Iranian arms to Taliban bother NATO

So much for the conventional wisdom.

From the Daily Times, with thanks to PR:

LAHORE: As NATO troops in Afghanistan have begun intercepting sophisticated Iranian arms bound for the Taliban, US, NATO and Afghan officials are growing more concerned about Iranian policy in Afghanistan, says a Knight Ridder report.

It’s long been conventional wisdom that Iran would do nothing to destabilise Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s shaky government or aid the Taliban, against whom Iran nearly went to war with in 1998. The Taliban obtains the lion’s share of its weapons and other aid from the proceeds of opium trafficking and from supporters in Pakistan and Arab nations, the report says.

The recent seizures of Iranian arms by British troops in Afghanistan’s war-torn southern Helmand province are challenging that assumption, however.

“Iran appears to be playing a very small role, but it appears to be increasing,” said Seth Jones, an expert at the RAND Corp, a research centre that’s close to the Pentagon.

The intercepted weapons include the first so-called explosively formed penetrator bombs, devices that spit molten copper plugs that can penetrate the armour of American tanks, troop carriers and Humvees, said US officials who requested anonymity because the matter is classified.

The Bush administration accuses Iran of supplying the same weapons to Shia militias in Iraq. Iran denies the charge. Still, US officials and independent experts don’t think that Tehran wants the Taliban returned to power. “The Iranians don’t want the Taliban back,” said Barnett Rubin, a leading scholar on Afghanistan who met with Iranian officials during a recent visit to Kabul. “That is a red line for them.”

"If what you say is true about Muslims and they way they hate, then what about you? Your just as bad!!!"

Well, the guy who sent this in to the Hate Mail Bag is on to me, Darth Spencer, Freakin' Batman, the Notorious Robert Spencer, the Alan Wolfe of the Right:

I have read some of your articles and am astounded by your ignorance with humanity. May God, you people hate to easy. If what you say is true about Muslims and they way they hate, then what about you? Your just as bad!!!

I wrote back to him:

Yeah, I guess so. I was chopping off some people's heads this morning and I had a twinge of conscience: I thought to myself, "Self, you're just as bad!"

'High tempo' of terrorist chatter: FBI

Al-Qaeda, says John Miller, is getting more skillful. By James Gordon Meek for the New York Daily News, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

WASHINGTON - The FBI has increased its use of secret search warrants over the past two years because of a "high tempo of terrorist activity," a top official said yesterday.

FBI Assistant Director John Miller said the 2,176 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act search warrants approved last year, compared with only 1,754 granted in 2005, mostly targeted plotters inside America.

"We're seeing a very high tempo of terrorist activity, not just based on the cases you're seeing being brought in the United States," Miller said in an interview yesterday for C-SPAN's "Newsmaker" program.

Miller said the warrants, issued by a secret federal court in Washington, are usually not a "way to a prosecution," but are "an intelligence tool."...

Al Qaeda is "on a bell curve and they're getting more effective" at planning new strikes while pushing propaganda to inspire others to "take that ball and run with it."

"They're counting on both happening at once," Miller said. "They're better at this than they were before and they're thinking about it differently."

Iraq Residents Rise Up Against al-Qaida

Iraqi Jihad Update: resistance to Al-Qaeda in Baghdad and a suicide/martyrdom attack in Fallujah. By Sinan Salaheddin for Associated Press (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

BAGHDAD (AP) - A battle raged Thursday in west Baghdad after residents rose up against al-Qaida and called for U.S. military help to end random gunfire that forced people to huddle indoors and threats that kept students from final exams, a member of the district council said.

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber hit a police recruiting center in Fallujah, killing as many as 25 people, police said - though the U.S. military said only one policeman was killed and eight were wounded. Elsewhere, three policemen and three civilians were killed and 15 civilians were wounded when a suicide truck bomber struck a communications center on the western outskirts of Ramadi, according to Anbar provincial security adviser Col. Tariq Youssef Mohammed....

U.S. forces backed by helicopter gunships clashed with suspected al-Qaida gunmen in western Baghdad's primarily Sunni Muslim Amariyah neighborhood in an engagement that lasted several hours, said the district councilman, who would not allow use of his name for fear of al-Qaida retribution....

But the councilman said the al-Qaida leader in the Amariyah district, known as Haji Hameed, was killed and 45 other fighters were detained.

Members of al-Qaida, who consider the district part of their so-called Islamic State of Iraq, were preventing students from attending final exams, shooting randomly and forcing residents to stay in their homes, the councilman said....

The Fallujah suicide bomber killed at least 10 policemen in the attack, which occurred about 11 a.m., according to a police official in the city who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The rest of the dead were civilians, many of them in line seeking jobs as policemen. He said as many as 50 were wounded.

Fallujah General Hospital had received 15 bodies and 10 wounded, according to a doctor there, who would not allow the use of his name because he feared retribution. The physician said he believed other casualties were taken to the nearby Jordanian Hospital and private clinics.

A member of the Fallujah city council, who also asked for anonymity for fear of attack by insurgents, said there were at least 20 killed and 25 injured.

Ticket to an American University or Ticket to Paradise?

Where is this Saudi student, and what is he doing?

Another disquieting revelation from the recently vindicated Annie Jacobsen in Womens Wall Street, with thanks to LGF:

On October 15, 2006, a young Saudi Arabian male named Anwar Al——,* (His full name will not be used for legal reasons) claiming to be an engineering student at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, presented what must have been false documents to United States Customs and Immigration (CIS) at an east coast airport and managed to slip into the country illegally. This is something that is not easily done: for a citizen of Saudi Arabia to get into the United States to attend an institution of higher learning requires the scrutiny of multiple, Cabinet level federal agencies. Customs was the last line in a series of Homeland Security controls that began halfway around the world at the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Anyone who has picked up a newspaper since September 11, 2001 understands why this is the procedure: fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Those 15 Saudis were issued visas and allowed entrance by United States officials. In other words, technically, those 15 hijackers came here with US consent. For reasons that are tragically obvious, after those 15 Saudis and their four colleagues killed 3000 people, the question of how they got permission to come here so easily caused great alarm. US citizens demanded reform and they got it—sort of. A 100-year old agency was disbanded (INS), the visa-issuing facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (where most of the Saudi 9/11 hijackers received their visas) was shuttered and hundreds of millions of dollars flooded into the system to make sure no more murderous terrorists from Saudi Arabia would be coming our way.

So how did this Saudi kid presenting himself as a student slip into the United States without being stopped? And what was his reason for doing so? And illegal entry is only one of the federal offenses Anwar Al—— appears to have committed. Others raise even more serious alarms; events just three days after being admitted to the US involving this young, Saudi male raise the national security stakes exponentially. What happened next is enough to make you ask, just who is Saudi Arabia sending our way anyway – and what exactly are we doing about it?

Read it all.

MPAC's Lekovic caught out yet again

When MPAC's Edina Lekovic and I were on the O'Reilly Factor last fall, the segment ended with her making several false and outrageous claims about me, but perhaps because I didn't get a chance to respond to them on the air and the falsehoods stood for the viewing audience, she didn't feel any need to respond to my repeated requests for a retraction. But when Steve Emerson caught her out a few days ago on CNBC's Kudlow, exposing her as the editor of a Muslim student paper in the 1990s that praised Osama bin Laden as a great mujahid, she responded swiftly in a letter to Emerson filled with the insults, slurs, distortions, and victim-playing that will be familiar to longtime readers of this site as often coming from Islamic spokesmen. From the Counterterrorism Blog, with thanks to LGF:

Mr. Emerson's witch hunt this time centered around a July 1999 issue of Al-Talib magazine, to which he referred in the interview and later on his website. And this time, his witch hunting stumbled on a printing mistake which I had no part in, but which he has exploited to serve his agenda. For reasons unknown to me, given that I had already graduated at that time, my name is listed in the staff box as a managing editor of that issue. I had graduated and had no participation in campus life by that time. I had no role in the publication of that issue of the magazine and I had no part in the writing of the article to which he refers.

I am shocked and saddened that my name has been falsely attached by Mr. Emerson to sentiments that I in no way support, and that are antithetical to the work I do day in and day out in the service of my community and my country.

My time as a student journalist at UCLA was indeed memorable to me, but has been misrepresented and distorted by Mr. Emerson. I was the editor in chief of the Daily Bruin, which won several prominent journalism awards for news reporting and overall excellence under my leadership. I wonder how in his relentless digging expedition Mr. Emerson neglected to note my award-winning work.

Check the facts -- I wasn't a student when this issue was published. I had no role in its publication, and I abhor the sentiments expressed in the article to which Mr. Emerson refers. Mr. Emerson's style of shock, smear and distortion have proven once again that the value and validity of the information he claims to offer to the American public is little more National Enquirer-style reporting.

But, as is the case so often with superficially fact-based presentations made by Islamic apologists, this one turned out to be completely inaccurate. Emerson blows her away with the facts:

So let’s examine Ms. Lekovic’s role with al-Talib. From October 1997 to May 2002, in addition to the July 1999 “The Spirit of Jihad” issue, there are at least 11 other issues of the newspaper which list Ms. Lekovic as either “managing editor,” “copy editor,” “assistant editor” “writer,” or give her “special thanks.” A curiously high amount for someone who initially claimed she never worked for the newspaper or now says she only “briefly worked” for it.

[...]

As you can see, well after Ms. Lekovic graduated in 1999, and well after the article she claims to “abhor” was published in July of that same year, Lekovic was still contributing to al-Talib.

And while Ms. Lekovic is suddenly and curiously coy about her stint at al-Talib, such was not always the case. Just a few short months after 9/11, a December 2001 MPAC event program (See Page 6), titled, "The Rising Voice of Moderate Muslims,” included a bio for Ms. Lekovic, which proudly stated, “While at UCLA, Ms. Lekovic also was the managing editor of Al-Talib (The Student), a nationwide Muslim student publication.”

If Ms. Lekovic was embarrassed by her association with al-Talib – which had referred to Osama bin Laden as a “great Mujahid” and “freedom fighter” almost a year after he ordered the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa resulting in more than 200 deaths and over 5,000 injuries while her name was on the masthead as a “managing editor” - it certainly was not evidenced in MPAC’s December 2001 event program, ironically for an event supposedly dealing with “Moderate Muslims.” Clearly, in certain venues, including MPAC-sponsored conferences, being the “managing editor” of al-Talib is considered a source of pride. Why else include it in her bio?

Read it all.

EU to strengthen surveillance of terrorist websites

This sounds great, but note carefully this message from Fjordman: "I've seen signals from the European Union that they will step up control with 'illegal websites.' But since they recently passed pan-European anti-racism laws that ban incitement of hatred against 'religious groups,' this could potentially make Islam-critical websites illegal, too. Keep that in mind while reading this."

"EU to strengthen surveillance of terrorist websites," by Helena Spongenberg for the EU Observer, with thanks to Fjordman:

The European Union wants to strengthen its monitoring of militant Islamic websites, saying the internet plays a major role in the running and communication network of terrorist organisations. EU ambassadors gathering for their weekly meeting in Brussels on Wednesday (30 May) decided that a newly established online police portal "needs to be further strengthened" to combat terrorism, according to press reports. The European Union wants to strengthen its monitoring of militant Islamic websites, saying the internet plays a major role in the running and communication network of terrorist organisations.

EU ambassadors gathering for their weekly meeting in Brussels on Wednesday (30 May) decided that a newly established online police portal "needs to be further strengthened" to combat terrorism, according to press reports.

The high-security portal - named "Check the Web" - was launched earlier this month and allows the 27 EU states to pool data on Islamist propaganda and internet chatter at the European Police Office (Europol) in The Hague.

13 people killed in jihad attack on government official’s home in northwest Pakistan

Taliban growing bolder in northwest Pakistan. "13 people killed in attack on government official’s home in northwest Pakistan," from Associated Press (thanks to Davida):

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - About 100 suspected pro-Taliban militants attacked the house of a government official in northwestern Pakistan before dawn Thursday, killing 13 people, police said.

The house belonged to Ameerud Din, the top administrator of the Khyber Tribal region in North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan.

Din was not home at the time, but his brother, who also is a government servant, was among those killed. Authorities said the dead included six members of the same family and seven guests.

"The attackers fired rockets, threw hand grenades and used guns" for about 30 minutes before fleeing, said Sanaullah Khan, an area police chief.

Two others were injured in the attack near the village of Guman, 12 miles from the troubled town of Tank.

Wife 'urged man to die a martyr'

Many husbands might have regarded such advice with some suspicion.

From the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A young mother urged her husband to die as a terrorist martyr and said their baby son could follow in his footsteps, the Old Bailey has heard.

It is alleged Bouchra El Hor, 24, of Ealing, west London, encouraged Yassin Nassari, 28, in a letter found in their luggage at Luton airport.

Prosecutors said its significance was noted after missile-making instructions were found on Mr Nassari's computer.

The couple deny a total of three terrorism charges.

'Combat death'

Aftab Jafferjee, prosecuting, said they were not merely radicalised Muslims but Mr Nassari was going to engage in "what he and others like him would call a jihad, but what the law describes as terrorism".

"He held both the ideology and the technology with which that could be achieved," he said.

"His wife was not only aware of his intention but positively encouraged it, despite the fact that his actions would almost certainly result in his death in some form of combat and would also result in their son being without a father."

The letter, which was read to the jury, said:

"The moment has come that you and I have to separate for the sake of Allah.

"I am so proud of my husband. I am happy that Allah has granted you the chance to be a martyr.

"I am writing to let you know that you have my support and to remind you to be strong and do not let Satan influence you... to remind you that jihad is now compulsory and we are now obligated to protect Islam, to help our brothers and sisters to fight the kuffar [non-believer].

"I really wish I could go with you because I too feel obligated. I'd like to participate in any way I can.

"Everything happens with the will of Allah. Maybe one day I can follow you. If I can't, I will send our son to you so he can follow his father's footsteps."

"Jihad is now compulsory" because in this view a Muslim land has been attacked, and so according to traditional Islamic law, jihad becomes fard ayn, or compulsory on every believer to aid in some way.

"The reason we are losing the battle of information and ideas is because the coherent religious and ideological position that al-Qa’ida represents has an extraordinary degree of support within the Muslim world"

The truth will out, eventually. "Extremists winning war of words, too," by Greg Sheridan in The Australian, with thanks to JE:

SIX years after the 9/11 terror attacks that destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York and killed almost 3000 people, a majority of American Muslims do not believe the attacks were carried out by Arabs. And more than one-quarter of young US Muslims believe suicide bombings can be justified in some circumstances.

These shocking and tragic findings, which come from the Pew Research Centre, tell us much about why the war against Islamist terror is going to last for generations.

The West is losing the information and propaganda war against Islamist extremism. It is not losing because it is being insufficiently kind to Muslims at home or in the Middle East.

As Britain’s Tony Blair wrote in The Sunday Times: “Extremism will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it ... pandering to its sense of grievance will only encourage it.”

Blair confronted the argument that Muslims hate the West because it has taken military action in Afghanistan and Iraq: “Tell me what exactly they feel angry about? We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a UN-supervised democratic process. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims. Why aren’t they angry about the people doing the killing?”

The reason we are losing the battle of information and ideas is because the coherent religious and ideological position that al-Qa’ida represents has an extraordinary degree of support within the Muslim world. Even sentiments that don’t finally endorse al-Qa’ida often adopt a similar world outlook that embraces much of al-Qa’ida’s historical narrative and paranoid world view.

Most Muslims are moderates and abhor terrorism. But the minority that is extremist is a big one.

The flipside of al-Qa’ida’s success in the information war is our own dismal effort in this field. This does not mean endlessly telling Muslims how much we love them. Although in principle a bit of that is OK, as Blair implies it can be counterproductive by feeding an unjustified sense of grievance....

In many nations, moderate Muslims have been intimidated or even killed....

The Danish imams who campaigned successfully to turn a few cartoons into a worldwide jihad had previously been wrongly identified as moderates and benefited from state travel grants and the like....

One of the many disturbing features of the US Pew survey on the attitudes of American Muslims is that younger Muslims are substantially more extreme than their parents or grandparents. This reflects the experience in Europe, and probably Australia, that far from the second generation being more integrated, as has happened with every other migrant group, it is becoming more prey to the appeal of extremist ideologies and more alienated from its host society.

It is important to emphasise that the US survey does show that most American Muslims are moderate and reject extremism, and that American Muslims tend to be more moderate than European Muslims or Muslim populations in most majority Muslim nations.

But the US poll is merely the latest from across the world to show that the extremist minority is a very big, and therefore dangerous, one. A poll by the British think tank Policy Exchange showed similar results. Although most British Muslims are moderate, among 16 to 24-year-olds, 37 per cent would prefer to live under sharia law than British law, while 36per cent believe a Muslim changing their religion to something else should be punishable by death and 13per cent support al-Qa’ida.

Similarly, a joint Asia-Europe Foundation and University of Malaya poll found that 98 per cent of Malay Muslims believe Muslims should not be allowed by law to change their religion, 31 per cent want sharia law to replace the Malaysian constitution, 12 per cent support suicide bombings and a clear majority dislike or hate Europe, the US and Australia.

And in Australia, Taj Din al-Hilali, after all his extremist statements, remains the mufti. After everything, the national imams council still has not dismissed him. To equate this with Christian fundamentalism is utterly absurd. The widespread presence of extremist views in large minorities among Muslim communities poses acute dilemmas for a liberal society that no one has yet begun to face up to.

Indeed not.

D'Souza, unable to refute what I actually say, makes up some things I don't say and refutes them

Brett_McS is our contest winner, and Dinesh D'Souza is hereby crowned the Dilettante of Dhimmitude. Congratulations to Brett and Dinesh also -- send your address, Brett, to me at director[at]jihadwatch.org, and I will send you an autographed copy of The Truth About Muhammad. And thanks to all those who entered the contest. The entries were all terrific, and I think Dinesh richly merits the titles "Hooper of Hoover" and "Lawrence of Taqiyya" as well as the winning entry.

Meanwhile, Mr. D'Souza himself, unable to deal with the facts Hugh and I gave him in response to his challenge to name two Sunni/Shia conflicts, has resorted to making things up, attributing them to me, and then refuting those. And I can see how that is a much easier task.

In "More Religious Wars, Mr. Spencer?," he says this:

Today's New York Times reports on escalating sectarian conflict in northern Iraq between Sunnis and Kurds. I'm sure Robert Spencer would be on the case, spouting his nonsense about religious wars, except that the Kurds happen to be Sunni as well!

Ah, yes, but Robert the history major can find examples in history of clashes between the Kurds and other Sunnis. Indeed there have been clashes, but that's because most of the Sunnis in the Middle East are Arab, while the Kurds are not. Ethnic and tribal identity--not religion--is the source of the conflict.

Saladin was a Sunni Muslim of Kurdish descent, and I'm sure Spencer can find some ancient conflict over territory to convince his gullible followers that the Sunni-Kurd clash has been going on for centuries. Actually this is nonsense, but fortunately for Spencer none of his readers actually knows what any of the internecine Islamic conflicts were about. So Spencer relies on the argumentum ad ignorantium: the argument that relies on the ignorance of the reader.

Now have I actually said that the Sunni/Kurd conflict was religious? Of course not. Meanwhile, however, the other straw men D'Souza sets up turns out to have teeth: if Mr. D'Souza cared to do any research, he would have discovered that the Kurds have been in conflict with the Arabs, Turks, and Persians for centuries. When the epic poet Ahmad Khani called for the creation of an independent Kurdish state, free of Arab and Turkish domination, in the Kurdish national epic Mem-o-Zin in 1695, modern Kurdish nationalism was given its first great boost. The Kurdish Zand kingdom flourished in the latter half of the 18th century, but by the mid-19th century it and other Kurdish principalities had been destroyed by the Ottoman Turks and the Persians.

But in fact, I have never written about this before. That's because it has little to do with jihad, which, as you may have noticed, is what I do write about. D'Souza's whole column is just made up. But all is not lost: as his career as a pundit continues to implode, I see a bright future for him...as a novelist.

US Airways seeks imam-suit dismissal

It's good to see US Airways not caving in to this naked attempt at intimidation and outlawing of lawful and necessary security procedures.

By Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times, with thanks to Morgaan Sinclair:

US Airways is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim imams, saying the airline followed government guidelines when it removed the men from a flight because of suspicious behavior.

The response to the lawsuit, filed March 12 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, says the airline "is required to adhere to the main points of the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Common Strategy regarding security threats in the aviation context."

The strategy advises flight crew members to be "alert for odd or suspicious behavior during all interactions with passengers in the gate area, during the boarding process and during routine flight duties and passenger interactions," the response to the lawsuit states.

"Flight crewmembers are required to mentally assess each passenger's behavior and the potential for threat. Moreover, the common strategy notes that this is a subjective analysis, and recognizes that there is no key factor that applies in every situation," it states.

"Notably, the common strategy advises flight crews to "Presume the worst," and "Be suspicious about any passenger disturbance," the response states....

11 new charges filed in Jewish Federation shootings; defendant pleads insanity

"While Haq identified himself as an 'American Muslim,' he was acting alone and had no ties to terrorist organizations." Feel better?

Naveed Haq Update. By Christine Clarridge for the Seattle Times, with thanks to Timothy:

Flanked by King County Deputies and Jail guards, alleged Jewish Federation shooter Naveed Haq arrives for his hearing Wednesday morning.

King County prosecutors this morning filed 11 additional criminal charges against Naveed Haq, who is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others last summer during a shooting rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

In response, Haq's attorneys filed pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity to the new charges and the nine others he already faced, effectively announcing the defense strategy.

In a hearing before Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas this morning, prosecutors received permission to charge Haq with five additional burglary counts, five malicious harassment charges and one charge of unlawful imprisonment.

Haq, 31, a Tri-Cities man with a history of mental illness, was already facing one count of aggravated first-degree murder for the slaying of the charity's fundraising director, 58-year-old Pamela Waechter. He also had been previously charged with five counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count each of kidnapping, burglary and malicious harassment, the state's version of hate crime....

He carried two guns, court documents allege, and spewed anti-Semitic statements as he made his way through the office, randomly shooting people he encountered as some screamed and tried to escape or hide.

The shooting came a day after the FBI had warned Jewish organizations nationwide to be on alert after Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and al-Qaida's second in command urged that the war raging in the Middle East be carried to the U.S.

Haq reportedly told operators in a 911 call during the shooting, "These are Jews. I want these Jews to get out."

But law enforcement officials said that while Haq identified himself as an "American Muslim," he was acting alone and had no ties to terrorist organizations.

Rice, Israel, Syria, fantasy and reality

"Israeli officials are unsure" whether Assad could actually "deliver a deal." And Rice says that a Palestinian state must come first.

Both the Israelis and the Secretary of State are, quite simply, not dealing with reality. The public discourse about Islamic jihad and the challenge we're facing has been dominated by fantasy since 9/11 and before that, and if anything, the fog is thicker now than ever. In reality, a Palestinian state won't bring peace, because it will not only not herald an end to Palestinian demands, but will only embolden the jihadists to continue to press for the destruction of Israel altogether -- and provide them a platform for doing so. Evidently no one takes the Hamas Charter seriously except Hamas.

But does Syria present a viable alternative for peace? As we have noted here many times, although Syria is a relatively secular state, and Assad is not an orthodox Muslim, it is a foremost base for jihad activities and the advancement of Islamic supremacism. And now The Truth About Syria, an excellent new book by Barry Rubin of MERIA and the GLORIA Center, exposes the full scope of Syria's activities on behalf of the jihad. Rubin explains how Assad and his father have kept themselves in power by bringing together jihadism and Arab nationalism in Damascus -- and the hollowness of the arguments that contend that those two forces are and ever shall be irreconcilably opposed. Taking a long historical view, Rubin notes that the "window of opportunity" many have seen over the years for an accord between Israel and Syria -- and which Israeli officials seem to be seeing again today -- is actually for Damascus nothing more than a "window of weakness," Israeli weakness, which the Syrians will exploit for everything they can get. He lists fifteen cogent reasons why Syria will never make peace with Israel, and enters into peace talks never intending to compete them.

And of course there is much more involved than just Israel when it comes to Syria. The Assad regime is also deeply involved in jihad activities in Iraq, and is working closely with Iran and jihad terror groups such as Hizballah. As such, with or without Nancy Pelosi and her naive and counterproductive overtures, Syria cannot be ignored. Rubin explores all of this and more, not from the standpoint of fashionable politically correct fantasies, but from a realistic evaluation of Syria and the Assad regime on its own terms.

If Rice and the Israelis read this book -- and the Hamas Charter -- they might be able to embark on the road to policies that were actually viable to protect both Israel and the U.S. from the global jihadists, rather than embroiling us yet again in a round of futile and deceptive peace talks that will, ultimately, only advance the jihadist cause.

"Rice Cautions Israel on Syria: 'No Substitute' for Peace With Palestinians, Secretary Says" by Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post (thanks to Sr. Soph):

BERLIN, May 29 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday cautioned against a growing sentiment in Israel to pursue peace with Syria instead of with warring Palestinian factions, saying there is "no substitute" for creating a Palestinian state.

Rice, who will discuss the stalled peace process with diplomats here Wednesday, has worked for months to lay the groundwork for Palestinians and Israelis to begin discussing what she calls a "political horizon" -- the parameters of a possible Palestinian state.

But with violence erupting between Palestinian factions -- and with Israel under constant attack from rockets launched from the Gaza Strip -- Rice has faced criticism from some outside experts for spending so much time on a diplomatic long shot, rather than seeking to quickly end the violence.

Israeli officials have confirmed Israeli news media reports that there is intense discussion about whether to pursue a peace agreement with Syria, which would in effect abandon the Palestinian track for now. Syrian President Bashir al-Assad has strongly suggested he is interested in reaching an agreement similar to one nearly concluded by his late father a decade ago, but Israeli officials are unsure whether he could actually deliver a deal.

Shi'ite militia may have kidnapped Britons in Iraq

"The gunmen were accompanied by civilians with identification cards from Iraq's Public Integrity Commission, an anti-corruption watchdog." An update on this story. "U.S., Iraqi troops hunt for Britons; militia blamed," by Mariam Karouny and Ahmed Rasheed for Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi soldiers searched Baghdad on Wednesday for five kidnapped Britons who Iraq's foreign minister said had probably been taken by a Shi'ite militia.

Troops raided Baghdad neighborhoods, including the Sadr City stronghold of the Shi'ite Mehdi Army militia, after dozens of gunmen kidnapped a British computer expert Peter Moore and his four bodyguards from a Finance Ministry building on Tuesday.

An Iraqi government official said the kidnappings could be in retaliation for the killing of the top commander of fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia by British-backed Iraqi soldiers in Basra in the south last week.

"It may be the Mehdi Army because the location of the (kidnapping) is in their theatre of operations," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters.

"Their safety is our top priority ... I don't think they will finish them. They are using them for bargaining, but they have not contacted anybody yet."

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said British officials were working with Iraqi authorities to find out how the Britons were abducted and to secure their swift release.

An Interior Ministry spokesman dismissed suggestions the kidnappers, dressed in police commando camouflage uniforms and driving official vehicles, were a renegade unit from his ministry.

Interior Ministry forces are known to be heavily infiltrated by Shi'ite militias, including the Mehdi Army, and have often been accused of kidnappings and sectarian killings.

But a top official in Sadr's political movement, Abdul Mahdi al-Mutiri, said the scale and organization of Tuesday's operation was beyond the Mehdi Army's capabilities.

A government employee who witnessed the kidnappings also gave new details of the well-planned operation and told how two other Westerners had narrowly escaped being taken by the gunmen at the Finance Ministry building in Palestine Street.

The ministry identified the kidnapped Briton as Peter Moore and said he worked for BearingPoint, a U.S.-based consulting firm. It appealed for his release, saying he had been working in Iraq's national interest.

It said the gunmen were accompanied by civilians with identification cards from Iraq's Public Integrity Commission, an anti-corruption watchdog. The commission denied any involvement.

Iraqi government in talks with the King of Clubs

"For reconciliation between the government and this political wing." Hmm. Evidently they have forgotten, or no longer care, how it was that the government and this political wing became estranged in the first place.

"Iraq: Government in talks with former Saddam deputy," from AKI, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Erbil, 30 May (AKI) - Contacts are underway between Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Baathist faction of Izzat al-Douri, former vice president during the Saddam era, according to a report on Kurdish language daily Aso. The scope of the contacts is "for reconciliation between the government and this political wing" the paper said. It quoted sources close to the government saying "the prime minister has created a high commission for directing the talks with the Douri faction, to be headed by an ex-aviation official."...

Al-Douri, the "King of Clubs" in the US deck of cards naming the Saddam regime's most wanted figures, gave an interview to Time magazine in July 2006, through written questions and answers passed on by Iraqi intermediaries. There have been reports that he has been living in Syria or Yemen or that he is dead.

The Iraqi leadership has in the past fiercely opposed any negotiations with Baathists involved in crimes against the Iraqi people. But among the recommendations that emerged from the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month, on the situation in Iraq, was initiatives to support and boost national reconciliation.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is one of three surviving plotters who carried out the coup that brought the Baath Party to power in 1968 and managed to survive Saddam's frequent purges.

He was responsible for northern Iraq when chemical weapons were used there in 1988, and is accused of mass torture and murder.

Sure, but why let that get in the way of "national reconciliation"?

The jihad threat arrives in Switzerland

The Swiss won't be able to be neutral for much longer.

"The Islamist Threat Arrives in Switzerland: The MEMRI Report," by Steven Stalinsky in the New York Sun (thanks to all who sent this in):

" Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah is a preacher of global influence and is one of the senior figures of the fundamentalist Islamic Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia as well as a close associate of Osama bin Laden. He was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for his extremist ideologies from 1994 until 1999. Even after his imprisonment, he adopts the call to armed struggle against the infidel Western countries in his writings."

- A report filed by the Ministry of Justice in Switzerland, May 2007

In another sign of the spread of Islam within Europe, last month, Swiss Muslims announced their plan to open " Europe's biggest Islamic center" in the capital city of Bern. The center is estimated to cover 84 acres and to cost as much as $66 million to build.

Switzerland seems to be an unlikely locus for a battle over jihadist Islamism, but according to reports, its Muslim citizens, who make up about 5% of the total population, increasingly look to radical Middle East clerics for spiritual guidance. The country is also home to a controversial professor, Tariq Ramadan, whose visa to come to America was revoked by the State Department, and reports indicate there has been a rising tension between Muslims and non-Muslims there. In what could be considered pouring fuel on a fire, two weeks ago, the League of Swiss Muslims invited Sheik Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah of Saudi Arabia to participate in their annual conference.

Hailing from a wealthy Saudi family, Mr. Odah is a noted Islamic scholar who has a wide following among Islamists throughout the world. He was enraged when American troops were based in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War and has gone on record supporting jihad against American troops in Iraq.

His stance on the American presence in Saudi Arabia earned him five years in jail there for speaking out against the government — a sentence condemned in Osama bin Laden's infamous 1996 fatwa against the West. According to reports, copies of Mr. Odah's sermons have been found in an abandoned Afghanistan home belonging to Mr. bin Laden.

Read it all.

Spencer: 300,000 Supporters of Suicide Attacks in America

Thoughts on the Pew poll from FrontPage (news links in the original). Video here.

Some of the results of the Pew Research Center poll of Muslims in America were startling: twenty-six percent of Muslims between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine affirmed that there could be justification in some (unspecified) circumstances for suicide bombing, and five percent of all the Muslims surveyed said that they had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda. Given the Pew Center’s estimate of 2.35 million Muslims in America, and the total of thirteen percent that avowed a belief that suicide bombings could ever be justified, that’s over 300,000 supporters of suicide attacks. And 117,500 supporters of Al-Qaeda.

It is unfortunate that the Pew Center pollsters were not equipped with a follow-up question for those who expressed support for suicide bombing, asking them about the circumstances in which they would consider it justified, and whether they would ever consider it justified in the United States. As columnist Diana West has noted: “the fact that a significant young chunk of American Islam believes such violence has a place in society indicates something closer to the end of unfettered political opinion. It may signal the beginning of physical coercion as a factor in the American political process.” The pollsters might also have asked those who professed support for Al-Qaeda whether they were working or would be willing to work to further that organization’s goals in the United States – but perhaps that kind of question shades too far over into what law enforcement officials should be doing.

In any case, the implications of this poll are far-reaching. Yet virtually no one is dealing with those implications. The mainstream media generally reported the poll results as indicating that the overwhelming majority of Muslims rejected extremism and were comfortably assimilated into American society, without dealing in detail with those troubling minorities. Headlines in major newspapers included “Poll: Most Muslims seek to adopt American lifestyle”; “Poll: US Muslims Feel Post-9/11 Backlash Despite Moderate Outlook”; “Muslims assimilate better in U.S. than Europe, poll finds”; “U.S. Muslims more content, assimilated than those abroad”; and “Pew Study Sees Muslim Americans Assimilating.”

Meanwhile, two of the leading Islamic advocacy groups in the United States, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), shrugged off the unpleasant aspects of the poll and stressed its findings about how well assimilated Muslims were. Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR told MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, “I don’t see a rise of religious extremism in the Muslim community….If you look at the totality of the survey results, the views of American Muslims more or less mirror the views of people of all faiths of America.” He did not cite, however, any evidence for this mirroring – any survey, for example, of Christians or Jews indicating any significant percentages of support for, say, the Ku Klux Klan, or abortion clinic bombers. Terrorism expert Steven Emerson, meanwhile, confronted Edina Lekovic of MPAC on CNBC’s Lawrence Kudlow show, reading an editorial in praise of Osama bin Laden published in the UCLA Muslim Students Association’s newspaper in 1999, while she was editor of the paper. Lekovic denied having been the editor of the paper at that time, but Emerson has made available a pdf of the paper’s masthead that lists her as editor. Kudlow had asked Lekovic what Muslims in America were doing to combat the jihadist views expressed by some in the poll, and she stated that they were doing a great deal, but offered no specifics – and the incident with Emerson damaged her credibility. In fact, neither the CAIR nor the MPAC website contains any announcement about any program or initiative of any kind designed to lessen support for suicide bombing and Al-Qaeda within the Muslim community in America.

And therein lies the problem. The mainstream media’s soothing reports about the poll not only misled the American public about the poll results; they also failed to call American Muslim advocacy groups to account for those results. The first question in every media analyst’s mind should have been, What do Muslim groups plan to do to combat the spread of the jihadist ideology of Islamic supremacism among Muslims in America? Pointing out that most Muslims in America eschew that ideology is not enough; what about the others? Almost six years after 9/11, no pressure is coming either from the mainstream media or law enforcement for Muslim groups in the United States to institute comprehensive educational programs against jihadism in their mosques and schools. This poll, however, shows how much such programs are needed – as well as a national debate about how these groups should be regarded if they refuse or fail to implement such programs.

But instead, we are supposed to be reassured that those holding jihadist sentiments number only a few hundred thousand. The public discourse about Islamic jihad has been dominated by fantasy since 9/11 and before that, and if anything, the fog is thicker now than ever.

Report confirms terror dry run

Flight 327 Update. Will all those who ridiculed Annie Jacobsen for "hysteria" over "musicians," and derided her for "racism," now apologize? What do you think?

And what about those who think the Flying Imams case is a legitimate one of racist profiling? Will they now acknowledge that there is a genuine threat to American air travel? Again, what do you think?

And why has DHS covered up all these probes and dry runs? Are they more concerned about a fictional "backlash" against Muslims than about preventing another jihad terror attack? Do they think that keeping the public ignorant, fat, and happy will help prevent another jihad terror attack? This goes hand-in-hand with the polite fictions about Islam and jihad that dominate the public discourse -- it's as if in both cases that the truth is just too terrifying to contemplate, and so we'd rather play pretend.

Well, if we wish to survive, maybe it's time to grow up.

By Audrey Hudson for the Washington Times, with thanks to Gnosis:

Download the inspector general report (PDF)

A newly released inspector general report backs eyewitness accounts of suspicious behavior by 13 Middle Eastern men on a Northwest Airlines flight in 2004 and reveals several missteps by government officials, including failure to file an incident report until a month after the matter became public.

According to the Homeland Security report, the "suspicious passengers," 12 Syrians and their Lebanese-born promoter, were traveling on Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on expired visas. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services extended the visas one week after the June 29, 2004, incident.

The report also says that a background check in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, which was performed June 18 as part of a visa-extension application, produced "positive hits" for past criminal records or suspicious behavior for eight of the 12 Syrians, who were traveling in the U.S. as a musical group.

In addition, the band's promoter was listed in a separate FBI database on case investigations for acting suspiciously aboard a flight months earlier. He was detained a third time in September on a return trip to the U.S. from Istanbul, the details of which were redacted.

The inspector general criticized the Homeland Security officials for not reporting the incident to the Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC), which serves as the nation's nerve center for information sharing and domestic incident management.

The report comes three years after the incident, which was not officially acknowledged until a month later, after The Washington Times reported passenger and marshal complaints that the incident resembled a dry run for a terrorist attack. After reviewing the report, air marshals say it confirms their earlier suspicions.

Official denial

An air marshal who told The Times that he has been involved personally in terror probes that were ignored by federal security managers, called such behavior typical.

"Agency management was not only covering up numerous probes and dry-run encounters from Congress and other federal law-enforcement agencies, it was also hiding these incidents from their own flying air marshals," said P. Jeffrey Black, an air marshal stationed in Las Vegas.

Homeland Security officials initially denied the complaints and blamed passengers who reported the incident to the press as behaving hysterically. However, the inspector general report shows that air marshals had the group of men under surveillance before they boarded the plane.

"Prior to boarding, one of the air marshals noticed what he later characterized as 'unusual behavior' by about six Middle Eastern males, who arrived at the gate together, then separated, and acted as if they did not know each other," the report said.

"According to the air marshals, these men were sweaty, appeared nervous and arrived after the boarding announcement. The air marshals made eye contact with one another to ensure they were aware of this behavior," the report said.

The inspector general's two-year investigation was originally released in April 2006 but was then wholly redacted except for two sentences. The re-release stems from a Freedom of Information request by The Times on April 25, 2006, which was answered Friday.

Portions of the report remain redacted. However, current and former air marshals who reviewed a copy provided by The Times say the activities of the men details a dry run for a terrorist attack.

Read it all.

“Legitimate Demands” A Video Speech by Adam Yahiye Gadahn Produced by as-Sahab Media

The beard is really coming along

A new message from the traitor Gadahn. "...You and your people will- Allah willing- experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Virginia Tech." From the SITE Institute (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Adam Yahiye Gadahn AKA Azzam the American, is featured in a 7:57 minute video produced by as-Sahab, the multimedia wing of al-Qaeda, and titled: “Legitimate Demands”. The video was issued to jihadist forums today, Tuesday, May 29, 2007. The speech, spoken in English and subtitled in Arabic, is presented as an address to U.S. President George W. Bush, Gadahn speaking in a condescending tone and accusing him of spearheading a Crusade led by his “empire of evil” against Muslims and embroiling American forces in wars without end. Reinvigoration of old fronts in Somalia, continuation of fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, and the region of the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan), in addition to an alleged failure in the media to tarnish the image of the Mujahideen to Muslims, are cited by Gadahn as reasons for Bush to seek escape and “prevent the number of American casualties at home and abroad from rising even higher.”

The demands are emphatically stated by Gadahn to not be construed as negotiations, for Muslims do not negotiate with “baby killers and war criminals”. These entail the removal of American military forces from Muslim lands, cease of encroachment into the political, social, and economic affairs in these countries, and to free Muslim captives from prisons. Should these demands not be met, Gadahn states, “means that you and your people will- Allah willing- experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Virginia Tech.” Withdrawing from Iraq alone, Gadahn states, does not qualify as acceptance of terms, and he mockingly advices for Bush to stop his “futile farcical maneuvers on Capital Hill.”

Islamic Society of Boston Drops Lawsuits

Here's a happy announcement from the David Project. It looks from the information below as if, as in the case of CAIR's suit against Anti-CAIR, the discovery process came too close to compelling the ISB to disclose things it doesn't want the public to know.

Islamic Society of Boston Drops Lawsuits Against David Project, Concerned Citizens, Boston Herald and Fox, Abandoning All Of Its Claims Without Receiving Any Payment

David Project to Continue Public Records Lawsuit To Force Disclosure of Evidence on Boston Redevelopment Authority-Islamic Society Land Deal

The David Project has announced that the Islamic Society of Boston ("ISB") and its officers have withdrawn all of their claims against all of the citizens who raised concerns about the ISB, its funding and its leadership, as well as all of their claims against the Boston Herald, Fox-TV and the various journalists whose investigative pieces about the ISB in 2003 and 2004 disclosed damaging information about the ISB and its controversial land deal with the Boston Redevelopment Authority ("BRA"). The ISB and its officers have abandoned all of their claims against all of the defendants they sued 2 years ago, without payment to the ISB or to any of its officers of any money whatsoever.

The ISB's decision to drop all of its claims against all of the 17 defendants it sued back in 2005 alleging "defamation" and accusing them of conspiring to violate its civil rights comes just months after the defendants--who included a Muslim cleric, a Christian political science professor and the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, as well as Boston civic leader William Sapers and national terrorism expert Steven Emerson--had begun through their lawyers to conduct discovery into the ISB's financial records, its receipt of millions of dollars in funding from Saudi Arabian and other Middle Eastern sources, its contributions to certain organizations and the records of certain of its officers and directors. The ISB's abandonment of its lawsuits comes only weeks after two of its original Middle Eastern Trustees, Walid Fitaihi of Saudi Arabia and Ali Tobah of Egypt, suddenly resigned as Trustees just before they were required to submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts court hearing the case.

The David Project, whose public records litigation against the BRA forced the public disclosure of evidence regarding the below-fair-market land deal between the BRA and the ISB and the role played in that deal of BRA Deputy Director Muhammed Ali Salaam, will proceed exactly as before with its litigation, seeking the remainder of the documents presently withheld by the BRA. That litigation, The David Project v. Boston Redevelopment Authority, is on file in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston.

"We were determined from the beginning to act the way citizens should, by asking questions about this matter and by refusing to be intimidated into staying silent," said David Project founder and President Charles Jacobs, "and we intend to continue as we have before. Indeed, the evidence that has emerged about the transaction, about the BRA's failure to do due diligence into those whom it chose to subsidize and about the funding and the leadership of the organization that received this public subsidy is of extremely deep concern. That evidence not only vindicates the reporting of the courageous journalists whose investigative work broke the story back in 2003 and 2004, but validates many times over the concerns expressed by the good and decent citizens--Muslims, Christians and Jews--who refused to stay silent."

"Those citizens were vilified by the ISB for having had the courage to speak out", said Jacobs. "The ISB's abandonment of its claims without payment of one dollar to them, coming as it does as the ISB was ordered to turn over evidence, speaks more eloquently than anything else could about the truth of what these citizens said, about the validity of their concerns, and about the lack of merit to the ISB's allegations that they had been 'defamed' and had been financially 'damaged'. Above all, the ISB's ultimate abandonment of its lawsuits speaks eloquently about the importance of refusing to be bullied and intimidated into silence."

"This has never been about the right of all people to worship, and to construct houses of worship, which is an important right possessed equally by all people, warranting great respect," said Jacobs. "What it has been about is specific evidence about specific leaders of a specific organization, and about evidence regarding the funding of that organization and those whom it, in turn, was funding. The threat of Islamic extremism in the United States and elsewhere is a real one. Many of the most courageous and forceful individuals speaking out about this threat are themselves Muslims, and they deserve the support of all of us. The victory we have achieved in this case is a victory for many, but perhaps especially for them, as it bolsters and encourages them, and sends a message on their behalf that intimidation will not work."

UK: Academics oppose drive to root out jihadists on university campuses

There is no jihad. There is only "Islamophobia" and racism.

"Lecturers oppose Muslim 'witch hunt,'" by Graeme Paton in the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Academics are threatening to derail a Government drive to root out Islamic extremists on university campuses.

The University and College Union, will ask its 120,000 members to refuse to take part in the Government-led "witch hunt".

It insists that Muslims are being "demonised" because of new guidance that asks staff to look out for students falling under the influence of radical preachers.

The Department for Education and Skills has warned university staff to log suspicious behaviour amid fears that campuses are being infiltrated by fanatics recruiting for so-called jihad. In a 20-page report published in December, ministers warned of "serious, but not widespread, Islamic extremist activity in higher education institutions".

It asks lecturers to vet Islamic preachers who have been invited to campuses, ensure that "hate literature" is not distributed among students and report suspicious behaviour to police.

But at the UCU annual conference in Bournemouth, lecturers will warn of a "recent rise" in racism and its "apparent promotion by Government policies".

Academics at the union's London Metropolitan University branch will say that "increasingly restrictive measures and the xenophobic language surrounding them" has led to an increase in racist attacks on Muslims.

"Islamophobia and the attempts at increased surveillance on Muslim communities are not only encouraging racist and xenophobic tendencies in Britain but are also leading to measures that threaten civil liberties," they will warn.

A motion to the conference will condemn Government attempts to use "members of staff for such witch hunts"....

What Muhammad said?

A few years ago I was speaking at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in the course of the talk explained that Hasan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Abdullah Azzam, cofounder of Al-Qaeda, among others, attacked the famous hadith in which Muhammad speaks of the "greater jihad" as a spiritual struggle. Al-Banna and Azzam pointed out that it was a weak hadith, and did not appear in any of the hadith collections that Muslims accept as reliable. I was talking about this in order to explain why it wasn't enough for peaceful Muslims simply to quote this hadith, as they often do, as if simply quoting it were sufficient to establish that genuine Islam is peaceful and the terrorists have hijacked the religion. They would have to go farther, and answer the argument that Al-Banna and Azzam advanced.

A student spoke up to say, "It's in Bukhari." I responded by saying that no, it wasn't in Bukhari, that I had searched and searched Bukhari for it, and that it wasn't in there. I told the group that if he could find it in Bukhari and email the citation, I would publicly retract. But of course he never did.

Anyway, here it is again, again attributed to Bukhari, the hadith collection Muslims consider most reliable -- but tellingly, no citation is given.

Open invitation: can anyone substantiate that this statement is actually in Bukhari? I do not believe it is, and am inclined to think this just more deception, but Bukhari's hadith comprises many, many volumes. So if you think it's in there, give me a citation. Everyone up to and including Karen Armstrong cites this hadith, but never gives a citation. Let's see one, please.

From askMuslims:

Did you know Jihad does NOT mean 'Holy War'?

Almost everyone in the world today has heard the word Jihad, thanks to the media.This word has a very broad meaning and does not mean 'Holy War' as many people believe.

The meaning of the word Jihad is 'Striving'.It applies to any sort of activity made by any person because of love of God.It covers every aspect of a muslim's life. It is Jihad when a muslim is called upon to make an extra effort - for example, to get up before dawn in order to pray, to fast during Ramadan abstaining from all the things which would invalidate the fast.It is jihad when a person helps another, and goes out of their way to be a friend etc (the intention being to please God alone and not for anything else, if it is done with any other motive, it is NOT Jihad).For example, a person can lay down his life for his country without being religious at all - this is NOT Jihad.

It is reported that the Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon him) said: *"The most excellent jihad is that for the conquest of oneself." The soul is tempted to do certain things which are prohibited(haraam) at times and a person who strives to eradicate such thoughts and seeks refuge with God is doing Jihad by controlling his/her desires.

*Hadith from Bukhari

Fitzgerald: The Iran/Iraq War, Sunni/Shi'a hostility, and D'Souza

The war between Iran and Iraq, of course, could not have been openly presented by Saddam Hussein as a Sunni-Shi'a war, for obvious reasons. But that is not the same thing as saying that it had nothing to do with the initial fear and hatred, felt by those who ran the Sunni Arab despotism (disguised behind "Ba'athism") of Saddam Hussein for the mad-dog Shi'a, as they saw it, of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In that war, Saddam Hussein referred to battles from early Islam between Arabs and Persians, and played up -- as other Sunnis have more recently done -- the "Persian" business. Some, such as Al-Zarqawi, and his successors, have reinforced the resentment of Sunnis at losing control of Iraq to the Shi'a by describing those Shi'a, inaccurately, as "Persians," or mere collaborators of the "Persians."

One of Bernard Lewis's most useful books is The Multiple Identities of the Middle East. One is not only a Shi'a Muslim or a Sunni Muslim. One can be more than one thing. One can be an Arab and a Muslim. One can be an Arab and a Sunni Muslim. One can be an Arab and a Shi'a Muslim. One can be a Berber, and a Muslim. One can be a Kurd, and a Muslim. In the case of Arabs, so strong is the identification of Islam and "Uruba" or Arabness, that even among some of the Christian Arabs (above all among those we have been carefully taught to call "Palestinians") the identification with Islam is intertwined with "Arabness," and a need to be able to identify with permanently threatening Muslim Arabs (as a way to fit in, as a way to win them over). One thus finds the phenomenon of the "islamochristian," which is much less common among more numerous, self-conscious, and historically less cowed communities, such as the Maronites of Lebanon, or even the Copts, especially the Copts once they leave Egypt and can think, feel, speak freely about Islam.

All this escapes Dinesh D'Souza. He's too busy. So many books to sell, so many CDs to flog. To flog, flog, flog. Step right up. Get your latest Dinesh D'Souza here. Just for today, at No Extra Cost, a Guide to Absolutely Everything.

Who is most likely to shout that there never has been a Sunni-Shi'a divide, and that therefore whatever trouble there is in Iraq of what is demurely described as "of a sectarian nature" (you know: those bombs that blow the gold-tumanned roof off of venerable Shi'a mosques, those revenge drillings into live flesh by the Shi'a militias in return) is the responsibility of the Bad Old Infidels, the Bad Americans?

One group consists of those who will find a way to blame America for the inability of the people in Iraq to engage in sensible political compromise, or to refrain from violence as their main means for obtaining their goals. This group cannot see the world through other than Muslim lenses, with the inculcated violence and aggression that comes with those lenses. They understand that there are only two categories -- the Victors and the Vanquished -- which is exactly what Islam teaches them as the right way to think of Believers and Infidels. This lesson is not lost on them when they begin to think about other kinds of enemies.

The second group, of course, consists of the Bush loyalists, the people who thought that it made sense to remain in Iraq for Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations purposes. But no one, even those of us who believed the Administration's information about WMDs, should have thought it wise for the Americans to remain in Iraq beyond early 2004. Why then? Why not, say, November 2003? Well, because it was important to be assured both that the country had been scoured for WMDs, and that Saddam Hussein, his two sons, and the face cards in that famous pack used by the Americans in their imaginative game of Fifty-Two Pickup, were either killed or captured. But that was it.

The removal of the regime set in motion what was inevitable: the transfer of power to the Shi'a and the loss of power by the Sunnis. The Sunnis do not and cannot, inside or outside Iraq, accept this loss. They are unwilling to acquiesce in the obvious fact that the Shi'a of Iraq have won and have no intention of giving up power. What can the Sunnis do? The Shi'a don't need Anbar Province, and they have been quite able to empty Baghdad of many of its Sunnis. They are quite prepared, if need be, to continue that particular operation until the madinat al-salaam, the fabled first city of Islam, is almost entirely in Shi'a hands.

But Bush loyalists cannot admit that. They cannot admit that history demonstrates the depth and duration of Sunni-Shi'a hostilities goes far beyond Saddam Hussein's mistreatment of the Shi'a. They cannot accept that these hostilities go far beyond the history of modern Iraq, or even the history only of Iraq, but can be found wherever Sunnis and Shi'a are mixed together in sufficient numbers for the latter to be noticed and discriminated against, or attacked, or persecuted.

They ignored history, and now they have a stake in rewriting history, because of what they should have known, but did not bother to find out. And were any of the smiling westernized secularized Shi'a in exile going to inform them about the likelihood of a Shi'a takeover, and a Sunni refusal to acquiesce? This history continues to be ignored in presentations by Bush, by Cheney, by Rice, and by all those so-called "conservative" commentators whose reputations should suffer for their blind and late-in-the-day seeing of the light, where they do, or must pretend to, about Iraq.

Dinesh D'Souza apparently thinks that because many of the conscripts in Iraq's army were Shi'a, then Saddam Hussein could not have been prompted to declare war against Iran as a Shi'a state. But that is exactly why he declared war (see the "Encyclopedia Britannica" entry posted by Robert Spencer here). He understood that the secular Shah did not appeal to the devout Shi'a of Iraq, and that whatever his differences with Iran under Shah Reza Pahlevi, the Shah's regime was not for Saddam Hussein life-threatening.

But Khomeini, the militant Shi'a cleric, was a different matter. He had been kicked out of his exile in Iraq, was stupidly offered asylum by the French, and from his perch at Neauphle-le-chateau launched the revolution against the Shah. Had the French government been better informed, it would have cooperated with agents of Savak and had Khomeini done away with while he was in France.

It was because of Khomeini and his revolution that Saddam Hussein attacked Iran -- or rather, attacked the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran which, he understood, was a mortal threat to him because of its dangerous appeal to the formerly cowed ("quiescent") Shi'a of Iraq.

Dinesh D'Souza appears to believe that the army of Iraq was "60% Shi'a." That is, he thinks the army of Iraq reflected exactly the percentages in the general population. But of course the army was Sunni-officered, strictly Sunni-controlled. He, Dinesh D'Souza, appears not to realize how police states can stay afloat, when they set their diabolical minds to it. What percentage of the officer corps in the Syrian army, for example, in a country where only 12% of the population is Alawite but the country is run of, by, and for Alawites, does he think is Alawite? 12% exactly? Or 50%? Or 80%?

What naivete. Does he really think that the Sunni despots who have run Iraq ever since the British left, even though they were always a distinct minority (and have become more so over time), would do so without total control of the army? Can he not imagine how those Shi'a conscripts would have been pushed forward, fed whatever anti-"Persian" propaganda could be fed them, and then at the first sign of any recalcitrance, executed on the spot? He is lacking in the imaginative faculty.

In the imaginative faculty. In general knowledge. In specific knowledge about Islam, a subject he presumes to know enough to write a book about. The Hoover Institution should not be mocked. It no doubt is mortified that he is still there, and no doubt looking forward to getting rid of him at the earliest opportunity. He will find some other place to exploit for his own self-promotion, though no doubt he will be sorry not to be able to wave around the phrase "Hoover Institution" and bask in its reflected prestige. He'll do fine, somewhere. People like that always do.

Fort Dix tipster shrugs off 'hero' title

This is the young man who was afraid it might be "racist" to say something to authorities about this. That is, apparently, the substance of the "moral dilemma" noted below. God help us.

From CNN, with thanks to Scott:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The tipster responsible for helping authorities thwart a possible terrorist attack on a U.S. military base said Tuesday he experienced a "moral dilemma" over whether to report what he had seen.

Brian Morgenstern, a 26-year-old clerk at a Circuit City in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, was given the 8 mm tape January 31, 2006, by two men, whom he described as "normal people." They asked him to convert it to DVD format.

Authorities said the tape showed 10 young men shooting at a practice range and shouting in Arabic, "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is great."

Morgenstern said the video showed the men with hand guns and rifles that appeared to be "fully automatic weapons."

"I saw some stuff on the film that was disturbing and it kind of gained my attention that way," he told CNN's "American Morning."

"I started paying more attention to it," he said.

The tape's contents worried him. "I thought about whether or not it should be reported. I actually waited that night and weighed out my decisions, and I went home and talked to my family about it."

The next day, Morgenstern returned to work and told his manager about the tape and his decision to alert the police. He described Circuit City as being "very supportive" regarding the situation.

Britons kidnapped in Baghdad

By gunmen wearing police uniforms. The fact that it is apparently so easy to get these uniforms could be connected to the fact that there is no attempt made to ensure that those the government employs do not also support the jihad in some way. "Britons kidnapped by gunmen in Baghdad," by Nico Hines, Sam Knight, and Deborah Haynes in the TimesOnline:

Up to five Britons were abducted from a government building in Baghdad today in a brazen kidnapping by gunman dressed in police uniforms.

The victims were four bodyguards and a British economic adviser working at the Finance Ministry for BearingPoint, a US consultancy firm.

The guards are employed by GardaWorld, a Canadian firm that also protects Canon Andrew White, the vicar of St George's Church in Baghdad, and his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME).

D'Souzathon runoff

Yesterday, when Dinesh D'Souza called me the "Alan Wolfe of the right," I offered an autographed copy of my book The Truth About Muhammad to the person who came up with the best "Dinesh D'Souza is the _____ of _____."

There were so many good entries, however, that we're going to have to have a runoff. Please vote for one of these in the comments field below:

1. The Karen Armstrong of the Hoover Institution (Contributed by Still Breathing)
2. Dinesh D'Souza - "Putting the 'me' in Dhimmi since 2007" (Contributed by Bunratty Bill)
3. The Hooper of Hoover (Contributed by justask)
4. The huckster of the highbrows (Contributed by RecoveringHog)
5. Dinesh D'Souza: "Lawrence of Taqiyya" (Contributed by joeblough)
6. The Dilettante of Dhimmitude (Contributed by Brett_McS)
7. The Saladin of wishful thinking (Contributed by I<3Crusades)
8. A voice of reason among the Islamophobes (Contributed by Dinesh D'Souza)

What are they going to do about it?

In this week's Jihad Watch videoblog at Hot Air, I survey some of what the Pew Research Center poll results tell us about Muslims in America, and ask, What is the Muslim community in America going to do about it -- if anything?

Motorcycle bomb kills 4 in southern Thailand

Thai Jihad Update. "Bomb kills four in Muslim southern Thailand," from Reuters:

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A bomb planted on a motorcycle in a busy market in southern Thailand killed four people on Monday, the army said, the latest victims of a Muslim separatist insurgency in which more than 2,100 people have now died. "There are four dead and 23 injured, five of them seriously," army spokesman Acra Tiproch said. Two of the dead were children.

It is not known whether the victims were Buddhist or Muslim.

The blast, in the southern province of Songkhla which has avoided much of the daily violence, came less than a day after a string of seven small bombs in the provincial capital, Hat Yai, wounded 13 people.

Jihadists on trial in Mauritania

"The eight are suspected of receiving funding from part of the Saudi branch of Al-Qaeda to carry out attacks aimed at destabilising Mauritania."

"Up to 10 years jail requested for Islamists on trial in Mauritania," from Agence France-Presse:

NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - A Mauritanian prosecutor on Monday requested up to 10 years behind bars for 25 Islamists on trial accused of links to a terrorist organisation.

A week after the trial began in Nouakchott, prosecutor Ahmed Ould Abdellahi requested prison sentences of between five and 10 years along with forced labour for eight of the defendants in order to "ensure State security".

The eight are suspected of receiving funding from part of the Saudi branch of Al-Qaeda to carry out attacks aimed at destabilising Mauritania.

Abdellahi also requested prison terms of up to 10 years with the possibility of forced labour for 11 other defendants who, he claimed, were associated with "the criminals".

This group stands accused of participating in training in 2004 by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), now known as Al-Qaeda's branch in northern Africa, with the aim of going to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The prosecutor thus changed the initial indictment against the men, who were brought to trial accused of "belonging to a non-authorised organisation" and committing "acts not authorised by the government."

All the charges against the defendants, most of whom were arrested in 2005, fall under Mauritania's anti-terror law.

Four out of the 11 accused of participating in GSPC training have been present at the trial, three are being tried in absentia for escaping from prison in 2006 and four others, who were never arrested, are also being tried in their absence.

The court's announcement Monday that the four latter were also on trial pushed the number of defendants from 21 to 25.

The prosecutor on Monday also called for five defendants, all of them clerics, to be acquitted "due to lacking evidence."

[...]

The verdict is expected at the end of the week, according to the defence.

Grenade attack on Ethiopian crowd kills at least six

From Agence France-Presse:

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - At least six people died and 40 were injured Monday in a hand grenade attack on a crowd in eastern Ethiopia marking the anniversary of the 1991 ouster of a dictator, officials said Monday.

The attack occurred in the main stadium in Jijiga, the capital of the Somali region, during celebrations to mark the end of the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

"Four hand grenades were thrown, three of which were stopped by our security officials," Jema Ahmed Jema, vice president of the Somali region, told AFP.

"Three people died initially from the blast and another three died from the stampede," he said, adding that the regional president, Mohammed Ali Sero, had suffered a minor leg injury.

Jema blamed two local rebel groups, the Oromo Liberation Front and the Al- Ittihad Al-Islami, for the attack and said they were supported by Ethiopia's neighbouring enemy Eritrea.

Background on Al-Ittihad Al-Islami can be found here.

A local aid worker, who asked not to be named, said up to 11 people may have died.

Official news agency ENA put the number of dead at five, with 52 wounded, 10 of them seriously.

"Anti-peace forces and terrorists operating in the region with the assistance of the Eritrean regime threw hand grenades on Monday on 100,000 people who were celebrating the day at Jijiga stadium," the agency said quoting police.

Two police officers are among the dead, the agency said.

Another grenade attack was staged in Degha Bur, a town in the same province, killing seven people and wounding an unspecified number of others, he added.

Federal police spokesman Commander Demsash Hailu told AFP that the same kind of attack that happened in Jijiga also took place at Degha Bur where he said "some people threw the bombs over the crowd into the stadium".

"Five suspects are under control, police has started an investigation," he said, adding: "Police tried to arrest all the suspects and identified who is responsible for these attacks."

Pakistani authorities powerless to apprehend jihad terrorist

The government loses ground to the jihadists in Pakistan. This is, of course, a phenomenon about which we have posted many articles, and which once again demonstrates the power of the jihadists' appeal to represent "pure Islam" -- an appeal to which peaceful Muslims have never mounted an adequate response. "Pakistan losing territory to radicals: The rise of a powerful cleric exposes economic and political failures in a government-administered area," by David Montero for The Christian Science Monitor (thanks to DFS):

SWAT, Pakistan - In this valley of orchards near Afghanistan, 90 police hid along the banks of a riverbed in March, preparing to arrest the powerful Pakistani cleric Maualana Fazlullah. Informants said the target, charged with terrorism, would soon appear with a modest contingent of followers. Instead, Mr. Fazlullah rode into sight on a white horse, surrounded by hundreds of people.

When the officers advanced, brandishing tear gas and batons, word flew through the town. Thousands more supporters turned out to further protect Fazlullah. The officers backed off in an incident that shocked the country, exposing as it did the state's powerlessness to apprehend a wanted terrorist.

Such scenes are common in the tribal agencies of Waziristan, where the Taliban hold sway under a controversial truce signed with the government in September. But Swat is not Waziristan: It rests squarely in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a government-administered area long considered beyond such lawlessness.

The rise of Fazlullah exposes the economic and political failures fanning extremism even in these areas, and hints at the consequences, both for Pakistan and the international community, if the province continues down a path of deprivation. Allow him to persist, many observers say, and others will be emboldened to roll back the state's policies of moderation – small but symbolically important gains in women's empowerment, girls' education, and religious tolerance.

"My opinion is, if you take him out today, there will be a reaction," says Asfandiar Amir Zeb, a former mayor of the district of Swat. "Leave it for a month, there will be a bigger reaction. If you leave it for six months, you won't be able to catch him."

Read it all.

In memoriam

Today is Memorial Day, and while Hugh grills the Jihad Watch burgers I thought I'd note that one of the reasons why the popular culture does not honor our fighting forces today or in general is that the politically correct mindset assumes that we have moved beyond all that. Conflicts don't ever need to be solved with wars, you see. All we need to do is understand each other a little better, show the opposition that we are really good fellows after all, win over a few hearts and minds, teach the children not to hate, and voila, all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.

Unfortunately, in the real world, sometimes one may know someone else quite well, and see that he is a good fellow, and despite all the hand-holding and Kumbaya singing, still want to kill or subjugate for reasons of one's own, that don't proceed from the Kumbaya-singer's actions at all.

This is a point that all too many in Washington, at the highest levels, stubbornly refuse to grasp. It is axiomatic in the State Department, and in Europe, and at the UN, that all conflicts can be solved through negotiated concessions. This is so much a part of the air they all breathe that it would be unthinkable even to question it. No one would even think to ask, "What if we implement state-of-the-art hearts-and-minds initiatives, and conform to all their foreign policy and cultural demands, and they still hate us?" This cannot be. The non-Western man is just a reactor, not an actor. He has no imperatives of his own that might set him against us. He is, ultimately, at our mercy, and it is up to us and us alone to pacify him.

The unconscious paternalism of this is ironic, coming as it does from the most besotted of relativist multiculturalists, but in any case, the fact of Memorial Day, and the reality of those who died in this nation's conflicts, shows it all to be false. Sometimes there are disputes between peoples that can't be smoothed over by any amount of making nice. And then, if a nation does not have within it those who will fight and will die to defend it, it will perish.

Today those who believe we have moved beyond wars, beyond fighting, rule the day. Unfortunately, we face a foe who believes war and fighting is his religious duty. He will not be pacified. Our fight is not just military, although it has a military dimension, and a huge adjustment in our current foreign entanglements is needed to defend ourselves most effectively from this scourge. It is a matter of will. Of remembering that there is in Judeo-Christian civilization, and in all civilizations that are threatened by the jihadist imperative of Islamic supremacism, something worth fighting and dying for. Remembering that we are only here to fight this battle today because others fought and died throughout history for our nations, our people, and the principles for which we stand. Let us not just honor them today, but, each in our way, seek to emulate them.

Remembering Tashbih Sayyed

My friend Tashbih Sayyed, a Jihad Watch Board member, died last week. When I got the news, I did not have words, and posted only this. Now, on Memorial Day, I wanted to try to make up for that.

Tashbih Sayyed was that most rare of human beings: a man absolutely fearless in his commitment to the truth. After 9/11, American Muslim advocacy groups began, with the willing complicity of the mainstream media, to flood the airwaves with a huge mass of disinformation and misinformation about jihad activity in the United States and around the world, and above all about its provenance within Islamic theology and tradition. Instead of acknowledging that there was a mandate to wage war against unbelievers that was rooted in the Qur'an and Islamic tradition, Islamic spokesmen routinely denied this, and castigated those who contended otherwise as "bigots" and "Islamophobes."

Amid all this Tashbih stood virtually alone as an honest man. He stood out sharply among contemporary Muslim spokesmen and activists by admitting that there was a problem within Islam that needed to be solved. As he once told me: "My whole life is devoted to one end: to make the Muslims understand that their theology needs to be reformed and reinterpreted. Anybody who thinks that there's nothing wrong with their theology is either a blind person or an apologist. There are many things in Muslim Scripture that need to be reshaped and reframed and reinterpreted, so that they cannot be used by terrorists to justify homicide bombings and honor killings."

This stance, of course, earned him ostracism and threats, but Tashbih was undaunted. I will never forget his reaction when I asked him whether he thought I should go ahead and write a sira -- a biography of Muhammad -- as I had been considering doing. He said "Of course you should" so quickly that it took me aback: usually when I broached the idea with people their reaction had been to tell me that if I did write such a book I would be threatened and possibly even killed. But Tashbih never flinched. He went on to explain to me that it needed to be done, that the truth needed to come out about these issues -- and clearly that was all that mattered, as far as he was concerned. He knew that if the world was going to prevail against the global jihadist threat, we would all have to take certain risks. And he himself never hesitated to put his life on the line for the truth.

Would that now we had hundreds, and hundreds of thousands, and millions like him, with his quiet strength, his good humor, and his indomitable and unshakeable love for the truth. If we did, the outcome of this present conflict would not be in the slightest doubt.

Tashbih, I am honored that you called me your friend, and I will miss you tremendously. And the forces of civilization have lost a warrior who cannot be replaced.

'Jihad recruiters' held in Spain

Jihad recruitment in al-Andalus. Can anyone explain why Spain should admit anyone from Morocco into the country, given that this sort of thing goes on with apparently no opposition from other Muslim Moroccans in Spain? From the BBC, with thanks to WriterMom:

Spanish police have arrested 14 suspected Islamist militants, mostly in the north-eastern region of Catalonia.

The suspects were allegedly involved in recruiting jihadi volunteers for training in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Police in Catalonia detained 11 in Barcelona and other towns. The others were arrested in Madrid and Malaga.

The interior ministry believes the majority of those arrested are Moroccan nationals. Police have confiscated a considerable amount of computer data.

Dinesh D'Souza's History for Dhimmis

A few days ago Hugh and I answered Dinesh D'Souza's question: "Can you name two previous wars that have been fought between the Shia and the Sunni?" D'Souza asked this question in the course of writing a paragraph that demonstrated yet again, as if fresh demonstration were needed, his abysmal ignorance of all things Islamic, and in this case, Islamic history:

Ask youself this question: can you name two previous wars that have been fought between the Shia and the Sunni? I didn't think so. Neither can I. Because there aren't any. The Shia and the Sunni have not been fighting for centuries. Historically speaking, they have not been fighting at all.

But instead of noting the information we gave him and admitting he was wrong, D'Souza digs himself in even deeper in a new piece, "Robert Spencer's History for Dummies":

Taking up the gauntlet, Robert Spencer purports to answer my challenge to name two wars fought between the Shia and the Sunni. The context for my question was this. I argue that the Shia-Sunni conflict in Iraq is not a religious war. Nor have the Shia and the Sunni fought religious wars in the manner of the Catholic Protestant conflicts in Europe. Rather, I contended that this is a gang fight between two groups over who gets to rule the country.

D'Souza says it's not a "religious war," it's a "gang fight between two groups over who gets to rule the country." By making this distinction he betrays his lack of awareness that there is no traditional delineation between the sacred and the secular in Islam (although reading farther into the one authority he claims to have read on Islam, Bernard Lewis, would have apprised him of this). It's not a "religious war" OR a "gang fight." It's a "religious war" AND a "gang fight." Like so many Western analysts, D'Souza is transposing Western assumptions about what a religion is and how religious people act into an Islamic context, where those assumptions don't hold: he assumes that if wars have a political dimension as well as a religious one, the very presence of political considerations means that the conflicts' religious character must be secondary -- as in the cultural identity politics of the Catholic/Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland. But in a cultural and religious setting that considers the religious to be political and the political to be religious, and earthly dominion to be a sign of Allah's favor, this is a false assumption.

Spencer proceeds to give a list of Shia Sunni conflicts of the past. Interestingly, all but one occurs before the middle of the seventeenth century. That's right! Spencer can name only a single Shia-Sunni clash in the past three hundred and fifty years. So my argument isn't holding up badly at all so far.

One sign of desperation in a debater is when he tries to change the terms of the debate in mid-conflict: he realizes he has lost on the original grounds, so he tries to shift the focus to a fight he thinks he can win. Note here that D'Souza is crowing because I can allegedly "name only a single Shia-Sunni clash in the past three hundred and fifty years." But in his original post did he say a word about limiting the question to the past 350 years? Nope. He asked: "can you name two previous wars that have been fought between the Shia and the Sunni?" No time limit. But when you're losing on the original point, shift your point.

Anyway, I noted that my previous list was not exhaustive. Here are some more Sunni/Shi'a conflicts, from the last 350 years. Andrew Bostom emailed to remind me of the Sunni Afghan invasion and domination of Iran that resulted in intermittent strife for around 70 years, from 1722 until the Shi'ite Qajars regained control in 1795 and reestablished a Shi'ite theocracy. Then there are the frequent Persian/Ottoman conflicts between 1499 and 1822, although since D'Souza imagines that the political and religious are distinct in Islam, he will say those are all political conflicts only. And Hugh reminds us here of the ongoing conflicts, going up to today, between the Sunnis and the Shi'ite Hazaras in Afghanistan. (I wrote about that conflict in Islam Unveiled, a book D'Souza has named in his writings and claims to have read.) There are plenty more still, which I will list if he responds again.

Spencer gets no points for mentioning the battle of Karbala, since I mentioned that in my original post. That was one of the earliest battles in Islam, and it defined the dividing line between Shia and Sunni. Every other conflict that Spencer lists is not a religious conflict. Spencer is simply listing dynastic and political wars that happened to have Shia and Sunni on opposite sides. For example, Iran used to be a Sunni country. When the Safavid rulers came they imposed Shia rule on Iran. That's how Iran became Shia. For the Safavids this was a way to consolidate power and to build alliances. Spencer lists their arrival as a Shia-Sunni war, as if the two sides were fighting over theological issues.

They were, of course, or the conquerors would not have imposed Shi'ism on Persia.

Similarly Spencer lists the ongoing power struggles between the Ottomans and the Safavids as a Shia-Sunni clash. But when there are five Islamic empires all trying to expand, we can expect these dynastic clashes. They occured just as often between Sunni and Sunni as between Sunni and Shia. That's because religion had very little to do with it.

Sure. That's why, again, the Safavids imposed Shi'ism on Persia. Here D'Souza is again reasoning in a deeply flawed manner, assuming that because people sometimes fight about things other than religion, they must never fight about religion.

To test Spencer's logic here, ask yourself this question. Was the 30 year war between England and France a religious war because there were Protestants on one side and Catholics on the other? Of course not, because the parties were not fighting about religion. Transubstantiation was not the issue. This was a war over territorial control and power. Another example: in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the British and the French fought several battles in India. Were these Anglican-Catholic wars? No, both countries wanted India as their colonial prize.

Using Christian examples to prove something about Islam is based once again on the assumption that the distinction between the religious and the political is identical in both religions. If D'Souza would actually read his Lewis books instead of admiring them on his shelf, he would know this is not the case.

Now I come to Spencer's recent example, and please don't laugh. It is the Iran-Iraq war. Here we see Spencer's power of discernment in full gear. Saddam was a secular dictator whose Baathist party drew its inspiration more from European fascism than from Islam. How can his eight-year fight with Khomeini be counted as a Shia-Sunni struggle? Spencer is unfazed. After all, Saddam was himself a Sunni and many of his henchmen were Sunni. Yes, Spencer, but the majority of Iraqis are Shia. If this truly was a Shia-Sunni conflict, why didn't the majority of Iraqi Shia fight on Khomeini's side? Khomeini was the leader of the Shia armies of Iran. The very fact that the Iraqi Shia fought on Saddam's side and were willing to kill their fellow Shia in Iran shows that they did not view this war as a Shia-Sunni conflict. Khomeini tried to make it one, in order to win Shia defectors from Iraq, but in this he was completely unsuccessful.

D'Souza demonstrates here that he knows as little about Saddam Hussein and the Iran/Iraq war as he does about Islam in general. Yes, most Iraqis are Shia. Does D'Souza think it would have been an easy thing for them to leave Iraq and cross the lines to fight on Khomeini's side? Does D'Souza think it would have been an easy thing to decline an invitation to join Saddam Hussein's military? He actually says, "The very fact that the Iraqi Shia fought on Saddam's side and were willing to kill their fellow Shia in Iran shows that they did not view this war as a Shia-Sunni conflict" -- as if they had a free choice in the matter, and Saddam's regime was gentle toward conscientious objectors.

How hospitable was Saddam Hussein toward the Shi'ites? Let me count the ways. Before 1963, there was considerable Shi'ite involvement in the Ba'ath Party. When al-Bakr (and his deputy Saddam) took power in Iraq in 1968, Shi'ite membership in the Ba'ath Party fell to six percent. Of the 15 members of the Revolutionary Command Council, none were Shi'ite. Saddam's persecution of the Shi'ites is well documented: in the 1970s and 1980s, he had numerous Shi'ite clerics tortured and killed, and during the war, he appealed to Iranian Sunnis to turn against the mullahocracy.

Anyway, in the "argument weak here, yell like hell" tradition, D'Souza concludes his latest farrago with a bit of chest-thumping:

With intellectual adversaries like Spencer, I never have to worry. He specializes in launching boomerang strikes that leave him gasping in a heap. I wish him well, but the poor fellow is quickly establishing himself as the Alan Wolfe of the right.

Gasping, yes. In a heap of laughter and chagrin at how this man continually backs himself into a corner and refuses to admit it, and continues to expose his own ignorance and carelessness with the facts. Rishwain scholar of the Hoover Institution, eh? I should think they would be backing away from Dinesh D'Souza as quickly as they can at this point. Anyway, I was trying to think of a good rejoinder to "the Alan Wolfe of the right." Hugh and I tossed around some ideas -- maybe D'Souza is the "Walter Duranty of the global jihad," or the "Clifford Irving of the right," but let's have some fun with this. It's a Jihad Watch Contest: come up with the best "D'Souza is the ____ of the ____," and you'll win an autographed Truth About Muhammad. Post your entries in the comments field here.

Blogging the Qur’an: Introduction

To understand the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists, one good place to start might be to explore what they themselves say about why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what they want. That in turn will lead you to the Qur’an (or Koran), the Islamic holy book. The jihadists quote it frequently and portray themselves as those who are following “pure Islam,” the genuine article as it is taught in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. So in the course of my work explaining the jihadists’ objectives, I’ve quoted the Qur’an a great deal – and hardly a day goes by without my being accused of “cherry-picking” violent passages, and quoting them “out of context.” Meanwhile, the Council on American Islamic Relations and other Muslim groups say that in order to understand the true, peaceful Islam, we should read the Qur’an.

So over the course of the next few months, I’m going to read it, and discuss it in a series of columns. All of it. Not “cherry-picked” or “out of context.” The whole thing, beginning to end. Some of you may be familiar with David Plotz’s series on Slate, “Blogging the Bible.” This series will be similar to that one, but rather than just write about what I think or feel about a certain passage, I will, unlike Plotz, refer to commentaries – all Muslim ones – on the Qur’an. I’ll try to explain how mainstream Muslims who study the Qur’an will understand any given passage, and what its import might be for non-Muslims.

You’ll need a Qur’an. Here is a good Arabic/English text. In traditional Islamic theology, the Qur’an is essentially and inherently an “Arabic Qur’an” (as the Qur’an describes itself repeatedly: see 12:2; 20:113; 39:28; 41:3; 41:44; 42:7; and 43:3). Its meaning can be rendered in other languages, but those translations are not the Qur’an, which when no longer in Arabic is no longer itself. Some Muslim scholars even claim that the Qur’an cannot be fully understood except in Arabic, but the blizzard of translations made by Muslims for Muslims who don’t speak Arabic (who are the great majority around the world today) as well as to proselytize among non-Muslims belies that claim. Here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.

The Qur’an is, according to classic Islamic thought, a perfect copy of a book that has existed eternally with Allah, the one true God, in Heaven: “it is a transcript of the eternal book [in Arabic, “mother of the book”] in Our keeping, sublime, and full of wisdom” (43:4). The angel Gabriel revealed it in sections to Muhammad (570-632), an Arabian merchant. Like Jesus, Muhammad left the written recording of his messages to others. Unlike Jesus, Muhammad did not originate his message, but only served as its conduit. The Qur’an is for Muslims the pure Word of Allah. They point to its poetic character as proof that it did not originate with Muhammad, whom they say was illiterate, but with the Almighty, who dictated every word. The average Muslim believes that everything in the book is absolutely true and that its message is applicable in all times and places.

This is a stronger claim than Christians make for the Bible. When Christians of whatever tradition say that the Bible is God’s Word, they don’t mean that God spoke it word-for-word and that it’s free of all human agency — instead, there is the idea of “inspiration,” that God breathed through human authors, working through their human knowledge to communicate what he wished to. But for Muslims, the Qur’an is more than inspired. There is not and could not be a passage in the Qur’an like I Corinthians 1:14-17 in the New Testament, where Paul says: “I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius; lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else.)” Paul’s faulty memory demonstrates the human element of the New Testament, which for Christians does not negate, but exists alongside the texts’ inspired character. But in the Qur’an, Allah is the only speaker throughout (with a few notable exceptions). There is no human element. The book is the pure and unadulterated divine word.

Allah himself tells him this, in the Qur’an itself: “This is a mighty scripture. Falsehood cannot reach it from before or from behind” (41:41-2). It is “free from any flaw” (39:28). In short, “it is the indubitable truth” (69:51). Allah, speaking in a royal plural that does not, according to Muslim theologians, compromise his absolute unity, proclaims that “it was We that revealed the Koran, and shall Ourself preserve it” (15:9). But reading the Qur’an is not always easy. Since so much of it consists of Allah speaking with Muhammad, it is often rather like listening in on a conversation between two people you don’t know, talking about events with which you were uninvolved. Even though a surprisingly large amount of what the Qur’an says is said more than once, still often the reader can’t figure out what’s being said, or why, without reference to Muslim tradition.

Also, it has no overarching narrative unity, although there are smaller narrative units within many chapters. With the exception of the brief first chapter (sura), its 114 chapters are a