspired by the endless hostility between Sunni and Shi’a, which phone calls from George Bush, and calls for "peace," will not have the slightest effect in diminishing, save temporarily, and only among some of the leaders, not the less malleable populace.
One would love to know when Bush, when Rice, when all the rest of them first began to realize that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant, inevitably, that the Shi'a would take power, either over all of Iraq or over the southern part with the major oil resources and the only port. When did it occur to them that perhaps the sectarian split would not be overcome in the general "joy at liberation" (the joy in Baghdad will make the celebrations in Kabul seem like a "funeral procession" -- Bernard Lewis, 2002)? When did they figure out that the Shi'a resentment of the Sunnis, and Sunni contempt for the Shi'a, long preceded the regime of Saddam Hussein and that those who kept assuring them otherwise had their own fish to fry -- especially all those thoroughly-westernized Shi’a exiles who either ignored, or simply forgot, what the real Iraq, and the real Iraqis, were really like? And while Allawi, Chalabi, and Kanan Makiya were secular Shi'a, who themselves may have wanted to downplay, for the Americans, the real nature of Iraq. And, in their long Western exiles, where some of them became, centaur-like, half-Western men, they may have forgotten as well the craziness and violence of their own countrymen, with the centuries-old resentments reinforced by the last few decades of Sunni despotism, and with that widespread susceptibility to rumor and conspiracy theories which come naturally to those raised up in a belief-system that discourages free and skeptical inquiry. And even that survivor, the Baghdadian Vicar of Bray, the Sunni manipulator described formulaically and much too charitably as an "elder stateman," the famously louche Adnan Pachachi (a member of the Sunni elite and member of even a pre-1958 government), who claimed the other day, in an interview in the Corriere della Sera, that there is not, and never will be, a "civil war" because the Sunnis and the Shi'a have always gotten along famously, and in fact Shi'a were prominent in Saddam Hussein's regime.
Now the Administration is said to be "worried" about "civil war." The thing to worry about, if you are not in the Administration, but simply an intelligent Infidel, is why anyone in the government of the United States expresses "worry" about sectarian violence between different sects of mujahedin, who otherwise would be devoting their energies to our destruction.And still worse, why do they "worry" about this sectarian violence "spreading" elsewhere in the Middle East and in Muslim lands further away?
I understand why the Al-Saud family should be worried. I understand why the Ruler of Bahrain (oh, did he promote himself to king yet? I can't remember) should be worried. I understand why the government of Yemen should be worried. I understand why the Sunnis and Shi'a in Lebanon might be worried. I understand why some Shi'a and Sunnis in Pakistan and Afghanistan might be worried.
But why, exactly -- please explain so I can get it through my thick skull -- should the Infidels in charge of the non-Muslim government of the non-Muslim (in everything which made America America) United States "worry" over the "threat" of Sunni-Shi'a civil war?
Bush gets on his high horse about those who would question his policy on the U.A.E. Ports deal ("bigotry" and so on). He still tells us, even now, that there are those who "would pervert" a "noble" religion. He still talks, incessantly, driving us all batty, about a "war on terror" and our "allies" --- Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the U.A.E., Morocco, Algeria -- in that "war on terror." But about the real war, the war of self-defense against the Jihad and all of its instruments -- silence. Silence about Europe, except to push for Turkey's admission to the European Community. Silence about the islamization of Western Europe. Lukewarm defense of freedom of speech, with time for equal deploring of those who do not responsibly exercise that "freedom" (i.e. dare to offend Muslims). Continued belief in the "two-state solution" which shows continued incomprehension of the nature of the Arab and Muslim opposition to Israel, where not further surrender by the Israelis, but only overwhelming power on their side (not merely possessed, but seen to be possessed), can prevent the Lesser Jihad from being pursued by military means. Only the doctrine of necessity, Darura, invoked when the Infidel enemy is simply too strong, can prevent that, and keep the peace.
He's on his high horse about the U.A.E. business. He's still talking, or rather, hallucinating, about Iraq -- and American soldiers will continue to pay with their lives for his, and his advisers, hallucinations. He still can't talk about Islam or the Jihad; it's still the "war on terror."
That's why none of us can stand him. That's the real explanation for our fury over the U.A.E. business. The U.A.E. has not earned our trust. But Bush and Company have also not earned our trust. There is nothing Machiavellian about them. Nothing cunning. Just a messianic wish to bring "democracy" which then becomes confused when the "democracy" doesn't quite work out that way. Look at the twin farces of the "elections" held in Egypt, where when allowed to present a candidate the Muslim Brotherhood swept the board, and in Saudi Arabia, where the teeny tiny municipal elections always produced winners from among the most fanatically Muslim. Look also, for that matter, at the non-existent "Palestinian people," with their elevation of Hamas to be their representatives.
Yet here is the American army, still smack in the middle of Iraq. It is still there, with money and materiel and men's lives being put on hold, and risked, and sometimes ended altogether. Meanwhile the pretense continues that a "united" army -- an "Iraqi" army, an army of "Iraqis" -- can be trained and produced beyond more than the handful that are now so carefully being nurtured and given endless amounts of care by the American soldiers who are their nurses. They are the premature babies who have to be tended to at every step. At this rate, we will be in Iraq, and spend another half-trillion, before there are even 20,000 "Iraqi" soldiers. They will be the only 20,000 Sunni and Shi'a Arabs, and Kurds, who will be found willing, at this point, to fight together -- which means, to trust their lives to each other.
It can't be done. Facts, history, that sort of thing - stubborn things. Remember?
Not Bush. Not Bush who is now getting up on his high horse. All Hat, and No Cattle.
Toledo Jihad Update. "Documents from Muslim charity seized during terror arrests," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
TOLEDO, Ohio -- Documents seized by federal agents suggest that two of three Muslim men accused of plotting to kill American and allied soldiers may have ties to a Muslim charity suspected of funneling money to the militant organization Hamas.Federal agents seized an invoice from the charity, known as KindHearts, from a travel agency where defendant Mohammad Zaki Amawi worked.
Agents also took a KindHearts binder from an address where defendant Marwan Othman El-Hindi lived.
Lists of items seized were filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Toledo.
The three suspects _ El-Hindi, Amawi and Wassim I. Mazloum _ were arrested last weekend. All have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiring to kill Americans and conspiring to provide or conceal support to terrorists. They could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the most serious offenses.
U.S. Attorney Greg White said the investigations of KindHearts and the alleged terror plot are separate.
KindHearts has denied any terrorist connections and has said it is a humanitarian organization. But on Feb. 19, the Treasury Department ordered U.S. banks to freeze the assets of the Toledo-based charity.
Cleveland lawyer Jihad Smaili, who is also a KindHearts board member, said Saturday that items seized by federal agents during the terror arrests do not prove any link with his organization.
"There is no connection there," Smaili said. "Even if these men had KindHearts items in their possession, that does not mean that KindHearts supported them to do something illegal. That would be guilt by association."
Mazloum, 24, is Lebanese and came to the United States in 2000. He is a legal, permanent resident of the U.S.
El-Hindi, 43, is a U.S. citizen born in Jordan. Amawi, 26, is a citizen of both the U.S. and Jordan.
Other items seized by federal agents during the arrests included bank and phone records, computers, cell phones, knives, travel records and battle dress uniforms.
Yet more evidence of the involvement of state agents in the jihad. From DPA, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
BEIRUT - Lebanon has refused to extradite to the United States four suspected Shia Hezbollah members believed to have carried out attacks against Americans in Beirut during the 1980s, judicial sources said on Saturday.They said Lebanese authorities refused to extradite four Lebanese: Imad Moughaniyeh, Hassan Ezzeddine, Ali Atwe and Mohammed ali Hamadeh....
Three of the four wanted Lebanese - Moughaniyeh, Ezzeddine and Atwe - are accused of participation in a 1983 attack on US Marines headquarter in Beirut in which more than 100 Marines were killed.
The fourth Mohammed Hamadeh, who returned to Lebanon in December after he finished serving his jail sentence in Germany for possessing explosives, is accused by the United States of the 1985 highjacking of a TWA airliner during which a US Navy diver was killed.
Authorities have also rejected a US request to hand over Wassef Hassoun, an American of Lebanese origin who deserted the Marines in 2004 and left Iraq for Lebanon and then left the southern port city of Tripoli for the US. It was reported later that Hassoun has left the US and headed back to Lebanon.
More evidence of the involvement of state agents in the jihad. From Haaretz, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
The Lebanese government publicly admitted recently, for the first time, that it had permitted the delivery of a convoy of arms from Syria to Hezbollah. The United Nations responded by issuing a condemnation.According to Lebanese sources, Lebanese soldiers halted a convoy of arms-laden trucks from Syria at an army checkpoint in the Lebanon Valley on January 31. However, the Lebanese Defense Ministry ordered the soldiers to allow the convoy to proceed.
A report on this incident then reached the UN's special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Larsen, in New York, and Larsen instructed his staff to investigate. Eventually, the Lebanese government admitted both that it had allowed the convoy to pass, and that the arms had been destined for Hezbollah.
The UN then published a statement condemning the Lebanese government for having blatantly violated UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which, inter alia, calls for disarming the country's militias.
The arms in the convoy originated apparently from Iran. It is not known how many trucks were in the convoy or what arms they carried.
Well, sure, ok, Al-Qaeda has infiltrated their government, but not to worry: Americans will still be in charge of port security. And I expect they'll be quite busy once our friends and allies from Dubai take over port operations. "Qaeda Claim: We 'Infiltrated' UAE Gov't," from the New York Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
February 25, 2006 -- WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda warned the government of the United Arab Emirates more than three years ago that it "infiltrated" key government agencies, according to a disturbing document released by the U.S. military.The warning was contained in a June 2002 message to UAE rulers, in which the terror network demanded the release of an unknown number of "mujahedeen detainees," who it said had been arrested during a government crackdown in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks....
Little is known about the origins or authorship of the message.
"You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship and monetary agencies, along with other agencies that should not be mentioned," the message said.
"Therefore, we warn of the continuation of practicing . . . policies which do not serve your interest and will only cost you many problems that will place you in an embarrassing state before your citizens.
"Your homeland is exposed to us. There are many vital interests that will hurt you if we decided to harm them."
No, it isn't that Michael Moore. Notice also the heading at the top of the page: "Business Telegraph, in association with Emirates." Emirati corporations are popping up in the most interesting places, aren't they? "Dubai 'will not drop' £3.9bn bid for P&O," from the Telegraph (in association with Emirates), with thanks to Sr. Soph:
Dubai Ports World last night insisted that it would press on with its £3.9bn purchase of P&O despite three new court cases seeking to derail the deal following a political storm in America.Michael Moore, DP World's senior vice president, told the Sunday Telegraph: "We are fully committed to closing this deal. There is absolutely no thinking along any other lines. The court cases don't throw anything into doubt."...
DP World has sought to defuse the outcry by promising to segregate the operation of the US ports in a trust until an agreement can be reached. Last night, de Verneuil Smith said that was "an absurd concept".
Cartoon Rage, and the assault on freedom of speech, continues. From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia has suspended the operations of another Chinese-language newspaper for publishing one of the controversial cartoons that have sparked global protests.Publication of the Berita Petang Sarawak, a newspaper in the eastern states of Sarawak, Sabah and neighbouring Brunei, has been suspended for two weeks, the Internal Security Ministry said in a statement late Saturday.
It said the two-week suspension was effective from Sunday until March 11.
“The decision was made after Berita Petang Sarawak published an article: “We are prepared for the jihad war’, on February 4, which contained the caricature,” the ministry said....
Earlier this month the government suspended the Chinese-language Guangming Daily for two weeks for publishing a photograph of a person reading a newspaper carrying one of the cartoons.
It also shut down indefinitely the operations of The Sarawak Tribune, believed to be the first newspaper in the world to be closed for publishing the drawings, which have sparked a wave of protests that have left some two-dozen people dead.
But the official New Straits Times, which published a cartoon parodying the controversy over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, escaped punishment after it issued a front page apology....
The Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance said on Friday that the amount of government interference in the Malaysian media, particularly of late, was an indication of the country’s declining standards of democracy.
“The government has no place interfering with the press and upsetting this system of checks and balances,” it said in a statement.
Jihad Thomas Update: justice done in Australia. From the BBC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
An Australian man who changed his name to Jihad Jack has been convicted of receiving funds from al-Qaeda.Jack Thomas, a Muslim convert, was found guilty of accepting $3,500 (£2,000) and a plane ticket home from an al-Qaeda agent in Pakistan.
A Melbourne court heard that Thomas had visited al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan shortly before the 9/11 attacks.
He is the first Australian to be charged under laws on the funding of terrorism passed in 2002.
'No terrorist'
The 32-year-old former taxi driver could face up to 25 years in jail when he is sentenced by the Supreme Court in the next few days.
He was also found guilty of possessing a false passport, but he was found not guilty of intentionally providing resources for al-Qaeda.
The prosecution alleged that Thomas trained in al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan before moving to Pakistan.
...as those they have nurtured turn on them. "al-Qaida Threatens to Hit More Saudi Sites," from AP:
MANAMA, Bahrain - Al-Qaida suicide bombers will attack more Saudi oil facilities, the terror group purportedly threatened Saturday in an Internet statement that claimed responsibility for the foiled attack on the Abiqaiq plant in eastern Saudi Arabia.Two suicide bombers tried to drive cars packed with explosives into Abiqaiq, the world's largest oil processing facility, on Friday afternoon, but security guards opened fire and the vehicles exploded outside the gates, killing the bombers and fatally wounding two guards....
A statement appeared on a militant Web site saying that Friday's attack was "part of a series of operations that al-Qaida is carrying out against the crusaders and the Jews to stop their plundering of Muslim wealth." It was signed "al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula" — the name of the Saudi branch of the terror network.
The statement did not acknowledge that the attack was foiled. In fact, it claimed that the two "heroic holy warriors" managed to enter Abiqaiq.
"There are more like them who are racing toward martyrdom and eager to fight the enemies of god, the Jews, the crusaders and their stooges, the renegade rulers" of Arab countries, the posting said.
"You will see things that will make you happy, god willing," concluded the statement....
The al-Qaida Web posting said "these (oil) factories help to steal the wealth of Muslims" and claimed the attack was "part of al-Qaida's project to expel the infidels from the Arab peninsula."...
The posting said Friday's attack was dubbed "Operation Bin Laden Conquest."
The huge Abqaiq facility processes about two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's oil for export, removing hydrogen sulfide and reducing the vapor to make the crude safe for shipping. It lies 25 miles inland from the Gulf coast.
Of course it would never end. In fact, it hasn't ended, ever since the days of Ali. It has never ended, it has only fallen into abeyance now and again. Just as the jihad has never ended, but ebbs and flows with the resources and will of those who wish to pursue it. From Reuters:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's defense minister warned on Saturday of the risk of a "civil war" that "will never end" as sectarian violence flared again despite a second day of curfew in Baghdad.Extending a traffic ban in the capital to Monday after battles around Sunni mosques and a car bomb in a holy Shi'ite city, leaders scrambled to break a round of reprisals sparked by a suspected al Qaeda bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Wednesday.
Sunni and Shi'ite clerics met to seek a joint approach at Baghdad's holiest Sunni mosque, site of one clash overnight.
The gravest crisis since the U.S. invasion in 2003 threatens Washington's hopes of withdrawing its 136,000 troops from Iraq.
"If there is a civil war in this country it will never end," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a minority Sunni Muslim in the Shi'ite-led interim government, told a news conference.
"We are ready to fill the streets with armored vehicles."
Entrusting our future to the gentle ministrations of the UAE. From WND, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:
Dubai Ports World is scheduled to take over operations at 22 U.S. ports, not six as previously reported by most major media.According to the website of P&O Ports, the port-operations subsidiary of the London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), DPW will pick up stevedore services at 12 East Coast ports including Portland, Maine; Boston; Davisville, R.I.; New York; Newark; Philadelphia; Camden, N.J.; Wilmington, Del.; Baltimore, Md.; and Virginia locations at Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth.
Additionally, DPW will take over P&O stevedoring operations at nine ports along the Gulf of Mexico including the Texas ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston, Houston, Freeport, and Corpus Christi, plus the Louisana ports of Lake Charles and New Orleans.
Previously reported have only been P&O Ports' container operations at New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans. Stevedore services also typically involve the loading and unloading of containers on and off cargo ships, as well as moving and storing containers, though often in separate facilities from where containers are initially loaded and unloaded from the cargo ships. Thus, while DPW will be operating the container terminal operations of only the six ports initially disclosed, DPW will be managing stevedore services, handling containers at a total of 21 ports, located along the Eastern seaboard from Maine to Virginia, and across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Louisiana.
My dear friend Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations displays his Islamic moderation on PBS (thanks to Summiter):
ABERNETHY: What about aid to Hamas or the people in the Palestinian territories? What do you make of that?Mr. HOOPER: Well, I think we need not to be seen as sabotaging a democratic election that was overwhelmingly in favor of a certain party. And I think we need to give any new government the opportunity to provide basic services to end corruption and to fulfill the national aspirations of the Palestinian people.
ABERNETHY: But isn't it against American law to give any foreign aid to a terrorist organization?
Mr. HOOPER: Yeah. It seems that it may be against the law to do that. But there are other avenues, through NGOs and other ways, to accomplish the goal. But right now we're going around the world saying strangle the new government. And I don't think that's the message we want to send.
So you are in support of the Hamas movement, which has celebrated its murders of Israeli civilians, Mr. Hooper? Is that the message you want to send?
I am on the road, as assiduous readers of the comments here already know, and so I don't have time to give this the evisceration it deserves, but a brief note. The Wall Street Journal has outdone itself, following up the piece of puffery it published in December by the former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, with a new piece of puffery about his daughter, Yenny Wahid.
She is active in the NU's political wing, the National Awakening Party, and an adviser to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The job most dear to her heart, however, is running the Wahid Foundation--named after her father--which works to promote, in the words of its Web site, "democratic reform, religious pluralism, multiculturalism and tolerance amongst Muslims" and reflects "a universal Islam [that] desires justice and prosperity for all."
That's wonderful. In effect I suppose she means that she wants to see the dhimma officially renounced and never revived. I would applaud that, and support her wholeheartedly. But there is also this:
Like her famous father and other influential clerics in Indonesia, Ms. Wahid is trying to hold the line against this trend. Their task, as she sees it, is to remind Indonesians of the true teachings of Islam and its sacred texts. "One thing for sure is that [radicals] have a very distorted view of what religion should be," she says. "Killing people meaning glory? It's lunacy. We do discuss these things, we hold conferences, for instance on the word 'jihad' and how it's been used and abused throughout history. The prophet Muhammad said the greatest jihad is against yourself, how to make yourself a better person. It's not . . . running to kill people."
When I read this sort of thing, crab that I am, I get the sneaking suspicion that this is framed more for Western non-Muslims than for Muslims. For when she says, "the prophet Muhammad said the greatest jihad is against yourself, how to make yourself a better person," she is referring to a tradition that does not appear in the collections of hadith considered most reliable by Muslims, and she takes no account of the polemics by Hasan Al-Banna, Abdullah Azzam and others that make exactly that point, and are influential among Muslims. Muslims in Indonesia who have been recruited into jihadist groups have very likely been taught that. Does Yenny Wahid think that blandly restating what they believe to be a weak hadith will disabuse them of the jihad ideology that is based on a strong foundation of Qur'an and Sunnah? Or is she just trying to reassure jittery Westerners that they have nothing to fear from Islam?
Whichever, it would be better just to tell the truth. She can fool people who don't know Qur'an and Sunnah into thinking they don't teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers, but she can't fool Muslims who might be attracted to jihad groups. And those are the ones she really needs to convince.
I have written things like this many, many times before, and I have often been told that it is positively Luciferian of me to do so, for we need to support Muslims who teach peace and tolerance. The obvious answer I always give is that of course we need to support Muslims who teach peace and tolerance, but I don't think it is asking too much of them if I ask for a little honesty. If you are trying to create an Islam of peace and tolerance, I am all for you. But don't try to pull the wool over my eyes and tell me that Islam teaches peace and tolerance. I have read Qur'an innumerable times. I have read Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, Muwatta Malik, and others. I have read the tafasir of Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and the modern tafasir of Qutb and Maududi. I have studied the fiqh on jihad of all four major Sunni madhahib. I know what the teachings of the Islamic schools of thought are on jihad warfare. I didn't create this material myself. I obtained it from Islamic sources, Islamic publications. I have detailed some of this evidence in Onward Muslim Soldiers and my other books. So when I hear that the real Islam teaches peace, I have trouble believing that the one who is saying it is being fully honest, or is fully informed about the situation. I would be happy to support a reformer who acknowledges that the teachings on warfare exist, and rejects them. But someone who tells me they don't exist at all -- well, that just makes me suspicious.
Someone said to me after I wrote the piece about Andurrahman Wahid, linked above, that we had to support such people because the prospects for the future become just too bleak if we say the problem is within Islam itself. Here again, it's really very simple: if you won't admit it's broken, you'll never be able to fix it. Unfortunately, however, comforting fantasies are the rule not only at the Wall Street Journal, but in much of official Washington.
I am catching an early stagecoach back to Secure Undisclosed Locationville soon. Heavier blogging will resume upon my return.
Astounding short-sightedness alert. From AP:
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Friday it won't reconsider its approval for a United Arab Emirates company to take over significant operations at six U.S. ports. The former head of the Sept. 11 commission said the deal "never should have happened."Opponents, including the agency that runs New York and New Jersey ports, took their case to court, while the company, Dubai Ports World, stepped up efforts to change the minds of congressional critics.
The president's national security adviser said the White House would keep trying to persuade lawmakers — there's more time since the company offered to delay its takeover — but the administration wouldn't reconsider its approval.
Tiny Minority of Extremists and Cartoon Rage Updates. "Cartoon protesters defy rally ban," from AP, with thanks to Nicolei:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Thousands of Muslims defied a ban on rallies Friday in Pakistan's capital, joining protesters across the country in condemning the Prophet Muhammad cartoons printed by some Western newspapers.The demonstrations after midday prayers also gave angry clerics a platform to criticize President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and his government's close relations with the United States.
"America is the killer of humanity, and we will keep raising our voice against it, and its supporter (Musharraf)," said Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, a cleric and opposition leader who led the Islamabad protest, which drew 2,000 people.
He said protests would also be held on March 3, a day before the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush to Pakistan.
Thousands of people also rallied in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan near the Afghan border. They burned imported products, and vowed not to sell Western products in future.
An unexpected move. The President should follow it up by releasing them from the deal altogether. From AP:
A United Arab Emirates company has volunteered to postpone its takeover of significant operations at six major U.S. seaports, giving the White House more time to convince skeptical lawmakers the deal poses no increased risks from terrorism.The surprise concession late Thursday cools the standoff building between the Congress and President Bush over his administration's approval of the deal. Lawmakers praised the temporary hold. But some critics pressed anew for an intensive examination of the deal's risks.
Hamid Hayat update from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
SACRAMENTO — The FBI informant who befriended a Lodi man charged with attending an Al Qaeda training camp said Thursday that the defendant took an interest in terrorist groups and spoke admiringly about jihad.A federal prosecutor asked the informant, Naseem Khan, how defendant Hamid Hayat saw himself in relation to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other such groups.
"He never, ever considered himself American," said Khan, who was on the witness stand during the fourth day of testimony in Hayat's terrorism trial in U.S. District Court.
During long conversations at Hayat's home, Khan said, Hayat praised Al Qaeda, expressed support for religious governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan and talked about issues surrounding jihad.
Hayat, 23, is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI about attending an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan in 2003 and with providing material support to terrorists. He faces up to 39 years in prison if convicted. His father, 48-year-old Umer Hayat, faces two counts of making false statements to the FBI about whether his son attended the camp. Both have pleaded not guilty.
"Somali Violence Spotlights Fundamentalists," from AP, with thanks to Mackie:
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A recent upsurge in violence in Somalia's capital has focused attention anew on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the chaotic Horn of Africa state. The violence had killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 140 since Saturday.Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, said by the United States to be linked to al-Qaida, is prominent among the fundamentalists increasingly projecting themselves as an alternative to the numerous armed groups running the clan-based fiefdoms that comprise Somalia.
More saber-rattling from Iran. From Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 23 – A fanatical group close to Iran’s hard-line rulers called Thursday on the Iraqi people to expel United States and British troops in Iraq following the attack on a holy Shiite Shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra.Iran’s Hezbollah issued a statement, announcing, “Undoubtedly this bitter incident reaffirms the continuation of the bad situation in Iraq under occupation. Insecurity in this country is in the end the consequence of the occupation of this country by occupational governments, in particular the world’s two bully governments – America and Britain”.
The group called on the Iraqi government to “create the groundwork as soon as possible for the departure of U.S. and British occupiers”.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explores further the limits of free speech, exploding some common misconceptions in the process of replying to a commenter here:
A poster here at Jihad Watch has made the following absurd assertions, which are, unfortunately, widely held:1. Did publisher Rose [Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper in which that handful of anodyne cartoons appeared] have the right to publish those cartoons, as a matter of free speech? Absolutely.2. Did he act responsibly in doing so, knowing that homicidal maniacs would probably go absolutely nuts if he did, destroying property and probably killing people? In no possible way.
3. Did he act responsibly in deliberately extending the middle finger to Sunni Muslims in general, and not merely to those who attempted to intimidate him? Was his decision to do so any more tolerant than Islam itself? Absolutely not.
4. Could he have challenged the attempted intimidation of the Jihadists without deliberately and intentionally insulting the religious beliefs of moderate and Jihadist alike? With the greatest of ease.5. Did Rose's publication of those cartoons advance or retard the cause of pluralism? Absolutely the latter. Respect for the convictions of even those we disagree with is absolutely crucial to pluralism.
6. Does Rose have blood on his hands? You bet your sweet bippy.
7. Is this a free speech issue? No way.
Let's dissect this, paragraph by numbered paragraph.
Paragraph 1 assures us that yes, Flemming Rose had a perfect right to publish those cartoons, "as a matter of free speech." But by the time we have arrived at Paragraph 7, this has been stood on its head, and the poster answers his own question -- "Is this a free speech issue?" with "No way." So the Danish paper had a right to exercise its free speech, but this is not a "free speech" issue.
What is it then? Let's start with the next paragraph, paragraph #2.
We are immediately confronted with that adverb "responsibly." All of a sudden we have entered a world where the right of free speech has been modified by a very powerful, because so very vague, adjective: "responsibly." You may exercise your right of free speech, but you must do it a certain way. You must do it -- "responsibly." So all of a sudden the burden is now on you, the one who wishes to exercise that right of free speech.
And what now should be taken into account by you is that some will take offense. And despite the classic formulation of the right of free speech offered by John Stuart Mill in "On Liberty"-- the right to free speech must include the right to give offense -- all of a sudden we have been transported to a different universe, where we must calculate the fanaticism of those who might take offense. And if they turn out to be fanatical enough, murderous enough, as they have proven to be in the case of these Muslim mobs, then it is "irresponsible" to have offended them in the first place. We should have "foreseen" how they would behave. In Anglo-American law, students of contracts will remember all about that: Hadley v. Baxendale. Q.E.D.
Was that Danish newspaper acting "irresponsibly"? Not at all. It was, of course (and stated openly) that it was putting to the test its right, the right of all Western peoples living under Western laws and guarantees, the right to still exercise freedom of speech. It wanted to see if Muslims were going to try to control, and limit, its exercise even within Europe. The cartoons were anodyne. The business about Muslims never permitting images of the man they call (but we Infidels do not, and are under no obligation to do so) the Prophet, is false. There are Muslim images of the Prophet all over the place, and if one consults the book "The Islamic World" put out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (by Stuart Cary Welch, an expert on Mughal miniatures and other examples of Islamic art) one will find a discussion on p. 95 of just how common were certain images of Muhammad, such as those of him ascending to the Seventh Heaven on his strange steed al-Buraq during the Miraj or Night Journey.
Flemming Rose has testified that he had no idea that such a reaction -- the economic boycott of Denmark, the recall of ambassadors, the crazed mob attacks on Danish consulates and embassies and, in a general anti-Infidel fit, on the embassies of the United States and other Western countries -- was forthcoming. He could not have foreseen, and did not foresee -- and it is wrong to blithely assume that Western men, rational and modest, would ever have assumed, that there would follow the publication of the cartoons the display of primitive and murderous fanaticism that did follow. He had no way of knowing that there would follow the total destruction of the last Christian church in Benghazi and the harrying out of all those Italians who still remained, and the burning down of churches in many Muslim countries, and the murder of an Italian priest in Turkey, and dozens of Christians in northern Nigeria, and so much more. Were the Danes supposed to understand that that is how Muslims all over the world would behave, that their governments would whip them up for various reasons, including the main reason -- to divert attention from the local lords of misrule (the poverty in Libya, the stampede at the hajj in Saudi Arabia, the general mess all over Dar al-Islam, with the ever-present all-purpose answer: whip up hatred of the Infidels)? It is false to accuse the Danes of knowing in advance that all this would happen. Danes everywhere are now under a collective death threat all over the Muslim world. Flemming Rose himself has fled the country; who knows where those cartoonists, on whose heads bounties have been placed by assorted imams, now live? Do you think they, or Rose, or Jyllends-Posten, had any idea? Did you have any idea this would happen? Are we not continually astonished at how Muslims behave? Would you have predicted, five years ago, that someday Muslim websites would use as a recruiting tool, so proud were they of it, the videotaped decapitation of the Berg boy in Iraq, or of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan? Would any Infidel have predicted any of this?
Paragraph #3 -- to call the brave refusal to kowtow, to submit, and instead to heed all the ex-Muslims such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq, “extending the middle finger” (as you put it so crudely) is asinine. Only such people correctly identified the problem, as did Flemming Rose. Only they told the world that this was a deliberate and sustained attempt to force dhimmitude on Europe, to make it change its laws and customs, under Muslim threats of violence and more than threats, actual acts. To be unable to see that this is hardly to "give the finger" to the Sunnis. Why, pray, to "the Sunnis"? Didn't the Shi'a in Iran also riot, even though they are, as perhaps you were alluding to, more at ease with images of Muhammad? There was no "giving of the finger" to anyone. Every appearance by every Dane -- Flemming Rose, or Juste, or Rasmussen, was entirely dignified.
Paragraph #4: You say there was another way to have challenged the atmosphere of intimidation and self-censorship that, it was felt, had descended upon Denmark and much of Western Europe. It was a way that could have been found "with the greatest of ease." Strangely, you do not tell us how the beliefs of "moderate and Jihadist" Muslims might affect their reaction to the cartoons. And that itself is a very peculiar phrasing, since it implies that "moderate" Muslims, whom you do not define, do not believe in the Jihad -- but Jihad is a duty laid out, clearly and repeatedly, for all Muslims. Any Muslim who claims not to believe in Jihad, not to believe that is in the duty, collective and sometimes individual, to participate in the relentless campaign to spread Islam all over the world until it "dominates and is not to be dominated," is simply not a "moderate" Muslim but no Muslim at all. Jihad is central to Islam; it is practically the Sixth Pillar of Islam, as Muslim commentators have noted. See, and read deeply in, the texts of the Muslim Quranic commentators, assembled in The Legacy of Jihad. Then read, if you wish, the overwhelming scholarship by Western students of Islam also collected in that indispensable volume: indispensable both by itself, and because it will now allow scholars to follow suit, and to collect and publish all the real scholarship on Islam from the period 1880-1960 that has been allowed to be deliberately ignored, as if such people as Schacht and Abel and Margoliouth and Snouck Hurgronje and Lal and all the others simply were irrelevant, when their scholarship is impeccable, and they are a constant source of embarrassment and anguish to the apologists who have infiltrated the ranks of MESA Nostra and are now in charge of teaching young Americans about Islam. These apologists are moving heaven and earth to keep both the full texts (and intrepretative guides, such as naskh or abrogation) of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, away from the students, and also to keep those students either pre-brainwashed to mistrust real scholarship, or not even to allow them to find out about such scholarship.
Paragraph 5 tells us that the right of free speech should not have been exercised because Rose did not advance, but retarded, the cause of "pluralism." What does this mean? Islam does not believe in pluralism. It never has. It never will. It believes that "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated." The entire history of Islamic conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, whether Jews or Christians, Zoroastrians or Hindus, Buddhists or Confucians, shows that that is meant. Islam is not to co-exist as an equal with any other faith -- so the Western idea of "pluralism" has no meaning. If "pluralism" is taken advantage of in the Western world by Muslims, that is only temporary, until such time as they are numerous enough, and powerful enough, to bring about the changes in local laws, customs, manners, and understandings that will allow Islam to dominate and Muslims to rule. There is not a single counter-example to this in the long 1350-year history of Muslim conquest, from Spain to East Asia. And one can see, today, in all the lands where Islam rules, the emptying out of the non-Muslim populations, from the Hindus who over the last 50 years have had to leave Pakistan and Bangladesh, to the steady elimination of the Christians in Turkey over the past century, to the constant persecution, and sometimes mass murder, of Christians in the Sudan, in Nigeria (the Biafra war, fought in self-defense against what Col. Ojukwu carefully described as a "Jihad"), and indeed the assault on Maronites in Lebanon, Copts in Egypt, the Christians who managed to remain in Algeria and Libya and elsewhere in the Maghreb, and all kinds of other non-Muslim populations wherever they happened, unhappily, to find themselves under rule by Muslims.
"Respect for the opinions of others" has nothing to do with pluralism -- or rather, no one deserves respect just because they exist. What if a belief is not worthy of respect? Why should Infidels respect for one minute a belief-system as antipathetic to art, music, free and skeptical inquiry, and to their own beliefs, to their own desire to live unmolested and unsubjugated -- why does Islam deserve the respect of Infidels? Doesn't the contents of a particular belief-system first have to be analyzed? Are we not entitled to withhold respect, which is not a party-favor that one simply distributes like confetti?
And even if this or that belief or system somehow merited "respect," that does not trump the right to exercise free speech. One may deplore a cartoon as exhibiting bad taste, or see through the obvious sensationalism of such non-art works as Serrano's Piss Christ. But one does not shut it down or make death threats. Had Muslims simply quietly expressed some kind of dignified sorrow at those cartoons, or ignored them altogether, one might think of them differently today. As it is, whatever modicum of respect some might have had has been completely lost in the worldwide display of murderous rage, and the taqiyya sentiments of the so-called "moderates" (e.g. Ihsanoglu of the O.I.C.), with their transparent nonsense and attempts to throttle, through the passage of laws, the right of free speech recognized in the Western world and by the rest of the civilized world. That right, of course, is not recognized by any Muslim country -- they respect, and adhere to, a document quite different from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights, which makes every individual right subject to Islam and the Shar'ia -- which is to say, subject to the principles and Holy Law of Islam. And those principles flatly contradict every single one of the rights of individuals which the advanced world takes for granted.
Most grotesque of all, in this grotesque effort, is the blaming of Rose and not the fanatical mobs, for the "blood" of those killed: "Does Rose have blood on his hands?" asks the poster. And he does not stay for anyone else to answer, but answers himself, in the unseemly style with which he seems quite satisfied: "You bet your sweet bippy."
So it was Rose who was responsible for the murder of the Italian priest in Turkey, and not the Turkish boy who shot him. It was Rose who beat to death those Christians in northern Nigeria, including that priest and several young children. It was Rose who led the charge and set fire to those churches in Nigeria and Benghazi, in Libya, and in Indonesia and Pakistan, and Rose who led the charge on the Danish embassies and consulates, and American embassies and French embassies, and whatever else could be found that represented the "Infidels" who are always and everywhere to be blamed for everything, if you view the universe through the prism of Islam.
And that is how this poster and so many other wise heads in the Western world have put the entire burden of the victims, living and dead, animate and inanimate, of the deliberately whipped-up hysteria and hate exhibited by Muslim mobs all over the world, on the frail shoulders of the fearless Danish editor, Flemming Rose. Rose’s crime was to stand up for free speech. In this he was seconded by others, though not by the pusillanimous major newspapers, not by The New Duranty Times in what is its least finest hour since its scant coverage of the Nazi murders of Jews in the 1930s and then, at industrial strength, in the 1940s (see Professor Laurel Leff's books).
And this is how, having started with the question: Did Rose "have the right to publish those cartoons, as a matter of free speech?" and then answering it "Absolutely," the poster managed, by the crazed and cruel (il)logic of his posting, to end up declaring that in fact that "right" is not existent, he did not "absolutely" have that right at all, or rather, he had the "right" but had no right to exercise the right. In this the poster lays bare the logic of all those in the West who have begun by affirming that of course they value the freedom of speech, but…
In other words, you must realize that you "absolutely" have the right but you have no right to exercise the right. You may not exercise it precisely to the extent that those who may take offense will be primitive, fanatical, murderous. And the more murderous, primitive, fanatical they are, the more cunningly and meretriciously their assorted lords of misrule harness that hysteria and hate to divert attention from those examples of misrule, and onto the hated Infidel. That Infidel is hated because Qur'an and Hadith and Sira have prepared Muslim minds to hate the Infidel. They have inculcated from early on the need, the right, the positive duty (yes, "absolutely") to hate that Infidel, not to take him as a friend (or only feigningly so, to promote Islam), not to do him favors, not to see him as anything but a creature who stands in the way of the spread of Islam, and hence to be conquered, not necessarily through military means, but through any means that present themselves (economic boycott and bribery, Da'wa, demographic conquest, propaganda of every kind) and that prove most effective.
So by the poster's logic, one should still exercise that right of free speech. But be sure you do not use it to offend anyone who, in taking offense, has a demonstrated propensity to burn down embassies and churches and other buildings, and beat people to death, or shoot a priest or two. That wouldn't be right. And you, like Flemming Rose, would have only yourself to blame.
No, make sure that you offend only those whose reaction, upon taking offense, might be to write a letter to the editor. Or nurse a private sorrow. You know -- take a look at how Christians and Jews have behaved when they or their beliefs have been mocked in some way. So they are fair game. Buddhists too. Hindus as well -- except when they are maddened, in India, by some Muslim outrage that goes beyond free speech, such as when Hindu pilgrims on a train are burned alive. What cruel and cynical casuistry. What indifference to free speech, the product of centuries, tossed overboard in order -- in order to make peace, or rather to appease, those who wish to impose their view of what we can say, what we can write, what we can publish, in our own lands.
Disgusting.
My take on the Dubai port fiasco, from FrontPage (news links in the original):
It’s shaping up to be a major political battle: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader John Boehner have all lined up against President Bush’s plan to turn over operation of six major American ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates.The President is threatening to veto any attempt to block the plan. Referring to the fact that the company in question, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, has been British-owned up to its impending sale to Dubai Ports World, he said Tuesday: “I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly.’”
This is staggeringly unrealistic, and reflects the dangers of the Administration’s continuing unwillingness or inability to come to grips with the full dimensions of the jihad threat. That Bush feels compelled to say “to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly’” betrays a peculiar insecurity where he should display a robust and unapologetic self-confidence. He is trying to demonstrate to a world awash in anti-Americanism that America is not as bad as all that, but in doing so he only lends credence to the anti-American charges (for if there weren’t substance to them, after all, why would he feel the need for the gesture?) and manifests the mistaken belief that “they hate us” because of something we have done, which we can undo with the proper display of good will. In this he again shows complete unawareness of the jihad ideology which remains constant while the pretexts and grievances that fuel it shift. No amount of good will can possibly efface the jihad imperative to subjugate the world under the rule of Islamic law, which is the avowed program of jihadists everywhere.
The UAE may be the most reliable ally the United States has ever had (and of course it isn’t remotely that) and there would still be no way for it to ensure that Dubai Ports World hires no one with jihadist sentiments. The situation in the Islamic world makes it quite likely that Dubai Ports World will be sending at least a few mujahedin to work in these American ports, and that they will be able to work there unhindered. The 9/11 hijackers used the UAE as a base of operations and source of financial support; have Emirati authorities cleared the country of jihad sentiment since then? On what basis can this be assumed?After all, no one even in Washington is yet even asking the right questions of self-proclaimed moderates about where they really stand on jihad and Sharia issues. Officials in Washington and Europe have shown no awareness of the fact that it isn’t enough to have no ties to terror groups; a Muslim who nonetheless believes in the jihad ideology of Islamic supremacism and the subjugation of infidels is still susceptible to jihadist recruitment. Is it possible to determine whether such recruitment is likely or not in the case of any particular individual? No -- and that’s why turning over any ports to Dubai Ports World is ill-advised: the potential for jihadist infiltration is just too great. Why is a Middle Eastern company held to a standard different from that to which a British company is held? Obviously a British firm these days could employ a jihadist also, but the likelihood of this is smaller, as British Muslims still constitute a small minority of the population.
Some have argued that this deal has been blown way out of proportion, and that security for the ports will remain in American hands. Even if that is true, however, the arrangement with Dubai Ports World should be ended immediately, if only for its symbolic value. Rather than bend over backward to show the Muslim nations of the world that he trusts them, President Bush would do more for American national security by explaining why such trust would be misplaced at this time, and calling upon those nations to manifest their trustworthiness with forthright and unambiguous anti-jihad actions within their borders -- including an ending of all discrimination against non-Muslims and of the teaching of the idea that the Islamic social order must be imposed by force over Jews, Christians, and others. If the President were calling for the UAE to adopt such measures, he would be under no illusions about where that country really stands.
Frist, Hastert, and Boehner are right. Why would Bush want to be so obstinate on this? Doesn’t he realize that it does immense damage to his position as being tougher on Islamic terrorism than his opponents? On cue, Hillary Clinton has already spoken about introducing legislation to stop the deal. The President risks allowing the Democrats an opportunity to show that they are tougher on terrorism than he is – which, since it isn’t true, if a Democrat is actually elected in 2008, could lead to the destruction of the entire anti-terror resistance, as imperfect as it has been.
If this deal goes through, will the United States have the luxury of undoing it before it undoes us?
Stop the Presses! Ahmadinejad blames the Zionists, of all people, for Sunni violence! From AP, with thanks to Teri:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel on Thursday for the blowing up of a Shi'ite shrine's golden dome in Iraq, saying it was the work of "defeated Zionists and occupiers."..."They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the US-led multinational force in Iraq.
Why do we have to bribe our putative allies to cooperate with investigations? And why any concessions at all? Port Jihad Update from AP:
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration secretly required a company in the United Arab Emirates to cooperate with future U.S. investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. It chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.As part of the $6.8 billion purchase, state-owned Dubai Ports World agreed to reveal records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at U.S. ports, the documents said. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment.
The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.
The concessions — described previously by the Homeland Security Department as unprecedented among maritime companies — reflect the close relationship between the United States and the United Arab Emirates....
Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." It promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department, and it pledged to continue participating in security programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials....
Bush faces a potential rebellion from leaders of his own party, as well as a fight from Democrats, over the sale. It puts Dubai Ports in charge of major terminal operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia....
In Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the agreement was thoroughly vetted. "We have to maintain a principle that it doesn't matter where in the world one of these purchases is coming from," Rice said Wednesday. She described the United Arab Emirates as "a good partner in the war on terrorism."...
Then why does it have to be offered a carrot to cooperate with U.S. investigations?
McClellan said Bush afterward asked the head of every U.S. department involved in approving the sale whether there were security concerns. "Each and every one expressed that they were comfortable with this transaction going forward," he said.
Nevertheless, there are security concerns. There is no avoiding them.
It was perhaps inevitable that it would come to this. Democratic elections will not heal this rift. Now: is it the responsibility of the U.S. government and military to try to heal it? Is it really in the best interests of the West to give the Shi'ites money to rebuild the Golden Mosque when the Shi'ite mullahocracy of Iran is spending its money trying to develop nuclear weapons with which to threaten the West and, ultimately, destroy it? Wouldn't it be a better defense against the global jihad to do nothing about this, compelling the Iranians, if they value the Golden Mosque, to divert time and energy to its rebuilding -- thereby buying us at least a little time to determine how best to disable their nuclear program?
From AP:
SAMARRA, Iraq - Insurgents posing as police destroyed the golden dome of one of Iraq's holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday, setting off an unprecedented spasm of sectarian violence. Angry crowds thronged the streets, militiamen attacked Sunni mosques, and at least 19 people were killed.With the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine reduced to rubble, some Shiites lashed out at the United States as partly to blame.
The violence — many of the 90 attacks on Sunni mosques were carried out by Shiite militias — seemed to push Iraq closer to all-out civil war than at any point in the three years since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Many leaders called for calm. "We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," said President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. "We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war."
President Bush pledged American help to restore the mosque after the bombing north of Baghdad, which dealt a severe blow to U.S. efforts to keep Iraq from falling deeper into sectarian violence.
"The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all faiths and of all humanity," Bush said. "The world must stand united against them, and steadfast behind the people of Iraq."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair also condemned the bombing and pledged funds toward the shrine's reconstruction....
Some Shiite political leaders already were angry with the United States because it has urged them to form a government in which nonsectarian figures control the army and police. Khalilzad warned this week — in a statement clearly aimed at Shiite hard-liners — that America would not continue to support institutions run by sectarian groups with links to armed militias.
Of course, it was "ordinary Palestinians" who elected Hamas, but why should our friend and ally be expected to make such fine distinctions? From CNN, with thanks to Shinolite:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia will continue supporting the Palestinian Authority despite the election of a government led by the Islamic militant group Hamas -- because it does not want to punish ordinary Palestinians, the kingdom's foreign minister said Wednesday.He made the announcement after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is on a tour of the Middle East. She is trying to persuade Arab nations to increase pressure on Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.
But Saudi officials told Rice that the kingdom will continue funding the Palestinian Authority and will encourage Hamas to accept the principle of a two-state solution with Israel, said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.
A press release from the United American Committee:
The United American Committee announces a protest rally on March 4 against the recent sale of the operations of our nation's ports to a United Arab Emirates-owned company. The protest will be held in New York by the port at West 42nd St. & West Side Hwy (Route 9A) in Manhattan on SATURDAY, March 4, 2006, at 12:00 Noon, with a protest on the West Coast as well on the same day, Saturday, March 4, at 11000 Wilshire in West Los Angeles, also at 12:00 Noon.“Would we have allowed our ports to be operated by a Japanese Imperial owned or German Nazi owned company during WWII?” remarks United American Committee founder Jesse Petrilla. “We have heard from our politicians, now it's time that we hear from the people of America...We need to send a clear message to our president that Republicans and Democrats alike agree that this deal goes against the best interest of our nation and its people.”
The UAC believes that President Bush should reconsider his vow to veto any legislation that may pass through congress which would block the sale. The UAC stance is that President Bush needs to realize that neither Democrats or his Republican constituents want this sale to occur. The United Arab Emirates is a government which has been far from cooperative in the war on Islamic extremism.
The UAC urges anyone within distance to attend the rally in New York or Los Angeles and for those in middle America to gather their friends and hold their own rallies in their towns. The United American Committee asks that protesters send a united message against the sale of the ports. Rally details are subject to change and all updates will be on the UAC's website at www.UnitedAmericanCommittee.org.
“The people need to stand up and demand that the government address the will of the citizens to stand against our enemies before it's too late...before one of those cargo containers comes through with a nuclear bomb inside.” says Petrilla.
Media contact:
United American Committee
info@unitedamericancommittee.org
Convenience store jihad? From KNOE TV8, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
TV 8 News has learned FBI agents and local law enforcement authorities are conducting a raid of service stations and businesses owned by Middle Easterners in Northeast Louisiana. Agents executed search warrants today at 10 businesses in Tallulah, Delhi, Monroe and Ruston. The FBI says the raids are part of "an ongoing criminal investigation." Police sources tell TV 8 News the raids target possible money laundering and counterfeiting in connection with suspected domestic terrorist activity. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is said to be taking part in the investigation.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers a cartoon controversy curriculum:
The cartoon controversy has created a teaching moment in American high schools and universities.History teachers, civics teachers, government teachers, do the following:
Print out relevant sections from Milton's Areopagitica ("I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue" etc.), the trial of John Peter Zenger, the Virginia Remonstrances, and John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty."
Now print out the First Amendment of the Constitution (1791).
Now print out the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1792).
Now print out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Now print out the Muslim answer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is to say the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.”Xerox enough copies for every member of every class you teach.
Collate, and collect. Staple.
Now distribute to classes.
Now begin the discussion of how Freedom of Speech developed, in opposition to both political and religious censorship.
Now devote all of your attention to helping the students spot the differences between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Muslim version, the so-called Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.
See if they can spot the differences and can understand why those differences exist. Tell them a little something about the Shari'a. Explain to them that Muslims are not allowed to leave Islam on pain of death -- and that even in those Muslim countries whose law codes do not yet fully match the Shari'a ideal, complete economic collapse and social ostracism are the fate of any Muslim who dares to convert to another religion, or to openly express his lack of belief in Islam.See if they can detect differences in the rights of women.
See if they can detect differences in the right of the individual to freedom of conscience.
See if they can detect differences in the guarantees offered to minorities.
See what the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights says about the equal treatment of minorities in every respect -- and about pluralism.
Where reference is made in the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights to the principles of Islam, or Islamic law (the Shari'a), do some research on your own and find out what the applicable principles of Islam are in the particular case and share them with your class.
Where you may not know enough, find out about the concept of the "dhimmi" and what the "dhimmi" -- that is, the non-Muslim in a Muslim-ruled society -- had to endure.
Find out which Muslim countries have laws forbidding mockery of non-Muslim religions and peoples. See if you can find examples of how Christians and Jews, Christianity and Judaism, are discussed in the Muslim press, radio, television (hint: go to www.memri.org for straightforward translations without any comments added).
This should be a wonderful way to spend a week or two of the term. You are trying to teach students about the heroic development of free speech in the Western world. You are also trying to teach them about the importance of other rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Stir and shake as you will.
Sweeten to taste.
Teach them that American constitutional law on limits to free speech are clear. Free speech can be limited only insofar as that speech is a "deliberate incitement to imminent lawless violence."
Who has been deliberately inciting imminent lawless violence in the world? The Danish imams have. The Saudi imams and the Saudi government has. The imams in Pakistan have. The government of Egypt and the government of Jordan have in the remarks of their own officials. The O.I.C. has. The government of Libya has. The Muslims who gathered and chanted and shouted and attacked embassies of what they saw as Christian, Infidel symbols, in a various countries, and killed helpless Christians in Nigeria and burned down churches in a half-dozen countries -- they were the ones inciting and being incited.
The Western world has to declare unambiguously that it will not tolerate attempts by Muslims to inflict their standards, their views of the universe, their careful refusal to allow others to examine, study, critically analyze, even make fun of if they so choose, any and all parts of all religions, including Islam. Those anodyne cartoons were nothing. It is clear that what will follow, if an inch is given now, is the attempt to suppress Infidel critical discussion of what is contained in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira.
That's what is in the works. The world's Muslims do not wish any Infidel, anywhere, to discuss Islam critically. They want Infidels to exhibit the behavior dictated to them by Muslims. They want reverence. They want submission. They want, and will work to achieve, the suppression of the rights that took centuries to develop in the Western world, and that some, out of a craven and casual spirit of false accommodation, are willing to throw over.
This cannot be.
"Olmert: Hamas Not a Strategic Threat," from AP:
JERUSALEM - Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that Hamas is not a strategic threat to the Jewish state, signaling that he has no plans to take military action against the violent group, which swept Palestinian elections last month.As Hamas worked to form a new Cabinet, the group struck a deal to receive financing from Iran, a virulent enemy of Israel. Israel threatened to block the money and warned the Palestinians against aligning themselves with an international "pariah."
Hamas, which has killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings, has rejected international calls to moderate, despite Israel's efforts to isolate the group internationally and Western threats to cut off vital financial aid....
According to participants in the closed meeting, Olmert said the Palestinian Authority will be "contaminated with terror" once a Hamas Cabinet takes power.
However, "Hamas is not a strategic threat," he said.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said the government did not fear Hamas and did not plan extreme measures that could be counterproductive.
"We're not afraid of the Hamas in any way. They do not threaten our existence," he told The Associated Press.
Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update from Iraq, via Associated Press:
SAMARRA, Iraq - Assailants wearing uniforms detonated two bombs inside one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines Wednesday, blowing the top off its landmark golden dome and spawning mass protests and reprisal attacks against dozens of Sunni mosques. The brazen assault — the third major attack against Shiite targets in as many days — threatened to enflame religious passions as talks among sectarian and ethnic parties on a new government have bogged down.
CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi maintains there is no right to defame religious figures -- in other words, no right to free speech at all, for if any person or group or idea is beyond criticism, then the society is no longer free. Note also the words of Rachel Lawton: "You cross the line when you threaten, intimidate or harass, and that is when free speech is limited." Very well; but the Muhammad cartoons do none of those things. By the standards of political cartooning they are tame. It has been Muslim groups worldwide who have threatened, intimidated, and harassed because of them.
"Panelists weigh in on cartoon controversy: Some express need for broader democracy; others say free speech is necessarily limited," from The Daily Pennsylvanian, with thanks to LGF:
Six local Islamic figures gathered Saturday for a panel to address the recent controversy over the Danish cartoons that negatively depict the Islamic prophet Muhammad.The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations sponsored the event, which took place in Houston Hall.
The discussion -- held in a town-hall style and followed by an audience Q & A -- covered a variety of topics, focusing largely on the alleged marginalization of minorities in Western media and culture.
"We need to analyze what democracy means and to recognize and represent not just the majorities but the growing minorities as well," Philadelphia CAIR vice-chairman Sofia Memon said. "In view of this, we need to ask how to broaden our democracy instead of narrow it."
During their introductory speeches, several panelists denounced the cartoons as slanderous while discussing limitations on free speech.
"People have every right to give an opinion on something," Rachel Lawton, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, said. "You cross the line when you threaten, intimidate or harass, and that is when free speech is limited."
CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi agreed.
"The right to free speech is not absolute," Rishi said. "It does not give a right to defame Prophet Muhammad or any other" religious figure.
Bernard K. Freamon, a Muslim and a professor of law at Seton Hall University, advocates that Denmark abandon freedom of speech in order to forestall future strife between Muslims and non-Muslims. From Jurist, with thanks to Mac:
In September, Danish prosecutors, acting on a complaint by Danish Muslim clerics, nonetheless refused to authorize a criminal prosecution of the newspaper editor under section 266b. In my view, this was a patent abuse of their discretion and a blatantly political decision. They ought to revisit it. The issue should be decided by a Danish court. Danish prosecutors certainly must know Denmark is becoming a hotbed of skinheadism and anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant violence. Do they want their newspapers to fan these flames? They should not wait until they have a situation like that in Rwanda before they act.
No doubt the Palestinians would have dismantled this bomb factory anyway, since everyone knows they want peace, right? Right?
From Haaretz, with thanks to Twostellas:
An IDF force found a large bomb factory in the casbah area of the West Bank city of Nablus early on Tuesday, the third day of a broad IDF operation in the West Bank city and the neighboring Balata refugee camp.The location of the factory, which held dozens of kilograms of materials used in the production of explosives, was revealed during the questioning of Islamic Jihad and Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs suspects arrested the day before in Balata, Army Radio reported.
The troops are bracing for rock-throwing and other unrest expected later in the day, the radio said.
"We got there with a relatively large force," said Haruv battalion commander Lt. Col. Arik. We located the 'laboratory,' finding explosives intended for the production of bombs."
Port Jihad Update from Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Several Bush-administration security officials expressed concerns yesterday that terrorists could infiltrate seaports through a United Arab Emirates company that is vying to manage six U.S. ports.Intelligence and security officials opposed to the deal with Dubai Ports World said ports are vulnerable to the entry of terrorists or illicit weapons because of the large number of containers that enter U.S. territory, regardless of who manages them.
A Persian Gulf state such as the United Arab Emirates could provide an infrastructure for terrorists to penetrate U.S. security as part of a major terrorist operation, the officials said.
A press release from the March for Free Expression:
A Rally in support of Freedom of Expression will be held in Trafalgar Square, London, UK between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on March 25th 2006. A direct response to the Danish Cartoons controversy, this rally aims to send a message to British politicians of all parties demanding resolute action in the face of violence, threats and intolerance. The statement of principle for the campaign is as follows:"The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time.
The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock.
We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same.
We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them."
So far, individuals and organisations from all parts of the political spectrum and from many parts of the world have offered support and endorsements. Though based in Britain, we offer our support and solidarity to the people of Denmark and every other country that faces religious intolerance today, and ask that people in other countries consider organising their own rallies and marches for March 25th.
Let's march in March to show our governments that we expect our societies to be ones in which free and open debate and disagreement can take place without people being threatened, killed or imprisoned.
Peter Risdon
Patrick Vidaudmarchforfreespeech@googlemail.com
Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer (left) with archconspirator Daniel Pipes at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague last week
The Arab European League (thanks to BV) has discovered the culprit behind the Muhammad cartoons:
The mainstream media coverage of the anti-Islamic racist cartoons ignores the fact that the publication of the images was a "calculated offense" commissioned by a Zionist "Danish" colleague of the Zionist neo-con ideologue Daniel Pipes and was meant to incite violence and promote the Zionist "clash of civilizations" between Muslims and Christians.
Bad timing. On the same day the AEL's fanciful report was published, Pipes himself published a refutation of the assertion that he had anything to do with the cartoons at all:
Did you know that I had a hand in the Danish cartoons of Muhammad?No? Well, neither did I until I found this out in early February on a conspiracist website. To clear the record, I’ll start with the facts, then outline the conspiracy theory.
What actually happened: Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, sent me an e-mail on September 29, 2004, introducing himself and requesting an in-person interview during his U.S. trip. I agreed and Rose came to my Philadelphia office on October 25, when he spent about half an hour asking me questions. His article on me, “Truslen fra islamismen” (or “The Threat of Islamism),” appeared on October 29. It is a standard journalistic piece in which Rose provided some biographical information about me and had me explain my views on radical Islam. (Both the Danish original and an English translation can be found on my website, www.DanielPipes.org.)
After that meeting, I had no further contact with Rose. To be more precise: we have since then not met, talked, or written to each other. I learned only from the press of his decision, nearly a year after our meeting, to commission and publish the cartoons.
The AEL, of course, says nothing of the violent and irrational worldwide Muslim reaction to the cartoons. They seem to take it for granted that such a reaction to the cartoons was justified. Perhaps this entire absurd conspiracy theory about Pipes and Rose is designed to deflect attention away from that reaction.
But will the EU be up to the challenge? "Cartoon Crisis is EU Fight," from AFP, with thanks to JE:
The Danish Prime Minister has said the unrest triggered by cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed now pits the entire European Union against the Muslim world.Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the next step in the crisis will by carried out at a European level in coordination with the EU.
"This affair is not just an issue between Denmark and the Muslim world. It has to a much greater degree evolved into an affair between the European Union and the Muslim world," Mr Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen....
The chief of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, rejected a fatwa or religious decree issued by an Islamic court in India that condemned the cartoonists to death.
"It is very dangerous, personal fatwas like this harm our cause," Mr Ihsanoglu said.
"This fatwa is a wrong fatwa. Nobody should adhere to it because it goes against the essence of Islam and the prophet's teachings. Nobody has the authority to kill anybody," he said.
In a separate incident a Pakistani cleric on Friday offered a one-million-dollar reward for the deaths of the artists....
Not that Abbas did either. There is no surprise here, except to those with their heads terminally planted in the sand. "Hamas Officially Appoints Palestinian PM," from AP, with thanks to JE:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Ismail Haniyeh of the militant Islamic Hamas received his official appointment as the next Palestinian prime minister, but he refused to respond to a demand from the Palestinian leader to adhere to interim peace deals with Israel.On Wednesday, Iran offered to help finance a Palestinian Authority run by the Hamas militant group, Iranian state radio reported....
Abbas has said the new government must accept the agreements previous governments made — including interim peace accords with Israel and the internationally backed "road map" plan for a Palestinian state.
Haniyeh was noncommittal. "We will study it, and God willing, we will answer soon to Abu Mazen (Abbas), God willing," he said.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explores the madness of the Dubai port deal:
Even if every reviewing committee that examines the Dubai port deal declares that there is "no security threat," there are nevertheless three considerations.1) The Administration, and the government generally, no longer can be trusted to know what is best. The warnings before the 9/11 attack were clear; Condoleeza Rice's attempt to fudge all of that should not be forgotten. The Administration and the State Department suffer from the same myopia that, 30 years ago, led to an inability among their predecessors to figure out that Saudi Arabia was not our "staunch ally" -- and that an energy policy needed to be forged that would cause the price of oil to go up because we would tax ourselves, and not wait for the Saudis to raise prices. That could have saved, oh, about a trillion dollars (for more on this, google "Posted by Hugh" and "recover oligopolistic rents"). No "security threats" today does not mean that there will be no "security threats" tomorrow.
2) People living in New York and Baltimore will be made distinctly uneasy knowing that their ports are controlled by a company whose owners are Muslims from the United Arab Emirates, a collection of statelets -- Abu Dhabi and Dubai being the best known -- which are full of people who loathe us as Infidels. Some of them are distinctly unpleasant. All kinds of ruling families and the others who rule the economic and political roost in the constituent statelets of the U.A.E., for example, seemed to find nothing morally wrong, were in deed indifferent to, those thousands and thousands of tiny children, often under the age of 4, snatched from their Pakistani or Indian or Somali or Bangladeshi homes, brought to the U.A.E., trained under horrible conditions to be tied on the backs of camels, and during either the training, or in the actual races, were so often maimed or killed on the spot. (When the outside world began to notice, and to protest, and only then, did the U.A.E. begin to substitute robots for those tiny sacrificial slave-jockets). After all, who cared -- they were from Pakistan and Bangladesh and Somalia; they weren't Arabs, they were expendable, and camel races are such fun, after all. That is the level of moral development in the United Arab Emirates.
3) We now witness the spectacle of Bush using, for the first time, his power to veto, in order to protect the United Arab Emirates -- instead of agreeing that Americans are perfectly justified in mistrusting, and wishing to discourage, any Arab control of any sensitive business. We would not dare to sell the running of any airports to, say, an Algerian company, or a Saudi company, or any other Muslim-owned company, would we? Why are the ports different?
This deal has symbolic importance. To Bush, the symbolism is: we have nothing against that fine religion of Islam, and in the "war on terror" which is all we are told, repeatedly and idiotically, we are fighting, the U.A.E. is a "staunch ally." This attitude, this desire to curry favor with Arabs and Muslims, will always get us in trouble. It gets us in trouble as we overlook so much of what Pakistan, that incubator of the Taliban and its diplomatic and military supporter, pretends to fight on our side against Al Qaeda while half the Pakistani army, at least, would choose Al Qaeda over the Infidel Americans any day, and 85% of the Pakistani population would readily do so.The phrase "War on Terror" is a good example of what is wrong with Bush's view of things, and of the way he has failed to educate the public. He is timid and ignorant. He cannot identify the enemy but merely one of the tactics of the enemy. He apparently does not know how to use synecdoche.
Someone please send him Arthur Quinn's little handbook "Figures of Speech."
Meanwhile, CAIR is attempting to bludgeon Congress by claiming that opposition is "anti-Arab bigotry." Let them try to bludgeon. But if Bush shows he cannot figure out that many people in this country are far ahead of him in comprehending the nature and menace of Islam, and at this point it is doubtful that he can, he should simply get out of the way, shut up, and not dare to use that veto. We are all getting fed up with his obstinacy and inability to figure things out, and to respond coherently, articulately, cleverly. I don't care that he came out of Andover and Yale knowing nothing. That's his problem. But he has been President for five years. His inability to come to grips with Islam, to stop being sentimental about a "world religion," can no longer be hidden or explained away. The large-scale presence of Muslims in the Lands of the Infidels, behind what they themselves have been so clearly taught to regard as behind enemy lines (the lines of Dar al-Harb, as opposed to Dar al-Islam) has everywhere created a situation that for Infidels is much more unpleasant, much more expensive, and much more physically dangerous, than it would be without that large-scale presence. Bush cannot bring himself to even think a thought like that, or to begin to study Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira as those whose duty it is to protect us should be doing. He should have been devoting his time not to reassuring the UAE, or calling its ownership as innocuous as would be such ownership by the British, but instead he ought to be moving heaven and earth to rally NATO around Denmark (remember "an attack on one member of NATO will be considered an attack on all"?), and to standing up for, reminding the Western world of, the principles of individual liberty enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and every one of which is flatly contradicted by the Shari'a. He should be having the Pentagon and the State Department (not its Arabists, but its Europeanists) and the C.I.A. figuring out how to campaign, as they once did in Western Europe (remember the Congress for Cultural Freedom and Encounter magazine -- the best use of C.I.A. money conceivable) undertaking a vast effort of pedagogy to counter, and end, the influence of the Islamintern International at the U.N., at the E.U., in the European press and television, and in halting, and even reversing, the jihadist presence in the Lands of the Infidels.
He doesn't have to say it all quite the way it has been said above. But he has to grasp its undeniable truth.
It's shaping up to be a major political battle, with Republicans lining up with Democrats against the President. "Bush Says Ports Deal Will Stand," from AP, with thanks to JE:
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers determined to capsize the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates said President Bush's surprise veto threat won't deter them.Bush on Tuesday brushed aside objections by leaders in the Senate and House that the $6.8 billion sale could raise risks of terrorism at American ports. In a forceful defense of his administration's earlier approval of the deal, he pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement.
The sale's harshest critics were not appeased.
"I will fight harder than ever for this legislation, and if it is vetoed I will fight as hard as I can to override it," said Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. King and Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said they will introduce emergency legislation to suspend the ports deal.
Another Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, urged his colleagues to force Bush to wield his veto, which Bush — in his sixth year in office — has never done. "We should really test the resolve of the president on this one because what we're really doing is securing the safety of our people."
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald examines some of what would be involved in an American land invasion of Iran:
Many seem to think that with troops in Iran and Afghanistan, and with our “ally” Pakistan next door, the Americans "have Iran surrounded." Not at all. A land invasion of Iran would not make sense. Where would the American troops come from? Would they be dropped from planes? Would they be taken from the forces already pinned down by IEDs in Iraq? Would they come from Iraq, where American troops are threatened by any number of possible enemies every time they take a drive in a Humvee? But from where else can they come? How is Iran threatened by the handful of American troops in Pakistan? The 15,000 or so American troops in Afghanistan? And how many thousands of miles are those troops from Iran's nuclear facilities? And how many missiles and planes are available?In Iran, even those who do not wish the regime well are, by and large, opposed to any tampering with the nuclear project -- nationalist pride trumps common sense. American equipment could not overnight be moved in, and the equipment in Iraq has been dangerously degraded by desert conditions. American forces in Iraq are now training the very Iraqis, especially the Shi'a, who could and would turn on the Americans in a New York minute if they were whipped up by Iran to avenge an attack on fellow Shi'a. Just a half-year ago, Jaafari was in Washington, oozing the most Uriah-Heepish at-your-feet sentiments about a new "Marshall Plan for Iraq" -- "let's call it the Bush Plan" -- that he thought he could squeeze out of the American taxpayers. Yesterday, however, he dared to denounce Zalmay Khalilzad for suggesting that Americans would be disinclined to pour more billions into an Iraqi government that was "sectarian."
How much do you trust Jaafari? Moqtada al-Sadr? The SCIRI Party? You don't trust them at all, do you? National Review's Nobel candidate Sistani is already funnelling money to Iran. And the Sunnis are already enemies, even if we were to suddenly turn our attention to suppressing Shi'a enemies in Iran or Iraq.
The Iraq fiasco makes it much harder to attack Iran, because the troops are now already in place in a different country, assigned different tasks, and surrounded by a population that could turn on a dime and start to attack them (or at least the Arabs would, though not the Kurds).Iran has 70 million people. For eight years, despite internal disarray, Iran continued to fight Iraq to a standstill, despite the fact that Iraq received American intelligence information, and Saudi tanks, and tens of billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the U.A.E. Its Basiji displayed the fearlessness of the primitive fanatics they are. Why would such fighters not suddenly spring up in Iraq today, determined to wreak vengeance on the Americans, some of whom arealready isolated in "Iraqi" units to which they have been assigned, in order to help form a more perfect Iraqi union, and where they are now sitting ducks.
In Afghanistan the American troops are far from the border with Iran and even farther from Tehran. The terrain is impossible. This is not a case of Panzer divisions rolling through Belgium. Mountain passes, nonexistent roads and bridges, a hostile population everywhere -- not easy.
What are missiles and planes for? Simply to store up, and count, rubbing our hands in Uncle-Scrooge glee? Or is the Air Force and all of its powerful armory to be put to use? And what are those bombs and missiles for, if not to protect us from an enemy that is determined to acquire weaponry that it will use on Infidels, here and there and everywhere. Any assumptions made about rational behavior, the kind exhibited by the Soviet rulers, need to be reexamined in the light of observable Muslim behavior -- including the willingness to engage in individual, and possibly collective, suicide bombing. The impulse remains the same.
I think some simply feel they cannot quite believe that Iraq has been such a gigantic mistake (after the initial search-and-destroy mission for weapons). They cannot quite face it or admit it. So they continue to believe that it has led to a brilliantly effective pre-positioning of troops to invade Iran. Nonsense.
And even more nonsensical is the unwillingness to recognize that the sectarian and ethnic fissures within Iraq are not to be healed, but to be helped along, so that they flourish into still-greater hostility and, one hopes, hostilities.
Divide et impera, divide and conquer, is the oldest rule of warfare. Why do we not merely ignore it, but try to do everything we can to prevent it? Sentimentalism about how everyone in the end, or almost everyone, must really want the same things, has no place. It is killing us. It is wasting lives and money. Stop it.
Port Jihad Update. Drudge has a siren up with this headline, as yet unconnected to any story: "BUSH ISSUES VETO THREAT; VOWS TO KEEP PORT DEAL."
Has Bush gone mad? The UAE may be the most reliable ally the United States has ever had (and of course it isn't remotely that) and there would still be no way for it to ensure that Dubai Ports World hires no one with jihadist sentiments. The situation in the Islamic world, compounded by the Administration's inability or unwillingness to come to grips with the reality of the jihad ideology, indeed make it quite likely that Dubai Ports World will be sending at least a few mujahedin to work in these American ports, and that they will be able to work there unhindered. After all, no one in Washington is yet even asking the right questions of self-proclaimed moderates about where they really stand on jihad and Sharia issues.
Why would Bush want to be so obstinate on this? Doesn't he realize that it does immense damage to his position as being, for all his faults, at least tougher on Islamic terrorism than his opponents? If this deal goes through, will the United States have the luxury of undoing it before it undoes us?
UPDATE: Drudge has just added this:
Bush called reports at about 2.30 aboard Air Force One to issue a very strong defense of port deal... MORE... He said he would veto any legislation to hold up deal and warned the United States was sending 'mixed signals' by going after a company from the Middle East when nothing was said when a British company was in charge... Lawmakers, he said, must 'step up and explain why a middle eastern company is held to a different standard.' Bush was very forceful when he delivered the statement... 'I don't view it as a political fight,' Bush said.... MORE... MORE...
I'll be happy to step up and explain why a middle eastern company is held to a different standard. It has to do with the prevalence of jihadists and jihad sympathizers in the population, the lack of any mechanism, on the government level or any other, to vet them properly, and the consequent likelihood that they will end up working in the American ports in question.
Is that so unreasonable?
SECOND UPDATE: Drudge has just added a link to this brief Reuters story.
Cartoon rage comes to Metrospy. If you value free speech, show your support by buying one of these shirts, and wearing it as you knock back a Carlsberg and enjoy a little Havarti. A press release (thanks to Sam):
(PRWEB) - (PRWEB) February 21, 2006 -- Conservative t-shirt maker MetroSpy set off a firestorm when their newest design depicted a caricature of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb wrapped in his turban. According to Islamic tradition, graphic depictions of the Prophet Mohammed are forbidden. MetroSpy's apparent disregard for this tradition has outraged many in the Muslim world, prompting some to voice their displeasure by sending the company hate-filled email, online viruses and even death threats.Johnathan Alexander, MetroSpy's production manager, says he's never seen anything like it. “It's a silly little cartoon. We've sold designs far more offensive than this for years”, referring to a t shirt which reads, “My Jesus can beat up your Allah.”
“For people to become so enraged over a drawing that they resort to burning down buildings and threatening to kill people is something I'll never understand,” Alexander said.
In one email the person writes, “We kill you and burn your shop. I am Muslim with forces in the U.S.A.”
Another email claims to be from the terrorist group Al Qaeda. It reads, “You only have 5 days and your company will disappear. I promise!” The email is signed, Saalem Al Qahtani, Al Qaeda.
One of the more disturbing messages simply says, “In two days we kill your family."
Over the past few days, MetroSpy has begun posting some of the emails on their website (http://www.shopmetrospy.com/).
According to Alexander, “Ever since we started posting the messages along with the sender's return address, the volume of hate mail has slowed down and the tone has changed considerably. In fact, some of the more recent comments could be considered polite.”
In an email which was traced to Saudi Arabia, the writer asks, “Could you guys do a favor? Please eliminate this picture from your goods because it's very embarrassing to our religion. If you do that, it would be a greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.”
Another says, “I am sending this e-mail and I hope that you understand that what you are doing is offending more than a billion people in the world. I hope that your sales with other stuff be billions but not for this one offending product.”
Altogether, MetroSpy has received more than five hundred hate emails and attempted virus attacks.
Donia Saber of Elk Grove, California is an Islamic activist who writes, “I am deeply offended at the t-shirt company MetroSpy. Selling shirts with a picture of the Prophet is unacceptable and I assure you the Muslim community will not tolerate this.”
Despite protests over their offending design, MetroSpy plans to continue selling the t-shirts. As a precautionary measure however, MetroSpy has increased its security, sought the advice of a private investigative agency and remain in close contact with federal and local authorities.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains what must be done before the United States can deal adequately with the nuclear threat from Iran -- although at this point there may not be time:
As the situation in Iran grows more serious by the minute, American troops in Iraq now stand in the way of the only kind of advantage that can now be pulled from the tarbaby of Iraq. That advantage is the weakening of the global jihad through the exploitation of the sectarian (Sunni-Shi'a) and ethnic (Arab-Kurd) divisions that have existed since virtually the beginning of Islam, but have been exacerbated recently by the Sunni Arab rule of modern Iraq, and particularly the Sunni Arab murderous rule of Saddam Hussein.Getting out of Iraq now is the very best thing the Administration can do in order to ensure political support for dealing with Iran. It is also the best thing to do so that attention and resources can be turned to another important matter, the islamization of Western Europe through Da'wa and demographic conquest.
It is madness for the American troops to remain in Iraq. There they are now hostage to possible Iranian retaliation for any attack on Iran's nuclear project. That retaliation could come from Iran itself, which shares a long and porous border with Iraq, or it could come from Iranian agents already in Iraq working with local Shi'a such as Moqtada al-Sadr -– who is so obviously malevolent, with his ansar al-mahdi or Mahdi's Army. Or alternatively, the retaliation could come from other Shi'a groups. The Shi’a in general have been perfectly content to watch the Americans inflict casualties on the Sunnis and suffer casualties in return, all the while attempting to extract the last bit of aid, training, and equipment that the long-suffering American military can be persuaded to offer. Those American generals are apparently unwilling or unable to push Bush to drop his messianic notions of Iraq the Model, Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations. They have been relegated by Bush to letting him know only when "the Iraqis are ready for us to leave,” which is to say, when "the Iraqis can stand up so we can stand down." Oh my god.
Since when do foreigners tell us when they are "ready" to have us leave? We could be fighting the Sunnis on behalf of the Shi'a until the cows come home.
I have news for Bush, the news the generals apparently cannot bring themselves quite yet to deliver. There never will be a moment when a real army of "Iraq" which will contain, fighting side by side and loyal to each other, Sunni and Shi'a Arabs and Kurds. It just cannot be. Oh, here and there a special unit might exist, but even that unit's supposed "unity" and "loyalty to the idea of Iraq" could dissolve at the first real testing. But all this is brushed aside by the messianic impulse of Bush, and by his naivete about the virtues of "democracy" and even the ease with which this "democracy" can be transplanted in the stoniest and most unlikely soil. That stony soil for democracy’s growth is the soil of Islam, which teaches that legitimacy comes from Allah and the Shari'a, not from mere mortals casting their ballots.Bush’s naivete is also on display in his laziness about the specific history of Iraq, and of Sunni-Shi'a hostility. It is not merely a product of the last few years or few decades. It goes back more than 1300 years, to the time of the four rightly-guided caliphs. Can no one -- no one? -- talk to Bush and explain this to him, and to Rice, and to the rest of them? Can they not be persuaded to put down their copies of John Esposito’s books even for a moment? Can't they understand the importance of the Sunni-Shi’a split? And can't they figure out why this split is not to be deplored, but rather to be exploited by Infidels?
The problem of Iran cannot be dealt with as long as the Americans are tied down -- tied down by their own inability to think through the whole menace of Islamic jihad, and to put aside memories of this or that charming and plausible Iraqi exile, or some touching individual they have run across in Iraq. Put that kind of thing out of your head. Think only about the welfare of Infidels. There are innocents in the Muslim world, but we are not in a position now to help them without further imperiling ourselves. Western civilization is menaced in a peculiarly complicated way, a way that involves the weakness of mind of Western man himself, who has forgotten what his own history and his own values are, or is willing, or many are wiling, to toss that legacy, those values, aside.
It has to happen soon. The misallocation of resources -- men, money materiel, attention -- is just too great.
Bush may not be up to it. He is obstinate, and apparently unable to recognize that all of his assumptions about Iraq were based on ignorance of Islam and ignorance of Iraq.
But let's hope.
More Methodist extremism. "Toledo-Area Men Arrested for Terrorist Activity," from WTOL.com, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:
TOLEDO -- A federal grand jury has indicted three Toledo-area men for terrorist activities. Prosecutors say the three conspired to wage a "holy war" against the United States and coalition forces in the Middle East. The indictment was unsealed Monday....According to the indictment from the US Attorney's office, the suspects are Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi, and Wassim Mazloum. The indictment says all three were living in the Toledo area. Amawi is a citizen of the US and also a citizen of Jordan. El-Hindi is a naturalized American citizen who was born in Jordan. Mazloum is a legal permanent resident of the US, who came here from Lebanon.
Mazloum also operated a car business in Toledo with his brother. The indictment accuses him of offering to use his dealership as a cover for traveling to and from Iraq so that he could learn how to build small explosives using household materials.
The indictment also names an unindicted co-conspiratory called "The Trainer," who has U.S. military backround in security, and bodyguard training.
In count 1 of the indictment, prosecutors say the three met together many times, going back as far as November 2004. The three reportedly conspired to recruit and train others for a violent jihad against United States forces and US allies in Iraq. They also reportedly put together the funding needed for the operation, and collected the equipment needed, and even travelled together to a local indoor shooting range for target practice.
It looks as if Khaled Masha'al's recent meeting with the Thug-In-Chief was most productive from the Iranian standpoint. Maybe Masha'al was just receiving his latest orders from his master. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Yacob:
Details released by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) on Tuesday revealed that graphics appearing on the Hamas website call for the destruction of Israel in a nuclear holocaust.On the website, a red Star of David is encased in a black rectangle which is then obliterated in a nuclear explosion.
Arabic words then appear saying "The Az A-Din Al Qassam website exclusively tells the whole story of the most elusive squad [to be uncovered] in the history of the Entity [Israel], in the city of Ramallah." Every few seconds there are repeated images of a nuclear explosion destroying the Star of David.
Some, hearteningly enough, are opposing the plan to hand over operations at six US ports to a UAE company, which we reported here last week. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
WASHINGTON - Two Republican governors are threatening legal action to block an Arab company from taking over operations in major U.S. ports and some GOP lawmakers say the deal should be closely examined.In the uneasy climate after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration decision to allow the transaction is threatening to develop a major political headache for the White House.
New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Monday voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running six U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.
Ah yes, but you see, the new Palestinian PM is a "pragmatic former university administrator." So he will no doubt contradict Ahmadinejad and work to bring the PA into the community of civilized nations, right? Right? What's that? He wants to destroy Israel too? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?
From Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 20 – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the recent victory by the Islamist group Hamas in the Palestinian elections brushed aside the Oslo Peace Accord and the Roadmap to Peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and expressed hope that “soon all of Palestine will be liberated”, Iran’s official news agency reported.Ahmadinejad told senior Hamas leaders visiting Tehran that the Islamist group must not “give in” to Western pressures, including the threatened cut-off of funds to the Palestinian Authority.
“Don’t worry about economic problems, because God’s treasures are endless and if you work for Him, He will meet your needs from where you had not foreseen”, Ahmadinejad told the Hamas delegation led by the group’s political bureau chief Khalid Mash’al.
Ahmadinejad repeated his stance on the need to liberate “all of Palestine” just a few hours after Iran’s foreign minister told reporters in Brussels that the Iranian president had been “misunderstood” when he said Israel should be “wiped off the map”.
"Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki said. “We do not recognise legally this regime”.
In Tehran, Ahmadinejad struck a different tone.
“In this election, the people of Palestine voted for the liberation of all of Palestine through continuing the resistance”, Ahmadinejad said.
“The vote of the Palestinian people set aside the Oslo agreement, the Roadmap, and all the previous suggestions”, he said.
“The Zionist regime (Israel) was set up when Muslims were asleep. For 60 years, this regime was allowed to move forward to secure Western interests. But today, the wave of Islamic reawakening is eclipsing the Global Arrogance and the occupying regime (Israel) has no security and prosperity in the occupied lands”....
In January, while in Damascus, Ahmadinejad told Mash’al, “If the occupiers stay on even one inch of Palestinian soil, the goal of Palestine will not be realised”.
1938 Alert from Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 20 – Iran said on Monday that Britain was behind a blast that had gone off in the south-western city of Ahwaz on Sunday night which was similar to several recent explosions in the volatile city.State-run news agencies reported that there were no casualties when the sound bomb went off in Kian Pars district of Ahwaz.
Seyyed Nezzam Mollahoveizeh, the Majlis deputy for Dasht-Abad, told the news agency Fars that the Intelligence Ministry had been able to arrest a number of individuals behind Sunday’s bombing and accused them of having ties to London.
“The mother of all corruption Britain has become an opponent of Iran. Our opponents are supported and empowered in London”, he said....
London has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.
Go back to sleep, everyone. Nothing to be concerned about here. The new PA PM is a "pragmatic former university administrator." Probably he's a gentle cuddly fellow, a lot like his fellow university prof and jihad supporter Sami Al-Arian. I'm sure that when he shouts "Death to America! Death to Israel!" he does it with the sweetest smile on his face.
Pragmatic? Haniyeh said after the Hamas victory that the Palestinians would "complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine." That means the destruction of Israel. Whether he means to accomplish this through the slow attrition of negotiated concessions, or violence, or both, the outcome is the same.
"Abbas Picks Hamas Leader to Form New Govt," from AP, with thanks to JE:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas presented its choice for Palestinian prime minister — a pragmatic former university administrator — and the Islamic militant group reached out to other factions, including Fatah, to join a broad-based Cabinet that might stand a chance of gaining international approval.Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh met for more than two hours late Monday, but the expected official designation of the Hamas leader as prime minister was put off until Tuesday, when the two are to speak again.
Haniyeh's appointment is just a formality, since Hamas won last month's election by a landslide and has an absolute majority in the new parliament.
I'll believe this when I see it, but I'm heartened to see the President actually appearing to take steps toward something I have been advocating for several years, and that should have begun many years ago, as soon as Washington began to receive evidence that the global jihad was being financed by oil money. But of course, it is difficult to find anyone in Washington willing to speak of "jihad," rather than "terrorism," even today. From AP, with thanks to JE:
MILWAUKEE - Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would "startle" most Americans, President Bush on Monday outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil.Less than half the crude oil used by refineries is produced in the United States, while 60 percent comes from foreign nations, Bush said during the first stop on a two-day trip to talk about energy.
Some of these foreign suppliers have "unstable" governments that have fundamental differences with America, he said.
"It creates a national security issue and we're held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us," Bush said.
It's the one with a "stable" government that professes to "like us" right well that concerns me the most.
Great idea, Khamenei. After all, why should Infidels bear all the burden? From GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
Tehran/Cairo: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called yesterday on Muslims worldwide to provide money to the Palestinians during his talks with the Islamic radical Hamas movement, state television reported."We must make a plan so all Muslims will be able to supply the Palestinians with a yearly financial aid package," Khamenei told Hamas' political leader Khalid Masha'al.
"This voluntary gesture will create a spiritual bond among Muslims and the Palestinian cause and have a great impact on the world," Khamenei said.
He lauded Hamas for not moderating its fierce resistance to Israel after its upset victory in Palestinian elections last month. "The Hamas positions are fundamental and right," he said, praising Palestinians for electing the Islamic party. "The Palestinian people voted knowing it meant choosing resistance and fighting the Zionist regime."...
Masha'al knows what Western governments and media seem determined to deny.
In Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood said it is launching a worldwide donation campaign for a Hamas-led Palestinian government.The pledge by the Brotherhood comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice started yesterday a Middle East shuttle to caution regional powers against giving money to a Hamas-led government. The United States and Europe, the world's two largest donors to the Palestinians, said they will not provide funding directly to the Palestinian National Authority if Hamas heads the government....
Also yesterday foreign ministers from several Arab countries were to meet in Algiers to examine a plan to send about $50 million a month to PNA. A final decision is not expected until Arab summit next month in Khartoum.
But plenty of Westerners are still ready with the jizya:
Sweden's state-run aid group yesterday pledged more than five million euros in additional aid to the Palestinian territories.
I commend the courage of the Shams editors, but anyone could have foreseen this outcome. From GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
Riyadh: A Saudi newspaper was shut down on Monday following the printing of some of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as part of a campaign for more action against Denmark, where the drawings first appeared.The tabloid Shams (Sun) aimed at a youth audience in the Kingdom had printed the cartoons three weeks ago alongside an interview with Saudi cleric Salman Al Awdah who sought to widen a boycott of Denmark and other countries where the offending cartoons were printed.
That's from Cameron Cardow in, of all places, the Ottawa Citizen (thanks to Laurent).
Speaking of the destruction of the Western artistic heritage, it is also useful to consider that little or nothing of what fills galleries and museums in the West would even have been produced in the first place if earlier jihads had succeeded in subjugating Europe.
Note the affirmations that this ruling is in accord with Islamic law and is binding on Muslims. Now would be a good time for the Muslim groups that have condemned cartoon violence to condemn this fatwa also. "Court issues fatwa on cartoonists," from AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:
AN Islamic court in India has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, condemning to death the 12 artists who drew the controversial images of the prophet Mohammed.The decree was issued on behalf of the Idar-e-Sharia Darul Kaza Islamic court in northern Uttar Pradesh state by its religious head in the state capital, Lucknow.
"Death is the only penalty for the cartoonists who had drawn sacrilegious cartoons of the prophet," Maulana Mufti Abul Irfan, the religious head of the court, said overnight.
The court's ruling is binding on Muslims, but can be challenged under Indian law.
Mr Irfan said it was clearly written in the Muslim holy book, the Koran, that anyone who insulted the prophet deserved to be punished.
He said the fatwa was applicable wherever Muslims live.
Jaffaryab Zilany, a member of the authoritative national body of Muslim clerics, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, said however that although the fatwa was legitimate under Islamic law, it had no legal binding in India.
A newly revealed aspect of the Internet jihad. From the Tampa Tribune, with thanks to Twostellas:
When Stacey Turmel placed an order online with Davida, an English motorcycle accessory company, she was looking for protective gear with style and comfort.But after plunking down $255 for a two-tone Deluxe Jet helmet, she found herself dragged into the shadowy world of global jihad.
Turmel, a St. Petersburg lawyer, has learned that she was among several Davida customers whose personal and credit information was placed on a public Web site - 3asfh.net. The site, hosted temporarily by a Tampa-based Web-hosting company, has been used to exchange information on hacking by people waging war in the name of Islam.
"It was scary to find out that jihadis had my personal information," Turmel said.
Her loss was modest. After checking records in the spring of 2002, she found several small charges she did not make - none more than $40, but other victims discovered attempts to charge more than $1,000.
Investigators and Internet security experts say much more is at stake.
Computer hackers - from wayward teens to organized crime syndicates to groups associated with al-Qaida - steal hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Hack attacks such as the one against Turmel are a key weapon of global jihad, experts say.
Read it all.
I am writing this from a stagecoach station in the Midwest, waiting for my connecting coach back to Secure Undisclosed Locationville; I've just arrived back in the United States by express transatlantic kayak from the Netherlands, where I have been for the last four days. I had the honor of being one of the speakers at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague, which was organized by the Dutch political party Lijst Pim Fortuyn, along with Jihad Watch Board member Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Daniel Pipes, Andrew Bostom, Lars Hedegaard, David Littman, Douglas Murray, and others. The topic of my address, which will be published along with the others in a book, was "Do Moderate Muslims Exist?"
It was delightful to be in Holland in the company of so many interesting people, and I believe the Conference was a wonderful success. (I have a few photos and will post them upon return to the Jihad Watch Towers in Secure Undisclosed Locationville.) I arrived in The Hague on a misty and overcast Thursday morning and, as the activities connected to the Conference were not set to begin until that evening, I started off down the street to see what there was to see. As it happened, before too long I ran into Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq and David Littman. Ibn Warraq, with a keen eye for the street signs, presently led us to the Mauritshuis, a charming little museum full of works by Rubens, Rembrandt and other masters. The Mauritshaus houses Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "View of Delft," which Ibn Warraq particularly wanted to see -- he noted its mention by Proust, who had called it "the most beautiful picture in the world."
I am not in the habit of telling personal anecdotes at Jihad Watch, but this is one with a point. The experience in the museum -- brief as it was as we had to hurry back for a reception at the American Embassy -- was overwhelming to me personally. For here was a part of our patrimony, our culture, our heritage, that is in imminent peril as Eurabia advances. I couldn't help but notice that while hijabbed women were common on the streets of The Hague -- I'd guess that one out of every 5 or so women I saw in the center of the city was wearing one -- there were absolutely none inside the museum. Of course, for a pious Muslim the works of the masters are so much jahiliyya -- the products of the society of unbelievers -- and hence worthless.
Of course, everyone is free not to go to a museum, but there is more to it than that. The ideological kin of those who blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan have entered the Netherlands in large numbers. Ibn Warraq's Proust reference may before too long become sadly apposite; remembrance of things past indeed. But did the people moving through the Mauritshuis with Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, David Littman and me realize how much that ideology imperils the paintings they were so coolly admiring, and the museum in which we were admiring them? I do not think they did. That ignorance, of course, was what our Conference was trying to address. There is a great deal more work that must be done on this. And about the Conference itself -- more to come. Watch this space.
From the American Thinker, more on the interconnectedness of jihad and terrorist organizations.
Here’s what the documents tell us:On February 26th, 1993 the first world trade center was attacked by al-Qaeda and the EIJ[Egyptian Islamic Jihad] (really two organizations that cooperated in 1993 and eventually merged).
A month later an official from EIJ was meeting with Saddam in Baghdad.
We have a document showing Saddam authorizing the IIS to “provide technical support” to the EIJ, and by extension, al-Qaeda.
And then al-Qaeda and the EIJ attacked the U.S. on September 11th, 2001 led by an Egyptian Jihadist, Mohammed Atta.
Now you have proof Saddam provided support to the EIJ and by extension al-Qaeda, both of which attacked us on 9/11.
I am less interested in the questions about Saddam than that we all keep firmly in mind that our enemies are part of a global movement. The documents referenced in this article, as well as these give you a window into this movement, where mujahideen network across Iran, Syria, Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Europe and elsewhere. The cartoon riots have shown us how skillfully these instigators can find and manipulate fellow travelers among their coreligionists.
From the Washington Times:
Joint Chiefs of Staff planners have produced a 27-page briefing on the war on terror that seeks to explain how to win the "long war" and says Islamic extremists may be supported by 12 million Muslims worldwide.Military planners worry that al Qaeda could win if "traditional allies prefer accommodation."
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the document states, "is absolutely committed to his cause. His religious ideology successfully attracts recruits. He has sufficient population base from which to protract the conflict. ... Even support of 1 percent of the Muslim population would equate to over 12 million 'enemies.' "The unclassified production, titled "Fighting the Long War -- Military Strategy for the War on Terrorism," is a component of the Pentagon's ongoing campaign to explain that a lengthy struggle requires patience from the American people and Congress...
"The United States cannot be defeated militarily," the briefing says, "the enemy knows this. But consider ... terror attacks weaken the world economy. Continued casualties weaken national resolve. Traditional allies prefer accommodation."
The enemy has "inherent weaknesses," including "no military capacity to expand their fight beyond terrorist tactics."
"Marginalizing an ideology requires patience and promoting reform from within," the briefing said.
Although it is similar to the Cold War, the war on terror has a distinction.
"We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist."
"Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."
From AP:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.Authorities in eastern Pakistan had banned protests after riots killed five people in two cities last week.
Elsewhere in the Muslim world on Sunday, demonstrators with wooden staves and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.
Troops patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, where thousands of Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches Saturday, killing at least 15 people during a protest over the cartoons. Most of the victims were beaten to death by rioters.
In Saudi Arabia, newspapers ran full-page apologies by Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first ran the caricatures in September. The newspaper's Web site said businesses placed the ad on their own initiative, using an apology issued by the newspaper late last month. It did not identify the companies or say if they were Danish...
Well, that works for me, too.
From AP
Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the U.S. had resorted to the same "repressive" tactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaida leader that was posted Monday on a militant Web site.
The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was first broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.
"I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived," bin Laden said.
Two stories this weekend estimate the number of dead in cartoon violence at 45. Just stop and think about that for a minute. What an utter waste.
Cartoon rage continues.
From AP
Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.
Here is a typical example of how crimes of this nature, happening all across Europe, are being reported. The fact that Muslims are involved is not revealed until the last sentence in the interview with the family, long after most people have stopped reading. This is from Ynet, with thanks to Hugh.
The French police arrested 13 people on suspicion of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew.Halimi was found on Monday tied to a tree, naked and wounded, with burns covering all parts of his body. He died on the way to the hospital.
Police officials said that the abduction and murder were apparently not motivated by anti-Semitism, but added that they have not yet discovered what led the group to commit the acts...
Then, way down at the end of the article:
Despite the police's doubts, Halimi's family believes that the act was motivated by anti-Semitism.“We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair,” Rafi, Ilan’s brother-in-law, told the European Jewish Press. ”First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and secondly because of what they said on the phone."
”When we said we didn’t have Euro 500,000 to give them, they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi stressed.
“They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us," he said.
From the BBC:
Israel's cabinet has approved punitive sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, now led by militant group Hamas.Israel will withhold an estimated $50m (£28m) in monthly customs revenues due to the PA, and will tighten borders for people and food crossing into Gaza.
Before the cabinet meeting, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the Hamas-led PA a "terrorist authority" and ruled out direct talks...
The newly-elected speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Duaik, said Israel's decision would prove counter-productive.
"This is a faulty decision, and the Israelis must reconsider their decision. It will only increase hatred."...
Veiled threats, blackmail and extortion have proven to be very effective diplomatic tools in the past, whether they were wielded by Arafat, Abbas, or now Hamas in an official capacity. Heavens, we wouldn't want to make an already volatile situation worse, now would we?
Sign held at a cartoon rage rally Wednesday in Pakistan.
More on this story from AP, with thanks to Mackie:
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for Esteshadion, or Martyrdom Seekers, boasted of having hundreds of potential bombers in his talk at a seminar on suicide-bombings tactics at Tehran's Khajeh Nasir University.
"With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities," Samadi said.
"If they strike, we have a lot of volunteers. Their (U.S. and British) sensitive places are quiet close to Iranian borders," Samadi said.
From AP
Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday in violence that left at least 15 people dead, police and a resident said.
Troops and police reinforcements have been deployed to restore order in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, where 15 Christian churches were burned, said Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi.
Help Wanted: Must be skilled in firing light arms and have knowledge in using explosives. Must have sufficient religious knowledge to enable him carry-out his duties.
Via Austin Bay a treasure trove of reading at West Point. Check out the bylaws from which I extracted the above snippet. Find out what an al Qaeda operative makes, his vacation and medical benefits.
Alas, our love affair was short-lived. From our newly inaugurated "both sides missing the point" department and the Sydney Morning Herald:
THE United States lags dangerously behind al-Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.Modernisation is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West, Mr Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included email, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and web logs, or blogs.
"Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but . . . our country has not adapted," Mr Rumsfeld said. "For the most part, the US Government still functions as a five and dime store in an eBay world," Mr Rumsfeld said, comparing old-fashioned US retail stores and the online auction house.
Mr Rumsfeld said military public affairs officers must learn to anticipate news and respond faster, and good public affairs officers should be rewarded with promotions.
The military's information offices still operate mostly eight hours a day, five or six days a week while the challenges they face occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Mr Rumsfeld called that a "dangerous deficiency".
Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy immediately criticised Mr Rumsfeld as missing the point.
"Clearly, we need to improve our public diplomacy and information age communication in the Muslim world," Senator Kennedy said in a statement. "But nothing has done more to encourage increased al-Qaeda recruitment and made America less safe than the war in Iraq and the incompetent way it's been managed.
"Our greatest failure is our policy."...
No, Mr. Kennedy, so far our greatest failure is the non-comprehension of jihad warfare at the top levels of our government and among our policy making elite.
From the Australian:
RUSSIA plunged deeper into the maelstrom of Middle Eastern politics yesterday, saying it might sell arms to the Palestinians after talks with Hamas in Moscow early next month.The announcement by Russia's Chief of General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, will outrage Israel.
The move came as Israel prepared to impose sanctions on the Palestinians when Hamas forms a government today. Sources predicted Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, 43, would be appointed Palestinian prime minister at the inaugural session of parliament...
Behind the rhetoric, many Western and even some Israeli officials back the initiative.
"The strategy is to play an independent role in building a bridge between Hamas and the West," said Vitaly Naumkin, head of the Centre of Strategic and Political Studies.
"I'm sure the West and the Israelis are happy with what Russia is doing."...
The Palestinian Authority wants to buy two Mi-17 transport helicopters and 50 armoured personnel carriers, news agency Interfax has reported.
Western officials are sceptical Hamas will comply with the request to recognise Israel. But they admit Russia still offers the best hope for a breakthrough.
Hope for a breakthrough? I'm afraid, the old diplo-speak of the past does not apply no matter how much we might "hope."
"Berlusconi Demands Minister's Resignation After Libyan Protests" from Bloomberg:
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi asked Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli to resign late yesterday after a mob attacked an Italian consulate in Libya angered about the T-shirt worn by the minister on Feb. 14 depicting a Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.About 1,000 protesters staged two attacks on the consulate building in Benghazi, Libya, yesterday, the Italian foreign ministry said. While fire was set to the front of the building, the Libyan police stopped the protesters from harming the six Italian staff, according to the ministry. Eleven protesters were killed by police, Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.
``I respect all faiths and support dialogue between religions and civilizations,'' Berlusconi said in a statement published on the government's Web site early today. ``Senator Calderoli's position isn't that of the government and it's evidently incompatible with an institutional role, so he's invited to resign.''...
Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party, earlier this week had T-shirts made with the Danish cartoons stamped on them. Calderoli said the shirts weren't meant to provoke Muslims, but instead to invite ``real dialogue.''
``It's time to stop making up stories about looking for dialogue with these people,'' Calderoli said on Feb. 14. ``They only want to humiliate people, full stop.'' Calderoli said it was ``hypocritical'' to distinguish between ``terrorist Islam and pacifist Islam.''
Calderoli refused to resign last night, the minister said in an interview published today in la Repubblica newspaper that was confirmed by his spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.
``I may even be sorry for the victims, but what happened in Libya has nothing to do with my T-shirt,'' Calderoli said in la Repubblica. ``That's not what's at stake. What's at stake is Western civilization.''...
Update: Italian Minister Wearing Cartoon T-shirt Resigns
At the New York cartoon rage rally yesterday, a call for the suppression of free speech:
Death threats to, notably, Flemming Rose of Jyllands Posten, the newspaper that originally published the cartoons, and the great ex-Muslim Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- at the New York cartoon rage demonstration yesterday:
At the New York cartoon rally yesterday, a sign we have seen before:
Note again the black flag of jihad flying over the White House.
Apparently the Iranians believe that they are already in a position to assert their power in Iraq. From AP, with thanks to Mackie:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iran's foreign minister demanded the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra on Friday, saying their presence had destabilized Iraq's second-largest city.British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the demand and accused Iran of trying to divert attention from other issues, presumably its nuclear program. A Basra city spokesman said the departure of foreign troops "is not in Iraq's interest now" because of the security situation.
"We believe that the presence of British forces in Basra has destabilized security in this city and has had some negative effects in the form of threats against southern Iran recently," Foreign Minister Manushehr Mottaki said during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran demands an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," he added. Basra, where most of Britain's more than 8,000 troops in Iraq are based, is located about 20 miles west of the Iranian border.
This is a group that up until a few years ago celebrated on its website its murders of civilians on buses and in restaurants as jihad victories. Was that website designed by the Israelis? From AP, with thanks to Mackie:
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- The exiled political leader of Hamas said Friday the world has the wrong image of the Islamic militant group and he urged the international community to stop viewing it through the eyes of Israel."We believe that most of the leaders in Europe, in the West, have ... a wrong image about Hamas, because this image doesn't reflect us. It reflects how some people, especially Israel, see Hamas," Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press, surrounded by bodyguards on a commercial flight from Ankara to Istanbul.
"We want the world, and especially the countries in the West, to understand us, to understand Hamas well, to understand the will of the Palestinian people, the national goals of Hamas and the Palestinian people."
Yes, they're lovable fellows. Just ignore all those murders and keep the money flowing.
More cartoon madness from AP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
TRIPOLI, Libya - Libyans angry over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad rioted at the Italian consulate on Friday, storming the building and setting it on fire. A diplomat said at least 10 people were killed in clashes with police.It was the deadliest demonstration yet against the cartoons, which have set off violent protests throughout the Muslim world. At least 29 people have been killed altogether.
Cartoon Madness Update from AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
KARACHI (AFP) - Denmark temporarily shut its embassy in Islamabad and Pakistan recalled its envoy from Copenhagen, amid relentless protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. An Islamic cleric added fuel to the fire by offering a one-million-dollar reward for killing the artists of the 12 cartoons, first published in Denmark in September 2005 and widely reprinted across Europe.Thousands of protestors took to the streets for a fifth straight day in Pakistan and clashed with police, who shot and wounded a boy.
Nearly 300 were arrested and a firebrand Islamic leader was put under house arrest in a bid to dampen unrest that has left five Pakistanis dead this week.
This follows the rewards offered by a Pakistani cleric. Which cartoonist is not specified, perhaps because Haji Yaqoob Qureishi is under the impression that the same person drew them all, or perhaps because only one offends him. "Rs 51-crore reward for Danish cartoonist’s head, says UP Minister," from Indian Express, with thanks to K.:
LUCKNOW, MEERUT, FEBRUARY 17: The Minister for Minority Welfare and Haj in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, Haji Yaqoob Qureishi, has announced a cash reward of Rs 51 crore for anyone who beheads the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Prophet Mohammad.While the state government has defended the Minister’s remark as the “voice of someone whose religious sentiments have been hurt,” a senior member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has slammed it calling the reward “anti-Islamic and anti-humanity.”
Well, I am glad someone seems to be keeping his head while others are calling for the cartoonists to lose theirs.
Outrageous Cartoon Whining Alert. Publishing twelve cartoons of Muhammad in the newspaper is equivalent to murdering 3,000 unsuspecting office workers as they went about their business on a sunny September morning. From zaman.com, with thanks to Romy:
The publication of cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed has had the effect of the September 11 attacks on the Islamic world, argued Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Conference.Muslims are offended by the cartoons, Mr. Ihsanoglu told High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (EU) Javier Solana; currently on tour in the Middle East.
They are? Really??? I hadn't noticed. Actually, sarcasm aside, they aren't. If they really were, they would have been protesting just as violently in Egypt when the cartoons were printed there in October as they have been elsewhere more recently. If they really were, they would be calling for the executions of the Danish Muslims who added into a dossier circulated in the Muslim world three cartoons much more inflammatory than the 12 that were actually printed in the Danish newspaper. No, cartoon rage isn't really about offensive cartoons at all. It is an attempt to cow Western nations into adopting Islamic blasphemy laws, forbidding non-Muslims to insult the Prophet -- and making them take the first large step toward accepting other Sharia provisions, just as the jihadists are also fighting in their way to compel them to do.
"It is unfortunate that the Islamic world took the satirical drawings as a different version of the September 11 attacks against them," said Mr. Ihsanoglu. "I hope," he added, "the EU will adopt a new ruling to fight against Islamophobia."
In a sane world, Ihsanoglu would have said, "It is unfortunate that the Islamic world took the satirical drawings as a different version of the September 11 attacks against them. I hope the Islamic world will take a calmer, more rational, and less violent and manipulative path in the future." Instead, he just uses this irrational rage as a springboard to bring Islamic blasphemy laws West under the guise of "Islamophobia."
Solana, on the issue, assured Ihsanoglu of his determination to prevent the situation from escalating.
Why is this always the West's responsibility?
Solana said he asked senior EU officials to show respect to Muslims today, the same as they had done in the past."We never had the intention of harming. Please feel assured that we will do our best to preclude the cartoon crisis from re-occurring, because we need each other," said Solana, who will first meet King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in the capital Riyadh, and later visit Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel as part of his Middle East tour.
We promise we'll never do it again. We're so so sorry we offended you. Just please, please don't hurt us.
Stirred up, evidently, by fiery khutaba in the mosques on Friday, Muslims go on a cartoon rampage in India. "Muslims go on rampage against controversial cartoon," from Newindpress.com, with thanks to Twostellas:
HYDERABAD: The controversial cartoon in a Danish newspaper had its echo in the Old City of Hyderabad with thousands of Muslims going on rampage after the prayers in Mecca Masjid in the afternoon.Over a dozen persons were injured even as unruly mobs indulged in stone pelting and looting of shops in at least six police station limits of the Old City. As the day passed, protests spread to other parts of the city and the tension heightened with BJP activists taking out rallies condemning the violence and demanding action against the guilty.
The All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) called a meeting inside Mecca Masjid this afternoon to protest the Danish cartoons. MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi, MLAs Akbaruddin Owaisi and others participated in the meeting.
After the prayers, a strong mob of about 10,000 came out of the mosque even as hundreds of police personnel including Rapid Action Force commandoes stood guard.
Taking the police by surprise, the agitators split into small groups and moved in different directions pelting stones at shops, RTC buses and vehicles. By the time the police reacted, it was a bit late and the mobs looted some shops and set ablaze a couple of vehicles.
They also burnt Denmark national flag raising slogans. Some of the miscreants even used acid bulbs indicating that the attacks were pre-planned.
Cartoon Rage Update: Egyptian Sandmonkey has the news that the Egyptian Ambassador to Denmark has been replaced and sent to South Africa. Sandmonkey comments:
I guess her job as ambassador got really hard after it was found out that the offending cartoons were printed in Egypt back in October. But that's just my guess. :)
That would be my guess, too. The hypocrisy of Egyptian cartoon outrage must have been difficult for her to sustain.
There's that word, "moderate" again. A terrorist elected by popular acclaim must perforce become a moderate, right? From the Bandar Beacon, also known as the Washington Post.
JERUSALEM -- Hamas leaders say they have agreed to nominate Ismail Haniyeh, a powerful party figure in the Gaza Strip, as prime minister when the Palestinian parliament convenes Saturday for the first time since the radical Islamic movement's electoral victory last month.Several Hamas officials, including Haniyeh, said Thursday that an official position had not been reached regarding his nomination to lead the next Palestinian Cabinet. But a consensus has emerged around Haniyeh's candidacy since Hamas leaders traveled to Cairo this month to meet with government officials and party members in exile, who encouraged them to choose one of their own as prime minister -- rather than support an independent nominee who might be more appealing to international donors.
Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, told the Dow Jones News Service on Thursday from the Syrian capital, Damascus, that Haniyeh would be nominated when the new parliament meets Saturday.
Haniyeh emerged from the Hamas student movement at the Islamic University in Gaza City. He survived a 2003 Israeli airstrike but is considered a relative moderate in the movement...
Please read Robert Spencer's excellent “We Have No Peace Process” for background on the Hamas electoral victory.
From AP:
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that next month's Moscow talks with Hamas leaders were aimed at bringing the militant Palestinian group into the Mideast peace process."We are counting on all this to foster progress toward a situation in which Hamas will be a legitimate, integral and useful part of the peace process in the Middle East," Lavrov told reporters...
President Vladimir Putin's invitation to the militant group, made at a news conference in Spain earlier this month, was the latest bid by Moscow to invigorate its role in Mideast peacemaking after years of taking a back seat to the United States. The invitation stunned Israel and other nations.
Hamas's parliamentary victory prompted threats from the United States and European Union to cut off massive aid to the Palestinians unless the group responsible for scores of suicide attacks and designated a terrorist organization by many Western nations recognizes Israel and renounces violence.
But Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Andrei Denisov, told the Russian daily Izvestia earlier this week that cutting off international aid to the Palestinians would be "counterproductive."
"In history there are many examples of radicals coming to power and adopting a more realistic and constructive stance," Denisov was quoted as saying. "We all hope that Hamas will show sense."...
From Ireland Online:
A Pakistani cleric offered a 1.5 million rupee (€28,000) reward and a car for anyone who kills the cartoonist who drew Prophet Mohammed.Another Islamist leader was put under house detention, amid fears of more deadly demonstrations today, officials said.
The cleric did not name the cartoonist, and several cartoonists submitted images to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which first published them.
Russia continues its short-sighted power game. From AP, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:
Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.
"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
He said that while Iran's military potential cannot compare to the United States', "it is hard to predict how the Muslim world will respond to the use of force against Iran."
"This may stir the whole world, and it is crucial to prevent anything like that," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying.
Yes, just allow Ahmadinejad to develop a nuclear bomb. That will certainly bring peace.
Israel National News (thanks to Cherokee Warrior) is reporting that Iran has tested a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, with a 2,000 kilometer range. I haven't been able to find confirmation elsewhere at this point.
This would certainly solve everyone's problem. No one wants to deal with a terrorist government? Voila! Hamas is not a terrorist group! Never mind all those murdered civilians. After all, we must play realpolitik...From AP, with thanks to Mackie:
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- A senior Hamas official called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington's list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions.Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas "as it is, and later there could be a dialogue...but there should be no preconditions."
"Hamas is not the only side that wants peace. ...All the Palestinians want peace because they are the only people whose rights have been encroached upon and who have been expelled from their lands," Abu Marzouk said.
Abu Marzouk described as "absolutely unacceptable" Israel's call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying "Hamas...was chosen by the Palestinian people...this is democracy."
Sure, they want peace. The peace that will ensue when the last Israeli has been driven out of the land, subjugated to dhimmi status, or killed.
Another Jihad Thomas Update from the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Osama bin Laden ordered a Muslim convert to help prepare a terrorist attack to topple the Australian government, Victoria supreme court was told yesterday.Joseph Thomas, 32, a taxi driver who changed his name to Jihad, was told to act as a sleeper agent and spy on military installations, said Nicholas Robinson, prosecuting....
Mr Robinson said Thomas told police that he had seen bin Laden "at close quarters" several times and had trained for about three months at al-Qa'eda bases in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks on America.
He was in Pakistan by July 2002, stayed in al-Qa'eda safe houses and allegedly overheard a plot to shoot down an aircraft carrying the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, with a rocket launcher....
Thomas returned to Australia in June 2004 after being held in Pakistan for six months on suspicion of having terrorist connections. The court was told that bin Attash had given him £2,000 and booked a Qantas airline ticket for him.
Thomas's lawyer, Lex Lasry, said his client might be naive or even stupid but he was not a terrorist.
That's a distinction without a difference if I ever saw one.
Update on the Hamid Hayat case from the San Jose Mercury News:
SACRAMENTO - Vastly different pictures emerged today of a man charged with attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan, with government attorneys portraying Hamid Hayat as a trained terrorist intent on attacking Americans while his defense described him as a directionless young man prone to wild storytelling.Prosecutors said they will show the 23-year-old Lodi man traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and 2004 to train at the camp. They also said he was awaiting information about potential targets after he returned to his family's home in the heart of California's farming region.
"Hamid Hayat talked about jihad before he even left the United States. He talked about acts of violence, he talked about training camps. He received weapons training while he was there," Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ferris said in opening statements, referring to the Arabic word for "holy war."
"He admitted he went to a jihadist training camp, not once but twice. ... He returned to the United States to commit jihad, and he was waiting for orders."
Hayat and his father are charged with lying about whether the younger man attended the training camp and have been in custody since their arrests last June...
1938 Alert from MEMRI:
On February 16, 2006, the reformist Internet daily Rooz (www.roozonline.com) reported for the first time that extremist clerics from Qom had issued what the daily called "a new fatwa," which states that "the shari'a does not forbid the use of nuclear weapons." The following are excerpts from the Rooz report by Shahram Rafizadeh:(1)"When the Entire World is Armed With Nuclear Weapons, it is Permissible to Use These Weapons as a Counter-[Measure]"
"The spiritual leaders of the ultra-conservatives [in Iran] have accepted the use of nuclear weapons as lawful in the eyes of the shari'a. Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of [Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi [who is Iranian President Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor], has spoken for the first time of using nuclear weapons as a counter-measure. He stated that 'in terms of the shari'a, it all depends on the goal.'
"The religious leadership of the Islamic Republic [of Iran], which has until now regarded the use of nuclear weapons as opposed to the Shari'a, and has repeated this point again and again, has so far kept silent about this. In spite of the fact that, in the last few weeks, some of the senior [leaders] of the Islamic Republic have tried to reduce the pressure [exerted by] the radical [conservatives], the radicals nevertheless seem to have complete control over the [political] arena.
"[Iranian National Security Council Secretary] Ali Larijani, who is in charge of the nuclear dossier, has spoken to reporters only once since the [IAEA] Board of Governors approved its resolution – and his silence is significant.(2) But yesterday, the IraNews news agency published recent remarks by Mohsen Gharavian regarding the nuclear issue. Gharavian is a lecturer at the religious schools of Qom, and is a disciple of [Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi. In his recent remarks, he said for the first time that the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem according to shari'a. He further said that 'when the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a counter-[measure]. According to the shari'a, too, only the goal is important...'
Only the goal is important. As I explained in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
I'd rather have a plate of freedom fries, but to each his own. From Reuters, with thanks to MS:
TEHRAN, Iran - Not content with pelting European embassies with Molotov cocktails to protest against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Iranians have decided to rename the “Danish pastries” relished by this nation of cake lovers.From now on, the sweet, flaky pastries which dominate the shelves in Iran’s cake shops will be known as “Roses of the Prophet Muhammad,” the official IRNA news agency reported as pressure on Denmark over the cartoons took on a new dimension.
“No one is allowed to make fun of our beloved and respected prophet,” Hassan Nasserzadeh, a cake shop owner in central Tehran, told Reuters.
Mr. Fitzgerald, call your office. As reported in the Jerusalem Post:
The US Congress is moving closer to banning financial aid and restricting ties with a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. The House of Representatives approved a non-binding resolution on this issue Wednesday, and the process of passing a binding bill against ties with Hamas is gaining momentum.The administration has not put any pressure to change the Palestine anti-terrorism act of 2006, but according to congressional sources, such pressure is expected, since the bill puts significant limitations on the ability of the executive branch to deal with the PA.
Apart from stopping direct aid to the PA, if it is led by Hamas, the bill, cosponsored by leading Republicans and Democrats, also restricts aid to non-governmental groups in the PA territories and limits ties with Palestinians affiliated with a Hamas government.
The bill does not include a waiver clause which would allow the president to bypass these restrictions in cases he sees as relating to the national interest. President George W. Bush has used existing waivers in the current law to funnel financial aid directly to the Mahmoud Abbas-led PA.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed, by a 418 to 1 majority, the non-binding resolution on Hamas. The resolution, first introduced by Sen. John Thune (R-S. Dak.), gained unanimous support in a Senate vote on February 1. Though this resolution is non-binding, the support it enjoyed in both chambers can serve as an indication to the way members of Congress will vote when the binding bill is brought before them...
Who you gonna believe? Andrew McCarthy has some clear-eyed analysis over at National Review Online:
So here we are again, a dazed planet brushing ourselves off and surveying the wreckage from the worst spree of Islam-inspired rioting, bombing, murder, and mayhem since ... well, since the last one. And the one before that.The ongoing one is over offensive cartoons published by an obscure Danish newspaper. That's a step down from the one over a tall tale about Koran-flushing in a Guantanamo Bay toilet. Not to mention the one over infidel troops stationed (to protect Muslims) in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, the one over the Occupation, the one over the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the one over the Crusades, and the one over that time in 680 A.D. when some scion of monkeys and pigs allegedly spied a bare ankle under someone's sister's wind-swept chador.
You get the idea. The cartoon caper, though, has been singular — there hasn't been such an outpouring on the "Arab Street" since that heroic martyrdom operation against the Great Satan a little over four years ago...
Nonetheless, the contemporary vision of "moderate Islam" as a meaningful force for good is a mirage. Certainly there are moderate Muslim individuals. Large pockets of them, there and there, who have assimilated to the modern world and want only to live in ecumenical peace. But many of the people we call "moderates" are flat-out phonies, the bag-men who rise on the shoulders of the leg-breakers.
The authentic moderates, meanwhile, tarry in muted resistance to the domineering strain of their faith. The strain we like to tell ourselves is a mere fringe. The strain that has just managed, yet again, to unleash untold thousands (not handfuls of militants, but transcontinental thousands) to maraud over a trifling affront. The moderates must carry on by pretending, much like the State Department pretends, that the commands of their scriptures — toward brutality, beheading, conquest, death to unbelievers, eternal damnation to apostates, the subjugation of women, the dehumanizing of non-Muslims, and so on — either do not exist or have somehow been superseded (even though the Koran is said to reflect the words of Allah Himself, and even though much in it of a threatening nature actually comes later in time than the passages bespeaking moderation and tolerance).
Meanwhile, as we prepare to spend yet another $120 billion on a novel brand of democracy building — one which establishes Islam as Iraq's state religion and enshrines the inequities of sharia as a source and measure of its fundamental law — our wildly premature birthing of the nascent Palestinian "democracy" has just resulted in the rise to power of Hamas, an entity the U.S. officially designates as a terrorist organization. (To be fair, its competition was Fatah, an entity successive U.S. administrations spent the last dozen or so years deluding themselves was not a terrorist organization. In the event, these legatees of Yasser Arafat were, of course, the "moderates.") This result means that if American citizens did what our government is right now continuing to do — namely, contributing funds we well know Hamas will soon be controlling — they could be indicted under our antiterrorism laws. There are, as we speak, several defendants under such indictments in this country.
All of this intellectual and moral confusion — the disintegration of the Bush Doctrine, the compromising of our conception of democracy, the strange deference to charlatans spewing seventh-century venom, the pressure on our government to violate the very laws it enacted to choke off the funding that underwrites our enemies' butchery — all of it is based on a single conceit: That there is a flourishing moderate Islam. One worth looking beyond all the menacing verses and countless atrocities to find.
Okay, where is it?
Please read it all. This is an excellent piece.
Maybe, just maybe, there could still be justice done in the case of the Rumpled Academic. From Baynews9, with thanks to Keithjoy:
Federal Judge James Moody has set a new trial date for former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian and one of his codefendants.The trial is scheduled to begin April 8. Al-Arian, 47, and three other men stood trial last year on charges relating to providing financial support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Two of the men, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were acquitted on all of the counts in December. But the jury deadlocked on nine of the charges against Al-Arian and eight of the charges against codefendant Hatem Naji Fariz....
Though a trial date has been set, it's still possible the case may not make it to trial.
How many such sleeper agents are there in Western countries? From AAP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
ACCUSED terrorist Joseph Terrence Thomas was told by an al-Qaeda operative that Osama bin Laden wanted him to act as a sleeper agent in Australia, a Victorian court has heard.Opening the trial of Thomas in the Victorian Supreme Court today, Crown prosecutor Nicholas Robinson said Thomas told Australian Federal Police he had seen bin Laden in "close quarters" on several occasions.
The 32-year-old Werribee man has pleaded not guilty to one count of intentionally receiving funds from a terrorist organisation between November 2002 and January 2003....
Mr Robinson said Thomas told AFP officers he had trained for about three months at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan called Al Farooq around the middle of 2001.
"The accused told police ... that he saw Osama bin Laden in close quarters on a number of occasions," Mr Robinson told the court.
He said that after training at the camp, Thomas went to Pakistan where he stayed in safe houses frequented by al-Qaeda operatives.Mr Robinson said one al-Qaeda member, Khaled Bin Attash, personally handed him $US3500 ($4745) and organised a plane ticket from Pakistan back to Australia.
When AFP agents asked Thomas why Attash wanted him to go back to Australia he said he was to surveil military installations.
"Osama bin Laden wanted an Australian to work for him and to carry out operations in Australia," Mr Robinson said Thomas told police.
When even the French start showing some spine, you know the situation must be very grave. 1938 Alert from the BBC, with thanks to T:
France has for the first time explicitly accused Iran of using its nuclear programme as a cover for clandestine military nuclear activity.Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told French TV no civilian programme could explain Iran's activity.
Iran says it resumed small-scale uranium enrichment work last week, after the UN nuclear watchdog reported it to the Security Council.
But Tehran insists the programme is solely for peaceful purposes.
They have a few bridges to sell us, too.
What oppression he must feel in the Israeli apartheid state, that all he can do in life is run for the Knesset. Stories like these show vividly how hollow are the charges that Israel oppresses its Arab citizens. Strange that a man who is calling for what amounts to the destruction of the Jewish state and reduction of the Jews and Christians there to dhimmi status would be a candidate for the national parliament. Just a lone nut anyway? No: he is a leader of the Islamic Association of Israel. From Israel National News, with thanks to Romy:
(IsraelNN.com) Ibrahim Sarsur, head of the United Arab List, which is running for Knesset jointly with Ahmed Tibi's Ta'al party, said today in a press conference that his party believes in Islamic rule over Israel, in the form of a renewed Caliphate."We believe in Islam, we believe in the rule of the Caliphate and we do not support a separation between state and religion," Sarsur said. As such, he stated, the UAL-Ta'al list will fight what he called "Israelization and Zionization" through the Israeli Knesset. Sarsur is also a religious leader and a head of the Islamic Association of Israel.
A vampirean message from Hamas, via Palestinian Media Watch, with thanks to all who sent this in. You can view the video at the PMW site.
The Hamas website this week presented the parting video messages of two Hamas suicide terrorists. One message was for Jews, whose blood Hamas promises to drink until Jews "leave the Muslim countries," and the second to a mother, as she helps dress her son for battle prior to his suicide terror mission....Each terrorist had a separate message for Jews. This first said,
"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."
The second terrorist said the following:
"In the name of Allah, we will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, [and] purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country... This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."
"Sons of monkeys and pigs." Cf. Qur'an 2:62-65, 5:59-60, and 7:166.
Or is it a jihad? From Phyllis Schlafly, with thanks to Mackie:
If you don't have access to Texas newspapers or the internet, you may not have heard the sensational news about the enormous cache of weapons just seized in Laredo, Texas. U.S. authorities grabbed two completed Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), materials for making 33 more, military-style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bullet-proof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics, and cash.That sounds like a war is going on in Texas! If bomb-making factories and firearms assembly plants are ordinary day-to-day business in the drug war along our southern border, the American people need to know more about it.
The Val Verde County chief deputy warned that drug traffickers are helping terrorists with possible al Quaeda ties to cross the Texas-Mexico border into the United States.
Speaking of ticking time bombs, Paul Sperry in FrontPage shows that we have them right here in the U.S., courtesy our friends and allies the Saudis:
A former top Homeland Security official reveals in a forthcoming book that the FBI failed to examine "stacks of boxes" of potential evidence containing the applications of thousands of young Saudi men who had applied for and received visas to travel to the U.S. around the same time as the 15 Saudi hijackers.While the FBI says it can find no evidence of al-Qaida cells here, the agency has not looked at all the Saudi-based evidence since 9/11, warns former Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin.
Ervin, who resigned early last year, says he discovered several unexamined boxes of Saudi visa applications in a storage room at the U.S. Embassy during a trip two years ago to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. He was told by consular officers there that FBI agents neglected to go through the boxes and pull the files to see if there might have been any connections -- tribes, families, villages, occupations, addresses, phone numbers and so on -- between those applicants and the hijackers.
Even in the aftermath of 9/11, "predictably, the FBI fell woefully behind in vetting these applications," Ervin says in the galley proof of his soon-to-be-released book, "Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable To Attack" (Palgrave MacMillan). The FBI missed clues to the first World Trade Center terror plot in 1993 because they were buried in boxes of unexamined evidence from an earlier terror case.Ervin says a team of FBI agents did visit the embassy in the months after the 9/11 attacks and asked the consular section to pull some of the files.
But for some unexplained reason, he says the agents left the embassy in Riyadh without examining the thousands of other applications stored in the stacks of boxes, even though Saudi Arabia is a known al-Qaida hotbed.
"As I write these words today," Ervin says on page 45 of the galley copy I've obtained, "these applications have yet to be examined, and the more time goes by, the less potentially useful any intelligence they might contain will be."
Even when the FBI has screened visa applicants, it hasn't done it fast enough to weed out terrorist suspects and prevent them from entering the U.S.
For example, in the months after 9/11, the FBI and CIA scoured the visa applications of all males between the ages of 16 and 45 from predominantly Arab and Muslim countries for any terrorist connections, Ervin says. They found some 200 applicants with terrorist ties.
But by the time they made the connections, the State Department had already issued the men their visas, he says. The department duly revoked the visas, but it was too late -- the men had already entered the U.S.
"Our government had no idea whether any of these terrorists were still in the country, and if so, where," Ervin says. "It is possible that all 200 of them are in America somewhere today, waiting for just the right moment to launch another attack."
Osama bin Laden recently warned that al-Qaida is making final preparations for another massive attack on America. Assuming the terrorist kingpin isn't bluffing, experts say, he could have terrorist cells secreted inside American cities.
While the FBI says it's found no evidence of such terror cells here, it also said much the same thing before the 9/11 attacks. And Ervin points out that the bureau nonetheless figures there are at least 1,000 al-Qaida sympathizers in the U.S. today -- a number that he calls "low." It's possible there are thousands of sympathizers supporting and facilitating hundreds of terrorist operatives inside the U.S., he fears, and the FBI has yet to make the connections.
"It's safe to say, then, that a not insignificant number of suspected terrorists are known to be in the country today," he says.
Ervin speculates that the FBI chose not to examine the other Saudi visa applications because "doing so was too much trouble."
Asked about it, FBI spokesman Bill Carter says it's the first he's heard of any unexamined boxes of Saudi visa applications. He says generally it's the State Department's duty to check out visa applicants, and the FBI plays only a minor supporting role in the process.
"The State Department is usually responsible for the processing of visa applications. And generally what happens in that regard is there's a name-check process," Carter says. "In other words, they would send the names over to the FBI, and we run it through our case files to determine if there's anything in the FBI databases that would preclude or prevent that individual from coming into the United States."
"But," he adds, "I'm not familiar with the fact that there are boxes that remain unreviewed."
Carter says the FBI's legal attache office in Riyadh -- which has come under fire recently -- may have been involved initially in reviewing the visa files. But he maintains it was not ultimately responsible for running down terror leads on Saudi individuals after 9/11. "Most of what that [office activity] had to do with was tracking financial issues with regard to support of terrorist groups," Carter explains.
FBI agents in Washington have complained that they received little help after 9/11 from the bureau's office in Riyadh, which was run by two Muslim agents. One, Egyptian-born Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, says they were understaffed and hobbled by an antiquated computer system.
But he and his boss Wilfred Rattigan, a black convert to Islam, nonetheless found time to travel to Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage, where they surrendered their FBI cell phones to Saudi nationals and were out of contact with officials back in the U.S. who were trying to ring them up about investigations into al-Qaida and 9/11.
Both Rattigan and Abdel-Hafiz, who have since been reassigned within the bureau, wore traditional Muslim headgear and robes while on the job in Saudi Arabia, further annoying fellow agents.
When a senior FBI supervisor paid a visit to the Riyadh office nearly a year after 9/11, she found secret documents strewn about the office, some even wedged between cabinets. She also found a huge backlog of boxes each filled with three feet of paper containing secret, time-sensitive leads. Much of the materials, including information on Saudi airline pilots, had not been translated or reviewed.
Ervin, now a homeland security expert at the Aspen Institute in Washington, insists that someone in law enforcement -- whether the FBI or an agency within DHS -- still needs to review the unexamined boxes sitting in the embassy in Riyadh.
"Why hasn't anyone from the Department of Homeland Security bothered to look through them to see whether there might be links between any of those applicants and any of the hijackers?" he complains in his book.
DHS, for its part, says it has introduced a program meant to add another layer of security to State's visa application process. Two years ago, under the Homeland Security Act, it deployed so-called Visa Security Officers (VSOs) to Saudi Arabia, still a hotbed of terrorism, to review applications for people who could be considered national security threats.
But the Saudi program has been plagued with problems. The Government Accountability Office last year reported that officers assigned there are spread too thin by a heavy workload. And the case volume is expected to grow. Reportedly, the administration recently agreed to a request by the Saudi royal government to ramp up the number of student visas issued to Saudi nationals, a process that was slowed after 9/11.
Making matters worse, only one of the first 10 VSOs sent to Saudi Arabia could speak Arabic. "Needless to say," Ervin says, "the officers' effectiveness was severely limited by their inability to speak and read the language of the visa applicants."
While it remains unclear how many other Saudi terrorist suspects have received visas to travel to the U.S., authorities have identified several Saudi nationals associated with the hijackers or al-Qaida, or both, who are still at large and may pose a potential threat to America. Here are a few:
Ali Abd al Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi: Originally a candidate for the 9/11 operation, he was held in reserve by bin Laden for a later, even larger operation. He was recently given amnesty by the Saudi government.
Saud al-Rashid: He also trained for the suicide mission. Photos of him were found with those of three other hijackers. Saudi authorities released him from custody in 2002.
Adnan al-Shukrijumah: U.S. investigators consider the former Florida resident -- a.k.a. "Jafar the Pilot" -- to be "the next Mohamed Atta." The Saudi national, who conspired with dirty-nuke suspect Jose Padilla, was last spotted in Central America.
Ervin warns that al-Qaida is "bound and determined to hit us again, and even harder than last time."
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the "image problem" for Islam posed by the ongoing cartoon rage:
The global cartoon rage, which continues to increase its death count every day -- a priest in Turkey, an Indian sailor in the U.A.E., a Danish lawyer in Moscow, plus protestors in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- points out a key problem for the world's Muslims. For them, Muhammad is even more important than Allah. Cartoon rage demonstrates that definitively. Muhammad is the center of the religion. His sayings, his acts, his silences, his everything, are essential to fleshing out the 80% of the Qur'an that is comprehensible. (The remaining 20% is susceptible of being understood, it seems, if one follows the advice of Christoph Luxenberg and reads parts of it as remnants of the Ur-Qur'an, a text in Aramaic, or Syro-Aramaic, or Syriac, the Aramaic of Edessa, which must have been the language employed for the first versions of the Qur'an since at that point Arabic was not yet a written language.)And here he is, Muhammad, the model for all time, for all mankind. Uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil -- as far as Muslims are concerned. It is for his “honor” that Muslims are ransacking KFC’s and setting Ronald McDonald afire.
But Muhammad is not the model for all mankind as far as Infidels are concerned. Those not completely brainwashed by the cult of personality par excellence that Muslims have built around Muhammad will make up their own minds about him, based on their own readings of the Hadith and Sira.
And there is no mistaking what Muhammad was really like, or at least how he is portrayed in the earliest Muslim sources. The Hadith and the various biographies of Muhammad simply do not differ in the essential details of his life. They do not differ over either his acts or his reported sayings. There are only differences in the judgments upon Muhammad made by Muslims and by non-Muslim scholars such as Sir William Muir, Arthur Jeffery, Tor Andrae, and Maxime Rodinson.Muslims are in a quandary. The Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira are now a click away. Any inquiring Infidel can read them, or read as much of them as he can possibly endure. Any Infidel can go to the Muslim websites, of the ask-imam.org variety, and see what kinds of questions Muslims ask and what answers are given. And the more Infidels do this, and the greater the number of such Muslim sites appear in Western languages for possible converts, and also for Muslims now living in the West, the greater access to such material there will be also for the Infidels.
This knowledge can't be prevented from being spread. And American Infidels will be watching keenly to see how Muslims behave in Western Europe. We will be watching to see what damage they inflict there on Infidel laws, customs, manners, and what greater degrees of unpleasantness and tension they introduce in daily life, what greater expenses will be required for monitoring and other security measures, and what greater sense of physical danger is felt by those Infidels in Europe. In other words, we -- in the United States and Canada -- will be able to draw certain conclusions. In this respect we will be aided by reports from Europeans as to how Muslims accommodate themselves, or refuse to accommodate themselves, to Infidel laws and ways. We will see to what extent they express heartfelt, not feigned, and permanent, not temporary, loyalty to the Infidel nation-states in which they have been permitted to settle with such casual negligence.
Infidels are now alert, and more are becoming more wary every day. Not thanks to any government. Not thanks to journalists on television and radio or in most newspapers. Thanks, in the main, to Muslims themselves: to their displays of violence, hysteria, and hate, as in the demonstrations and attacks worldwide that have been prompted by, or have taken as their excuse in some cases, those utterly anodyne cartoons.
It's an impossible situation for the world's Muslims. Infidels, in every land, have started paying close attention to what is happening to Infidels in other places, at the hands of Muslims within their own countries or even within Muslim lands. What happens to the Copts, the Maronites, the Assyrians, the Hindus in Bangladesh, the Christians in the Moluccas, the Buddhists in southern Thailand, is now being reported on, and watched, everywhere in the Infidel world.
This is the first time in history that Muslims have had the opportunity to settle behind enemy lines. But it is also the first time in history that those Infidels, in all conventional military respects far more powerful and likely to remain so, have had the ability to monitor Muslim behavior everywhere, and to make judgments based on that behavior.
"Image problem" doesn't begin to cover it.
Tiny Minority of Extremists Update from The Telegraph, with thanks to JE:
Britain could be harbouring 20 more foreign radical imams like Abu Hamza, the Government's anti-terrorism watchdog said yesterday.Lord Carlile QC, who carried out an official review of counter-terrorism laws, said radicals such as Hamza had been able to operate because not enough had been done to check the credentials of people arriving from abroad.
Hamza was jailed for seven years last week for inciting murder and preaching hatred.
Lord Carlile, a Liberal Democrat peer, said he feared that other extremists were continuing to radicalise young Muslim men in universities, prisons and young offenders' institutions.
"I would be amazed if there were more than 20 such clerics in the country, but that is a pure guess,'' he said. "My worry is that they are in places such as colleges and custodial institutions where there are larger numbers than elsewhere of impressionable young men.
"A small number can have a disproportionate effect if they are in the wrong place.
"Very little has been done in the past to look in detail at the past history of imams who have gone into some cities."
More cartoon madness. What does a Hindu sailor in the UAE have to do with cartoons in Denmark? Unless, of course, the whole thing is a pretext to jump-start the global jihad. From PTI, with thanks to Satinder:
Dubai, Feb 15 (PTI) An Indian sailor was allegedly beaten to death by his colleagues on board a Norwegian oil tanker in the international waters off the coast of Fujairah in the UAE following an argument over the cartoon row.A fight ensued among the seamen after an argument over the cartoon issue, causing the death of one sailor, a media report said.
Official sources confirmed the death of 31-year-old Sudheer Nonia Jagannathan, hailing from Mumbai, but refused to comment on the issue.
Egyptian Sandmonkey, who has done such important work during the entire cartoon rage episode, and was the first to reveal that the Egyptian paper Al Fagr printed the cartoons in October, now tells us that the editor responsible has left Egypt -- not surprising, since editors who printed the cartoons in Jordan and Algeria have been arrested.
Sandmonkey has the details at "Adel Hamouda can't take the heat."
More utter stark-raving cartoon madness. An update on this story from AP:
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Gunfire and rioting erupted Wednesday as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in several Pakistani cities during the country's third consecutive day of violent protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy.More than 70,000 people flooded the streets of the northwestern city of Peshawar, said Saeed Wazir, a senior police officer. The massive crowd went on a rampage, torching businesses and fighting police, who struck back with tear gas and batons. A bus terminal operated by South Korea's Sammi Corp. was torched, police said.
Protesters burned a KFC restaurant, three movie theaters and the offices of the main mobile phone company in the country. A Norwegian mobile phone company's offices were also ransacked. Gunfire was heard near the burning KFC, as police tried to clear people from a main street, witnesses said.
An 8-year-old boy died after being struck in the face by a bullet fired by a protester, police officer Shahid Khan said. A 25-year-old man was killed by an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire, said the man's cousin, Jehangir Khan.
At least 45 people were being treated for injuries in Peshawar's two state-run hospitals, Khan and witnesses said....
Demonstrations around Asia and the Middle East over the cartoons — which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been reprinted by other Western newspapers — have subsided in recent days, including in Afghanistan, where 11 people died in riots last week.
Many Muslims regard any depiction of the prophet as blasphemous. They reject the newspapers' explanations that the cartoons have news value and represent free speech....
Hundreds of Afghan refugees joined the protest in Peshawar, the capital of the conservative North West Frontier Province. Many chanted "Death to Denmark!" and "Hang those who drew the insulting cartoons!" Others burned Danish flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister.
Rioting also broke out Wednesday in the northwestern town of Tank, near the South Waziristan tribal region where security officials have said al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters are hiding. Protesters set fire to 30 shops selling CDs, DVDs, and videos, said Attiq Wazir, a local police official. Suspected Islamic militants had warned music shops to close, witnesses said.
One policeman was injured when a protester opened fire to resist arrest.
In the eastern city of Lahore, fighting flared up for the second straight day. A 30-year-old man was shot dead in a clash with police as about 1,500 students staged a rally outside a university, hospital and police officials said.
On Tuesday, thousands of protesters went on a rampage in Lahore, burning Western businesses including McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants. Two people died and police detained 125 people, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Violent protests also erupted Tuesday in the capital, Islamabad. More than 1,000 students forced their way into a heavily guarded enclave housing foreign embassies. They damaged cars and a bank building, but were quickly expelled from the area with tear gas and water cannons.
Elsewhere in Asia, hundreds of Muslim protesters ripped apart and burned Danish flags Wednesday in a rally at the Danish honorary consulate in Manila, the Philippines.
In Muslim-majority Malaysia, the government ordered Guang Ming, the country's third largest Chinese-language newspaper, to halt publication of its evening edition for two weeks as punishment for printing a photograph in which the cartoons were visible.
A Reuters photo, via Michelle Malkin.
Story here.
Sistani for Nobel! Uh, wait a minute, Rich, you may want to hold off on printing those bumper stickers for a little while.
From the Wall Street Journal (subscription only), with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:
Iraq's most prominent Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, maintained close ties with Tehran during Saddam Hussein's rule and today channels millions of dollars monthly into Islamic research centers and theological schools in Iran, according to his Web site, demonstrating the growing convergence of Iran's and Iraq's religious elite.
What are you in for, mac? Murder 1...How about you, buddy? Aggravated assault...And you, over there in the corner? Cartoons...
From Al Jazeera, with thanks to Robert:
Algeria and Yemen have arrested journalists working for newspapers that have reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that led to protests around the world.On Sunday, Algeria closed two newspapers and arrested their editors for printing the images of the cartoons of the Prophet.
Kahel Bousaad and Berkane Bouderbala, respectively editors of the pro-Islamist weeklies, Errisala and Iqraa, were detained last week and will appear before an investigating judge in Algiers on Monday, staff of the two Arabic newspapers said.
A member of Iqraa's staff said: "The cartoons published in our weekly were [deliberately] fogged. They were accompanied by an article denouncing them."...
The Algerian authorities have condemned the cartoons and urged the Danish government to punish those behind their publication....
Yemen detained three journalists on Sunday and is seeking a fourth after closing three publications that printed the cartoons. Al-Hurriya, Yemen Observer and al-Rai al-Aam were shut and their case sent to prosecutors.
The officials said those detained are Mohammad al-Asaadi, the editor-in-chief of the English-language Yemen Observer, Akram Sabra, the managing editor of al-Hurriya weekly newspaper and reporter Yehiya al-Abed of Hurriya.
The prosecution has issued a warrant for Kamal al-Aalafi, the editor-in-chief of al-Rai al-Aam....
Also on Sunday, Turks pelted the French consulate in Istanbul with eggs as about 2500 demonstrators shouted "Down with America, Israel and Denmark," in the latest protests against the publication of the cartoons....
Muslims held a series of largely peaceful demonstrations in European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Berne.
The cartoons have now been published in Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, Ukraine and Yemen.
Three cheers for Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, Ukraine and Yemen.
Say Islam is peaceful, or we will kill you. From DPA, with thanks to Fjordman:
BERLIN - A sculpture depicting a mosque with missiles as minarets was pulled from a German art show Monday after threats were made, the director of Duesseldorf's art academy confirmed.Titled "Aggression", the work by a Swiss art student was removed from the show at the request of the artist, said academy director Peter Lynen.
Lynen said there had been no pressure from the academy itself to pull the work and that every artist had to be given the freedom to address what he termed "contemporary themes".
The design of the mosque with rockets as its minarets was very "low-key", said Lynen.
He did not say what kinds of threats had led to removal of the sculpture.
Happy Valentines Day! As one cartoon rager recently lamented that if the Muslims had actually gotten Rushdie 17 years ago, Westerners wouldn't be so uppity today as to dare to draw cartoons of Muhammad, the Iranian mullahocracy has seen fit to reinforce the death fatwa against the author of The Satanic Verses on its 17th anniversary.
From Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 14 – A religious edict issued by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the life of British author Salman Rushdie still stands, Iran’s official state news agency reported on the anniversary of the decree.On February 14, 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to kill Rushdie for writing the controversial novel The Satanic Verses.
In a statement carried by the official news agency, the government-run body Martyrs Foundation announced, “The fatwa by Imam Khomeini in regards to the apostate Salman Rushdie will be in effect forever”.
“The book The Satanic Verses was the incarnation of the satanic plots of the World Arrogance (United States) and the occupying Zionists which appeared through the sleeves of this apostate”, the statement said.
One of Iran’s state “bonyads”, or foundations, has offered a $2.8 million bounty on Rushdie’s life.
Jihad Watch reader Max has alerted me to this story from The Guardian, which refers to this site in, well, in the way one would expect The Guardian to refer to it:
Since the cartoons were first published last year, all sorts of people with an axe to grind have muscled in on the row. A posting on the notoriously Islamophobic website, Jihadwatch, for instance, describes it portentously as "a struggle between exponents of a free society and organised thuggery". Meanwhile, several Arab governments - for their own political reasons - have busily fanned the flames in the opposite direction.
OK. So my observing that cartoon rage a struggle between the exponents of a free society and organized thuggery, which it most certainly is, is equivalent to Arab governments inciting their people to burn embassies, kill people, and issue murderous threats to just about every country in the West?
All right. Let's explore that question. How many Muslim cartoon ragers have been killed, or beaten up, or had their homes burned by angry Jihad Watchers?
"Notoriously Islamophobic"? Strictly speaking, "Islamophobia" would be defined as fear of Islam. Which is more fearful -- Jihad Watch, which published the Muhammad cartoons, or The Guardian, which succumbed to knee-knocking fear and didn't? Yes, that's right: I'm accusing the Guardian of Islamophobia.
What's that? Islamophobia doesn't mean fear of Islam, but hatred of Islam? Ill-chosen word, in that case. But anyway it's a false charge. To claim that those who oppose the ideology that led to 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, the Bali bombings, and hundreds of other terror attacks are just "haters" is to have the telescope the wrong way round; the real haters are those who are perpetrating such attacks, and planning new ones today, in the name of Islam. I am not going to be cowed by The Guardian or anyone else from exploring what motivates these attackers, and why they are doing what they are doing.
The resistance to jihad is a struggle to defend the human rights of those who would lose equality of rights under the kind of regime jihadists would like to establish -- particularly women, non-Muslims, and ex-Muslims. The Guardian wants to call that "Islamophobia"? More fool they.
An update to this story. "Two dead in Pakistan rioting," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) -- More than 1,000 protesters stormed into Islamabad's diplomatic district while thousands vandalized Western businesses and torched a government building in another city Tuesday, in Pakistan's worst wave of violence against the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, officials said.At least two people were killed.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said two protesters died in the worst of the violence in the eastern city of Lahore, when a bank security guard opened fire to prevent demonstrators from forcing their way into a bank.
He said paramilitary troops were deployed in the city to restore order, after stone-throwing protesters ran amok.
Witnesses said rioters torched the provincial assembly building and targeted Western businesses, breaking windows at a Holiday Inn hotel and Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald's restaurants.
They also damaged more than 200 cars, two banks, dozens of shops and a large portrait of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, witnesses said.
The protesters also looted the office of Telenor, a Norwegian mobile phone company, and people ran away with computers, mobile phones and other equipment, witnesses said....
The students had earlier marched to several universities in Peshawar and hurled stones at a Christian school, breaking windows and causing other damage. They also threw stones at shops in the city's main business district, chanting "Down with America" and "Down with Denmark."
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told journalists in the capital Islamabad on Monday that newspapers that have printed the caricatures were "being totally oblivious to the consequences for the world, for world peace and harmony."
Come on, Musharraf. Why don't you have the guts to say that the protestors are mad, utterly mad, and that it is insane to get so worked up about a few cartoons, and that they have shamed Pakistan before the world?
"The most moderate Muslim will go to the street and talk against it because this hurts the sentiments of every Muslim," he said. "Whether an extremist or a moderate or an ultra moderate, we will condemn it."...
Fine. Condemn it all day. There are plenty of things printed in newspapers every day that I condemn. But I'm not killing anybody over it.
CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of the Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself.
And also, CNN added under its breath, we don't want to get killed, and we value our sorry lives more than the freedoms for which our forefathers fought and died.
A loveless day in Malaysia. St. Valentine, you see, was an enemy of Islam; Muhammad Ramli Nuh thus demonstrates that he knows (or actually thinks he knows, since his information is completely incorrect) and cares a good deal more about St. Valentine than the overhwhelming majority of those who will actually be giving out roses and chocolate hearts today. From the Malaysian National News Agency Bernama, with thanks to Nicolei:
KUALA TERENGGANU, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Muslims in the country, especially lovers, have been advised not to celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow.State Islam Hadhari Development Committee Deputy Chairman, Muhammad Ramli Nuh said celebrating the Day could be regarded as recognising the enemies of Islam because Valentine or Valentinus took part in planning and attacking Cordoba, once a well-known centre of Islam in Spain, causing its downfall....
Muhammad Ramli said although not many couples celebrate Valentine's Day in the state, the state government wished to remind that the celebration should not be held including in hotels.
Happy Valentines Day, everyone!
Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: 1,000 to 1,500 cartoon ragers riot in Pakistan. From AP, with thanks to JE:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police fired tear gas Tuesday as they chased away more than 1,000 protesters — some brandishing sticks and throwing stones — who stormed into the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave in Pakistan's capital, demonstrating against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.The crowd — which briefly rallied outside the French and British embassies — entered the enclave through the main gate, guarded by about a dozen police who didn't resist the mob of mostly students.
Once inside the fenced-off enclave, they charged about a half kilometer (half mile) down the road to the British High Commission, or embassy, where police dispersed them with tear gas. They also gathered outside the French Embassy.
Some of the stick-wielding protesters damaged road signs and broke a bank's window in the enclave, which houses most of the embassies and some residential compounds for diplomats in Islamabad. The crowded totaled between 1,000 and 1,500 people.
Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen survey the treatment of children in the Palestinian Authority, which will ensure that the jihad continues into the next generation. From the Washington Times, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
What would you like to be when you growup?A Hamas children's magazine has a clear answer: a terrorist. A children's story it published calls upon small children and encourages them to commit terrorist acts and sacrifice their souls for Allah.Western politicians who delude themselves in the belief that Hamas will change have only to consider what Hamas leaders say. On Feb. 3, Hamas chief Khaled Mash'al declared in Damascus: "Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded," according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Hamas gives this message to the present generation. But they also ensure that the next generation of Palestinians, now growing up, receives this message as early as possible. Hamas TV shows impart children with the jihad message when they are toddlers. And for kids who have learned to read, there are magazine comics.
The children's magazine named Fatah -- Arabic for the Muslim who conquers the Kufir States -- in its last two issues carried an illustrated story about the heroism of a very young but courageous Palestinian child, who is determined to be a jihad fighter like his older brothers.
The story demonstrates the indoctrination and "education" to which even the youngest of Palestinian children are exposed by Hamas in schools and publications.
Read it all.
1938 and Islam Forbids Suicide Alerts from Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 13 – A senior commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed that following the printing of insulting cartoons of Islam’s prophet Muhammad in European dailies, the Islamic Republic’s suicide volunteers abroad were being placed on readiness alert to attack United States and Israeli interests.Mohammad-Reza Jaafari, the commander of Iran’s “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison” and a Brigadier General in the IRGC, said, “Now that America is after gaining allies against the righteous Islamic Republic and wants to attack our sanctities, members of the martyrdom-seeking garrisons across the world have been put on alert so that if the Islamic Republic of Iran receives the smallest threat, the American and Israeli strategic interests will be burnt down everywhere”.
He was speaking to a group of suicide volunteers in Shahr-Rey, on the outskirts of Tehran, on Saturday evening.
In FrontPage this morning I discuss an appalling art exhibit in Milan, and its implications (many news links in the original):
A disgraceful art exhibit in Milan has illustrated once again the deep affinity between the Left and the forces of the global jihad. In these days of Muslims the world over calling for the deaths of those who have “insulted Islam,” anyone who wants to see Oriana Fallaci beheaded need look no further than the Galleria Luciano Inga-Pin in Milan, which is exhibiting Giuseppe Veneziano’s “American Beauty” from January 19 through March 18. This is a series of paintings designed to highlight the “weakness and perversity of the ‘American way of life.’” It accordingly features straightforward, if somewhat lurid, portraits of Michael Jackson and Ronald McDonald, along with the distinctly non-American Harry Potter. Then comes a bizarre depiction of a nude man having sexual intercourse with the Pink Panther, five artistic renditions of the Abu Ghraib prison photos (each with “American Beauty” scrawled across the top), and — Oriana Fallaci’s decapitated head.Although I find the picture of Fallaci decapitated deeply offensive, I have no plans to attack the Italian embassy, boycott Italian wine, phone in a bomb threat to the Galleria Luciano Inga-Pin, kill innocent people who had nothing to with the painting, or threaten to kill those who are actually responsible for it. Veneziano’s painting is the sort of obnoxiousness that has become commonplace on the Left, and is one of the prices of freedom of speech.
Veneziano’s painting is doubly offensive, however, in light of the fact that Fallaci herself has been driven out of Italy by frivolous charges that she has “defamed Islam.” Giuseppe Veneziano is not on trial for depicting Fallaci decapitated, but Fallaci faces trial for making a series of heated but largely true statements about Islam and Muslims. Veneziano’s painting is triply offensive in that it depicts exactly what the Muslim exponents of cartoon rage around the world would like to see done to Fallaci — and thus manifests the ever-closer empathy between the Western Left and Islamic jihad. “Behead those who insult Islam,” read a sign at a recent demonstration in London protesting the Danish cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. If Fallaci has insulted Islam with her monumental post-9/11 cries of freedom and resistance, The Rage and the Pride and The Force of Reason, Giuseppe Veneziano is happy to oblige the mujahedin, at least on canvas.
In 2006 in Milan the prospect of Fallaci decapitata evokes not so much the iconic Leftist images of the Bastille, Robespierre, and the Terror, but Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and the Jihad — particularly in light of the subject matter that has earned the great lady so many enemies in Italy and around the world. This should come as no surprise. Both the Left and the mujahedin envision a totalitarian state that cleanses the world of evil by force, establishing a just society at the price of an unspecified number of dead. Both are advocates of a supremacist ideology that is immune to self-criticism and unable to tolerate criticism from others. And now as the European Union contemplates new laws that will, in the words of Franco Frattini, who bears the Orwellian designation of EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, “give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression,” the marriage of the European Left and Islamic jihad can proceed all the more speedily. Frattini has since denied that the EU has any such plans, but there can be no denying that voices all over the West have called for the media to exercise “responsible self-regulation” so as to avoid trampling upon Muslim sensibilities. But Muslim sensibilities only: those who depict Fallaci beheaded, or Jesus Christ with the face of Osama bin Laden, will continue to be subject to the same protections enunciated by Josh Wainwright, the producer of the art show that featured the Christ/Osama painting: “I don’t think it’s anyone’s job or vocation to limit the expression of artists.” Right. Except cartoon artists, of course. Or at least those who have the temerity to suggest that there might be some connection between violent actions done by Islamic jihadists and the Prophet who said that “Paradise is under the shades of swords.”Fallaci decapitata may therefore end up being something far beyond what Giuseppe Veneziano intended, which doesn’t seem to have been more than an adolescent poke-in-the-eye to someone the Left hates and fears. His painting is a fitting emblem for the new Europe, the Europe in which the Swedish government closed down a political party’s website for displaying the cartoons of Muhammad, the Norwegian editor who ran the cartoons abjectly apologized, and European companies doing business in the Middle East can’t dissociate themselves quickly enough from Denmark and the cartoons of shame. This is the New Europe, the New Dhimmi Europe, the Europe that is eager to “give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression.”
Oh, Europe is already well aware of those consequences. The consequences are crystal clear in Giuseppe Veneziano’s painting of Oriana Fallaci’s severed head. Not enough of those in Europe who still have their heads seem willing to stand up to Islamic violence and intimidation long enough to allow the heroic lady to keep hers. All around the Continent the parliamentary heads of government are losing their heads trying to avoid offending Islam; all too soon they will realize that Fallaci’s head alone was not enough to appease their sworn enemies. Not nearly enough.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses Amir Taheri's strange obfuscation of Islamic theology and history:
In a piece here yesterday, Robert Spencer made some devastating observations about some assertions Amir Taheri made in a New York Post article. I don't think Amir Taheri will have an answer. One wonders about Taheri.Amir Taheri is another representative not only of the moderate Muslim, but of one who is practically a "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim. A gentleman of the old Iranian school, where classmates have such last names as Hoveyda and Tabatabai, and everyone names his children Cyrus and Darius, or possibly Kaveh, but never Mohammed, Taheri gets many things right. He is a truth-teller, up to a point, of the kind we are all so familiar with -- Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya come to mind. They despise Edward Said, and despise the vulgarity of Arab political life and its despots. But they just can't bring themselves to the point of adequately describing, truthfully describing, Islam. They have their own "dream palace" -- which is of a benign Islam, compounded of those memories of elderly pious relatives (a grandmother will do), and the smells of the Iftar dinner, and the quiet piety of Muslims they had known growing up, and of course, of collective memories of some fabulously wonderful mythical Golden Age.
This is the stuff of coffee-table books, a hodgepodge of mostly Ottoman visual memories, Sinanesque mosques, and Iznik tiles, and turbans on wise old scholars at the House of Philosophers (one Muslim, one Christian, one Jew). They are not about to let little things like the real history of the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, that led to many Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists to convert, not through the immediacy of forcible conversion but through the slow stillicide of the many legal, financial, political, and social disabilities of dhimmitude. They converted to escape the humiliation, degradation, and permanent physical insecurity (for failure to pay the Jizyah or to obey all the rules laid down could cause an entire community of non-Muslims to suffer) that was their lot as dhimmis under Muslim rule.
Taheri has written about Muhammad; but his version of the Prophet of Islam simply does not accord with that of Tor Andrae, of Maxine Rodinson, of Sir William Muir, of Arthur Jeffery. They, of course, are all non-Muslims. But his version does not accord, either, with the most authoritative Muslim versions of the Sira, either. What led Taheri to write in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that Muhammad took criticism gracefully, and had a good sense of humor about it all, when Muhammad’s attitude was actually much more akin to that of Stalin, in those late night sessions in the Kremlin with his terrified cronies, ordering the assassination of this or that enemy of the state?Taheri is one of the three Islamic "experts" counted on by My Weekly Standard, the other two being that admirer of the Shi'a (as being so very different from the bad old Wahhabi-Salafists) Reuel Gerecht, and Stephen Schwartz. Schwartz has made a career out of his conversion to Islam, which has apparently made him an automatic expert on the history of Islam, on the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, on practically everything. Yet his Islam is of the "my-own-private-Islam" variety, and he locates the source of all problems in the followers of Abd-el Wahab, so that for the thousand years before that, apparently Infidels had no problem with Muslims or wise, tolerant, peaceful Islam.
What makes Taheri do it? He knows perfectly well what Islam is like. Can't stand to tell others? Afraid to tell others? Just can't bring himself to face up to it?
What is it?
We all want to know.
After all, he is one of the good guys. And unlike some of the other "good guys," the ones you can count on for most, if not all, of the truth -- for example, Fouad Ajami -- Taheri does not avoid the subject of Islam. And sometimes he makes sense, or quasi-sense.
Taheri's latest article is disgraceful. To pretend, in particular, that Khomeini was a half-literate, when he was a learned theologian rather than someone to be described as a half-wit, is like those who reduce the behavior of the Germans to that "crazy little man Adolf Hitler" whom "no one" could take seriously. But millions did, and for reasons that need to be examined and remembered. In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this “semi-literate” Qom-trained ayatollah cunningly manipulated the Western world (especially the French, who gave him refuge at Neauphle-le-chateau), and also managed to fool all those acolytes of Mossadegh who thought that they would use him to help bring down the Shah's regime, when it was he who used them and then discarded them, and then pursued and persecuted and sometimes murdered them -- all for the sake of that Islamic doctrine that he knew, inside and out.
Taheri may believe that the history of Islam in Persia is all the roses and nightingales of Gulistan. If so, he could start with the chronicle of Arakel of Tabriz and read about the forced conversion, overnight, of the Armenians and Jews of Tabriz, ordered by Shah Abbas. Or he could read Mary Boyce on the grim history of the Zoroastrians once Muslims seized control of Iran -- a story brought right up to the present, for Mary Boyce lived with Zoroastrians in Iran in recent decades, and reported on the way they were treated by the Muslims who made their lives so difficult and unpleasant. And if Taheri wanted to find out about the treatment of Jews, not at the hands of the members of the most advanced and westernized Iranian elite in Tehran, but by Muslims in the villages of Iran, he could turn to the study of Lawrence Loeb, who like Mary Boyce lived among those he wrote about, in the 1970s.
It is unpleasant for the "cultural Muslims" to be forced to investigate Islamic history, for it suggests that their own remaining filial piety or defensiveness is itself based on ignorance that is sometimes willful. The disgraceful part is that Taheri must know better but is in one of those "I just can't face it" moods. This is a phenomenon that visitors to Jihad Watch have noticed -- thanks to a few steady Muslim posters who vacillate between admission of certain unpleasant facts and then denial of such facts. It's an astonishing thing for Infidels. We just don't quite know what to make of it.
And that goes for Taheri, as he attempts to attribute to the modern world aspects of Islam that are as old as Islam, and to blame for their existence some sect ("Wahhabis" or "Salafis" will do). Would that it were merely a problem of "Wahhabis." Would that Ayatollah Khomeini had not been a learned theologian and a masterful politician, but instead, as Taheri would have us believe, merely a half-literate dimwit who somehow managed to overthrow the ruler of a country of 50-60 million, and also to outsmart the very clever Iranian secular and leftist opposition to that same ruler. Kto kogo, the Soviets used to say: "Who (will get) whom"? It was Khomeini who got all of those who had thought they would be resurrecting the policies of Mossadegh, and got something quite otherwise.
One suspects that Taheri knows better, but would prefer not to discuss, not to reveal, not to tell the truth about Islam. Because if he were to do so, then Infidels would wonder: is he still a Muslim, or isn't he? And if after all that he were to tell us about Islam, and then he were to refuse to declare himself an ex-Muslim, Infidels would wonder -- how can he tell us these truths about Islam, and still call himself a Muslim? What kind of person can do that?
And what can Taheri do? Can he explain, openly, those considerations -- those smells in the kitchen, that pious grandmother or uncle, the quiet of visiting some celebrated mosque, that all that makes him a "cultural Muslim"? Can he explain how it can be that the Islam he knew was indeed "tolerant," but that the Islam "he knew" was that of a particular time and place, under the two-man Pahlavi dynasty, that was particularly unconcerned with the Infidels, and indeed perfectly willing to treat them as decently as was possible. This happened, of course, in Tehran and not in the villages, where Islam, unsoftened by the polices of a quasi-enlightened despot, still prevailed.
Taheri, therefore, is limited in what he can offer us: a sanitized view of Islam, with a skewed chronology and grossly inadequate descriptions of the problem.
Taheri, if he reads Robert Spencer’s criticism, will have to admit the justice of it - to himself if not to others. But what can he do? Like so many others -- Fouad Ajami, or the smiling Fareed Zakaria -- he also has to think of his career. A declared ex-Muslim does not become, as he should, more valuable to Infidels, but rather less so. This is because he is not listened to, as he should be, with the same respect as defectors from the Soviet Union were listened to during the Cold War. Perhaps that is because so many remain impressed by the word "religion" and distrust those who give up the religion they are born into, as if that itself rendered their opinions on Islam illegitimate.
But Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Azam Kamguian, and others are in fact those who, without having to concoct a false history for Islam, do tell the truths that need to be learned by Infidels, not least in Washington.
Taheri is not exactly a Pollyanna or a Dr. Feelgood. But unwary Infidels will, if they accept what he writes, still come away with the essential message that it is those who are "perverting" a "noble religion" (perhaps Taheri would leave it at "religion") and whose roots are shallow in Islam, and who furthermore are the uneducated, are all we have to worry about.
In other words, we are told to believe that things are not as bad as they may appear, because Muslims do not take seriously this Dar al-Islam/Dar al-Harb distinction, and do not see the world as essentially divided between Believer and Infidel. Oh, there are people who don't -- Aziz Nafisi. Fouad Ajami. Kanan Makiya. Amir Taheri. Irshad Manji. Rend al-Rahim. Sheikh Palazzi. Very nice people, charming people, far more interesting to talk to than almost any run-of-the-mill Infidel you are likely to meet. But so what? They are not Islam. The "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim is to be seen as the exception, not the rule.
Not the least of the Administration's folly in Iraq was to believe that those Westernized Shi'a who had spent from twenty or thirty to, in Chaalbi's case, forty-five years abroad (he left in 1958 after the coup that overturned the young king and "strongman" Nuri es-Said) were representative of Iraq. They weren't. Al-Hakim is representative; al-Jaafari is representative. Moqtada al-Sadr is representative. Dulaimi is representative. Those semi-Western men and women are not.
No more fooling around. If you can't say something completely truthful, because you somehow justify these untruths to yourself as a way to avoid some clash of civilizations, then don't say anything at all. Stick to other things. For example, write about the malevolent regime in Iran, and what its acquisition of a nuclear bomb would do to the likelihood of its ever being overthrown.
Don't mislead Infidels, even if it is not done for Tariq-Ramadanish reasons, but with the best of intentions. Hell is paved...etc.
Nonie Darwish discusses cartoon rage within the larger context of the state of contemporary Muslim society. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Tom Syseskey:
The controversy regarding the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed completely misses the point. Of course, the cartoons are offensive to Muslims, but newspaper cartoons do not warrant the burning of buildings and the killing of innocent people. The cartoons did not cause the disease of hate that we are seeing in the Muslim world on our television screens at night - they are only a symptom of a far greater disease.I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt and in the Gaza Strip. In the 1950s, my father was sent by Egypt's President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, to head the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and the Sinai where he founded the Palestinian Fedayeen, or "armed resistance". They made cross-border attacks into Israel, killing 400 Israelis and wounding more than 900 others.
My father was killed as a result of the Fedayeen operations when I was eight years old. He was hailed by Nasser as a national hero and was considered a shaheed, or martyr. In his speech announcing the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge for my father's death. My siblings and I were asked by Nasser: "Which one of you will avenge your father's death by killing Jews?" We looked at each other speechless, unable to answer.
In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness. At school we sang songs with verses calling Jews "dogs" (in Arab culture, dogs are considered unclean).
Criticism and questioning were forbidden. When I did either of these, I was told: "Muslims cannot love the enemies of God, and those who do will get no mercy in hell." As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers outside the mosque. They said: "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We heard worshippers respond "Amen".
Read it all.
D.C. Watson discusses some implications of cartoon rage:
Congratulations to every Muslim around the world who has expressed his anger over the now famous Muhammad cartoon row by calling for the beheading of those who insult Islam, torching the embassies of the nations that published the cartoons, burning the national flags of these nations, pelting other people's property with rocks, and, of course, carrying out senseless attacks on people who had nothing to do with the publication of the cartoons.These fanatical nuts have finally assisted in accomplishing a goal. Perhaps not a goal of theirs, or of their leaders, but certainly a goal of those who advocate human rights.
For several years, Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald, Ali Sina, Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq, Rebecca Bynum, Michael Savage, and a substantial number of other writers, radio talk show hosts, and website directors have been consistent with one simple message: That Muslims who do this kind of thing are simply following what has been ordered in the Qur'an.
It is true that not all Muslims in the world want to live under the rule of a dominant Islam. Nor do they want to live under Islamic law. Many Muslims have no beef with the West and love the freedoms that Western life brings. But Muslim rioters are showing the world that what the authors and speakers above, who have had the courage and foresight to point out to anyone who would look, listen, and learn about where these violent tendencies come from, were right all along. And now it seems that much more of the world, in particular the West, is having its eyes opened for them.
If these Islamists and their dishonest leaders were attempting to intimidate everyone into respecting Islam, they have made a gross miscalculation. The reimbursement for their savagery is ridicule -- well-earned ridicule.Because of this latest Islamic outburst and the dedicated work of those who speak out against this senseless vandalism and violence, Islamic groups that have been claiming that Islam is pluralistic and benign have been knocked backward. Now they are attempting to control what could turn out to be irreparable damage.
It has become clear that these groups will be forced to switch from offense to defense. All of the personal attacks they have engaged in against those who have spoken the truth about Islam are now going to fly back at them, because what their opponents have said and predicted has all come true in front of the world.
The rioters have also sent the message that since these cartoons have been published, and continue to be re-published, that the West shouldn't blame Muslims for their actions. They appear to be indicating that they feel they have a legitimate excuse to destroy all that they survey over this issue, and that it's just not their fault.
Ridiculous as this is, this is how they think, or are told to think by their "leaders." So be it. Remarks like these are declarations of war and should be treated as such -- not only militarily, but by every citizen in the West. Has the time finally arrived for the citizens of free societies around the world to require those Muslims who have immigrated to Western countries to abide by the laws and mores of their new countries -- if they wish to stay?
These cartoon riots may well go down as one of the most self-defeating events in a long list of self-defeating events in Islamic history. What Muslims who throw rocks and commit arson over issues like the cartoon row need to understand is that protesting depictions of Islam as violent with violent, barbaric behavior is not only living up to the stereotype, it's just plain stupid. Stupid, and revealing.
These riots also stink of extensive planning and organization. After all, the cartoons of Muhammad were published months ago. Why would Muslims wait so long to go berserk, in so many areas of the world, all at the same time -- were it not for the time it takes to orchestrate the unrest we have seen?
Is it not finally time for all citizens in the West to communicate to their elected officials that the importation of people like this does nothing to improve our societies?
More importantly, is it not time for Westerners to stop blaming themselves for the Muslims who will riot over such trivial matters?
If these extremists are such a "tiny minority" of Muslims worldwide, then why hasn't the majority of Muslims taken any concrete steps against them? The Imams who are supposed to be the "voice of reason" for Muslims have all too often turned out to be nothing more than the instigators of violence. Even if that requires lying to their followers, they haven't hesitated.
Before the current cartoon row riots, and the French Muslim riots in 2005, polls taken in India, Russia, Germany, Spain, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland, France, and the United States, revealed that an average of 70% of citizens in those nations are concerned about Islamic extremism.
Figures about this concern after the cartoon riots are not yet available. However, it is safe to say that the concern will be much higher. The whole cartoon rage incident shows again the hollowness of accusations of "Islamophobia" and bigotry that are so regularly made against critics of Islamic violence and intimidation.
No matter how this cartoon controversy ends, the Western Muslim advocacy organizations that claim that Islam is a peaceful, vilified religion have been made fools of by the very people they have been determined to defend. While the rioting Muslims have opened many eyes, this is far from over with. The work to expose these deceivers will continue. Those deceivers are tireless and relentless; therefore, so must we be also.
Internet jihad update from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Technology has created a virtual sanctuary that makes terrorist training camps obsolete, analysts tell Paul McGeough.ABU Baraq and Abu Abdullah are insurgency foot soldiers on the front line in Iraq. But they are also becoming cyber warriors in a dot.com jihad. We meet in a private home in the suburbs of Baghdad. The fighters sit on an ornate sofa, explaining their cell leader's reluctant embrace of the insurgency's most sophisticated weapon - a powerful web-driven media campaign.
"Did you see us on Al-Jazeera two nights ago?" asks Abu Baraq. "We attacked an American Humvee."
Abu Abdullah outlines their late inclusion in the jihadis' burgeoning global propaganda drive: "Our leader used to object to taking the digicam on operations because he saw it as a security risk. But now we record everything because the media are captives of foreign governments. The camera lets us tell the world what we are doing."
But the recordings are not just for TV. In the 4½ years since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, there has been a global explosion in terrorism-associated websites, message boards and chat rooms, enabling terrorists and their sympathisers to bypass the filters of the mass media and to deliver their message direct to target audiences - unqualified and unadulterated.
When Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communications at Haifa University in Israel, decided to monitor the web in the late 1990s, he found a dozen terrorist-related sites. Now he monitors more than 4500.
Rita Katz, the director of the SITE (Search for International Terrorist Entities) Institute in Washington, says new websites pop up so fast that it is no longer possible to count them.
Loaded as much from caves as cafes around the world, these websites have become what Israeli analyst Reuven Paz describes as "an open university for jihad". They are used to inform, instruct and indoctrinate, which is why Paz is troubled by a new shift as the terrorists' cyber campaign goes multilingual. "Just two or three weeks ago about 150 announcements by al-Qaeda in Iraq were translated into French and now they are popping up more frequently in English and Italian too," he says.
What did Rice do? She said that Iran was fanning the flames of cartoon rage. Rice should apologize, says Hamid Reza Asefi, admirably impervious to self-examination, for such comments only enflame cartoon rage. Just like depicting Muhammad as violent evidently so enrages Muslims that they become...violent. "Update 8: Iran Rejects Charge of Inflaming Violence," from AP, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:
Iran on Sunday rejected U.S. and Danish accusations that the government had inflamed and encouraged last week's violent protests against Western embassies in Tehran over caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and demanded an apology.Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi singled out comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and said Denmark should apologize to help calm the furor that has erupted over the images that first appeared in a Danish newspaper four months ago.
"What happened was a natural reaction. Rice and Danish officials should apologize. Such comments could worsen the situation and an apology could alleviate the tension," Asefi said.
The idea that Iran feels itself bound by this treaty in any way at this point is absurd. "Bracing for Penalties, Iran Threatens to Withdraw From Nuclear Treaty," from the New York Times, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:
TEHRAN, Feb. 11 — Iran's president warned on Saturday that Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if international pressure increased over its nuclear program.His threat was a significant escalation of the government's previous position that it would only stop complying with spot inspections of military installations and sites it has not declared to be part of its nuclear program. The warning also raised the specter that Iran was considering following a strategy set by North Korea three years ago.
In a speech to tens of thousand of demonstrators who had gathered to mark the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also staked out a broader path of resistance if penalties are imposed against Iran.
Evoking the possibility of penalties and international ostracism, he insisted that the country would continue its nuclear activities and urged Iranians to brace for tough times.
"The Islamic Republic has continued its program within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the nonproliferation treaty," he said in the speech, which was broadcast live on state television. "But if we see that you want to use the NPT regulations to deprive us of our rights, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard."
"I ask our dear people to prepare themselves for a great struggle," he added, evoking the possibility of international penalties. "Fasten your seat belts and pull up your sleeves."
Good advice for the entire world.
1938 Alert from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
VIENNA, Austria — Iran has started small-scale enrichment of uranium — a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or bombs, diplomats said Monday."Uranium gas has been fed into three machines," one senior diplomat familiar with Iran's nuclear file told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
Is this because our friends and allies the Pakistanis are complicit, or because they are powerless? "Al Qaeda establish 'Islamic state' in Pak province," from the Times of India, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
NEW DELHI: After taking "virtual control" of the entire North Waziristan province of Pakistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda have recently "declared" the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in the area and gained a major base for their operations against the US-led forces in Afghanistan, media reports said."The Taliban recently declared the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in North Waziristan, and they now, through the brutal elimination of criminal elements who previously held sway, in effect rule in the rugged territory," a latest report in 'Asia Times' magazine said.
It said that by "taking control of virtually all of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, the Taliban have gained a significant base from which to wage their resistance against US-led forces in Afghanistan.
Jihad Watch reader Mike has alerted me to a reader review of my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) at Amazon.com. Because it is indicative of a common tendency, I decided to post this extract here:
I found this book to be one of the most bigoted, hateful, historically distorted, and twisted tracts that I have ever read. I will not take the time to go into detail as the book just is not worth it...
This reminded me of an email I received awhile back from a close associate of a prominent Islamic apologist who enjoys some influence among the ignorant and easily led in Washington:
You have no idea what's going on with any of this -- and you WON'T because nobody who DOES know will be wasting their time telling you.
It further reminded me of Amir Taheri's article in the New York Post yesterday, which expansively claims that the jihadists have hijacked Islam without actually specifying how exactly they have done it, or what obvious Islamic doctrines they are transgressing.
All this is as commonplace as the air we breathe. Every day we hear that the jihadists are out of the mainstream, are twisting Islamic teachings, and so on, but at most all we get as an explanation of exactly how are bland affirmations that Islam forbids killing innocents, forbids suicide, allows for war only in self-defense, etc. -- all of which have been refuted many times over by jihadists, with the refutations remaining unanswered by peaceful Muslims.
The Amazon reviewer above later adds: "It is clear that one of the author's thinly veiled agendas is to disparage the 'liberal establishment' for ignoring and even aiding the 'Mohammedan menace.'" I still have the Word document of this book on my hard drive, and I just searched: the words "liberal establishment" and "Mohammadan menace" appear nowhere in the book. This is the kind of analysis that passes for criticism of my work: outright fabrications. Just once, I'd like to see someone who really thinks that my books are inaccurate explain in detail how that is so, with copious references to the Qur'an, Sunnah, and fiqh -- instead of just saying it isn't worth bothering.
But this is a much larger question than just my books. Western governments have invested heavily in the proposition that mainstream, "true" Islam is peaceful, and that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Western countries accept the core values of Western pluralism. Yet this has been blind trust. No one has yet formulated an Islamic theology and jurisprudence that actually provides for these things, and definitively refutes the jihadists using Islamic texts. I do not believe it can be done, and I think that official Washington needs to be cognizant of that fact. From those who claim that it has been done I have only received airy affirmations that it isn't worth bothering to show me.
All right. One more time I am asking for anyone of good will to show me. Send me examples of Islamic religious scholars rejecting, on Islamic grounds, jihad violence against non-Muslims; rejecting the idea that Sharia law should be instituted in the Muslim and non-Muslim world; and teaching the idea that non-Muslims and Muslims should live together indefinitely as equals. Send me rejections of the ideas that women should not enjoy full equality of rights with men. Send me information that shows that those who write such rejections are not lone voices crying in the wilderness, with the wolves of Islamic orthodoxy ready to pounce upon them, but that they represent broad traditions within Islam and have large followings.
I'll be right here, at director@jihadwatch.org.
Amir Taheri, as I have noted before, often does magnificent, invaluable work. Then he turns around and comes out with something absolutely breathtaking in its wrongheadedness and inaccuracy. A couple of years ago he did with an article, still widely reproduced, claiming that the headscarf was a modern Iranian invention not sanctioned by Islam -- as if Muslim women had all gone about with their heads gloriously uncovered until the advent of the Ayatollah Khomeini (an assertion that blithely ignores the evidence from the Qur'an -- 24:31 -- and Hadith -- Abu Dawud book 32, no. 4092 -- that the headcovering is firmly rooted in Islamic teaching).
Now he does the same sort of thing in "Hijacking Islam" in the New York Post. Here he is purveying the comforting but inaccurate notion that jihad theorists are dishonest, semi-literate idiots, the blind leading the blind, fabricating material from the Qur'an and attracting only semi-literates like themselves to their cause.
Would that it were so. Unfortunately, however, it isn't true -- and it does us no good to ignore or deny the truth. In fact, study after study has shown that jihadists today tend to be better educated than other Muslims. Nor is that all that is inaccurate and misleading here:
Here we have a religion without a theology, a secular wolf disguised as a religious lamb.How did this neo-Islam — a political movement masquerading as religion — come into being, and how can those who know little about Islam distinguish it from the mainstream of the faith?
USING Islam as a vehicle for political ambitions is not new. The Umayyads used it after the Prophet's death to set up a dynastic rule. Three of the four caliphs who succeeded Muhammad were assassinated in the context of political power games presented as religious disputes.
Fast forward to the 19th century, and the Persian adventurer Jamaleddin Assadabadi, who disguised himself as an Afghan to hide his Shiite origin and set out to build a career in the mostly Sunni land of Egypt. Although a Freemason, Jamal (who dubbed himself Sayyed Gamal) concluded that the only way to win power among Muslims was by appealing to their religious sentiments. So he transformed himself into an Islamic scholar, grew an impressive beard and donned a huge black turban to underline his claim of being a descendant of the Prophet.
His partner was Mirza Malkam Khan, an Armenian who claimed to have converted to Islam. Together, they launched the idea of an "Islamic Renaissance" (An-Nahda) and promoted the concept of a "perfect Islamic government" under an "enlightened despot."
Malkam had a slogan of unrivaled cynicism: "Tell the Muslims something is in the Koran, and they will die for you."
This is a very powerful and evocative anecdote, but it loses all its force when one realizes that Taheri has not supplied, and cannot supply, a single instance of jihadists today actually telling their people that something is in the Qur'an when it is not. Osama, Zarqawi, Zawahiri and the rest -- including even the likes of Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza -- cite the Qur'an frequently. Their citations are readily located in the actual text. While Taheri is correct that in the days of Malkam as now, "the overwhelming majority of Muslims didn't know Arabic, and those who did had as much difficulty reading the Koran as an English speaker has with Chaucer," translations abound in all languages. Even though these do not have canonical status alongside the Arabic text, a Muslim leader in any Islamic land would have to be a fool to try to pass off something as in the Qur'an that isn't there.
LATER in the century, the campaigns of Sayyed Gamal and Mirza Malkam produce the Salafi movement. The term comes from the phrase aslaf al-salehin ("the worthy ancestors") and evokes the hope of reviving "the pure Islam of the early days under Muhammad."
Interesting that he makes no mention of the Wahhabis, the more common bogeymen accused of turning peaceful Islam violent, and who arose many decades before Sayyed Gamal.
The Salafi movement gave birth to the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Moslemeen) led by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt (1928), and to an Iranian Shiite version, the Fedayeen of Islam, led by Muhammad Navab-Safavi (1941).In the '40s the movement produced two other children. The first was a hybrid of Marxism and Islam concocted by a Pakistani journalist Abul-Ala al-Maudoodi, who saw himself as "the Lenin of Islam." The other was a hybrid of Nazism and Islam promoted by the Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussaini and Rashid Ali al- Gilani, an Iraqi firebrand of Iranian origin....
In 1979, it won power in Iran under a semi-literate mullah named Ruhallah Khomeini.
This semi-literate was a well-respected religious teacher, an authority on Islamic theology and law, in the Shi'ite holy city of Qom. He won enough renown as an Islamic scholar to earn the title of Ayatollah. He wrote many books and treatises. Taheri, as his biographer, is well aware of all this.
In the 1980s, it dominated Pakistan through a group of army officers known as "the Koran Generals." In 1992 it came close to seizing power in Algeria through the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS). In 1995, it seized power in Kabul under the banner of the Taliban. Most recently, it won the election in the West Bank and Gaza under the label of Hamas.SALAFISM'S biggest successes, how ever, have come in the West — where the emergence of large communities of Muslims has created a space in which neo-Islam can thrive....
Once visual apartheid is achieved, the neo-Islamist moves to Phase Two: making his followers brain-dead. This is done by persuading them that there is a unique Islamic answer to all questions ever asked or ever to be asked.
And where does the answer come from? From "fatwa factories" set up by (often semi-literate) sheiks in some Muslim countries. The most complex issues of life, from banks charging interest to euthanasia, are often answered with a simple "yes" or "no."
Here again, it would be nice if this were true, but it is not. There may be some fatwa factories that resemble Taheri's description, but much more often Salafis, Wahhabis and others of the same ilk deal in quite carefully reasoned arguments, far beyond a simple "yes" or "no." Consider this extended examination from Ask-Imam.com of the question of whether a Muslim may nowadays own a slave girl for sex purposes -- as is sanctioned by the Qur'an (4:3, etc.).
For a Salafi/Wahhabi argument for violent jihad, carefully argued from the Qur'an, from a Chief Justice of Saudi Arabia, see here.
Taheri continues:
The idea is that, as Maudoodi (the "Lenin of Islam") believed, Islam was sent by God to turn men into robots obeying divine rules as spelled out by the sheiks....
To call Maududi the Lenin of Islam twice in a short piece obscures the fact that he was an indefatigable Islamic scholar himself. It is true that he appropriated the language of Marxism, and cleverly framed his Islamic appeal in that language, as I show in Onward Muslim Soldiers. He also wrote a multi-volume (the edition here in my office is seven volumes) commentary on the Qur'an that owes nothing to Lenin -- and in it, he argued from the Qur'an his central point that governments that do not implement Sharia have no legitimacy and must be fought by Muslims.
Are robots expected to have the patience and intellectual curiosity that is required to plow through a multi-volume tafsir? I am not saying that all who followed Maududi's ideas read and studied his books, but I am saying that this vision of programmed half-wits led by three-quarter wits simply doesn't tally with the facts.
NEO-ISLAM pursues its culture of apartheid by dividing the world into "Islam" and "un-Islam."Wherever Muslims are a majority is designated as Dar al-Islam (House of Peace); the rest of the world is Dar al-Harb (House of War) or, at best, Dar al-Da'awah (House of Propagation). The claim is that it is enough to be a Muslim to be always right against non-Muslims.
Neo-Islam does this, eh? That's funny; a few years ago I was on Michael Coren's TV show in Toronto with Anis Shorrosh, author of Islam Revealed, and a couple of Muslim scholars. When Shorrosh brought up the dar al-Islam/dar al-Harb distinction, one of them looked aggrieved and said, "That is a concept from Medieval times" -- as if no Muslims today believed in such a division. And now Taheri tells us its not Medieval, it's modern.
In fact, of course, it's both. The huge, chasmic distinction between believers and unbelievers ("the vilest of creatures" according to Qur'an 98:6) runs through the Qur'an. Dar al-Islam/dar al-Harb is a very ancient formulation, and one dear to the heart of jihadists today. Taheri's implication that it is something new obscures its traditional roots, and reassures Western non-Muslims -- but on false pretenses.
This is not how Muhammad taught Islam. His biography is full of instances where he ruled against a Muslim in a dispute with a non-Muslim. For him, the world was divided between "right" and "wrong," and "good" and "evil," not Islam and non-Islam. It is possible to be a Muslim and do evil things, while a non-Muslim could also be an agent of good.
Sure, but this is beside the point. Ultimately Muhammad taught that Muslims should behave this way toward non-Muslims -- even good ones:
Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)
Taheri says later: "Neo-Islam has as much right to operate in the political field as any other party in a democracy. But it does not have the right to pretend to be a religion — it is not."
Great. But with all this denial and obfuscation, I wonder if Taheri any longer has the right to pretend to be a trustworthy analyst. I still have great respect for his work -- most of the time. But articles like this one just peddle false reassurance, and are misleading. At best.
Foxes invited to guard henhouse. From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:
WASHINGTON - A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
The $6.8 billion sale is expected to be approved Monday. The British company is the fourth largest ports company in the world and its sale would affect commercial U.S. port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
Since late January Jihad Watch has been getting well over a million hits a day, and averaging about 30,000 unique visitors daily. Most of the newcomers, I imagine, are looking around for the Muhammad cartoons. Some of them, both supporters and foes of the jihad, don't read enough here to figure out which side we're on, but do take the time to send me a note based on the assumption that I am a jihadist. Here is one of those that just came in from a supporter of cartoon rage, with the subject line "IRRISPONSIBLE DANISH EDITORS":
THESE BASTARDS ARE ABUSING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH OF THE PRESS. THEY SHOULD BE HANGED FOR INSULTING THE PROPHET AND ISLAM, ONE GOOD THING ABOUT THIS PUBLISHING, IT HAS UNITED THE WHOLE ISLAMIC WORLD. GOD DAMN THOSE SWINES TO ETERNAL HELL. PEACE BE UPON YOU AND THE WORLD. SADRU JASANI
And upon your spirit, Sadru.
If this was indeed perpetrated by Israelis, rather than by Muslims seeking to exploit a fresh provocation, it is nothing more than irresponsible vandalism -- which leads to, you guessed it, yet more violent demonstrations on the part of Muslims. A peaceful response to anything just doesn't seem to be in the playbook. From CNN:
JERUSALEM -- Demonstrations broke out in three villages in the West Bank after graffiti insulting the Prophet Mohammed was sprayed on a mosque.Palestinian security sources said seven people were wounded in Sunday's protests.
It was not known who sprayed the graffiti on the mosque in Nabi Eliyas, near the town of Qalqilya in the central West Bank.
Israeli military sources said the graffiti, in Hebrew, read: "Mohammed is a pig." The Israeli Civil Administration and army troops erased the graffiti.
From the Philadelphia Daily News:
The FBI believes that the unemployed Wilkes-Barre man tried to conspire with al-Qaeda to wreck the American economy. Agents say Reynolds plotted to blow up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a Pennsylvania pipeline, and a New Jersey refinery.The sensational allegations, disclosed in a federal transcript obtained by The Inquirer on Friday, reveal a convoluted plot that includes cyberspace intrigue, an elaborate FBI sting, and a clandestine money-drop on a deserted Idaho road.
The case also involves a municipal judge from Montana who has devoted the last four years to snaring would-be terrorists online.
Reynolds, 47, has not been publicly charged with terrorism. But a federal prosecutor leveled that accusation during a December court hearing, saying that Reynolds attempted to "provide material aid to al-Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism.""He was doing it as a plan to disrupt governmental function, to change the government's actions in foreign countries, and to impact on the national debate about the war," Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganus Jr. said at the hearing in Wilkes-Barre.
Reynolds has been held without bail since Dec. 5 on unrelated weapons charges. A U.S. citizen, he is being detained in the Lackawanna County jail...
From Bloomberg:
Feb. 12 -- U.K. security forces have thwarted three terrorist attacks since the failed London bombings of July 21, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown will say in a speech tomorrow, as he seeks to raise his profile beyond financial matters in his bid to lead the nation after Tony Blair.``The terrorist threat has not diminished and will not diminish until we defeat it,'' Brown is due to say, according to excerpts the speech released by his office. ``Let us be in no doubt that three attack plans threatening Britain have been thwarted since July 21,'' when four bombs placed on London subways and a bus failed to detonate.
He will pledge more money to combat terrorism and will call for a ``British solution'' to finding the right balance between security and liberty, according a Brown aide. He will speak in London to the Royal United Service Institute.
Brown, 54, is beginning to address topics such as national security and national identity that are the traditional terrain of the prime minister. While Blair has said he wants to serve a full third term, which could last until 2010, political analysts widely expect he will step down in the next 18 to 24 months, with Brown succeeding him...
From the BBC:
The Shia bloc set to lead Iraq's first full-term government has picked PM Ibrahim Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister in the new cabinet. Mr Jaafari won by one vote over Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi.Each was backed by two key factions in the United Iraqi Alliance, which fell just short of a majority in the poll...
But his appointment must first be confirmed by parliament, and formal negotiations with other groups about forming a coalition government have yet to begin.
It will be Iraq's first full-term government since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.
The two previous governments - run by Iyad Allawi and Mr Jaafari - were interim administrations...
Sober political analysis from Herb Keinon at the Jerusalem Post:
...Putin's invitation to Hamas Thursday didn't come out of the blue. A week earlier at a mammoth press conference in the Kremlin, he made it clear that Moscow did not view Hamas the same way the US and Europe did.His answer to a question about Hamas was extremely telling. Hamas's victory, he said, "is a big setback, an important setback for American efforts in the Middle East. A very serious setback."
And an American setback in the Middle East is good for Russia; it provides Russia with an opportunity.
Putin's invitation to Hamas was not a jab at Israel, although we will definitely feel the sting, as much as it was a swipe at US regional policies. Putin has identified a place where Russia can play a key position. If everyone else is boycotting Hamas and Russia talks with it, then Russia has just won itself a starring role...
An update on the Ashura bombing in Pakistan from VOA:
Rival Muslim groups in northwestern Pakistan have ended an armed standoff after two days of violence that killed 38 people and injured dozens more.The police chief in Hangu said Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims reached a cease-fire agreement in talks Saturday.
The fighting began Thursday after a suicide bomber killed 23 Shi'ites observing the Ashura holy day.
After the bombing, Shi'ites retaliated by burning cars and shops. Army reinforcements were called in to restore order, but battles between the two groups continued.
Ashura marks the death in the seventh century of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson which led to the original schism between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims...
From AP:
JAKARTA Fearful Danish consular staff have fled their embassy, Indonesia's foreign minister said Sunday, after Denmark urged its citizens to leave the world's most populous Muslim nation citing security concerns amid anger over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Danish Ambassador Niels Erik Anderson and embassy staff have temporarily relocated "to an unspecified location," Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said...Earlier, Denmark called on its citizens to leave Indonesia, warning it has credible information that Danes are at risk.
"There is concrete information that indicates that an extremist group actively will seek out Danes in protest of the publication of the Muhammad drawings," Denmark's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It did not name the group...
CNN reports: The Danish government also removed envoys from its embassies in Syria and Iran.
If only the dissidents could topple the regime quickly...with strong U.S. help. From SMCCDI:
Millions of Iranians inflicted another heavy slap to the face of the shaky and unpopular Islamic regime by boycotting its "27th anniversary revolution celebration" by staying home, or far from the official gatherings.The regime's desperate leadership was hoping to bring millions in the streets by playing their nationalistic or religious feelings. But in Tehran, which was supposed to become a show room, the regime was unable to muster more than 70 or 80 thousand professional demonstrators and government employees and schools' students. Many of them, such as most governmental employees, are known to be forced to participate in official gatherings and others are fanatics or paid demonstrators. Hundreds of buses had transferred thousands of such demonstrators to the Capital.
For reference purposes, there are more than 12-million inhabitants in Tehran, the capital of Iran.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the implications of Iranian bellicosity and the increasingly probable Western response:
Suppose you were an Iranian, an ethnic Persian and a Muslim, and were one of the thousands involved in the nuclear bomb project. And you were not a fanatical supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but were rather disturbed by it. Yet you for some reason allowed your sense of national pride to take precedence, and liked the idea of Iran's refusing to abandon this project, even though you had plenty of evidence that not merely Ahmadinejad, but every Iranian leader in recent history, had made clear that such weapons, if acquired, would be used against Israel. Ahmadinejad does not say something new; he just says it more often and more directly, and with greater evident delight. And you have had your own experiences, or your relatives have, or your friends, with the sheer craziness of the people running Iran. But you wanted Iran to survive.Perhaps you would guess that the Americans, or the Israelis, or several NATO countries together, would never attempt to destroy the nuclear bomb project. You might think that the various places that contributed to the project were too spread out, and some too well hidden, for any potential attacker to be successful. But what if it were not one attack, but many, doing as much damage as could be done, eliminating certain key contributing establishments, and their personnel. And then, of course, even as remnants of what remained of the Iranian government (which could also be attacked) tried to utter brave words of defiance, another attack, and then a day or week or month or three months later, another one. When Israel bombed the Osirak Reactor in 1981, it was blandly predicted that the Iraqis would have the whole project up and running again with a decade. Twenty-five years later -- and no such project, or one likely to be.
So you are that Persian nationalist. You are working on this project for the greater glory of Iran, the Persian civilization that goes back to Cyrus and Darius, that once held much of present-day Iraq, and that today contains a kind of Persian Empire because within its domains, scarcely 50% of the population is Persian. The current Persian Empire is now known as Iran. More than one-third consists of Azeris, in the north -- that part of Iran that the Soviet Union seized for a while after World War II (until Western pressure made the Red Army retreat), a place whose population resents Persian domination and has more in common with the inhabitants of Azerbaijan. There are the Baluchis, who have similar resentments. There are the ethnic Arabs of Khuzistan, and its main city, Ahwaz, where so much of Iran's oil comes from, who have again and again demonstrated their resentment, even hatred, of their Persian masters. The forces of entropy and collapse are there, waiting to be stirred by a great outside force coming in to humiliate and reduce, and possibly end altogether, the power of the central Iranian state.If the Americans, or others, decide to attack because Iran refuses to stop its nuclear policy, or if the outside attempt to end that project altogether will require extensive collateral damage because the attackers have not been informed as to exactly where to attack, and have to attack, therefore, hither and yon, it is likely to be the kind of attack the consequences of which may end, forever, the state of Iran in its present borders. It will be a little like Turkey, reduced after World War I from its former imperial state to, essentially, Anatolia and a European sliver.
If Iranian nationalists do not work to help the Western powers stop this nuclear project, and help to sabotage it altogether in any way they can, then Iran may end up with the loss of Khuzistan, the Azeri lands, and the Baluchi lands. And let us not forget all the lands inhabited by ethnic Kurds so contemptuous of the Persians and so eager to emulate the Kurds now enjoying at least autonomy, and perhaps a good deal more, in northern Iraq -- then Iran may be no more. Greatly reduced in size, greatly reduced in population, deprived of its gas deposits in the north and the oil in Khuzistan, Iran would become much less important to the world, and the ethnic Persians would be left with little ability to sustain the state. They would be without that oil and gas wealth, and with hostile populations rising against the central state.
Is that nuclear project worth it?
Why?
Would any Iranian who wished to preserve Iran as a power really protect, rally around, support that nuclear project out of some misguided notion of nationalism?
One now lives, or dreams of returning, to the country now known as Iran.
It could well be the country formerly known as Iran. It all depends on what is done, inside Iran, to stave off the need for attack from outside Iran.
It's a choice for Iranians.
Let's see what they decide.
Another moderate Muslim. I wish those who take such hope from statements of condemnation like Ali's after the July 7 attacks will explain to us how we can distinguish sincere condemnations from insincere ones. From the TimesOnline, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
A LEADING imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a “good” act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter.Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact.
He also praised the bombers as the “children” of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003.Ali revealed that the leader of the London suicide bombers had attended sermons in Yorkshire by al-Faisal and tapes of al-Faisal’s teachings were still circulating within his mosque.
Al-Faisal, who has branded non-Muslims as “cockroaches” ripe for extermination, is serving a seven-year prison sentence but is eligible for early release next week.
Evidence of continuing extremism and terrorist sympathisers in the bombers’ community has been exposed by a six-week investigation by The Sunday Times. It contrasts with the public statements of condemnation by community leaders — including Ali — in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks.
1938 Alert from the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme."This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."
Yes it has.
More threats from the Thug-In-Chief. Will anyone take him seriously before it's too late? From DPA, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Tehran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and “other nations” will eventually remove Israel from the region.Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust “fairy tale”.
“We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them,” Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
“Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations,” the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a “fairy tale” and said Europeans have become hostages of “Zionists” in Israel....
The president said that the results of the parliamentary elections in Palestine and the victory of the Hamas group “clearly showed what the people really want.”
Yes it did. Although the world is still in denial.
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
Big surprise here. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, told tens of thousands of his countrymen Saturday that the United States and Europe should pay a heavy price for publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, saying the West had become a tool of "Zionism."Denmark, where the cartoons first were published four months ago, said it was temporarily pulling its envoys from Tehran, Syria and Indonesia, where buildings housing Copenhagen's diplomatic missions have come under attacks from angry Muslim demonstrators....
"I ask everybody in the world not to let a group of Zionists who failed in Palestine (referring to the recent Hamas victory in Palestinian elections) to insult the prophet.
"Now in the West insulting the prophet is allowed, but questioning the Holocaust is considered a crime," he said. "We ask, why do you insult the prophet? The response is that it is a matter of freedom, while in fact they (who insult the founder of Islam) are hostages of the Zionists. And the people of the US and Europe should pay a heavy price for becoming hostages to Zionists," he declared.
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
A trial. Of non-Muslims in a non-Muslim country. A trial according to Islamic law.
A recommendation from our friend and ally. This fellow Al-Seedes is more often in English "Al-Sudais." He is on record calling Jews "the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet killers ... pigs and monkeys." From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's top cleric called on the world's Muslims to reject apologies for the "slanderous" caricatures of Islam's Prophet Mohammed and demanded the authors and publishers of the cartoons be tried and punished, Saudi newspapers reported Saturday.Thousands of Muslims, meanwhile, took to the streets in London and several other European cities to protest the drawings that were first published in a Danish newspaper in September and recently reprinted in other European publications. One depicted the prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse.
Denmark also announced it has temporarily withdrawn its ambassadors from Syria, Iran and Indonesia because their safety was at risk in the wake of the controversy.
Speaking to hundreds of faithful at his Friday sermon, Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Seedes, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, called on the international community to enact laws that condemn insults against the prophet and holy sites.
"Where is the world with all its agencies and organizations? Is there only freedom of expression when it involves insults to Muslims? With one voice...we will reject the apology and demand a trial," Al Riyad, a Saudi daily newspaper, quoted al-Seedes as saying.
Al-Seedes said the cartoons "made a mockery" of the Islam and the Prophet and called them "slanderous."
A diverse crowd ranging from teenagers in jeans and T-shirts to women in head scarves gathered in Trafalgar Square in central London. Many carried placards reading "United Against Islamophobia."
"It was absolutely wrong to publish the cartoons," said Ihtisham Hibatullah, media director for the Muslim Association of Britain, one of the protest organizers.
But he said demonstrators also wanted to send the message that "the clash of civilizations is only promoted by fringe minorities. We see the future as one of dialogue between practices, cultures, faiths and ideologies."...
Protesters in the Turkish capital of Ankara stomped on Danish flags and shouted, "We will not forgive the ones who humiliated our prophet!"
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
Not surprisingly, our old friends of al-Muhajiroun, the British-based Muslim group that held pro-Osama and pro-9/11 rallies and held seminars with titles like "The Obligation of Inciting Religious Hatred," is stoking cartoon rage in Britain. From The Guardian, with thanks to John:
When worldwide Muslim fury over cartoons of the Prophet spread to Britain, the flag-burning protests outside the Danish embassy in London appeared to be an entirely spontaneous outpouring of anger.Inquiries by the Guardian have shown, however, that a key role in organising the demonstration was played by an Islamist sect whose supporters have repeatedly been linked to violence and terrorism.
Al-Ghurabaa, the organisation which takes credit for the protest, is essentially the same organisation as al-Muhajiroun, a sect which claims to have disbanded more than a year ago and whose founder, Omar Bakri Mohammed, was excluded from the UK last summer, shortly after he fled to Beirut.
They are uniquely British organisations which share the same leadership and same incendiary rhetoric. Their websites appear to be registered to the same house in north London. They hold an identical allure for a small but bitterly disaffected group of young British Muslims. And their members say they owe allegiance to the same "spiritual leader": Bakri. The organisation may be banned, under both its guises, after the terrorism bill reaches its final stage in the Commons on Wednesday. Already, however, there is evidence that supporters of al-Ghurabaa - which means the strangers - are reorganising themselves under several new names, such as al-Firqat un-Naajiyah and Ahl al Sunnah Wal Jamaa'ah: the Saved Sect, and the Messenger and his Companions.
Asked yesterday what the group would do if banned, Anjem Choudary, Bakri's right-hand man, said: "It may push a lot of people underground, and that is something the government should be concerned about."
Al-Ghurabaa, like al-Muhajiroun, makes no secret of its adoration of Osama bin Laden, and both are openly homophobic. Its website also espouses the murder of any who insult the Prophet.
In the wake of the Danish embassy demonstrations, al-Ghurabaa's website was offering a series of articles and essays, some harmless, others bizarre, and a few which will be seen as offensive....
Another, headlined the Lion Roars Again, hails Osama bin Laden as a man of "honour and dignity", whose roar causes the US to "shiver with fear and panic".
An essay about the cartoons was entitled Kill Those Who Insult Muhammad. Others were entitled There is No Room for Homosexuality in Islam, Homosexual Today Paedophile Tomorrow, and Homosexuality: A Crime....
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
Looks as if the dhimmitude that has largely prevailed among American press outlets has not been to any avail. From Iran Focus, with thanks to JE:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 10 – A senior Iranian cleric called on Muslims on Friday to direct their fury over cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad at the United States, rather than Denmark.When crowds of worshippers in Tehran chanted “Death to Denmark” during his fiery sermon, Tehran Friday prayers leader Ahmad Khatami told them, “We shouldn’t say ‘Death to Denmark’. Denmark is nothing! We must say, ‘Death to America’. It’s the Americans who set up the likes of the Danes”.
Khatami, who is not related to Iran’s former president, accused the European Union of “double standards” in its approach to the publication of cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and Iran’s denial of the Holocaust.
“They talk about human rights and freedom of expression, but at the same time they disgustingly insult more than a billion Muslims”, the ayatollah told worshippers in central Tehran.
“They justify this great crime on the grounds of freedom of expression and the stupid Prime Minister of Denmark says that they are willing to pay the price of freedom. But these very countries who claim to respect freedom of expression do not allow the smallest talk about the myths of Holocaust and persecution of the Jews”, he said.
This is beyond ridiculous. Holocaust denial is genocidally-tinged, politically motivated fantasy. There is just no comparison, especially since criticism of Israel and America fill European papers all the time.
“The United States and European states are taking advantage of human rights, freedom of speech, disarmament, and the International [Atomic Energy] Agency. All of these are being misused. They want to force their rule upon the world through these methods”, the senior cleric said.Turning to the situation in Iraq, Khatami said that the U.S. had spent a lot in the country “but they got the opposite result. The Iraqi people entered the scene and voted for Islam”.
He said that the victory of the radical Islamist group Hamas in the Palestinian elections was the “most effective blow” to U.S. prestige.
It wouldn't have been, had officials been speaking honestly about and dealing honestly with the jihad from the beginning.
An associate of the Lackawanna Six, the secularized Yemeni Muslims in Lackawanna, New York who were convinced through Qur'an studies led by an Al-Qaeda recruiter to try to journey to Afghanistan to join the jihad. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinpolitan Irredentist:
BUFFALO, N.Y. - An American wanted for allegedly training with the "Lackawanna Six" at an al-Qaida camp was among the 23 men who tunneled out of a Yemeni prison last week, the FBI confirmed Friday.Authorities earlier said they believed Jaber Elbaneh, 39, was probably among the escapees, but were not certain because of conflicting information, including a posting by the international police organization Interpol that pictured Elbaneh but described someone else.
Elbaneh is charged in Buffalo with providing material support to al-Qaida by attending the al-Farooq training camp run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Six other men who attended the camp — dubbed the Lackawanna Six after the city near Buffalo where they lived — are serving sentences ranging from seven to 10 years after pleading guilty in 2003 to providing support to a terrorist organization.
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: the Jawa Report is featuring 26 photos of cartoon rage, as expressed today in more than a dozen countries.
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
A professor posts the Muhammad cartoons on his office door...and ends up surrounded by a group of angry, shouting "youths." Perhaps like those "youths" in France we were hearing so much about not too long ago. "Lecturer stirs outrage after posting drawings," from CP, with thanks to Penkill:
HALIFAX—A peaceful protest turned tense yesterday when some Muslim students confronted a Halifax professor who drew criticism for posting contentious cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on his office door.Peter March, a philosophy professor at Saint Mary's University, said he was merely trying to promote a reasoned debate when he suddenly showed up in the midst of 100 protestors.
"You can't do philosophy directly and honestly without causing inflammation," he said as the protest march was getting started. "It's one of the side effects, rather like surgery."
When students realized who he was, a group of angry youths started shouting, "Go away!" and "You don't belong here!"
But March stood his ground, attempting to debate some of them before organizers urged the students to ignore him and move on.
The shouting matches, all captured by TV cameras, are precisely what some Canadian Muslim leaders fear contribute to negative stereotypes of their religion. Passions flared again on the university campus when March engaged in several discussions that soon turned to heated arguments.
He was helped into a campus building by police who barred the doors to a group of angry students.
To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.
Another publication bows to threats and intimidation. "Political magazine pulls cartoon after police warning," from The Guardian, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Politics magazine the Liberal has followed the Spectator in publishing then hastily withdrawing from its website one of the controversial Danish cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad.The independent title, which played a prominent role in the campaign to oust former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy by organising a petition, yesterday published a cartoon on its website alongside an editorial calling for free speech.
Well, they won't be foolish enough to call for that again.
Senior police officers at Scotland Yard warned the magazine its staff could not be guaranteed protection from possible protests, after which the cartoon was pulled from the Liberal's website and replaced by a large white square with the word "censored" placed over it.
Will the West be able to get over its abject fear long enough to defend its principles?
Looks as if a few sermons of peace and tolerance have stirred up cartoon rage anew. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
CAIRO, Egypt - Thousands of worshippers emerging from Friday prayers demonstrated against drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in the Mideast, Asia and Africa, clashing with police in some cities despite religious leaders' attempts to keep marches peaceful.In Kenya, police shot and wounded one person among about 200 demonstrators trying to march to the residence of Denmark's ambassador.
About 60 protesters in the Iranian capital, Tehran, threw firebombs at the French Embassy, shattering nearly every window on its street facade, even after a cleric at a prominent Iranian mosque urged people not to attack diplomatic missions.
"Down! Down with France! Down! Down with Israel," the crowd chanted. One firebomb exploded in the embassy and started a small blaze that was quickly extinguished....
Eleven people have been killed in the protests, all of them during three days of riots this week in Afghanistan. A 12th person died Friday in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, when he was hit by an ambulance rushing away the wounded protester....
But Friday prayers — a frequent launching ground for political demonstrations — brought a new wave of protests in Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Morocco. No significant marches were seen in Syria or Lebanon, the scene of attacks on embassies in past weeks.
In Jordan, organizers and clerics were able to keep order.
Around 2,000 followers of the Muslim Brotherhood marched peacefully through the capital Amman, after cleric Abdul-Rahman Ibdah told them in his sermon not to "imitate the rioters in other countries (who) harmed Islam."
Egypt saw its most widespread protests yet, with thousands protesting in 21 of its 26 provinces, including in Cairo and the second-largest city, Alexandria.
Many were organized by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, which has called for marches to continue — but peacefully. The group's deputy head, Khairat el-Shater, appealed to Muslims beforehand "not to let their furor drag them into attacking properties ... or to turn into a clash between civilizations."
But violence erupted when police tried to stop demonstrations.
In the northern Delta city of Mahalla el-Kubra, where some 15,000 people marched, security forces fired tear gas and water cannon when demonstrators refused to disperse. Protesters pelted them with rocks and attacked shops and cars. At least 20 people were arrested.
About 1,000 people protested outside Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque, some chanting, "Osama bin Laden, explode Copenhagen," and burning a Danish flag. Some threw shoes at police trying to bar their way, and security forces beat protesters with sticks.
Afterward, Brotherhood official Mohammed Bishr said the violence and flag burnings were caused by "intruders who infiltrated the peaceful demonstrations."
Protests by Palestinians were smaller than in recent days, but vehement. Gunmen fired in the air as thousands marched in Gaza, while about 2,000 women, young boys and older men marched around the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem, chanting "Bin Laden, strike again" and burning a Danish flag.
Charges of Qur'an desecration spark violence in Kashmir. From Reuters, with thanks to Elsworthway:
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Ten people including five policemen, were injured in Indian Kashmir on Friday when Muslim protesters clashed with police as trouble flared over charges that Buddhists had desecrated the Koran, authorities said.A curfew was imposed in the towns of Kargil and Leh in Kashmir's Buddhist-dominated Ladakh region, for the second day in Leh.
The clashes erupted on Wednesday after torn pages of the Koran were found scattered by the road in Leh, police said. Leh is about 435 km east of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.
Several houses and cars were burnt in the violence, but no injuries were reported.
On Friday, 10 people, including five policemen, were injured when Muslim protesters clashed with police in Kargil, police said.
They said a curfew was imposed in Kargil after protesters ransacked a government office, set fire to the house of a police officer and hurled stones at police and government buildings.
Muslims alleged Buddhists were responsible for the alleged desecration, but police said they were investigating the incident.
From our ever-growing Cartoons-of-Muhammad-Equal-Jihad/Martyrdom-Bombings-in-Pizza-Parlors File (thanks to Diana West):
Of course, that is exactly what Western governments want so very much to do. "Captive reporter: 'There is very short time,'" from CNN, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
(CNN) -- Abducted American journalist Jill Carroll appeared in a video broadcast on Kuwaiti television Thursday, urging the U.S. government to meet her kidnappers' demands.On the video, Carroll says she is OK.
"I'm here. I'm fine. Please, just do whatever they want. Give them whatever they want as quickly as possible. There is very short time. Please do it fast," she says. "That's all."...
In the video, Carroll says the date is February 6, then she shakes her head and corrects herself: "February 2, 2006."
In the video, Carroll wears a hijab, or Muslim headdress, and appears more composed than she did during a video broadcast January 30, in which she was weeping.
"I sent you a letter written by my hand that you wanted more evidence, so we're sending you this new letter now just to prove that I am with the mujahedeen," Carroll says in English on the tape, broadcast on AlRai television....
Charles Krauthammer points out the hypocrisy of "moderate" voices in the cartoon controversy. From the Washington Post, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage, speak out against using violence as a vehicle of expression. Their Western counterparts -- intellectuals, including most of the major newspapers in the United States -- are similarly balanced: While, of course, endorsing the principle of free expression, they criticize the Danish newspaper for abusing that right by publishing offensive cartoons, and they declare themselves opposed, in the name of religious sensitivity, to doing the same.God save us from the voices of reason.
What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.
Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?
A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses European and Arab colonialism:
Oft-repeated is the canard that the ills and failures of the Muslim world are the consequence of Western colonialism. This claim calls for scrutiny.The Europeans re-entered the Middle East only in 1798, when Napoleon came to Egypt – one of his generals, Kleber, stayed behind and becane the hero of Heliopolis, where he defeated the Turks (Incidentally, a certain well-heeled hotel, one that former Lebanese presidents and Arafat himself liked to stay in, in a very particular suite, when being put up by the Ministere des affaires etrangeres, is to be found in Paris on the Avenue Kleber). Kleber died in May, 1800, a month before Suvorov (a less-successful general), and was succeeded by General Menou, a French convert -- convenience? deep belief? -- to Islam.
For many hundreds of years the Arabs of the Middle East and North Africa were subject to rule, varying in the degree of its immediacy and power, by the Ottoman Turks. Even before 1517, when the Ottoman Turks conquered, the Mamelukes, who were of Turkic stock, ruled Egypt. It was the Europeans who largely freed the Arabs from Turkish rule.
The vast peninsula of Arabia (renamed after the Al-Saud family) was never subject to European colonial rule. In fact, the British made it a rule to use only naval power to do two things in the Persian Gulf: to end the Arab slave trade in black Africans, and to establish some modicum of peace between the constantly warring tribes -- including stamping out piracy, for this threatened their route to India and the East. And that was it. There were a few British garrisons later established, chiefly at the entrepot of Aden, and on side of the Gulf as well. There was no settlement by Europeans, nothing to exploit, no "colonization" in the Middle East itself (I'll get to North Africa in a minute). As for Syria-Lebanon and Iraq, the only pressure from the first was that of the European powers, chiefly France, to protect the local Christians from Muslim mistreatment. The French Mandate over Syria lasted for all of a quarter-century. It was not "colonial" in nature; there was no exploitation of the locals, but rather it became a net expense for the French. So too was the British Mandate in Mesopotamia, which lasted for a mere dozen years, from 1920 to 1932 (and when the British left, the Arabs promptly started massacring the Assyrians, though they had given assurances that they would not).What about Egypt? Egypt was given, for the only time in its modern history, or perhaps ever, an example of a relatively honest and efficient civil service under Lord Cromer. This did not amount to colonialism. Indeed, it created the conditions which allowed for the development of the Egyptian economy and the rule of law, while keeping corruption to a minimum. It constituted the best-ruled period in modern Egypt's history. And when that ended in 1922, the effects did not disappear but lingered, even unto the final fall of Farouk in 1952 -- when the colonels not only removed the ancien regime, but promptly "nationalized" all the property owned by the Greeks, the Jews, the Italians, and others who had lived in Egypt for generations.
As for Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria -- well, in Libya everything that was built that is worth noting either was left by the Romans, or was built by much later craftsmen from the Italian peninsula who arrived early in the last century. If that constitutes "colonialism" -- and compare the rule under Italy with that under either King Idris or Khaddafy -- few people would not have welcomed such a fate.
In Morocco and Tunisia, the French stayed as colonial powers for all of 40 years (roughly 1912 to 1952, give or take a year or two). Forty years, out of 1350 years of Islamic rule. Yet some would have us believe that when the French came and built hospitals and universities and offered the gift of the French language, and therefore of French literature, French rationality, French everything, that this was a terrible thing, a thing to be deplored. Nonsense.
What about Algeria, the only place in all of what is wrongly called "the Arab world" that really did have a colonial presence for more than a few brief decades? The French, like the Americans and others, had tried to stamp out the attacks on their shipping: for centuries Christian-owned vessels and seamen were the object of attack from North Africa. The Americans managed to prevent attacks on their ships by a firm display of force. But when they left, the French continued to suffer. Finally, in 1830, they seized Algiers. And they remained in Algeria until 1962, for 132 years. There, as elsewhere, they built hospitals and schools. They created, from land that had not been correctly tilled or mostly not tilled at all, thriving agriculture -- including vineyards. There is not an educated Berber or Arab today who does not compare favorably the state of Algeria under the French with the monstrous things that happened after the victory of the FLN, and its continuous misrule by the army and corrupt generals who, however, are models of decency and deportment compared to the F.I.S. and other Islamist groups (see Michael Willis, "The Islamist Challenge to Algeria.")
Arab Muslims suffered far less from European colonialism than did any other people in the soi-disant Third World -- far less than those in sub-Saharan Africa, in Central and South America, and in Asia. Indeed, it might be argued, and has been by many non-Arab ex-Muslims, such as Anwar Shaikh (in his "Islam: The Arab Imperialism"), that the most successful imperialism or colonialism of all time, has been that of the Arabs themselves, who used Islam as a vehicle for arabization, especially of the cultural and linguistic kind: the taking of Arab names and false Arab lineages, using 7th century Arab customs as a model for all time, being required to read one's holy books in Arabic, and so on. That is what the Berbers are keenly aware of, and the Kurds, and the black African Muslims in Darfur.
It was the Arabs from Arabia who settled themselves in, and laid down the law to, every non-Arab and non-Muslim people they conquered. Even so, it took quite a while to become a majority in these lands. In Egypt, for example, the Christian Copts, the original Egyptians, were still a majority in the first part of the 13th century. But then a campaign of persecution, murder, and forcible conversion began, and within a short period they were reduced from more than 50% of the population to about 10% -- their proportion today.
Let us discuss the thousand years, and more, of Arab "colonialism" in the Berber lands, in sub-Saharan Africa, in Persia, or of the arabization that accompanied islamization, even if that islamization was conducted by non-Arabs, in Hindustan, in the East Indies (look at what happened to the Hindus and the Buddhists who once made up the population of that vast archipelago), and everywhere else that islamization, a vehicle for Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, takes place. When John Smith becomes Abdallah Smith, and Richard Jones becomes Muhammad Jones, and an entire past is jettisoned so that what some people in 7th century Arabia are reported to have said and done becomes a guide to existence, that is a greater imperialism than the easy-to-get-rid-of political kind. For it destroys one's own sense of one's past, or one's link to one's ancestors. With Islam, you begin as if anew, and the pre-Islamic or non-Islamic past is no longer of symathetic interrest. That successful Arab colonialism shoud be compared to the almost complete absence of "colonialism" in the classic sense, anywhere that Europeans ruled over Arabs and Muslims (the real colonialism was practiced elsewhere, with results not nearly as malign as depicted in the press today) -- save for the one exception of Algeria. And that exception lasted all of 132 years, and the state of Algeria since the French left has been, in every respect, far worse than it was when they were present.
Yes, French rule in North Africa, and especially in Algeria, in comparison to what preceded it, or what came after, can be seen more clearly now that both that European "colonialism" -- and the "de-colonialism" that ended it -- have been gone for a half-century. And what one realizes is that the French presence, not only the building of roads and buildings, the hospitals and schools, but the cultural gift of the French language and literature and possibilities of free inquiry and thought, represented in those lands a brief, but lucid interval of Western civilization.
More on Bush's LA revelations. From Reuters, with thanks to JE:
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Malaysia is holding several members of an al Qaeda suicide cell that U.S. President George W. Bush says planned to launch a September 11-style attack on Los Angeles, a security official familiar with the case told Reuters.The plot to hijack a plane and fly it into Los Angeles' tallest building was set in motion a month after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and was thwarted in early 2002, according to Bush.
A Southeast Asian intelligence official said at least three members of a Southeast Asian cell earmarked to carry out the attack on the West Coast were being held in Malaysia under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial....
The planned attack on Los Angeles was hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and is in U.S. custody.
The hijack team was recruited by Jemaah Islamiah commander Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who was arrested in August 2003 near Bangkok and is also in U.S. custody.
The hijackers were to use bombs hidden in shoes to breach the cockpit door of an airplane before flying it into Los Angeles' 1,017-feet (310-meter) high Library Tower, now the US Bank Tower.
The cell was broken and the arrests made between 2002 and 2003.
MORE ALERT TO ARABS
"It was a legit plot," said Ken Conboy, a Jakarta-based security expert who has written several books on defense, intelligence and security issues. "Whether they would have been able to get these guys actually in the States is another deal.
"It was envisioned as a second wave after 9/11, and he (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) wanted to use Southeast Asians because he thought they could get into the U.S. and hijack the planes more so than Arabs because the U.S. would be more on alert to Arabs after 9/11," Conboy said.
No worries about that. That would have been profiling.
"Meshaal offers to mediate in cartoon row," from Khaleej Times, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
DOHA — The supremo of the radical Palestinian group Hamas offered yesterday to seek to calm anger among Muslims over the publication of blasphemous cartoons.Khaled Meshaal told a Press conference that Hamas “is prepared to play a role in calming the situation between the Islamic world and Western countries on condition that these countries commit themselves to putting an end to attacks against the feelings of Muslims.”
Speaking in Cairo on Wednesday, Meshaal had said the Western Press was “playing with fire” with the publication of the cartoons, which had led to riots across the Muslim world.
He added that “the Christian West, which is provoking the feelings fo the Muslim nation, should change its attitudes.”...
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Muslims turned a religious ceremony yesterday into a peaceful protest against the publication of a series of blasphemous cartoons in the Western media.
The European Union sought to calm tension, calling for a voluntary media code of conduct to avoid further inflaming religious sensibilities, while the United States accused Iran and Syria of deliberately stoking Muslim rage....
The annual Shia mourning ceremonies mark the martyrdom of the prophet’s grandson, Imam Hussein, in Iraq 1,300 years ago. Security sources put the turnout in Beirut at 400,000.
Aid workers from Denmark were told to stay away from the ceremonies for fear of reprisals.
They once again seem largely concerned not that people have been unjustly victimized and even killed; they're concerned that Islam's image has been tarnished. From AP, with thanks to JE:
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Many Arab governments, Muslim religious leaders and newspapers have been calling for calm in the protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, fearing the violence of the past weeks has only reinforced Islam's negative image in the West.No major demonstrations took place in Mideast and North African cities Thursday, suggesting the fervor was easing. But it wasn't clear whether the calm would last. A test may come after weekly Muslim prayers on Friday, when at least one large protest is planned, in Morocco.
The drawings, first published in a Danish newspaper then reprinted in other European publications, sparked outrage across the Islamic world. Protests turned violent in recent weeks in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
But many in the Middle East watched the stone-throwing, flag burnings and embassy attacks with sorrow. Some — including governments, religious leaders and newspaper writers — are trying to put on the brakes on the outrage, even if they feel Muslims are right to be angry.
"They committed a crime when they violated our prophet's sanctity," Mohammed Abdel-Qaddous, a prominent Egyptian writer on Islamic issues, said Wednesday at a forum organized by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.
"But if we set their embassy on fire, as happened in Syria or Lebanon, we will then be responding to their crime with another crime," he said.
Kuwait's parliament has urged restraint, saying "irresponsible acts" make the outpouring of emotions Muslims have shown for their religion and prophet "look like aggressiveness and destructiveness."
Iraq's top Shiite political leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said only peaceful protests should be held. And the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, told The Associated Press in Dallas that the violence is "unhelpful and in many cases unnecessary."
"Our prophet himself was insulted, violence was inflicted upon him when he preached his message to the idolators and nonbelievers, and he met that violence with forgiveness," Turki said....
Well, that's not the whole story, but let it pass.
"Those who use violence are overreacting," said Saleh al-Igrazi, a 35-year-old Iraqi dentist. "They give a bad impression of Muslims, who are shown to the world to be troublemakers and even terrorists."
Mmm hmm.
In FrontPage this morning, the indefatigable Joe Kaufman uncovers more goings-on in Tampa that ought to be gaining the notice of law enforcement officials and the mainstream media. (Many good links in the original.)
From March 11th through the 12th, the Muslim American Society of Tampa will be holding its MAS Olympics 2006. The two-day event will comprise of the standard kids sports – basketball, football, soccer, volleyball – things certainly that would appear wholesome and not present the general public with any grounds for pause. However, given this group’s propagation of radical Islamist beliefs, there are a number of reasons why this event should concern everyone who cares about the welfare of children and the safety and security of the United States.The Muslim American Society of Tampa (MAS-Tampa) was incorporated as a “Domestic Non-Profit,” in October of 2003. The registered agent of the group was/is Mohamed Moharram, and he has since acted as MAS-Tampa’s President. The group was created as a subsidiary of the national Muslim American Society (MAS), which was founded ten years earlier.
According to its website, MAS is “a charitable, religious, social, cultural, educational, and not-for-profit organization… a pioneering Islamic organization, an Islamic revival, and reform movement that uplifts the individual, the family, and the society.” However, to those involved in the war against terrorism, MAS is nothing more than an American arm to the violent Muslim Brotherhood, the organization from which such groups as Hamas, Al-Qaeda and the Egyptian and Palestinian Islamic Jihads were brought into being.
In a full-length investigative report by the Chicago Tribune, entitled ‘A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America,’ it is stated: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members… When the leaders voted, it was decided that Brotherhood members would call themselves the Muslim American Society, or MAS...”The fact that this group is operating within America’s borders (with apparent immunity) is alarming to say the least. But when one discovers how much involvement with and influence this group has over children, that alarm becomes even more heightened.
One of the main thrusts of the Muslim American Society is to provide intensive forums for young Muslims. This is done through the MAS Youth Division, which has established dozens of youth centers across the United States, one of which is in Tampa.When perusing through the website of MAS-Tampa, one finds that the majority of material located on the site is devoted to children. There is much information about past and future MAS-Tampa youth events. This includes numerous pictures of a previous Olympics, a youth retreat, a picnic and a career workshop.
Within these pictures, there are color photos of children shooting rifles. This is disturbing, given the fact that there is a flyer located on the site, advertising paintball for 13 to 16 year-olds, with the following statement: “We’re trying to separate the men from the Boys, The guns from the toys, The real ones from things that just make noise.”
This is only the beginning though, as the amount of unrestrained violence and hatred contained on the site is so voluminous one has to wonder how this organization was ever able to fly below Homeland Security’s radar screen.
On MAS-Tampa’s website, in the “e-Library” section, there are many Islamic-oriented texts, some much larger than others. Found inside these texts is an overwhelming amount of material with respect to the subjects of jihad (holy war) and how Muslims should deal with members of other religions.
Regarding jihad, one can view the following quotes in MAS-Tampa’s “e-Library”:
* “A Muslim must always worship Allah and wage jihad until death in order to reach his ultimate goal… Therefore the steadfast Muslim will achieve this goal either through a lifetime of effort or through sudden death as a martyr… Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr. You should be ready for this right now, even though its time may not have come yet.” (Fathi Yakan, ‘To Be a Muslim’)
* “First: we Muslims have not discharged the duty of jihad that is compulsory for everyone of us in many Islamic countries to liberate the Muslim land from usurpers and aggressors in Palestine, Eritrea, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and other Muslim republics (and cities) of the Soviet Union, and other similar places in China, Ethiopia and Thailand, etc… no force can stand in our way today if we act in earnest and devote our efforts to conveying our Call to the whole world.” (Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, ‘Priorities of the Islamic Movement’)
* “…the Movement has never forgotten and will never forget the Palestinian cause… [This] has been crystallized in the steadfast, brave, aware Islamic resistance movement "Hamas". Hamas is an embodiment of the Palestinian People's belief in its Muslim and Arab origins, and a testimony that this people is still alive and will never die and that its jihad will be carried on by pure hands and clean hearts until victory is achieved with the will of Allah.” (Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, ‘Priorities of the Islamic Movement’)
* “The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: He who does not join the warlike expedition (jihad), or equip, or looks well after a warrior's family when he is away, will be smitten by Allah with a sudden calamity.” (‘Partial Translation of Sunan Abu-Dawud’)
* “…the Mujahidun who return safe and sound from the battlefield and get their share of booty are inferior in reward to those who are martyred or wounded in Jihad and do not get any share from the booty… when the situation calls for Jihad then the foremost priority of a Muslim should be Jihad.” (‘Riyad-us-Saliheen’)Regarding non-Muslims, one can view the following quotes in MAS-Tampa’s “e-Library”:
* “The Holy Prophet (and through him the Muslims) has been reassured that he should not mind the enmity, the evil designs and the machinations of the Jews… In view of the degenerate moral condition of the Jews and the Christians, the Believers have been warned not to make them their friends and confidants.” (Abul Ala Mawdudi, ‘Chapter Introductions To The Quran’)
* “God will cause the jews to be defeated. Earth shall be filled with muslims as a vessel is filled to the brim with water-the entire world shall recite the same Kalima (Islamic declaration of belief) and worship shall be offered to none else except God Almighty.” (Abul Ala Mawdudi, ‘The Finality of Prophethood’)
* “The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: ‘May Allah destroy the Jews, because they used the graves of their prophets as places of worship.’”… “The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: ‘May Allah curse Jews and Christians for they turned the graves of their Prophets into places of worship.’” (Sayd Sabeq, ‘Fiqh-us-Sunnah’)
* “Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates that the Prophet (peace be upon him) once said: ‘He who possesses sufficient provisions and means of journey for the performance of Hajj and yet does not do so, let him die the death of a Jew or a Christian.’” (Sayd Sabeq, ‘Fiqh-us-Sunnah’)
* “A Jew came to the Prophet asking for his debt and said: ‘You are from the tribe of Abd Manaf whose tribe likes to delay paying debts.’ When Umar heard this, he swore that he would cut off the Jew’s head.” (Fathi Yakan, ‘To Be a Muslim’)
* “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’” (‘Sahih Bukhari’)These Islamist imperatives show that the agenda of MAS-Tampa is to create an exclusively Muslim American Society ‘by any means necessary.’ It is clear that young children subjected to this form of indoctrination have a good chance of becoming radicalized.
The kids attending MAS-Tampa’s Olympics 2006 will be aged 9 and up. This includes both the beginning and latter stages of adolescence, what is arguably the most impressionable time in a child’s life. According to the National Institute of Health, “The adolescent experiences not only physical growth and change but also emotional, psychological, social, and mental change and growth. During this period, adolescents are expected to become capable of adult behavior and response.”
It has to be noted that suicide is the third leading cause of death of adolescents. This is of interest, when considering the ages of suicide bombers. In a November 2003 piece put out by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, entitled ‘Israel, the Conflict and Peace: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,’ it is stated, “Youth groups and official PA summer camps teach young people to become holy warriors, actually training them in the use of firearms. This cult of martyrdom has inspired Palestinian children to take an increasingly active role in the violence. The average age of suicide bombers has dropped and attacks carried out by teenagers have become more and more frequent.”
Taking this into consideration, the question must be asked: What is MAS-Tampa contemplating, when it is obvious that the group is so focused on children?
In answering this question, one should look not only at the material on the group’s website, but one should also bear in mind a recent event that was supposed to take place in the town of Lithia, Florida. It was here that MAS-Tampa planned a New Year’s youth retreat, featuring as a speaker the Youth Division Head of MAS-New Jersey, Mazen Mokhtar. Mokhtar, just prior to 9/11, created a website that raised funds and recruited fighters for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. None of this can be overlooked.
Yet, what may be more telling than any of the above is found on the group’s website, as well. It is a flyer for an MAS youth conference (‘YOUth: Generation with a Mission’) that took place in April of 2004, in Raleigh, North Carolina. On it, there is depicted an adult male’s hand giving over a book into a child’s hand. But this is not just any book. It is a Quran – the same Quran brandished in suicide bomber video ‘testaments’ – the Hamas Quran!
Question answered.
Our friends and allies the Saudis were in the thick of it, along with Iran's Thug-In-Chief. "At Mecca Meeting, Cartoon Outrage Crystallized," from the New York Times, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 8 — As leaders of the world's 57 Muslim nations gathered for a summit meeting in Mecca in December, issues like religious extremism dominated the official agenda. But much of the talk in the hallways was of a wholly different issue: Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.The closing communiqué took note of the issue when it expressed "concern at rising hatred against Islam and Muslims and condemned the recent incident of desecration of the image of the Holy Prophet Muhammad in the media of certain countries" as well as over "using the freedom of expression as a pretext to defame religions."
The meeting in Mecca, a Saudi city from which non-Muslims are barred, drew minimal international press coverage even though such leaders as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran were in attendance. But on the road from quiet outrage in a small Muslim community in northern Europe to a set of international brush fires, the summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference — and the role its member governments played in the outrage — was something of a turning point.
After that meeting, anger at the Danish caricatures, especially at an official government level, became more public. In some countries, like Syria and Iran, that meant heavy press coverage in official news media and virtual government approval of demonstrations that ended with Danish embassies in flames.
In recent days, some governments in Muslim countries have tried to calm the rage, worried by the increasing level of violence and deaths in some cases.
But the pressure began building as early as October, when Danish Islamists were lobbying Arab ambassadors and Arab ambassadors lobbied Arab governments.
"It was no big deal until the Islamic conference when the O.I.C. took a stance against it," said Muhammad el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
Sari Hanafi, an associate professor at the American University in Beirut, said that for Arab governments resentful of the Western push for democracy, the protests presented an opportunity to undercut the appeal of the West to Arab citizens. The freedom pushed by the West, they seemed to say, brought with it disrespect for Islam.
He said the demonstrations "started as a visceral reaction — of course they were offended — and then you had regimes taking advantage saying, 'Look, this is the democracy they're talking about.'"
The protests also allowed governments to outflank a growing challenge from Islamic opposition movements by defending Islam.
In "What would Muhammad do?: History suggests the prophet was more pragmatic than followers rioting in his name," in the LA Times (thanks to James), Jamil Momand, a professor of biochemistry at Cal State Los Angeles, says that the cartoon ragers should follow Muhammad's example:
Some Muslims may say that public opinion does not matter when it comes to Islam. Yet if one examines the life of the prophet Muhammad, one would conclude that he carefully considered public opinion. When he negotiated a treaty with Arabs who were at war with him, he did not insist that his title as "prophet" be placed in the document (this act horrified his companions, to the point where they thought it was sacrilege). Instead, he had his name written as simply Muhammad, the son of Abdulla. This placated his enemy and was essential to successfully concluding the treaty, which gave the Muslims an extended period of peace that allowed them to publicize Islam. In fact, the opportunity the treaty created may be responsible for Islam's existence.Yes, the prophet cared deeply about public opinion. Now if only Muslims would follow his lead.
The problem is, the cartoon ragers may believe that they are already following Muhammad's lead.
Momand thus joins Amir Taheri in suggesting that today's violent cartoon ragers would have displeased the founder of Islam himself. Taheri asserted in the Opinion Journal yesterday that "The truth is that Islam has always had a sense of humor and has never called for chopping heads as the answer to satirists. Muhammad himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade." Both Momand and Taheri are only looking at part of the evidence about Muhammad, and generalizing without warrant.
In fact, the prophet asked his followers to assassinate poets who had insulted him -- Abu 'Afak and 'Asma bint Marwan -- and rejoiced at their deaths. When the killer of 'Asma reported his deed to Muhammad, Muhammad replied: "You have helped Allah and His Apostle, O Umayr!" (The Sira of Ibn Ishaq, 995-996).
What was Abu 'Afak's offense? He composed a poem praising some of Muhammad's opponents, and lamenting their defeat by the Muslims: "A rider who came to them split them in two, saying 'Permitted,' 'Forbidden,' all sorts of things" -- which was a small jab at the legalism of Islam. Muhammad accordingly asked for his death. When 'Asma bint Marwan heard he was dead, she was angry, and her poem calls in turn for the death of Muhammad after Abu 'Afak was murdered: "Is there no man of pride who would attack [Muhammad] by surprise and cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?" But as a woman in 7th century Arabia, she was in little position to make good on this call or influence anyone else to do so. Muhammad had no reason to treat her as a serious threat. Nonetheless he called for -- and received -- her death also.
On another occasion Muhammad was at prayer when his enemies provoked him with a vile deed: “Narrated ‘Abdullah: While the Prophet was in the state of prostration, surrounded by a group of people from [the] Mushrikun [unbelievers] of the Quraish, ‘Uqba bin Abi Mu’ait came and brought the intestines of a camel and threw them on the back of the Prophet.”
The prophet found in this undeniable humiliation no occasion for mercy: “The Prophet did not raise his head from prostration till Fatima (i.e. his daughter) came and removed those intestines from his back, and invoked evil on whoever had done (that evil deed). The Prophet said, ‘O Allah! Destroy the chiefs of Quraish, O Allah! Destroy Abu Jahl bin Hisham, ‘Utba bin Rabi’a, Shaiba bin Rabi’a, ‘Uqba bin Abi Mu’ait, ‘Umaiya bin Khalaf (or Ubai bin Kalaf).’ Later on I saw all of them killed during the battle of Badr and their bodies were thrown into a well except the body of Umaiya or Ubai, because he was a fat man, and when he was pulled, the parts of his body got separated before he was thrown into the well.” (Bukhari, vol. 4, book 58, no. 3185 -- print edition numbering)
In sum, there is ample evidence that this was not a man who thought a soft answer turned away wrath, or who was interested in turning the other cheek and reacting with gentleness when insulted or humiliated. The cartoon ragers may well see in him not only one whose honor they must avenge, but whose example in the face of insults they must follow.
Another story revealing the self-defeating nature of Islamic jihad. From Xinhuanet, with thanks to Twostellas:
STOCKHOLM, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Major Norwegian humanitarian aid organizations are suspending their efforts in some Muslim nations in the wake of violent protests related to caricatures of the prophet Mohammad, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported on Thursday.The Red Cross, Norwegian Peoples Aid, Norwegian Church Aid and the Norwegian Refugee Council are modifying their aid efforts in several countries as a result of the protests, according to NRK.
Among those who will be affected are the earth quake victims in Pakistan, refugees in Somalia and Sudan, and the Tsunami victims in Aceh in Indonesia.
Danish aid organizations are also withdrawing from Muslim nations.
"It is tragic that this has come in the way, but we must first and foremost think about the safety of our workers," said Thomas Ravn-Pedersen, information chief for Dan Church Aid.
More editors in the Islamic world take their lives into their hands. From Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:
SANAA, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Yemen closed down on Wednesday a second newspaper that reprinted controversial caricatures of Prophet Mohammad, an official at the information ministry said.The official said the English-language Yemen Observer would be shut until further notice. The newspaper published the inflammatory cartoons last week, he added.
On Monday, the ministry ordered the closure of a small, Arabic language newspaper for printing the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish daily in September.
The prosecution also issued an arrest warrant for its editor-in-chief, who is also its owner, on charges of offending Islam and the Prophet.
Sunni jihad against Shi'ites. "Bomber Attacks Procession," from SkyNews, with thanks to Twostellas:
At least 27 Shi'ite Muslims have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a religious procession in northern Pakistan.The attack in Hangu came on the day of Ashura, Shia Muslims' most important holy day.
Five people were also killed in Afghanistan in clashes between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.
In Pakistan, Maulana Khurshid Anwar, a leader of the Shi'ite procession, said one of the blasts was near a stage from where he was about to address the mourners.
Angry Shi'ites rampaged through the town, which is about 200 miles south of Islamabad, burning down a bazaar.
Pakistan has suffered Islamist sectarian violence for years, most of it directed by majority Sunni Muslims against Shi'ites.
Ashura marks the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
Tensions tend to rise during the month of Moharram, the 10-day period ending with Ashura.
Shi'ites take to streets in big processions during Moharram, beating themselves with sharpened chains to mourn the death of Hussain, Mohammed's grandson and Ali's son, in a battle in Iraq in 680 AD.
In Afghanistan, clashes broke out in Herat between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.
Two mosques were torched by gunmen.
Osama warned not long after 9/11 that soon many more planes would be falling out of the sky. Perhaps this is what he was referring to. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush gave new details Thursday about a foiled terror attack in 2002 in which plotters planned to use hijacked commercial airplanes to strike the West Coast.Bush said the West Coast plot targeted the tallest building in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, and involved Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, who was captured in 2003.
Bush had referred to the plot before. In an address last October, Bush said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al Qaeda terror network in the past four years, including plans for September 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts.
The White House initially would not give details of the plots but later released a fact sheet with a brief, and vague, description of each.
"Bush, Rice told to ‘shut up’ over cartoon issue: Hezbollah leader speaks to huge protest after Bush urged calm," from MSNBC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims transformed a religious ceremony in Lebanon on Thursday into an emotional but peaceful protest against cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.“Defending the prophet should continue worldwide,” Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, told the crowd. “Let (U.S. Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice, (President) Bush and all the tyrants shut up: We are a nation that can’t forgive, be silent or ease up when they insult our prophet and our sacred values.”
“Today, we are defending the dignity of our prophet with a word, a demonstration but let George Bush and the arrogant world know that if we have to ... we will defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices,” Nasrallah added.
Over at National Review Online, Jim Geraghty (TKS -- scroll down) surveys some reactions to cartoon rage, and comments:
These are not the reactions of bigots or haters. These are the reactions of men and women whose patience is exhausted.It’s not just Michael Graham, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer and the gang at Little Green Footballs anymore.
Thank you, Mr. Geraghty, for including me among those who have seen this coming for awhile.
Murderous Cartoon Rage Update from AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - One hundred militants have enlisted to become suicide bombers in Afghanistan since the appearance of “blasphemous” cartoons of Prophet Mohammad, a top Taleban commander said on Thursday.Mullah Dadullah, one of the Taleban’s most senior military commanders, said his Islamic militant group had also offered a reward of 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of gold to anyone who killed people responsible for the drawings.
“More than 100 mujahedin (holy warriors) have enlisted to carry out suicide attacks,” the fugitive Dadullah told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.
The targets would be “infidels”, said the commander, who is believed to be close to the Taleban’s wanted leader Mullah Omar.
More Islamophobia in Britain. From the Telegraph, with thanks to JE:
Five British men have had their assets frozen amid accusations they used a charity to help fund a terrorist organisation linked to al-Qa'eda.The men had their assets frozen after an order by the United Nations Security Council. It is alleged they used the Sanabel Relief Agency Limited and three companies to fund the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
They were named as Tahir Nasuf, 44, from Manchester, Abd Al-Rahman Al Faqih, 46, Ghuma Abd'rabbah, 48, and Abdulbaqi Mohammed Khaled, 48, all from Birmingham, and Midlands-based Mohammed Benhammedi, 39.
The freeze came after a request from the American treasury, who claim that Sanabel's "first priority is providing support to the LIFG's jihadist activities", despite presenting itself as a reputable charity.
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald suggests that we accept Sheikh Al-Qaradawi's offer:
"We can get by without the petrol, and return to our days of yore. We will make do with milk and dates. We will drink the milk of our camels, and eat the dates from our palm trees. King Faysal said this when there was a threat to Arab honor." -- from Al-Qaradawi hereAs J. B. Kelly showed in "Arabia, the Gulf, and the West," the blague of Faysal was simply part of the smoke-and-mirrors about a nonexistent "oil weapon." Had the Arabs and Muslims managed to create modern economies, after having received the largest transfer of wealth -- every bit of it entirely unmerited -- in human history, then perhaps they would be in a position to tell the West to go to hell as suggested above. But they didn't. They failed everywhere to develop more than Disneyworld economies, with giant towers in Dubai, and private palaces, each one more disgustingly decadent than the next. See, for example, the American television cameras allowed inside Prince Talal's modest garconnniere, the one with the nine separate restaurants.
Saudis despise work. Arabs have traditionally despised certain occupations, including farming. Looting was considered so honorable to Muslims that in the Persian poet Hafiz there is a description of the Feast of Plunder, a banquet which the guests had earned, but which they swooped down on horseback to enjoy, because only if they had it as a result of plundering could they truly enjoy it. There is no work ethic in Islam. There is the right to exploit the non-Muslims, whose contributions -- from Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians -- helped support the Muslim state, as did whatever loot or slaves could be seized on constant raids within dar al-Harb. And today Muslims within Europe regard the support supplied by the Infidel taxpayers to be theirs as of right, and so too are they permitted to help themselves to Infidel-owned property and women, as long as they don't get caught or harm the image of Islam -- which, after all, must always be protected and promoted.
There never was an oil weapon, because every Arab and Muslim regime is desperate to sell as much as they can. And they now realize that the Western world, a little late -- some thirty years late -- has come to its senses or at least appears to have done so. So far, in the United States, it is all rhetoric. One will have to see if Congress can stiffen the spine of the Administration and its True Believers in letting the Free Market do its stuff. Thank god FDR did not wait for the Free Market to develop atomic weapons during World War II.
During the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs huffed and puffed, but as Kelly shows, that was all cover for the price rise. The United States and the Netherlands, both relatively pro-Israel, actually received more oil from the Arabs than did Britain and France, both of whom were falling all over themselves in pro-Arab statements and policies.Today, what would or could the Arabs do? They have assets all over the Western world. If there is another large jihad attack, the assets of those who were involved or who supported the attack can be seized and sold, just as the assets of enemy aliens were promptly seized during World War II. It is not only real estate that is illiquid, though plenty of private apartments owned by the princes and princelings and princelettes could be taken. There are also bank accounts.
And what would it mean to the Arab and Muslim world if they could not buy Western technology? Western armaments? Western consumer goods? If they could not, or at least the ruling classes could not, travel to Europe and American combination shoppingmall-cum-funfair-cum-brothel that the Lands of the Infidels have become for them? Who, in his right mind, would condemn himself to the solitary confinement of Dar al-Islam for the rest of his life? Al-Qaradawi maybe --though his children are studying in the West. (Perhaps it's time to send them home, and thereby make a point?) Ahmadinejad, certainly.
But all those worldly, wealthy, corrupt Saudis, or others from the Gulf statelets? Do you think, with their apartments in Belgravia, or the Avenue Foch, or in McLean, Virginia, that they are quite so willing to never again see the world of the Infidels, so wonderful, so seductive, and so -- well, just so Infidel?
Of course not.
But I like Al-Qaradawi's idea. I like that camel-and-dates notion. Return to the thrilling days of yore, with raids on that oasis over there, and camel races over here. Go ahead. Leave us alone. And we promise to do everything we can to reduce our need for your oil, so that your dream can come true. A dream we can all share.
Al-Qaradawi further threatened: “We will buy from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, from the Asian countries..."
Why is it, do you suppose, that except for Malaysia, where until recently half the population -- the productive, entrepreneurial half -- was non-Muslim, all the countries listed by Al-Qaradawi are non-Muslim, and all of them were at one time as poor, and some much poorer, than any of the Arab or Muslim states? Doesn't he realize that South Korea in 1950 was as poor as Egypt? That China was much poorer? Does he show any recognition that the roar of those Asian tigers clearly drowns out the supposed roar of those Muslim "lions" whose wealth depends on waiting for the checks to be opened for the sale of oil and gas which those Muslim states and peoples did nothing to discover, or find uses for, or produce; that was all a Western effort.
Why don't we ask al-Qaradawi to explain how it is that, despite all the non-oil Muslim countries being the recipients of vast amounts of outside, Infidel aid (i.e. Jizyah), with $60 billion going to Egypt from the United States alone, and despite the Arab and Muslim oil states having received some $10 trillion dollars since 1973, not one of these countries produces much in the way of goods or services for themselves? That is why, in issuing his hollow but rather appealing threat, he says thatEither
we will buy from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.
Or
We will do without, we will return to the age of dates and camels. Proudly.
No hint of recognition that perhaps the vast domains of the Arabs and Muslims, and the vast amounts of undeserved money, the trillions upon trillions, they have received, together with their complete inability to use those trillions for much beyond glittering Las-Vegas palaces, personal debauchery and the taste for luxe of the rich Arabs (and indifference to the poor Arabs and Muslims, sometimes amounting to murderous hatred, as with the black Africans of Darfur), they have been unable to create anything.
So if we, the Arabs and Muslims, don't buy it from the West, we'll have to buy it from East Asia. We can't possibly produce anything, create anything, offer anything ourselves. That just is beyond us.
That is what is being admitted. That is al-Qaradawi's view of the Arabs and Muslims.
And despite that admission, he still tells us that they are the "lions" who deserve to roar, and to be obeyed.
A fascinating look into that famous psychology of the Muslim.
"NBC: U.S. citizen accused of aiding al-Zarqawi," from NBC News, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
An American citizen held in Iraq since 2004 allegedly worked with terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and helped plan insurgent attacks on foreigners in Iraq, NBC News has learned.The American, Shawqi Omar, who lived for years in Minnesota, Utah and North Carolina, allegedly met with al-Zarqawi on numerous occasions and is related to the al-Qaida leader, through marriage, new federal court documents reveal. Omar is also one of 12 people charged Oct. 17, 2004, with plotting a chemical attack in Jordan. The attack was prevented; Omar was arrested on Oct. 29 of that year.
Omar is a dual American-Jordanian citizen who was born in Kuwait. He came to the United States on a student visa in 1979 at age 17 and married an American woman with whom he had six children, according to court filings and interviews with relatives. Omar served 11 months in the Minnesota National Guard and became a U.S. citizen in 1986.
This is what the cartoon rage is really all about: criminalizing criticism of Islam in the West, which would, of course, allow jihadists a virtually free hand. From the BBC, with thanks to archduke:
Muslim scholars who gathered for an emergency meeting have called for changes to the law to stop images of the Prophet Muhammad being published.Members of the Muslim Action Committee (MAC) who met in Birmingham called for changes to the Race Relations Act and the Press Complaints Commission code.
They are to stage a protest march in London on 18 February, expected to attract 20,000 to 50,000 people....
Shaikh Faiz Saddiqi, who chaired the meeting, said Wednesday's gathering of about 300 Islamic religious leaders was the largest meeting of its kind he knew of in his 25 years of living in the UK....
Mr Saddiqi said they had concluded they wanted the Race Relations Act modified to give Muslims the same protection as Sikhs or Jews.
He also said the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct should be tightened to prevent publication of any images of Muhammad, but added the clerics accepted criticism and discussion of Islam should be allowed.
Sure. As long as it's favorable.
He said the code was a voluntary code to ensure the media treated people with respect and called for that respect to be shown to Muslims, whose religion forbids any pictorial depiction of Muhammad...."Enough is enough, we have to get back to being a civil society.
"What kicks can you get out of seeing this caricature, except to insult the Prophet of Islam?"
He praised the UK media for not publishing the cartoons.
Good dhimmis!
Shouting (of course) "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." From Reuters, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon turned a religious ceremony on Thursday into a peaceful protest against a series of cartoons in the Western media lampooning the Prophet Mohammad....The leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group pledged no compromise until there was a full apology from Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared, and European countries passed laws prohibiting insults to the Prophet.
"Today, we are defending the dignity of our Prophet with a word, a demonstration but let (U.S. President) George Bush and the arrogant world know that if we have to ... we will defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, told the crowd.
Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: Free Muslims got less than 50 for their anti-terror rally. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Erick Stakelbeck:
A mass demonstration of 100,000 Muslims will take place in London next weekend as anger continues over publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.The Muslim Action Committee, an umbrella group which claims to represent more than a million Muslims, said it would do as much as it could to prevent the ugly scenes seen last week when protesters carried placards issuing death threats and one man dressed as a suicide bomber.
But they said they needed to "channel" growing anger felt by communities across Britain that Muslims were being persecuted and made to feel like "second class citizens".Faiz Saddiqi, the committee convener, said: "It is a peaceful protest. We will not let it be hijacked by the fringe elements.
"It is a way of showing the depth of anger that Muslim communities feel about being continually insulted by the publication of these images."
The march, on Feb 18, will go from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. Mr Saddiqi said that only banners and placards issued by the committee would be allowed.
Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: Martin Kramer has kindly alerted me to this illuminating table, showing how widespread is support for the idea that "Sharia should be the only source of legislation" -- which is, of course, the goal of jihadists worldwide.
Asked whether Shari'a should be the only source of legislation, one of the sources of legislation, or not be a source of legislation, most Muslims believed it should at least be a source of legislation. Support was particularly strong in Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt, where approximately two-thirds of Muslim respondents stated that the Shari'a must be the only source of legislation; while the remaining third believed that it must be "one of the sources of legislation." By comparison, in Lebanon and Syria, a majority (nearly two thirds in Lebanon and just over half in Syria) favored the view that Shari'a must be one of the sources of legislation.
More peace and tolerance from the notorious former British jihad leader. But since when does Islamic apply to non-Muslims in a non-Islamic state? That, my friends, is the key issue in this entire controversy. This is an attempt to get the West to accept Islamic legal strictures regarding how non-Muslim dhimmis may speak of Islam. "Cleric calls on Mohammed cartoonist to be executed," from the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:
Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical Muslim cleric, has said the cartoonist behind caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have sparked outrage across the Arab world should be tried and executed under Islamic law.The cleric said the cartoonist had insulted Islam and must pay the price, as three people were killed during protests against the cartoons in Afghanistan.
"The insult has been established now by everybody, Muslim and non-Muslim, and everybody condemns the cartoonist and condemns the cartoon," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"However, in Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammed said, whoever insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed.
"This man should be put on trial and if it is proven to be executed."
As was perhaps inevitable. From AP, with thanks to WHM:
QALAT, Afghanistan - Police killed four people Wednesday as Afghans enraged over drawings of the Prophet Muhammad marched on a U.S. military base in a volatile southern province, directing their anger not against Europe but America.The U.S. base was targeted because the United States "is the leader of Europe and the leading infidel in the world," said Sher Mohammed, a 40-year-old farmer who suffered a gunshot wound while taking part in the demonstration in the city of Qalat.
"They are all the enemy of Islam. They are occupiers in our country and must be driven out," Mohammed said.
Wednesday's violence began when hundreds of protesters tried to storm the U.S. base, said Ghulam Nabi Malakhail, a provincial police chief. When warning shots failed to deter them, police shot into the crowd, killing four and wounding 11, he said.
Flying rocks injured eight police and one Afghan soldier, he said....
Wednesday's riot erupted despite an appeal from Afghanistan's top Islamic organization, the Ulama Council, for an end to the violence.
"Islam says it's all right to demonstrate but not to resort to violence. This must stop," senior cleric Mohammed Usman told The Associated Press. "We condemn the cartoons but this does not justify violence. These rioters are defaming the name of Islam."
Once again, the appeal is to the harm they are causing to Islam, not to harm they are causing to others.
In France, President Jacques Chirac asked media to avoid offending religious beliefs as another French newspaper reprinted the caricatures. The satirical French weekly Charlie-Hebdo also printed a new drawing under the headline "Muhammad Overwhelmed by the Fundamentalists" that showed the prophet with his head in his hands, remarking, "It's hard to be loved by idiots."
"Iranian protesters pelt UK embassy with stones," from Reuters, with thanks to Mackie:
TEHRAN, Feb 8 (Reuters) Demonstrators angered by European cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad and by London's hostility to Iran's nuclear programme pelted the British embassy in Tehran with stones today.The crowd smashed several windows and chanted ''Death to Britain'' and ''We are willing to sacrifice our lives for the Prophet Mohammad''. Some of the protesters tried to charge the embassy's main gate, but a cordon of police drove them back.
''We are here to protest Britain's role in sending us to the UN Security Council. We must defend our right to nuclear technology,'' said protester Mohammad Ali, 32.
Could these rogue states be behind the cartoon jihad? Rice thinks so. And after all, who would benefit more from the criminalization in the West of criticism of jihad, which would allow jihadists a virtually free hand? Just in from Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran and Syria on Wednesday of deliberately stoking Muslim anger in a dispute over cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammad that has sparked deadly protests."Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes and the world ought to call them on it," Rice said at a joint news conference with Israel's foreign minister.
Earlier, President George W. Bush said governments should stop the violence that has erupted over the cartoons, including attacks on Western diplomatic missions in parts of the Muslim world.
The "moderate" Sheikh Al-Qaradawi weighs in on cartoon rage, and in effect calls for more riots and irrational violence. From MEMRI:
In a February 3, 2006 Friday sermon, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who is head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), and the spiritual guide of many other Islamist organizations across the world (including the Muslim Brotherhood), exhorted worshippers to show rage to the world over the Danish paper Jylland Posten's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The sermon was aired on Qatar TV on February 3, 2006. The following are excerpts from the sermon:[...]
"The nation must rage in anger. It is told that Imam Al-Shafi' said: 'Whoever was angered and did not rage is a jackass.' We are not a nation of jackasses. We are not jackasses for riding, but lions that roar. We are lions that zealously protect their dens, and avenge affronts to their sanctities. We are not a nation of jackasses. We are a nation that should rage for the sake of Allah, His Prophet, and His book. We are the nation of Muhammad, and we must never accept the degradation of our religion.
[...]
"The governments must be pressured to demand that the U.N. adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets - to the prophets of the Lord and His messengers, to His holy books, and to the religious holy places. This is so that nobody can cause them harm. They enacted such laws in order to protect the Jews and Judaism. Like some Danes have said: 'We can mock Jesus and his mother.' They were asked: 'Can you mock the Jews?' Here they stopped. The Jews are protected by laws - the laws that protect Semitism, and nobody can say even one word about the number [of victims] in the alleged Holocaust. Nobody can do so, even if he is writing an M.A. or Ph.D. thesis, and discussing it scientifically. Such claims are not acceptable. When Roger Garaudy talked about it, he was sentenced to jail, according to the laws. We want laws protecting the holy places, the prophets, and Allah's messengers."
There is no comparison here with fantasies of Holocaust denial. He wants to choke off free discussion of the connection between Islam and violence -- which would in effect allow the jihadists a free hand to work in Western countries.
[...]"We say to those Europeans: We can get by without you, but you cannot get by without us. We can get by without your products. We will buy from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, from the Asian countries. We will say what King Faysal - may he rest in peace - said in 1973, in the days of the petroleum war. He said to them: We can get by without the petrol, and return to our days of yore. We will make do with milk and dates. We will drink the milk of our camels, and eat the dates from our palm trees. King Faysal said this when there was a threat to Arab honor. It is all the more true when there is a threat to our Islamic honor, to our prophets, and our religion."
National Review Online has been running a symposium on the cartoon controversy for the last two days, featuring notable contributions by Bat Ye'or yesterday and Nidra Poller today. Here is my bit:
This controversy indicates the gulf between the Islamic world and the West on matters of freedom of expression. The idea of blasphemy as a capital offense is not an invention of “Islamists” or “Wahhabis,” but is deeply rooted within traditional Islam — which is why the forces of radicalism are finding it so easy to stoke cartoon rage worldwide.Freedom of speech encompasses freedom to offend. The instant that any ideology is considered off-limits for critical examination and even ridicule, freedom of speech is dead. The Islamic world, at the highest levels, wants to force the West to accept the notion that criticizing Muhammad and Islam is wrong in itself. Such a notion is just as inimical to freedom as the idea that the Beloved Leader or dialectical materialism is above criticism. Westerners seem to grasp this when it comes to affronts to Christianity, but not in an Islamic context — as evidenced by the refusal of most American and British publications to stand up for the freedom of speech they otherwise so stoutly defend, and reprint the cartoons.
The cartoons can’t be taken back. Our only options are to defend the principles upon which our civilization is based, or to surrender.
In FrontPage this morning I profile Hamas' Mother of the Year, Umm Nidal, Mariam Farhat, and discuss some implications of her election to the Palestinian Legislative Council (news links in the original):
The horrifying ingredients of the life of Mariam Farhat, or Umm Nidal (mother of Nidal), one of the newly elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, provide a terrifying glimpse into the future of the Palestinian Authority under the rule of the new Hamas government.To be sure, no one more fully embodies the Hamas ethos -- and the ethos of infanticide that permeates contemporary Palestinian culture as a whole -- than Mariam Farhat, a mother who wills the death of her own children and the children of others. The New York Times recently identified her as “the mother of three Hamas supporters killed by Israelis.” The Times added that “she bade one son goodbye in a homemade videotape before he stormed an Israeli settlement, killing five people, then being shot dead. She said later, in a much-publicized quotation, that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way. Known as the ‘mother of martyrs,’ she was seen in a campaign video toting a gun.”
Umm Nidal’s oldest son Nidal was killed in 2003, and his brother Rawad in 2005 — both as they were involved in actions against Israelis. Muhammad Farhat was the first of her sons to die. In June 2002 he stormed the Atzmona settlement in Israel, firing indiscriminately, killing five teenagers and wounding twenty others before he himself was killed. When asked by an interviewer if her son had intended to target civilians, Umm Nidal responded: “Muhammad carried out his operation at a military academy. They were all soldiers.”
If Muhammad had targeted women and children, of course, that would have been just fine with his mother as well. The deaths not only of her own children, but of others, do not disturb her. “These are war necessities,” she explained. Killing civilians, she said,“is a war necessity. They are all occupiers to begin with. Whoever comes from abroad and lives on the land of Palestine is considered an occupier, even if they are women or old people. They are all occupiers….Therefore, all Israelis are considered occupiers of our land. There is no difference between men and women...This is Islamic religious law. I don’t invent anything. I follow Islamic religious law in this. A Muslim is very careful not to kill an innocent person, because he knows he would be destined to eternal Hell….We rely on Islamic religious law when we say there is no prohibition on killing these people.”Umm Nidal believes all this so deeply that she cried out “Allahu Akbar” when she learned of Muhammad’s murders and his own death; she “prepared boxes of halva and chocolates, and handed them out to his friends.” To those who would reproach her for being heartless, she responded:
“We cannot stop sacrificing just because we feel pain. What is the meaning of sacrifice? One sacrifices what is precious, not what is of little value. My children are the most precious thing in my life. That is why I sacrificed them for a greater cause — for Allah, who is more precious than them. My son is not more precious than his God, he is not more precious than the places holy to Islam, and he is not more precious than his homeland or his Islam. Not at all.”In fact, Mariam Farhat encouraged her other sons to follow in Muhammad’s footsteps and become Islamic martyrs themselves by killing Israelis and getting killed in the process: “After the martyrdom [operation], my heart was peaceful about Muhammad. I encouraged all my sons to die a martyr’s death, and I wish this even for myself. After all this, I prepared myself to receive the body of my son, the pure shahid, in order to look upon him one last time and accept the well-wishers who [came] to us in large numbers and participated in our joy over Muhammad’s martyrdom.” Nidal and Rawad emulated Muhammad; it should not surprise anyone if her remaining three sons become murderers also. And if they do, Umm Nidal will praise Allah for their deaths, as she does for the deaths of her three “martyrs.”
It remains intriguing in the context of this death culture that many observers still cling to hope that Hamas, which put this woman forward as a candidate, will somehow change and will become a moderate force. After the elections, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said: “Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged.” Mariam Farhat, however, was not only nominated, but was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, and was mobbed last week by thrilled supporters at a Hamas victory rally. One young woman exclaimed: “She is a mother to every house, every person.” Responding to those who would find hope in the fact the Umm Nidal is one of five women who were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, Fatah’s Naima Sheikh Ali said of Hamas: “Yes, they respect women, but as they conceive that respect. It is from a religiously fundamental view. For the women’s movement, this will set us back several steps.”
The question must be asked: do Palestinians, despite having elected Hamas and Umm Nidal, actually reject the perspectives and positions represented by her and her party, as so many Western officials would so dearly love to believe? Umm Nidal herself doesn’t think so. “All the Palestinians,” she asserted, “share the same view” that she articulated about the legitimacy of targeting Israeli civilians. “They are not divided. The only ones who disagree and think otherwise are, of course, the foreigners, who have no sympathy for us or for our cause, and who know nothing about us. They are the ones who think that this man has come to kill innocent people. This is what they think. But we, as Muslims, think differently. We are familiar with the Koranic verse: ‘One who attacks you, attack him in like manner.’”
But don’t the Palestinians want peace? Yes, says Umm Nidal, but “the word ‘peace’ does not mean the kind of peace we are experiencing. This peace is, in fact, surrender and a shameful disgrace. Peace means the liberation of all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] Sea. When this is accomplished — if they want peace, we will be ready. They may live under the banner of the Islamic state. That is the future of Palestine that we are striving towards.” The future of Palestine is the future of Umm Nidal’s own family: young men driven to fanaticism and murder, egged on by their own mothers and the society at large. Nothing would make her happier than the deaths of her other three sons. Yet the world not only does not call this madness; it rushes to show Hamas that its largesse will not be cut off.
Striving toward the same peace envisioned by Umm Nidal is Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al, who said this at the Al-Murabit Mosque in Damascus last Friday: “Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day. America will be of no avail to them. Their generals will be of no avail to them. The last of their generals has been forgotten. Allah has made him disappear. He’s over. Gone is that Sharon behind whose back they would hide and find shelter, and with whom they would feel relatively secure. Today they have frail leaders, who don’t even know where our Lord placed them. Allah willing, we will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.”
If world officials think that an electorate that elected Umm Nidal and her party in free and secret balloting is not enthralled with blood, death, and genocidal intransigence, and that it will somehow stop celebrating the deaths of not only Jewish innocents, but of their own children as well, and that it will somehow join the community of free and rational nations, then they have already lost not only their eyesight; they have already lost their brains.
It's about time. From AP:
KABUL, Afghanistan - Police shot four protesters to death Wednesday to stop hundreds from marching on a southern U.S. military base, as Islamic organizations called for an end to deadly rioting across the Muslim world over drawings of the Prophet Muhammad."Islam says it's all right to demonstrate but not to resort to violence. This must stop," said senior cleric Mohammed Usman, a member of the Ulama Council — Afghanistan's top Islamic organization. "We condemn the cartoons but this does not justify violence. These rioters are defaming the name of Islam."
Other members of the council went on radio and television Wednesday to appeal for calm. It followed a statement released Tuesday by the United Nations, European Union and the world's largest Islamic group urging an end to violence.
"Aggression against life and property can only damage the image of a peaceful Islam," said the statement released by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the EU chief Javier Solana.
of course, Ekmeleddin.
The West playing the role of Satan meshes nicely with Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic worldview. From Iran Focus, with thanks to Mackie:
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 07 – Iran’s former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani accused the West on Tuesday of carrying out the work of Satan after cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad negatively were published in European dailies....“Insulting the prophet of peace and freedom under the pretext of freedom of thought and expression is a satanic conspiracy which without doubt will be disclosed as before with the presence of Muslims everywhere”, he said, the state-run Fars news agency reported.
The powerful cleric said that the West’s goal for publishing the cartoons was “clear” and encouraged Muslims everywhere to rise up against such “plots”.