Afghan spy agency captures “suicide bombers from Pakistan”

More evidence of support for the jihad in Pakistan. From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

KABUL - Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said on Tuesday it had arrested three men planning suicide attacks in Kabul, including two from a Pakistan-based cell run by the capital’s Taleban-era deputy police chief.

The two were seized this week while trying to enter the city from neighbouring Logar province, spokesman Sayed Ansari told reporters.

They were part of a Pakistan-based cell organised by Mullah Mohammad Ibrahim Hanifi, who was the deputy police chief of Kabul during the 1996-2001 Taleban regime, he said.

“Mullah Ibrahim Hanifi, who is living in Pakistan, has been organising suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan. The two men we captured were also sent by him,” he said.

A mullah? An Islamic cleric? Doesn't he realize the Qur'an forbids suicide? (He does, of course. He just doesn't regard suicide bombing as suicide per se -- and to this, Muslim moderates have never formulated a response.)

My black Zionist arts

I recently received a series of venomous emails from a prominent moderate Muslim apologist, whose work has appeared at FrontPage magazine and elsewhere, and who makes false charges about this site at his own website. He had accused me of "shameless lies," so I asked him to specify the lies, or retract the charge. He responded: "As for shameless lies, I stand by my assertion, especially after received material in which you claim Muhammad married his daughter in law etc."

This was rather amazing, given the fact that this story is referred to obliquely in the Qur'an (33:37), as well as in Bukhari, Tabari, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and other sources respected by Muslims. Apparently, my black Zionist arts are more powerful than I thought, for I was able to conjure the story of Muhammad's marriage to his daughter-in-law Zaynab into all these sources. You can read the whole story in my book The Truth About Muhammad.

And tonight I discovered that my Zionist powers of conjuration are even more powerful than that. I was relaxing with an adult beverage and some light reading: non-Muslim Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong's new apologetic, Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. And lo and behold, on pages 167 and 168, there it was: the story of Muhammad's marriage to his daughter-in-law, Zaynab! Armstrong even acknowledges that "this story has shocked some of Muhammad's Western critics who are used to more ascetic, Christian heroes, but the Muslim sources seem to find nothing untoward in this demonstration of their Prophet's virility."

Victory! My sinister mind-rays have now convinced even Karen Armstrong that this incident actually took place! Oh, the shamelessness of it all! The august professor who sent me the email above has promised a full-length article detailing my "shameless lies," and no doubt he will reveal all the Zionist secrets of mind control that have enabled me to convince millions of Muslims that Muhammad married his daughter-in-law. But until that article appears, I shall carry on, shameless as ever. Perhaps next I will invent, and plant into the minds of Muslims, the idea that a middle-aged Muhammad consummated a marriage with a nine-year-old. Oh, I blush at my own shamelessness! But...it is already working!

'US Only Answer for Middle East,' Says Saudi Envoy

But is he saying this with anything beyond Saudi interests in mind? A CNSNews.com story by Monisha Bansal (thanks to Mackie):

(CNSNews.com) - Voicing support for U.S. involvement in Iraq, the Saudi ambassador to the United States said the U.S. has a important role to play in the Middle East, "whether it wants to or not."

"It is of vital interest to us as well as the United States that Iraq would remain a unified country," said Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal.

If Iraq were to be divided on ethnic or sectarian lines, he warned, problems in the country would increase three-fold, and there would be "ethnic cleansing on a massive scale."

Faisal talked about the role the U.S. plays in the region at a conference held by the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

"The United States is the only one who can do the right thing for everybody in the Middle East," Faisal said.

"Not only because of the size and strength of the United States, but because the United States is engaged and enmeshed in our political situation and has been for the last 50 years or so, whether it likes it or not," he said.

But Faisal added that it was in U.S. interests for "peace to reign, so we can turn to more fruitful endeavors."

Stocking stuffers galore from DC Watson

Our old friend D.C. Watson has a store in which he is selling a variety of anti-jihad shirts, stickers, and tschotschkes. Sure, it's early to do your Christmas shopping, but D.C. tells me he is closing the store at the end of November, so now's the time to do your shopping for that special anti-jihadist in your life. This Christmas, give the gift that keeps on giving: the gift of anti-jihad resistance!

Did imam's sermon incite Van Gogh murder?

The mosques have to be monitored. What is being preached in the sermons has to be known. The alternative? Many, many more murders and terror attacks. A provocative story by Barry Thorne and Claire Cavanagh for Radio Netherlands (thanks to Ana):

Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh almost exactly two years ago is serving a life prison sentence, but now questions are being asked about whether the sermon of a Muslim cleric played a role in the crime.

During the ongoing trial of another Dutch terrorism suspect, Samir Azzouz, it's emerged that Imam Fawaz of the as-Sunnah mosque in The Hague gave a sermon condemning Theo van Gogh just a few weeks before his murder. A recording of the sermon exists and in it the imam is heard uttering a curse against the Dutch director for his film Submission, which is critical of Islam. The film had been shown on television shortly before the sermon.

Criminal bastard

In the recording of the sermon, Imam Fawaz calls Theo van Gogh a 'criminal bastard' and beseeches Allah to visit an incurable disease upon the filmmaker. He also condemns former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was involved in writing the script for Submission. The imam asks Allah to make Ms Hirsi Ali go blind and give her cancer of the tongue and brain.

What inspiring, moving, loving prayers. Nevertheless, they aren't enough in themselves:

Despite the claims in the recording, Ruud Peters, a professor of Islamic Law doesn't believe the imam's words are incitement to commit murder:

"I have a couple of arguments for that - the most important is that he [Imam Fawaz] says, 'the people who have insulted the Prophet Muhammad should die through the hands of God' - he was very specific in that… he says, 'leave it to God'."

Key witness

Professor Peters was a key expert witness at the trial of Mohammed Bouyeri and was asked to study Bouyeri's writing up until he carried out the murder of Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004 in Amsterdam.

"I found no clue that [Imam] Fawaz had had any impact on him. On the contrary, we know that already more than a year before he killed Van Gogh, that he… deliberately turned away from the mosques, the […] mosques which are considered to be radical."

The wise, knowledgeable and perceptive Hans Jansen, however, disagrees:

Rhetoric

However, another writer and academic on Islam from Utrecht University, Hans Jansen, believes the sermon went much further than the usual rhetoric heard in Dutch mosques,

"It is simply incitement to violence. I can't judge the legal angles, but somebody who hears this sermon would get very excited and would want to do anything in the cause of Islam."

"I've heard fire and brimstone sermons before, one long speech which builds up tension and when you leave the mosque after having heard such a sermon, especially when you're young, you'll be very excited, almost ready to do anything."

"This sermon is much worse than anything in mosques, certainly worse than anything presented in mosques in the Middle East."

Well, that's debatable. But it is bad.

Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case

"Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them into highly lethal biological weapons." Wouldn't it be a good idea for such scientific organizations to begin at least attempting to screen prospective members for adherence to the jihad ideology? But of course, no one is considering such measures. To do so would (somehow) constitute "bigotry."

"Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case: Scientist With Ties To Group Goes Free," by Joby Warrick in the Washington Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

In December 2001, as the investigation into the U.S. anthrax attacks was gathering steam, coalition soldiers in Afghanistan uncovered what appeared to be an important clue: a trail of documents chronicling an attempt by al-Qaeda to create its own anthrax weapon.

The documents told of a singular mission by a scientist named Abdur Rauf, an obscure, middle-aged Pakistani with alleged al-Qaeda sympathies and an advanced degree in microbiology.

Documents seized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001 included letters from a Pakistani scientist to al-Qaeda's No. 2 commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The scientist, identified by U.S. and Pakistani officials as Abdur Rauf, traveled through Europe in search of anthrax spores and bioweapons equipment. The result of his work for al-Qaeda remains unclear.

Using his membership in a prestigious scientific organization to gain access, Rauf traveled through Europe on a quest, officials say, to obtain both anthrax spores and the equipment needed to turn them into highly lethal biological weapons. He reported directly to al-Qaeda's No. 2 commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and in one document he appeared to signal a breakthrough.

"I successfully achieved the targets," he wrote cryptically to Zawahiri in a note in 1999.

Precisely what Rauf achieved may never be known with certainty. That's because U.S. officials remain stymied in their nearly five-year quest to bring charges against a man who they say admitted serving as a top consultant to al-Qaeda on anthrax -- a claim that makes him one of a handful of people linked publicly to the group's effort to wage biological warfare against Western targets.

Rauf, 47, has been under scrutiny in Pakistan since he was detained there for questioning in late 2001, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials who agreed to talk about the case for the first time. But officially he remains free, and Pakistan now says it has no grounds for arrest. Last year, in an acknowledgment of the impasse in its four-year joint investigation with Pakistan, the FBI officially put the case on inactive status.

"We will never close the door, but the chances of getting him into the United States are slim to none," said one U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, agreed to discuss the case on the condition that he not be identified by name.

Oh yes, I'm biased

During the last round of the endless Esmay imbroglio, I followed a link from Esmay's site to an anonymous blog that invoked me, gratuitously and without any specific examples of inaccuracies in my writing, in writing about the alleged sins of Little Green Footballs:

To top it off, LGF has become an Internet Book Tour for anti-Muslim viewpoints from non-Muslims (yes, I believe that the head of Jihad Watch can actually present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community – NOT).

You're right, of course, whoever you are. The head of Jihad Watch cannot actually present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community. Nor has the head of Jihad Watch ever claimed to present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community.

If you find someone who presents a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community, you have discovered the elusive unicorn, and out-Diogenesed Diogenes. If you find someone who claims to present a completely unbiased view of the Muslim community, you have found a liar.

In fact, the head of Jihad Watch is biased. Quite spectacularly biased.

The head of Jihad Watch is biased against the proponents of a totalitarian, genocidal ideology that has announced its intention to destroy Western civilization and subjugate all those outside that ideology. The head of Jihad Watch is biased against those who would ignore, deny, or make excuses for the adherents of this totalitarian, genocidal ideology. The head of Jihad Watch is biased against liars and deceivers, and those who abet jihad terrorism in any way.

I agree with the publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, Ralph McGill, who wrote this in 1963: "I believe in being strongly partisan on issues which require a choice. There are some newspapers which are mute and others which carefully engage only editors with chronic laryngitis. But there comes a time in all controversies when one must hit the issue right on the nose or turn tail and die a little."

I agree with William Cobbett, publisher of the colonial-era Federalist newspaper, the Porcupine's Gazette: "To profess impartiality here would be as absurd as to profess it in a war between virtue and vice, good and evil, happiness and misery." Indeed. Impartiality between the jihadists and their victims? No, thank you.

I agree with the New Jersey printer who wrote in 1798, according to Cynthia Crossen in the Wall Street Journal: "The times demand decision: there is a right and a wrong, and the printer, who under the specious name of impartiality jumbles both truth and falsehood into the same paper, is either doubtful of his own judgment or is governed by ulterior motives."

All that said, does that mean that anything I have written here, or in my books, or monographs, or articles, is inaccurate? If you think so, bring it. Bias does not equal inaccuracy, and I stand by what I have written. Attempts to show me wrong have thus far involved unsupported, sweeping generalizations, or outright falsehoods, or ludicrous errors and misrepresentations on the part of the one making the charges.

And one thing all those people who made those charges have in common: they're all biased. It may surprise you to learn, in fact, that bias is universal and inescapable. No one can escape his point of view. The virtue of the early partisan press of the United States was that in those days newsmen owned up to their biases, whereas today those biases are just as strong, but covered over by a profession of objectivity that is as hollow as it is impossible.

Likewise in academia: professors like Omid Safi and Carl Ernst preen and strut in the Emperor's New Clothes of academic objectivity, which they think will hide the fact that they are nothing more and nothing less than shallow and manipulative propagandists.

Not that I mind the bias of the professors. I don't mind it at all. They can't escape it, after all, and just as I ask that my own work be judged on its accuracy or inaccuracy, so I believe theirs should be also. Biases should be noted and held in mind as an interpretative tool, but never used to dismiss anyone's work out of hand. That would be like dismissing the writings of everyone who has a nose on his face. What I despise about Safi and Ernst and their ilk is the sham of their objectivity, but their work is not worthless because of their biases; it is worthless because it is inaccurate and propagandistic -- as I have shown of Safi at Dhimmi Watch and of Ernst (quite briefly) in my new book.

In any case, all those engaged in this new "rightosphere" (whatever that is) crusade against bias in reporting about jihad should beware of placing themselves in an impossible and untenable position.

Oh yes, I'm biased, and so are you. And when it comes to the ideology of jihad and Sharia supremacism, you should be, if you have any moral sense left at all. It is time, in McGill's words, either to hit the issue right on the nose or to turn tail and die a little.

One final word: before you tell me again not to dignify these silly attacks with responses, please note that I am replying not in order to engage in a discussion with those with whom rational discussion has proved impossible, but in order to illustrate certain principles and bring certain truths to light -- principles and truths that are larger than one particular reply to some anonymous sniping blogpost -- for people of good will.

Al-Maliki Lifts Military Checkpoints Around Sadr City

Two joyous fellows

Is al-Maliki on the road to creating the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians have been trying to foster in Iraq for quite some time now?

From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday ordered the lifting of joint U.S.-Iraqi military checkpoints around the Shiite militant stronghold of Sadr City and other parts of Baghdad — another apparent move to assert his authority with the Americans and appeal to his Shiite support base.

U.S. officials apparently did not have advance warning of the order to remove the around-the-clock barriers by 5 p.m. Tuesday. A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, said officers were meeting to "formulate a response to address the prime minister's concerns."

Witnesses said U.S. forces were seen dismantling checkpoints around Sadr City made of sandbags and concrete blocks Tuesday afternoon.

The tightened security had been credited by some for producing a temporary decline in violence, possibly because they curbed the activities of Shiite death squads blamed for waves of sectarian killings of Sunnis.

But a car bomb exploded in the neighborhood on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding five, police said. On Monday, a bombing there killed at least 33 people.

The extra checkpoints were set up last week around Sadr City as U.S. troops launched an intensive search for a missing American soldier and raided homes looking for death squad leaders in the sprawling slum that is home to an overwhelmingly Shiite population of 2.5 million people.

On this day, October 31

Today I suspect that many of you will be dressing in wild and gaudy costumes and indulging in revels to celebrate the anniversary of Reza Pahlavi's declaring himself, on this day in 1980, the rightful heir to the Peacock Throne.

Others will be doing the same thing to honor Martin Luther's 95 Theses, nailed defiantly to the Wittenberg door on this day in 1517, and of which an on-topic version can be found here.

As for me, if it were not for the fact that my heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains one minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk, I would tell you that today is also John Keats' birthday. Celebrate his birthday today in honor of the civilization of which his work is a small but luminous component, and commit yourself anew to defending that civilization.

Protest against strike on religious school in Pakistan

"They killed 80 teenagers who were students of the Quran." Yes, and how does that establish in any way that this was not a "terrorist-training facility," as Major General Shaukat Sultan called it?

An update to this story from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

KHAR, Pakistan Pakistan's army spokesman said Tuesday the military used intelligence provided by U.S.-led coalition forces in an air raid that left 80 people dead, while thousands of pro-Taliban tribesmen threatened to send suicide bombers to attack Pakistan forces and execute people found spying for the Americans....

Meanwhile, up to 20,000 people protested Tuesday in Khar, the main town in Pakistan's northwestern tribal Bajur district, claiming innocent students and teachers were killed in the attack. They chanted," "Death to Bush! Death to Musharraf!"

In a fiery speech, local pro-Taliban elder Inayatur Rahman said he has prepared a "squad of suicide bombers" to target Pakistani security forces in the same way that militants are attacking Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We will carry out these suicide attacks soon," he said, asking the crowd if they approved the idea. The angry mob yelled back in unison, "Yes!"

The rally also adopted a verbal resolution to stone to death anyone found spying for the Pakistan army or U.S. government. Protesters demanded compensation for the families of those killed.

Islamic leaders had called for nationwide protests Tuesday to denounce the air raid in Chingai village, located 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) from Khar near the Afghan border. It was the deadliest-ever military operation launched against suspected militants in the country....

The attack threatened efforts by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to persuade deeply conservative tribespeople to back his government over pro-Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, who enjoy strong support in many semiautonomous regions in northern Pakistan.

The attack also sparked claims of U.S. collusion with Pakistan, with villagers saying fixed-wing drone aircraft were seen flying over the town in the days before the attack, according to the Dawn daily newspaper....

Fears are high that the attack will fan unrest across Pakistan. In the northwestern city of Peshawar, 500 members of a hard-line Islamic group burned an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday and denounced Musharraf. A smaller protest was also held in the southern city of Multan.

The unrest caused Britain's Prince Charles, currently in Pakistan, to cancel his planned Tuesday trip to Peshawar, located in the country's northwest.

Many local lawmakers and regional Cabinet ministers resigned in protest over the attack. The planned signing of a peace deal between tribal leaders and the military was also canceled Monday in response to the airstrike....

Pakistan's most influential Islamist political leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, was to lead a convoy of cars Tuesday from the northwestern city of Peshawar to Khar and Chingai, his spokesman, Shahid Shamsi, said.

"They killed 80 teenagers who were students of the Quran," Ahmed told reporters on Monday.

Spencer: Muslim Rape? They Were Asking for It

In the featured article at FrontPage this morning I discuss the al-Hilali controversy (news links in the original):

The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, has gained international attention this week by saying that women are generally at fault if they are raped. Speaking to a Muslim audience in Sydney, he explained that rape (specifically, zina, sexual activity forbidden under Islamic law -- a word mistranslated in published accounts of the Sheikh’s words as “adultery”) is “90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”

Al-Hilali invoked another Islamic scholar in support of his views: “But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it. If you get a kilo of meat, and you don’t put it in the fridge or in the pot or in the kitchen but you leave it on a plate in the backyard, and then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats eat the meat, you’re crazy. Isn’t this true? If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn’t roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won’t get it. If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she’s wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don’t happen.”

In the uproar that followed, Muslim leaders in Australia and elsewhere distanced themselves from Al-Hilali. Ali Roude of the New South Wales Islamic Council declared that Al-Hilali had “failed both himself and the Muslim community…As a father, brother and son myself, I take offence at the portrayal of both men and women in the alleged published comments.”

Yet at the same time, Al-Hilali had defenders. Abduljalil Sajid of the Muslim Council of Britain said that al-Hilali’s remarks had been taken out of context, and affirmed that “loose women like prostitutes” encourage immorality in men. As for al-Hilali, Sajid said that “he is a great scholar and he has a great knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence….I respect his views. His intentions are noble in order to make morality and modesty part of our overall society.”

It was also somewhat surprising that Al-Hilali’s remarks generated any uproar at all. After all, the idea that a woman is responsible if she is raped did not originate with him, and this was not the first time it has been enunciated in the West. One notorious example occurred in September 2004 in Denmark, when the mufti Shahid Mehdi of the Islamic Cultural Center in Copenhagen said on the Danish television program Talk to Gode that women who venture outside without a hijab are “asking for rape.”

Australian Muslim moderate leader Tanveer Ahmed acknowledged that “in a large number of Muslim households, young men will be taught that white women are cheap and easy. It is extrapolated to a much bigger scale, for it symbolises for them a moral corruption endemic in free societies, the kind they believe has led to a breakdown in families. Their views have some overlap with social conservatives in general, who see human freedoms, especially with regard to sexuality, as having gone too far.”

Even more significantly, Ahmed conceded that “what Hilali says is consistent with a strict, conservative interpretation of Islam. This remains the fundamental difficulty with Islam's attempts to sit with modernity. As long as Muslims view their religion as sitting above history and culture -- with the Koran as the literal word of God, which in their view makes Islam undebatable -- there will always be Hilalis who can point to certain texts and argue for a social and legal structure consistent with 7th-century Arabia….This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book.”

They are also, unfortunately, consistent with the example of Muhammad, Islam’s prophet, as I show in my new book The Truth About Muhammad. The Qur’an tells men: “And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess” (4:24) -- that is, slave girls who are considered the spoils of war. All too often in Western countries, particularly in Europe’s restive Muslim enclaves, young Muslim men have understood this as permitting the rape of non-Muslim women who venture out uncovered -- in accord with Shahid Mehdi’s statement.

What’s more, in traditional Islamic law rape cannot be established except by the testimony of four male witnesses who saw the act, as stipulated by Qur’an 24:4 and 24:13. Consequently, it is even today virtually impossible to prove rape in lands that follow the dictates of the Sharia. Unscrupulous men can commit rape with impunity: as long as they deny the charge and there are no witnesses, they get off scot-free, because the victim’s account is inadmissible. Even worse, if a woman accuses a man of rape, she may end up incriminating herself. If the required male witnesses can’t be found, the victim’s charge of rape becomes an admission of adultery. That accounts for the grim fact that as many as seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape.[i] Several high-profile cases in Nigeria recently have also revolved around rape accusations being turned around by Islamic authorities into charges of fornication, resulting in death sentences that were only modified after international pressure.[ii]

In light of all this, al-Hilali’s remarks should not be surprising -- but they should continue to be cause for concern. For they illustrate the fact that the clash of civilizations isn’t just taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places where the warriors of jihad are fighting today. It is taking place right at home, in Western countries where our deeply-held cultural values are being subjected to an increasingly forthright and assertive challenge. If we do not defend them now, it is those who agree with Sheikh al-Hilali who will determine the mores of the future.

[i] See Sisters in Islam, “Rape, Zina, and Incest,” April 6, 2000, http://www.muslimtents.com/sistersinislam/resources/sdefini.htm.

[ii] See Stephen Faris, “In Nigeria, A Mother Faces Execution,” www.africana.com, January 7, 2002.

14,000 weapons, spare parts given to Iraqi forces missing

13,180 semiautomatic pistols, 751 assault rifles and 99 machine guns. And rocket-propelled grenades. It's likely they'll be seen again, of course, only in the hands of insurgents and death squads. "Audit reveals 14,000 arms given to Iraq are missing," by John Heilprin for AP:

WASHINGTON -- Nearly one of every 25 weapons the military bought for Iraqi security forces is missing, a government audit said Sunday. Many others cannot be repaired because parts or technical manuals are lacking.

[...]

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons -- almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003, according to a report from the office of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The missing weapons will not be tracked easily: The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided -- less than 3 percent.

The Pentagon spent $133 million on the weapons, and "the capacity of the Iraqi government to provide national security and public order is partly contingent on arming the Iraqi security forces, under the ministries of defense and interior," the report notes. Military officials insisted the weapons either had to be new or never issued to a previous soldier.

By December, the U.S. military had planned to put those weapons in the hands of 325,500 personnel.

Missing from the Defense Department’s inventory books were 13,180 semiautomatic pistols, 751 assault rifles and 99 machine guns, according to an audit requested by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The audit does not make clear at what point the weapons were lost. But it notes that "there could have been undetected losses" before weapons were ever issued to Iraqi security forces -- who also lack many needed spare parts, technical repair manuals and arms maintenance personnel.

Ex-official: Muhammad reveals key to overcoming jihadists

This is likely to cause a firestorm, but of course it is simple common sense to recognize what the enemy invokes as his guiding principle, and learn what can be learned from it. In a sane world, the failure to have done this in the five years since 9/11 would be the cause for the firestorm, not the idea of studying Muhammad in order to understand the jihadists. To this, of course, my work has been dedicated for years.

"Ex-official: Muhammad reveals key to overcoming jihadists: Failure to analyze military plan of 'prophet' hurts U.S. military," from WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

The Pentagon must study the Muslim prophet Muhammad and his military doctrine to beat the growing number of jihadists, a former senior Pentagon intelligence official warns.

The failure of Pentagon brass to implement a "systematic study" of Muhammad's military doctrine is hurting the U.S. military's effort to control and defeat insurgents and terrorists, complains William Gawthrop, who until recent months headed a key counterintelligence and counterterrorism program set up at the Pentagon after 9/11.

During this year's Ramadan, just ended, U.S. troops suffered another spike in casualties. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month when Muslims believe Muhammad received the Quran, the Muslim scripture, in a divine revelation. Almost 100 GIs have been killed in Iraq this month alone. Attacks on U.S. and other coalition soldiers in Afghanistan also increased during Ramadan.

The U.S. still does not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, says Gawthrop, who recently stepped down as program manager for the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA.

"As late as early 2006, the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader," Gawthrop said. "As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered...."

Gawthrop says jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply following the example of Muhammad, who some 1,400 years ago personally led 27 attacks and sent his armies out 47 additional times against non-Islamic communities averaging about seven operations a year.

He says the Muslim prophet's military doctrine is contained in the Quran and its supplements, and the insurgents and terrorists are using them as their manual of warfare. They are Muhammad's soldiers in the 21st century. Homegrown and freelance terrorists are also following his example, he notes.

"There is evidence to support the contention that sources of terrorism in Islam may reside within the strategic themes of Islam," Gawthrop said. They include "the example of Muhammad, the Quran, the hadiths, Islamic law, the pillars of faith and jihad."

The Muslim sacred books cover all aspects of warfare, from methods and tactics of violence against kafirs to war booty to truces, he says. Even alms-giving is directed toward jihad, which is obligatory for Muslims, who are told by the Quran that "fighting is prescribed for you" (another translation says "warfare is ordained for you").

Gawthrop says the Pentagon needs to develop a broad new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists. But to do so, officials must first overcome the political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, its sacred scripture and the personal example of its revered prophet.

"Muhammad's mindset is a source for terrorism," Gawthrop flatly says.

Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Gawthrop and other military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad, and exploiting critical vulnerabilities and controversies within the faith itself.

"The ideological lever has largely been ignored," he said, while the threat from Islamic terrorism and jihadism grows stronger and stronger – now now infecting Great Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, in addition to Thailand, Indonesia (and indirectly Australia), Somalia, Russia and India.

"Today the United States and an increasing number of other governments are beleaguered by an expanding array of states, groups and individuals whose goals, actions and norms are animated by Islamic values," Gawthrop said. "This places the defenders in the unenviable position of having to fight, at the strategic level, against an idea."

How do you attack an idea? By hitting "soft spots" in the Islamic faith that, once exploited, "may induce a deteriorating cascade effect upon the target," Gawthrop says.

"Critical vulnerabilities of the Quran, for example, are that it was uttered by a mortal," Gawthrop said. "Similar vulnerabilities may be found in Muhammad's character."

As the jihad spreads, he says the government eventually will have to get involved in a such a controversial national education campaign, politically incorrect as it may be.

"If the United States, moderate Muslim governments and the non-Muslim world seek to engage ideological adversaries on their own ground," he said, "they will have to develop, use and maintain the full range of capabilities in the ideological component of national power, and address Islam's strategic themes directly."

Gawthrop notes that the Defense Intelligence Agency has produced reports on jihad, but not any detailed reports on Muhammad and his political and military doctrine. The reports discussing jihad include: "Y: The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct" by Air Force Lt. Col. Stephen P. Lambert and "Islam: The Peaceful Religion in Perpetual War" by the Joint Military Intelligence College.

Gawthrop's analysis appears in the new fall 2006 edition of "The Vanguard," the professional journal of the Military Intelligence Corps Association published out of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., the Army's intelligence headquarters.

Zawahiri Was Target in U.S. Attack on Religious School in Pakistan

An update on this story from Alexis Debat at ABC's Blotter (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Ayman al Zawahiri was the target of a Predator missile attack this morning on a religious school in Pakistan, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

ABC News has learned the raid was launched after U.S. intelligence received tips and examined Predator reconnaissance indicating that al Qaeda's No. 2 man may have been staying at the school, which is located in the Bajaur region near the village that is thought to be al Qaeda's winter headquarters.

Despite earlier reports that the missiles had been launched by Pakistani military helicopters, Pakistani intelligence sources now tell ABC News that the missiles were fired from a U.S. Predator drone plane.

Between two and five senior al Qaeda militants were killed in the attack, including the mastermind of the airliners plot in the U.K., according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

No word yet on whether or not Zawahiri was killed in the raid, but one Pakistani intelligence source did express doubt that Zawahiri would have been staying in a madrassa, which is an obvious target for strikes against militants. That source, however, did express confidence that Pakistani intelligence is closing in on Zawahiri's location.

Destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas: "The Taliban were the executors, but the masterminds were the Arabs and the Pakistanis"

Now it looks as if the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 in Afghanistan was an act of jihadists from all over. "Bin Laden's prints seen on ruins of Bamiyan Buddhas," by Selim Saheb Ettaba for AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan -- In a huge cavity dug into the side of a cliff, workers search through the rubble to exhume the remains of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan.

At the scene of the crime carried out in 2001 all evidence points to Osama Bin Laden as the mastermind. "This is the terrorism of the Taliban," says Rahim, an official at the work site in front of the empty niche of the biggest of the two statues, one of which stood 55 meters (182 feet) tall and the other 38 meters.

Wearing a hard hat and a mask over his mouth, one of the workers, Rajab, is trying to save the remains of the destruction in which one of his family members played a part. "The Taliban took Ali Reza, one of my relatives, and they suspended him from a cable at the side of the Buddhas. Then they forced him to beat at the statues with an axe and an iron rod," he says. "They took four or five like him, to punish them for having fought against them."

He says that there were Arabs, Pakistanis, and Chechens among the Taliban fanatics who oversaw the demolition of the ancient relics - until then the largest standing Buddhist statues in the world - carried out on the orders of the head of the Taliban regime because they were deemed idolatrous.

One of his colleagues, Abdul Ali, adds: "The Taliban were the executors, but the masterminds were the Arabs and the Pakistanis."

At the nearby village of Sangchaspon, where the government has sent people who once lived in caves dug into the cliff around the Buddhas, two more witnesses give a similar account. "They started with tanks but that did not do much damage so they brought in explosives," says Mirza Hussein, another of the prisoners that the Taliban brought in to destroy the Buddhas.

"There were Arabs and Pakistanis," says Hussein, who was present for all 25 days it took to demolish the statues. As he recalls it, the foreigners "came by helicopter."...

Honeymoon in beautiful Tora Bora!

Tora Bora is 100% safe, says Gul Agha Sherazi. Getting there through Pakistan and Afghanistan might be somewhat less so. "'Come To Tora Bora Caves,'" from Sky News, with thanks to Mackie:

There will soon be a new holiday destination for the most intrepid tourists, according to one newspaper.

Osama bin Laden's infamous Tora Bora caves hideout is reportedly being converted - into a £5.3m holiday resort.

It seems hotels and restaurants are being built on mountains overlooking the al Qaeda leader's secret lair in Afghanistan, says The Sun.

The newspaper quotes a former warlord-turned local governor as saying the area is now completely safe.

Gul Agha Sherazi said: "Tora Bora is world famous - but we want it to be known for tourism, not terrorism," claims the paper.

Bin Laden hid out in the network of caves in 2001 after the Taliban government was ousted.

It is believed he fled after a US bombing blitz.

Despite the fact two journalists have been killed in the area this month, Sherazi apparently insisted: "Tora Bora is 100% safe".

U.S. tries to cut off terrorists' cash flow

"The Middle East is the center of graft and corruption in the universe." Financial Jihad Update from Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The U.S. military is not only trying to stop terrorists and arms from leaking into Iraq from Syria and Iran but also another just as dangerous commodity -- cash.

It's the lifeblood of the enemy -- whether they be al Qaeda terrorists, death squads or Sunnis trying to evict American forces and bring back dictator Saddam Hussein -- and U.S. raiders have seized millions of dollars in cash during the conflict.

Military officials point to Syria and its secretive banking system as the main source of Sunni walking-around money, while Iran's Revolutionary Guard funnels money to Shi'ite militias, such as cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The enemy's money began flowing into Iraq with the start of the insurgency in the summer of 2003, and the shipments are still coming in.

"There are billions coming in," said Daniel Gallington, a former aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "The Middle East is the center of graft and corruption in the universe. It really always has been. The fight in Iraq is about who controls what area is really all about who controls the money."

Read it all.

Truth About Islam's Founder Revealed

Here is another review that has appeared today of my new book The Truth About Muhammad. This one is an erudite and generous perspective from Serge Trifkovic in Human Events. Trifkovic, of course, is the author of two essential books, Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad.

At least since Georgi Plekhanov’s influential essay “The Role of the Individual in History” (1898), the proponents of the Great Man model—initiated in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and famously elaborated by Carlyle—have been on the defensive. For some decades now, the Western academe has been dominated by the upholders of the primacy of the relationships and conflicts between social forces in determining the course of history. Most chairs that count are held by Emeriti who see history as a linear struggle between social classes and their key fractions. Over the past generation the “proletarian” has been replaced by "RaceGenderSexuality" and the “capitalist” by the non-self-hating straight white male, but the dogma that history is determined by social forces has survived the fall of the Wall.

Robert Spencer’s “The Truth About Muhammad” (Regnery, a HUMAN EVENTS sister company) was not written in order to disprove the gnostic notion that history has a comprehensible pattern, a determinate logic and a finite number of possible resolutions or outcomes. But that is, indirectly, what the book achieves. This brief and readable summary of the life and times of the prophet of Islam, derived from eminently orthodox Muslim sources, reveals the centrality of Muhammad not only to Islam-as-religion but also to Islam as a totalitarian ideology, Islam as a geopolitical project, and Islam as a normative moral and legal system devoid of any “natural” foundation.

If we look at the ancient world in the half-millennium after Rome passed her zenith under Trajan and Hadrian, we can discern no “objective” reason why the Arabs should have been more successful than any number of other nomadic warriors—the Cimmerians, or Scythians, or Huns, or Parthians—in making not only spectacular but also enduring conquests, conquests that were not ephemeral but capable of producing imperial edifices and breeding imperial ambitions of breathtaking audacity. They were all crude nomads in search of water and pasture and plunder. They all shared the low labor requirements of pastoralism, leaving most men instantly available for war. Various attempts at a socio-economic explanation of the Arab phenomenon have been made, notably by the late Geoffrey de Ste Croix, but they were but ex post facto rationalizations that undoubtedly would have been applied with equal force to the Thousand-Year Hun Empire had it happened.

It did not, but the Arab one did, and Muhammad— “victorious through terror” —made all the difference. His kinsmen and tribesmen were prone to war by custom and nature, accustomed to living by pillage and the exploitation of settled populations. Theirs was an “expansionism denuded of any concrete objective, brutal, and born of a necessity in its past” (Ibn Warraq), but Muhammad provided a powerful ideological justification for those wars—a justification that was religious in form, global in scope and totalitarian in nature. In the space of a decade, the “warner in the face of a terrific punishment” morphed into a vengeful warlord, slayer of prisoners, murderer of political opponents and exterminator of Jews (chapters 6-9), his every move duly condoned by “revelations” from on high. From Muhammad’s second year in Medina on, Islam combined the dualism of a universal religion and a universal state, and jihad became its instrument for carrying out the faith’s ultimate objective by turning all people into believers. As Spencer explains, Muhammad postulated the fundamental illegitimacy of the existence of non-Islam, and mandates permanent “rejection of the Other” —to use a fashionable term—by every bona fide Muslim as a divine obligation. To a Muslim, Jihad does not necessarily mean permanent fighting, but it does mean a permanent state of war.

Even the cornerstone statement, “there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” goes beyond a declaration of monotheism and implies the radical division of the world into two camps. Antagonism toward non-Muslim religions, societies and cultures is certainly not the trait shared by all Muslims, but it is an attitude mandated by Muhammad to all true Muslims and prevalent among most to this day. Thanks to its founder, Islam has emerged as a quasi-religious ideology of cultural and political imperialism that absolutizes the conflict with other than itself, and knows no natural limits to itself.

Muhammad’s actions and words presented by Spencer are frankly shocking by the standards of our time, and punishable by its laws that range from genocide, crimes against humanity and murder to enslavement, rape and child molestation. But even in the context of 7th-Century Arabia, Muhammad’s deeds were often considered repugnant. He had to resort to “revelations” as a means of justifying his actions and suppressing the prevalent moral code of his own society. Attacking caravans in the holy month, taking up arms against one’s kinsmen, slaughtering prisoners, reserving a lion’s share of the booty, murdering people without provocation, violating treaties and indulging one’s sensual passions were also at odds with the moral standards of his Arab contemporaries. Only the ultimate authority could sanction it, and Allah duly obliged him. As an Edwardian author put it in the blunt language allowed in his time, the problem with Muhammad is not that he was a Bedouin, but that he was a morally degenerate Bedouin.

Evidence of His Followers

The title of Spencer’s book is inevitably a misnomer: Its author is well aware that “the truth” about Muhammad is more than we really know about the historical man, and “traditions” are not history. The “truth” that matters to us all, however, and the reason this book is important, is not what verifiably came to pass between 570 and 632 AD in Western Arabia, but what one-fifth of humanity believes to have happened. Ernest Renan’s famous assertion that Islam was “born in the full light of history” (p. 20) is incorrect: “The full light” is but the reflected glimmer of medieval Muslim scholars, men who were believers and, therefore, of necessity, apologists. But the construct completed some two centuries after Muhammad’s death is held by all true Muslims to be not only true but universally and eternally valid as a perfect model of virtue for all time.

As Spencer points out, on its own admission, Islam stands or falls with the person of Muhammad, a deeply flawed man by the standards of his own society, as well as those of the Old and New Testaments, both of which he acknowledged as divine revelation, and even by the new law, of which he claimed to be the divinely appointed medium and custodian. Fourteen centuries later, the problem of Islam, and the problem of the rest of the world with Islam, is not the remarkable career of Muhammad per se, undoubtedly a “great man” in terms of his impact on human history. It is the religion’s claim that the words and acts of its prophet provide the universally valid standard of morality as such, for all time and all men.

Our judgment on Muhammad rests on evidence of his followers and faithful admirers, and those who go into paroxysms of rage over Pope Benedict’s lectures or Danish cartoons can scarcely complain if, even on such evidence, the verdict of the civilized world goes against their prophet. That verdict, once it is passed—and thanks to the courageous people such as Robert Spencer it will be passed—will make the gentle mockery of Muhammad in those cartoons appear as inappropriate tomorrow as it would be inappropriate today to lampoon Hitler for his out-of-wedlock liaison with Fräulein Braun or for his inability to control flatulence.

Dr. Trifkovic is foreign affairs editor of "Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture" and author, most recently, of "Defeating Jihad: How the war on terror may yet be won, in spite of ourselves" (Boston: Regina, 2006).

CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper slippin' and slidin'

Hot and bothered

In the course of a recent interview on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson asked Hooper three pointed questions:

"Would you say that most American Muslims are horrified by the thought that Iran might possess nuclear weapons, or not?"

No clear answer from Hooper.

Do American Muslims believe that this is a "war against Islam"?

A slippery answer from Hooper, suggesting that he himself believes that America is waging a war against Islam.

"Are Muslims more likely to commit acts of terror than members of other faiths?"

A flat no from Hooper, in the face of mountains of evidence. Click on that link. 6,276 Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11. And then, just try to compile a similar list of violent acts committed recently by members of any other faith, in the name of that faith and justified by its core texts, and see how far you get. I'm glad Carlson asked the question, and wish there had been time for an extended discussion of this, and the introduction of some distinctions. Human nature is everywhere the same, but is Islamic teaching inspiring violence today? That is plain to all but those who do not wish to see. Instead of bland denials from Hooper, it would be refreshing to see him offer some constructive way to counter this phenomenon. But apparently that must be left up to the "Islamophobes."

14 Year Old Assyrian Boy Decapitated By Muslim Group

Expect CAIR to denounce this. And don't tell me, "Well, CAIR is an American group, you see, so you can't expect them to denounce atrocities committed outside America." That might have held water before they denounced the ban on headscarves in Tunisia, but it doesn't anymore. If they can denounce that, they can denounce this.

Can't they?

Islamic Tolerance Alert from AINA, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

(AINA) -- According to the Assyrian website ankawa.com, a 14 year old Christian Assyrian boy, Ayad Tariq, from Baqouba, Iraq was decapitated at his work place on October 21.

Ayad Tariq was working his 12 hour shift, maintaining an electric generator, when a group of disguised Muslim insurgents walked in at the beginning of his shift shortly after 6 a.m. and asked him for his ID.

According to another employee who witnessed the events, and who hid when he saw the insurgents approach, the insurgents questioned Ayad after seeing that his ID stated "Christian", asking if he was truly a "Christian sinner." Ayad replied "yes, I am Christian but I am not a sinner." The insurgents quickly said this is a "dirty Christian sinner!" Then they proceeded to each hold one limb, shouting "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" while beheading the boy.

Good thing they weren't dirty sinners themselves, eh? And of course, they aren't, not even after they committed this cold-blooded murder. They aren't, that is, according to the Sharia stipulations that a Christian's life is forfeit if he violates the terms of his dhimma -- which they might have thought Ayad Tariq somehow did, perhaps simply by virtue of sharing the religion of the majority of the population of the Great Satan, the invaders of Iraq.

In any case, Islamic law sets a lighter punishment for the killing of a Christian than it does for the killing of a Muslim. The Iranian Sufi Sheikh Tabandeh even defended this in his book-length Islamic critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Probably the killers of Ayad Tariq share this view. So it is likely that today they have no fear that they will receive any punishment either on earth or from God.

Islamic Jihad continues launching rockets at southern Israel

The jihad against Israel continues without let-up, while Abbas struts and postures. From Xinhua:

A Palestinian home-made rocket landed in an open area near "a strategic site" in the south of Israel's coastal city of Ashkelon, Israeli Radio quoted Israeli army sources on Monday.

The rocket, fired from northern Gaza Strip, caused slight damages, said the sources, adding the timing of the attack which happened early in the morning has prevented more casualties among workers who were not there at that site.

Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), claimed responsibility. In a statement faxed to the press, the brigades said their fighters launched a medium-range rocket on Ashkelon at about 6:00 a.m.

According to the Israeli sources, situation in Ashkelon city has been relatively quiet recently, but the Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel's town of Sderot continued in spite of the ongoing military operations by the Israeli army in Gaza to curb rocket attacks.

Because They Hate

Brigitte Gabriel's review of my new book this morning puts me in mind of her superb new book, which is not to be missed.

Because They Hate is her own harrowing -- beyond harrowing -- story, the story of her childhood in Lebanon, when jihadists sowed mayhem and destruction, keeping the Christian population in terror for years on end. And Brigitte Gabriel is not afraid to draw the necessary conclusions from her experience, as politically incorrect as they may be. Here is a first-hand account of how jihad terrorists destroy lives, and how they plan and hope to do to the entire world what they did to southern Lebanon.

Brigitte Gabriel was able to escape from the physical and psychological nets the jihadists wove, becoming a fervent and articulate defender of Israel and all the nations and peoples that are threatened by jihad terror and supremacism today. If you haven't read her book or heard her speak, do both as soon as you can, and give this book to all those who still need to wake up.

Here are the endorsements, including my own, that appear on the jacket of Because They Hate:

“Brigitte Gabriel eloquently reminds America what is truly at stake in this struggle against terrorism: our families, our way of life, and our hopes. Ms. Gabriel's personal account of her own experience is riveting, compelling and spellbinding. This is a must read for the entire American public . . . This book contains monumental revelations that will shock and disturb you. But it is also a story of an indomitable spirit--Brigitte's-- that will move you.”--Steve Emerson, author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Amongst Us, Executive Director, the Investigative Project on Terrorism

"A compelling and captivating personal story with a powerful lesson about threats to freedom in our time." --R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-95

“Brigitte Gabriel's story is at once intensely personal and possessing global significance . . . the story of her family and her childhood encapsulates the threat that faces the entire free world today. Brigitte Gabriel's words should be read, and studied carefully, by all the law enforcement and government officials of the West -- as well as by everyone who values freedom.” -- Robert Spencer, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)

“Because They Hate should be read by all to understand radical Islam. Brigitte . . . . This book gives dire warning of what is to come if the democratic and Western world does not take responsible action to protect its people and societies. The United States is the primary target as Islamic Radicalism attempts to spread its worldwide dominance.”-- Paul E. Vallely, Maj. General US Army (Ret.), FOX News Channel Military Analyst, and coauthor of Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Brigitte Gabriel reviews The Truth About Muhammad

The courageous president of the American Congress for Truth, Brigitte Gabriel -- one of the most passionate and riveting speakers I have ever had the privilege to hear -- has written this review of my new book The Truth About Muhammad in FrontPage this morning:

“Freedom of inquiry and speech, the quest for truth, should not be cowed into silence by violent intimidation or the acceptance of half-truths and propaganda meant to appease freedom’s enemies. One thing is certain: if no one is willing to take such risks, freedom of speech will swiftly become a relic of history.”

These are the words of author Robert Spencer, who is risking his life to educate Westerners about the life of the founder of Islam. He has just come out with a new book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. In this biography, Spencer tells the story of the founder of Islam -- a story that many Muslims themselves apparently either do not know about or do not want non-Muslims to hear.

Yet it's strange that any Muslim would react with anger to Spencer's book, since he bases it strictly on Islamic sources, all written by pious and serious Muslims. No critic can rightly say that anything Spencer has said about Muhammad in this book is inaccurate. But the problem Muslims find with it is that Spencer doesn't treat Muhammad as if he were the highest moral standard.

Within the Islamic world, by contrast, Muhammad is considered untouchable. Spencer demonstrates that the Qur’an and Islamic tradition are clear that the Prophet is the supreme example of behavior for Muslims to follow. And today, no hint of criticism of any of his acts or teachings is tolerated.

This stifling of speech is now beginning to affect the West, within which non-Muslims are becoming increasingly frightened to say anything critical about Islam and its founder. Indeed, at even the mildest criticism, either by the Pope or in lightly satirical newspaper cartoons, Islamic nations erupt in a frenzy of blind anger. Furious Muslims take to the streets, burn churches and temples, kill innocent civilians, and threaten violence against the non-Muslim world.

Spencer warns that for the West to be intimidated into silence by this behavior is dangerous. He writes, “to place Muhammad and Islam beyond criticism and even beyond lampooning would be just as dangerous for a free society as the idea that the “Beloved Leader” of North Korea and dialectical materialism is above criticism. Indeed it would be death for a free society.”

Spencer accordingly presents the truth about Islam’s founder clearly. His story is backed up by solid scholarship and research. So the key question becomes: who is the man whom the Qur’an states is “an excellent model of conduct” (33:21)?

Spencer begins by introducing the historical Muhammad as well as the books and writings that make up the religion of Islam. This is crucial for all to understand, because it is not only the Qur’an that influences Muslim opinion, but also accompanying religious literature, including the hadith (traditions of Muhammad recorded by his followers) and the Sira (the biography of Muhammad).

Spencer goes on to explain how Muhammad became a prophet, and how he tried at first to spread his message by peaceful means -- including attempts to convince Jews and Christians that he was a prophet in the line of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus (whom he considered a prophet, not the Son of God). When his efforts failed to bring them, along with the pagan Arabs of his native tribe, into his new religion, he became a warlord -- killing, slaughtering and beheading in order to convert others or to force them to submit to him and to the religion given to him by Allah.

Spencer shows how the Prophet Muhammad, the perfect model for human behavior according to Islam and any professing Muslim, perfected the arts of assassination, deceit and taking booty. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 detail the warrior Muhammad’s battles with pagans, Jews and Christians. He told them that their lives and property would be safe only if they became Muslims. In many places, we can see clearly how he serves today as an example for Muslim behavior: at one point Spencer writes,

“Muhammad addressed them (the Jews) in terms that have become familiar usage for Islamic Jihadists when speaking of Jews today …. ‘You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you?’ The Qur'an in three places (2:62-65; 5:59-60; and 7:166) says that Allah transformed the Sabbath-breaking Jews into pigs and monkeys.

Jihadists today routinely refer to Jews as "pigs and monkeys" -- not just a term of abuse, but an imitation of the holy prophet's example.

The author also sheds a light on the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, the ten-year truce (Hudna) Muhammad signed with the pagan Quraysh tribe. By breaking this treaty, Muhammad again set a precedent: Muslims can sign a treaty but can break it at anytime, when doing so is to their advantage. The purpose of Hudna is to allow weakened Muslim forces to gather strength to fight again later more effectively. This is an extremely important principle for the West to understand today, since it shows the difference between what we perceive as a cease-fire and what believing Muslims think it is.

Chapter 10 explores in a carefully balanced and restrained manner the personal life of Muhammad, allowing the reader to make his own informed decision based on the facts. Spencer presents frightening facts that call into serious question the wisdom behind the Islamic tradition that has dubbed Muhammad “al-insan al-kamil,” or the Perfect Man: his marriage to a child (which is widely imitated in the Islamic world today), his polygamy, his calls to subjugate Jews and Christians, and more.

Throughout the book, we learn how Muhammad treated women and how his words and actions have inspired generation after generation of Muslim men to look at women as nothing more than property. As Spencer notes,

“The Qur’an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: ‘Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will’ ” (2:223).

That's bad enough, but there is much more. Spencer’s work details example after example of Muhammad’s teaching about women and how to treat them: beat them if they are disobedient, deny them the right to testify in cases involving sexual crimes, deny their inheritance rights, and deny their rights in numerous ways. And as the historical record has shown, his teachings have sentenced millions of women into a life of oppression, misery and depression.

Readers will learn a great deal from this book, as I did. Spencer also offers constructive suggestions and solutions if we ever want to win this war on Islamofascism. Some of them include:

* Stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace.

* Initiate a full-scale Manhattan Project to find new energy sources.

* Make Western aid contingent upon renunciation of the Jihad ideology.

* Call upon American Muslim advocacy groups to work against the Jihad ideology.

* Revise immigration policies with the Jihad ideology in view.

This book is a must read for all to understand the roots of radical Islam. It arms non-Muslims and Muslims alike by illuminating what needs to be targeted in order to weaken Islamic extremism and the oxygen which they need to breathe.

Get it and be informed.

Pakistan destroys al-Qaida-linked site

What kind of threats had to be made to Musharraf to get him to agree to this? An AP story by Habibullah Khan:

KHAR, Pakistan - Pakistani troops backed by missile-firing helicopters destroyed a purported al-Qaida-linked training facility in a northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border Monday, officials said. At least 20 people were killed.

The pre-dawn attack targeted a religious school, or madrassa, holding 70-80 militants in Chingai village near Khar, the main town in the Bajur tribal district, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan....

Sultan said the attack targeted terrorists training at the al-Qaida-linked facility, but local leaders said those killed in the raid were innocent civilians.

Among the dead was Liaquat Hussain, a local Islamic cleric who ran the madrassa and is believed to have been sheltering al-Qaida militants, locals said. Several of his aides also died, they said.

The attack came two days after 5,000 pro-Taliban tribesmen held an anti-American rally in the Bajur area near Damadola, a village close to the site of an alleged U.S. missile attack that killed several al-Qaida members and civilians in January.

"We received confirmed intelligence reports that 70-80 militants were hiding in a madrassa used as a terrorist-training facility, which was destroyed by an army strike, led by helicopters," Sultan said....

Siraj ul-Haq, a Cabinet minister from the North West Frontier Province, condemned the attack and announced he would resign from the government in protest.

"This is a very wrong action. The government has launched an attack during the night, which is against Islam and the traditions of the area," ul-Haq told the AP during the funeral. "They (the victims) were not given any warning. This was an unprovoked attack on a madrassa. They were innocent people."...

Ul-Haq, who belongs to the powerful Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said protests would be staged throughout the northern tribal region on Tuesday to denounce the attack.

Afghanistan: British troops hide from bombers

There was a time when the British were made of sterner stuff. "British troops hide from bombers," by Michael Smith in the TimesOnline, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BRITISH troops in the two main towns in the southern Afghan province of Helmand have been forced to stay in their barracks by the threat of Taliban suicide bombers.

The decision to keep the troops in their bases follows intelligence that suicide bombers are waiting in the province’s two main towns to attack British troops, said Lieutenant-Colonel Andy Price.

The would-be suicide bombers in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah and in the town of Gereshk were wired up with explosives and waiting for a British convoy. “We have suicide bombers physically walking around in Lashkar Gah and Gereshk looking for us — a lot of them are not locals,” Price said. “More and more they’re following the Iraqi example.”

Price, spokesman for the British forces in Helmand, said there was a “lockdown” of the two British bases. “There is no movement, no soldier, no police or the Afghan army,” he said. “We’re not going out and the Afghan police and army aren’t going out.”

The “lockdown” raises questions about how the Royal Marine commandos who last month replaced British paratroopers in Helmand will provide security to allow reconstruction projects to go ahead.

Lieutenant-General David Richards, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, has said that he wants British troops to withdraw from the northern outposts of Helmand and concentrate on creating safe development zones in Lashkar Gah and Gereshk.

By focusing reconstruction efforts on those two towns, Richards hopes to persuade residents that they are better off without the Taliban. But that will be impossible unless British and Afghan forces can provide security.

Reconstruction won't persuade them of anything. The Taliban argue on Islamic grounds. The British have no response to that. Neither does Hamid Karzai.

Boston Globe reviews two new books on Muhammad

Imagine! Two new books shed light on the Prophet of Islam! The Boston Globe has a review of both:

The path of the prophet
Two new works seek to uncover the man who was Muhammad

By Ilan Stavans | October 29, 2006

Muhammad
By Eliot Weinberger
Verso, 64 pp., $10.95

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time
By Karen Armstrong
HarperCollins/Atlas, 249 pp., $21.95

Muhammad by Eliot Weinberger, Amazon.com Sales Rank at the hour of this writing: #752,092. The publisher calls it "a luminous portrait of the Prophet, in the Islamic tradition....Muhammad is a shimmering, lyrical biography of the Prophet, composed from the words of Muslims throughout the centuries."

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time by Karen Armstrong, Amazon.com sales rank this hour: #6,480. Booklist says of it: "It puts the best face possible on its subject. The Muhammad it projects gave his followers 'a mission: to create a just and decent society, in which all members were treated with respect.'"

Funny thing: I've heard there is a third new book out recently about Muhammad. This hour it is ranked #56 at Amazon. Now, of course the Globe can review any book it wants, and decline to review any book it wants, but I can't help but wonder why the paper would choose to run a review feature on books about Muhammad that deals with two books that have aroused much less reader interest (thus far, to be sure) than a third book on the same subject.

Could it be because Weinberger's and Armstrong's are both hagiographical and that third book isn't? I can't help but wonder.

CLARIFICATION: The salient issue here is obscured somewhat by the fact that I wrote the third book to which I refer above. The issue here is not that my book didn't get a review in the Globe. As I said above, they can review or not review any book they want. This post is about media bias, and the mainstream media's unwillingness to discuss anything that might appear unfavorable to Islam.

UPDATE: Please don't write to Ilan Stavans. It has come to my attention that some of you have done so -- if I had thought to do so I would have asked you not to in the first place. But in any case, he responded quite favorably to one person who emailed, saying: "Thanks for your e-mail. I'd love to see Robert Spencer's book, lathough I don't know if the Globe would be ready for a review." I will see to it that he gets a copy.

Reformist Muslim on "uncovered meat" Sheikh: "This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book"

Al-Hilali Update. Tanveer Ahmed says in The Australian what I get called "Islamophobic" for saying. Is it true if a Muslim says it, but "Islamophobia" if a non-Muslim says it?

As long as Muslims view their religion as sitting above history and culture - with the Koran as the literal word of God, which in their view makes Islam undebatable - there will always be Hilalis who can point to certain texts and argue for a social and legal structure consistent with 7th-century Arabia. Let's not forget that a senior British cleric lavished praise on Hilali in response to this incident, saying Australia was lucky to have him, and suggesting he was "one of the greatest Islamic scholars in the world".

This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book.

And if you believe the Koran is the literal word of God, how is anything other than a strict interpretation appropriate?

All the world's religions have passages that are abhorrent or inappropriate to the modern age. But they were revolutionary in their time and can still inspire us today.

If Islam is seen in its context, as a product of history and not above it, there could be a meaningful debate about whether a version of the religion, inspired by but not chained to its past, can and contribute to modernity and human progress.

The Hilali incident and the loud chorus of his defenders suggest this is still some way off.

Islam challenges secularism in Turkey's east

As I have long noted, any secular, democratic or republican or semi-democratic government in the Islamic world -- indeed, any government that does not fully implement Sharia -- faces mounting pressure from forces that believe that no non-Sharia government has any legitimacy at all. And that is true even in the country that is most often held up as the model and proof that Islam and democracy can coexist (despite the fact that its secularism was established in an atmosphere of war with Islam): Turkey.

"FEATURE-Islam challenges secularism in Turkey's east," by Paul de Bendern for Reuters:

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Oct 30 (Reuters) - In the heartland of Turkey's southeast, plagued by decades of conflict between separatist Kurdish rebels and the state, a new threat to secularism is emerging -- Islamist groups.

Local politicians say these organisations are becoming more active in the poor region that borders Iraq and Syria, and some fear this could fan fundamentalism, especially among young people who have grown up with violence.

As in the rest of predominantly Sunni Muslim Turkey, practising one's religion here long took a backseat to a public espousal of the secularism of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic's founder.

However, since the AK Party, which has roots in political Islam, swept to power in 2002, Muslims are now being more open about their faith.

"We feel much freer to practise Islam," said Engin Aydin, a teacher and physics graduate who was selling religious books near Diyarbakir's 11th century Ulu Cami mosque. "It's getting better by the day."

In the southeast's largest city, mosques are welcoming more worshippers, non governmental organisations (NGOs) with a religious overtone are helping the poor and the number of unofficial prayer rooms is on the rise, say politicians and lawyers.

"In every poor neighbourhood, new radical Islamic associations are giving hot food, they have meetings at people's homes. They pay for students to go to school," said Firat Anli, mayor of a district of Diyarbakir and member of the main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP).

"I'm very worried ... I fear they'll become more powerful and could turn to violence like the (Turkish) Hezbollah," he said, referring to a defunct armed group, active in the 1990s.

Egypt moves 5000 security personnel to Gaza border

Tensions rising. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Egypt on Saturday deployed no less than 5,000 security personnel on the Gaza border, news agencies reported.

Officials in Cairo said the move came in response to reports that Israel planned to intensify action to weed out smuggling tunnels, including bombing them from the air.

Sheik Hilali praises Iraq jihadists

Yes, the "women are like uncovered meat" Sheikh. By Richard Kerbaj in The Australian, with thanks to LGF:

TAJ Din al-Hilali has praised militant jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them men of the highest order for fighting against coalition forces - which include Australian soldiers - to "liberate" their homelands.

In an interview on Arabic radio two weeks ago, the imam based at Sydney's Lakemba mosque said he was opposed to terror attacks in Madrid, London and New York but strongly endorsed fighters in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the interview, Sheik Hilali pays tribute to Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood and intellectual mentor of Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida.

"Jihad of the liberator of Palestine, that's the greatest and cleanest and highest ... jihad which lifts our heads in pride in south Lebanon," Sheik Hilali says in the October 17 interview.

He tells broadcaster Abrahim Zoabi that he endorses jihad for liberation. "We are talking about ... jihad of liberating our land, jihad of Muslim Afghanis in their land - that's jihad.

"Jihad of Iraqi Muslims is jihad, but not when Sunnis and Shias are killing each other - that's not jihad."...

Fitzgerald: Walk back the cat

Walk back the cat.

Walk the cat all the way back to the real problem, which is not the nauseating speech given by Rice, wildly inaccurate and wrong in its every phrase, wrong in its diseased sympathy, wrong in its implied geopolitical calculation.

Whoever crafted this speech with and for her (was Philip Zelikow now coming into his own?) and whoever has been bending the ear of this dutiful student of Kremlinology (who is not particularly adept either at Russian history or Russian language -- her one attempt to use it in public, while in Russia, led to all kinds of mockery, and she won't be repeating that kind of thing) is ignorant about virtually everything that is important to know about this present crisis. But as far as George Bush is concerned, she is a towering intellect. One understands why he may think that.

Nevertheless, this speech reveals that she still hasn't a clue as to what the immutable geopolitics of Islam are about. Indeed, she has demonstrated a belief in various falsehoods: the entire edifice of the Arab rewriting of the history, cadastral and demographic, of the sliver of territory, that of the Mandate for Palestine, intended by the League of Nations for the sole establishment of the Jewish National Home (without prejudice to the "religious and civil rights" of "other communities" but carefully leaving out the phrase "political rights"). She also seems to believe that the local Arabs have abandoned, or soon could abandon, their goal of Jihad against Israel.

They haven't. They won't. They can't. Unless this is grasped, unless the difference between Fatah and Hamas is seen only as one of tactics and facade, between those who like Abbas believe, but only out of necessity, in the Slow Jihad, and Hamas that believes, out of ideological firmness, in Fast Jihad, and unless the impossibility of Muslims ever accepting an Infidel state continuing to exist (whatever its size) on land once possessed by Muslims, then there will no possibility of an intelligent American policy. That is assuming, of course, that the survival of Israel is seen as it should be, as essential to the moral, intellectual, and possibly physical survival of the West. Nothing will come of this nothing.

Grim recognition of the basis of Muslim jurisprudence in regard to all treaties with Infidel lands would not or should not dishearten. If Rice, or Zelikow, or the others who have exhibited for decades a kind of genius in reverse by avoiding coming to grips with clear Islamic texts and doctrines -- does no one in the State Department have a copy of the Qur'an and Hadith? Does no one have a potted summary of the Life of Muhammad, the Perfect Man? Does no one read the Muslim jurisconsults? Does no one have a CD-Rom of the Encyclopedia of Islam? Does no one have the money -- cannot the American government spring for -- a copy or two of Majid Khadduri's "Law of War and Peace in the Law of Islam"? Yes, I know the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost a lot, but you can find a copy on Amazon for about $20, so why not give it the old college try? And then once you have the book, skip a reception or photo opportunity or two, or just napping on the damned plane, and actually start to inform yourselves about the one subject you most need to know: the doctrines, the tenets, the attitudes of Islam. And it is not merely a matter of reading, and re-reading, but of making sense of what one reads, of thoroughly assimilating it, of applying what one reads, or making connections between what one reads -- Islamic history and the present, and the likely future. It means, above all, stopping the grotesque amount of attention given to ways to appease Muslims or to pretend that they can be appeased, and to focus instead outside the Middle East, and especially on present and growing threats to the West, through the instruments of Jihad known as Da'wa and demographic conquest. What will happen to the armories of the Western countries, what will happen to NATO, in thirty years, or twenty, or even ten, if Muslim populations, if adherents of Qur'an and Sunna, continue to grow, and grow more powerful and more demanding, and if Muslims are taken into the security services, and the military, and into the inner sanctums of political power? Anything? Nothing?

That someone of Rice's incapacity, aiding and abetting someone of Bush's incapacity, and whisperingly advised by those of the incapacity that this hideously ill-advised speech demonstrates, dripping as it is with misconceptions, is cause for the greatest alarm. And those who continue to prate, as loyalists to Bush, that "he knows what he is doing," should, at long last, shut up or, still better, distance themselves completely from him and his crew of incapables, beginning but not ending with Rice and her vaporings.

Rice's dangerous delusions

In "Palestinian 'humiliation'?" in the Washington Times (thanks to Doc Washburn), Joel Mowbray speaks truth to power about Condoleeza Rice's appalling myopia and inability or refusal to confront the reality of the jihad ideology:

In a keynote speech earlier this month to the American Task Force on Palestine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounded very unlike President Bush on the Middle East, lavishing praise on Palestinians and implicitly attacking Israel.

While the words she chose have invited criticism, much more concerning is that the top U.S. diplomat has the same fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East that most do, namely that Palestinians are ready to coexist peacefully next to a Jewish state. This conventional diplomatic wisdom, however, ignores the history of the region since the Oslo accords in 1993: The once largely secular Palestinian society has become increasingly Islamic-and deeply radicalized.

Comparing the Palestinian cause to her own civil rights struggle growing up in "segregated Birmingham, Alabama," Miss Rice reminded the activist audience that if she could overcome such tremendous odds to become Secretary of State, Palestinians could achieve their dream of statehood. She based this belief on "the commitment of the Palestinian people to a better future."

Where does Mr. Bush's most loyal and trusted aide find evidence of this "commitment?" She offered none in her speech. Even if she had wanted to, though, such proof is in short supply. Poll after poll has indicated majority Palestinian support for suicide bombings. Even the term used for bombers, "shahids," is one of glorification, the equivalent of calling someone a saint. And whereas children across the world have posters in their room of sports stars or famous artists, Palestinian youths decorate their living space with posters celebrating "shahids."

In view of the radicalization of Palestinian society, the election this year of Hamas seems far less a vote against corruption-as the State Department explained it-and far more a statement of principle. Yet Miss Rice not only defended the election of Hamas but characterized it as an opportunity since "the Palestinian people and the international community can hold Hamas accountable. And Hamas now faces a hard choice that it has always sought to avoid: Either you are a peaceful political party, or a violent terrorist group -- but you cannot be both."

But what about the very real possibility, or even likelihood, that the Palestinian people elected Hamas precisely because it's a "violent terrorist group?" One thing Palestinians are not is stupid. Is it even possible that Palestinians didn't understand that they were electing a "violent terrorist group" with the stated goal of eliminating the Jewish state?

Read it all.

Morocco arrests 14 in ‘terror plot’

Morocco's relatively reformist leadership is, by virtue of its reformist tendencies, not sufficiently Islamic. And so it must be fought. From Reuters, with thanks to DFS:

RABAT: Moroccan authorities are holding 14 people suspected of belonging to a regional radical Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda, government officials said yesterday.

The 14 suspects had planned to carry out an unspecified "terrorist plot" on Morocco, with the help of Al Qaeda-linked foreign fighters who would travel from the Sahel-Sahara region, they said.

Morocco, a staunch US ally in the global fight on terror, has been on alert since 2003 when suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca, the country’s commercial capital.

It has arrested more than 3,000 people since then and broken up more than 50 radical Islamist cells.

But it is the first time that the authorities have announced the arrest of people with suspected links to foreign cells.

"The 14 persons are suspected of being linked to a global terrorist movement which has connections with small groups operating in the Sahel-Sahara region and links with members of a group based on the Algeria-Mali border," an official statement said.

The statement did not name the groups but government officials said the small groups were Islamist cells linked to the main Algerian Islamic rebel Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) faction.

Anti-terrorism police officials in North Africa and Europe have voiced concerns that the GSPC might turn itself into a magnet for radical Islamists in the region, providing them with weapons and military training in lawless areas of the Sahara desert.

The GSPC said in September it had joined Al Qaeda, whose leader Ayman al-Zawhiri urged the Algerian rebel group to become a "bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders".

Fitzgerald: The jig is up -- or it will be

In a statement regarding the Minneapolis Shari’a taxicab dispute that recently came to Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs from the Muslim Brotherhood, "Dr. Habib described the cabbies’ position as 'absurd' and added 'Muslims must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in and be a good example for their fellow citizens.'"

This is akin to the about-face of the imam Hilali in Australia who, having been secretly taped at his mosque making his now-famous remarks about women dressed in non-Muslim fashion as "meat" who deserved whatever they got from inflamed Muslim men (apparently likened, in the somewhat clumsy metaphor, to the beasts that are attracted to that "meat"), and after indignation had been expressed too loudly and consistently to be ignored, pretended he had meant no such thing and apologized for any malentendu. He did the same thing a few years ago after praising the 9.11 attacks as “God’s work.”

And now we have the Muslim Brotherhood telling us the usual nonsense about Muslims who "must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in." But that is not what Muslim websites say. What Muslim websites tell those who ask if they must obey the Infidel laws of Infidel nation-states is that they need do so only now, when Muslims do not yet rule, and only to the extent that those laws do not conflict with the laws of Islam.

Go to any of a hundred Muslim websites. Check out the various Ask Mr. Fatwas and Ask the Imam. Go to www.islamonline.net. Have fun. Find out what Muslims are told to do, and why, and why it is all, in the end, utterly phony. It is phony because they must do whatever they have to do only temporarily, so as to avoid arousing Infidel counter-measures. They must behave this way only until such time as it is too late for those Infidels and their countries (countries carefully left unspecified by Muslims -- for who cares if it is the United States, or Canada, or France or England -- they're all just part of the Lands of the Infidels, part of Dar al-Harb) to awaken to what is happening and defend themselves and their societies.

How much nonsense do Muslim spokesmen and apologists of every kind think that they can continue to get away with, when any Infidel, at a click, can go to any number of Muslim websites and see exactly what is being dispensed as advice to Muslim Believers? How much of this stuff do they think they can permanently hide from the view of Infidels, when at the same time they keep disseminating it far and wide to Muslims?

The jig is up. Or will be. It's a race -- will Infidels rouse themselves from a deep dream of pseudo-peace and "understanding" in time to save not merely themselves but the legacy of the past that they hold in trust -- the legacy that creates, and was created by, that civilization we call "Western"? Or will Muslims practicing taqiyya, and their non-Muslim collaborators win out in the end? Those collaborators, by the way, are an assortment of the bought-and-paid for, the antisemites who, but only because they can do damage to Jews and to Israel, end up making excuses for Islam. Then there is the largest group of all, the merely weak-minded or the merely uninformed, who are too lazy to inform themselves. Of those there are a great many.

Who will win the race? Some Muslims are worried about this, and some are not. Some understand the problem of trying at the same time to disseminate to Muslims in the West the true, the real doctrine, and at the very same time trying to hide that same true, real doctrine from Infidels who might have the gall to eavesdrop upon Muslim-Muslim communications, even when those communications are easily retrieved on Internet sites (even if often in Arabic or Urdu or other relevant languages) or delivered in mosques -- where agents of the Infidel nation-state now dare to observe, and even secretly record, these sinister khutbas.

They worry only about insuring that a sufficient number of Infidels are kept for a sufficient period sufficiently in the dark. So far they are doing fairly well. The Infidels have not yet disappointed them.

But many of those Infidels, and for the same reasons, disappoint us. Stamina, thick skins, self-assurance required.

A Charlie Brown Jihad

Good grief! I mean -- Allahu akbar! Charlie Brown and Linus become mujahedin! Over at the Jawa Report (thanks to Steve).

Rioting "youths" burn hundreds of cars in France

Oddly enough, this AP story actually mentions "Muslims." Perhaps the censor had gone to retrieve his liverwurst sandwich, and this one slipped through. "Rioting youths burn hundreds of cars in France: Authorities upbeat despite violence marking anniversary of ’05 unrest," from AP, with thanks to Andrea:

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Marauding youths torched hundreds of vehicles overnight and on Saturday in renewed violence coinciding with the first anniversary of riots that exposed a deep schism between poor North African immigrants and mainstream France.

A group of teenagers set one bus on fire Saturday in the southern French port city of Marseille, seriously wounding a passenger. Three others suffered from smoke inhalation, police said. Two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight, police said.

Six police were injured and 47 people were arrested, ministry officials said. Still the Interior Ministry described the night as “relative calm,” noting that up to 100 cars are torched by youths in troubled neighborhoods on an average night.

Police had braced for a bigger replay of violence in the poor suburbs predominantly made up of Muslims from former French colonies in Africa. Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the deaths of two teens that ignited three weeks of riots in 2005.

The rioting was fueled by anger at France’s failure to offer equal opportunities to many minorities — especially Arabs and blacks — and France’s 5 million-strong Muslim population.

France’s trouble integrating minorities and the suburban unrest are becoming hot political issues in the campaign for next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The government passed an equal opportunities law this spring and has poured funds into “sensitive” areas, but disenchantment is still pervasive....

Hmm. You mean they've given the rioters money and favorable treatment, and that still hasn't solved the problem? Do you think maybe it springs from the ideology of Islamic supremacism, and not from poverty at all?

“Four guys attacked Bus 346,” said witness Thierry Ange, 19. “They made everyone get off, then they hit a woman and dragged out the bus driver by his tie,” then torched the bus with a gasoline bomb in a bottle, he said.

The blackened remains of another bus burned earlier stood across town. Two armed men had forced passengers off the bus, police said.

Youths also tried to burn a bus in Reims in eastern France, and attackers hurled metal balls at an empty bus in Trappes, west of Paris, the Interior Ministry said.

Scores of police, wielding shields and backed by a helicopter shining its searchlight, swept into a tough housing project in Montfermeil, a town near Clichy-sous-Bois, and several youths responded by throwing stones.

Paris’ transport authority responded to the violence by curtailing bus services in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of the capital, which is home to thousands of immigrants and their French-born children.

And thus Paris slides toward Third World conditions.

The Muslim Brotherhood writes to LGF

To deny this story about their role in the Minneapolis Sharia Cab Controversy. Charles Johnson's comments are apposite: "It’s the standard denial. This comes from the political and public relations wing of the global jihad. No need for them to threaten. When someone in their network goes too far, they’ll back down and pretend they had nothing to do with it. They’re in this for the long haul."

A portion of the letter, via LGF:

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) denied completely any involvement in the current dispute caused by a group of Somali Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, U.S.A, who are refusing to pick up drunk passengers or those carrying alcoholic beverages claiming that Islam prohibits them from driving passengers with Alcohol. Dr. Mohamed Habib, the first Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, affirmed that Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do whatsoever with what these Muslim cab drivers believe or view mistakenly as religious decree. Dr. Habib described the cabbies’ position as “absurd” and added “Muslims must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in and be a good example for their fellow citizens”

The question naturally presents itself: is that an unshakeable principle, or a temporary expedient?

"It's a steady, stealthy indoctrination aimed at creating a whole new generation of jihadists. And scandalously, it is unopposed"

It is unopposed not only for the clueless indifference scored in this article. It is unopposed because the vaunted overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims has as yet framed no response to the theological presentations of the jihadists. Only the willfully self-deceived and irredeemably credulous believe that this immense work has already been done.

And Rita Katz is right. It can't be done only by the Bush Administration, and not only because they show no signs of understanding the jihad ideology. It has to be done by those who have moral and intellectual credibility among Muslims -- and yes, this is another virtually insurmountable hurdle, since reformers immediately open themselves to charges from jihadists that they are disloyal Muslims for questioning the literal words of the Qur'an and Muhammad.

"U.S. seen balking at challenge by Islamist Web," by David Morgan for Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is failing to counter Islamist online propaganda that could propel militancy into the next generation, experts say.

From the Middle East, Asia and Europe, Islamists have built an expansive Internet library of sophisticated texts on the ideology that underpins violence against the West and other enemies, analysts and intelligence officials said.

"It's a steady, stealthy indoctrination aimed at creating a whole new generation of jihadists. And scandalously, it is unopposed," said Stephen Ulph, who studies the Islamist Web for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank.

E-books and online pamphlets, with titles such as "39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad," encourage the growth of home-grown militant cells across the world, including in such Western countries as Canada and Britain, the experts believe.

U.S. intelligence is reluctant to mount an effective counteroffensive by recruiting Islamic experts from overseas to rebut and even ridicule Islamist authors, according to experts and U.S. officials.

"Anything exposing the West as a supporter would destroy Islamic opposition to the jihadis," one intelligence official on condition of anonymity. "We are completely out of luck with the Muslim world, across the board."

Several agencies including the CIA, FBI and the office of U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte are part of a closely guarded effort to monitor the content of Islamist Web sites.

But the program is hampered by stringent security standards that make it hard for intelligence agencies to employ Islamist experts from the Arab world.

"Even if we think we understand elements of the religion, we certainly don't understand elements of their cultural communications," the intelligence official said.

POP JIHAD PROPAGANDA

Others warned that U.S. policy-makers could be making a fatal error by ignoring doctrinal online texts that lay bare the substance of a violent Islamist mind-set.

"In order to be able to fight something, you have first of all to understand what is going on. And I don't think that at this stage they understand it well enough to fight it," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, which tracks and analyzes international terrorism.

In a presentation this week, Ulph said doctrinal material accounts for 60 percent of Islamist Web content and most texts are in Arabic. But many have begun to reappear in English and other European languages in an apparent appeal to Muslims living in the West.

One of the most popular is the 1,600-page treatise, "Call to Global Islamic Resistance," a comprehensive guide to militant life by al Qaeda ideologue Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, who was captured in Pakistan a year ago.

The Islamist Web became a center for al Qaeda operational planning, training and fund-raising after the fall of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan.

Thousands of Islamist Web sites have since sprouted, many appealing to disenfranchised Muslim youth with so-called Pop Jihad propaganda that can include films of beheadings and spectacular attacks on U.S. troops in
Iraq.

But Ulph and others, including former intelligence officials, say the future of Islamist militancy depends on the more sophisticated doctrinal material, capable of guiding the life of the committed militant from childhood to martyrdom.

"The focus has been on how these guys use the Internet for fund-raising and operations," said Jarret Brachman of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. "Only recently have we realized there are strategic implications."

Only recently, eh, Brachman? Well, some of us have been trying to tell you for quite some time.

3 Australians, Dane held in Yemen over arms smuggling to aid Somali jihad

All four were studying at al-Iman University in Sanaa, Yemen, a university once suspended by the Supreme Yemeni Council for Universities for overlooking students' academic qualifications (or lack thereof) as long as they could recite 5 excerpts from the Qur'an (no word on which ones).

The Danish suspect is said to be a convert to Islam -- another convert, another alleged "misunderstander" of his new religion. "3 Australians, Dane Held in Yemen Over Arms Smuggling," from AP:

SANAA, 28 October 2006 -- Three Australians and a Dane have been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia, a security official said late Thursday.

All four have been studying at the Islamist Iman University, which is run by Sheik Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani. The United States lists Al-Zindani as an Al-Qaeda supporter.

[...]

However, a Danish Foreign Ministry official confirmed the arrest of the Dane but refused to identify him. "All I can say is that a Danish nati