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"The chaos over the past two days has raised fears that the type of car bomb attacks that have become commonplace in Iraq has now reached European shores."
"Police Arrest 2 More in Connection With London, Scotland Terror Incidents," from the Associated Press:
GLASGOW, Scotland — Three terrorist suspects were in police custody Sunday — and a fourth man under guard in hospital — following attacks that saw a flaming jeep crash into a Scottish airport and two car bomb plots foiled in central London.
Scotland Yard said two people had been arrested in Cheshire, a county in northern England, in a joint swoop by specialist officers from London and Birmingham.
[...]
The chaos over the past two days has raised fears that the type of car bomb attacks that have become commonplace in Iraq has now reached European shores. Late Saturday, Britain raised its security alert level to critical — the highest possible level, indicating terror attacks may be imminent.
[...]
British Broadcasting Corp. television reported, without citing sources, that the man was wearing a suicide belt and that police had found propane gas cylinders in the Glasgow Jeep.
Rae would not say whether the device found on the suspect was a suicide belt, and made no mention of gas cylinders. However, British security officials said evidence pointed toward the Glasgow attack being a suicide mission.
London police said the latest arrests were in connection with both attacks, but did not elaborate. Officials declined to say if those arrested were men or women, or whether either suspect was a figure seen running from one of the explosive laden cars dumped in London.
[...]
Police wrestled the driver and a passenger, both described by witnesses as South Asian, to the ground, arresting them and taking one to the hospital. Witnesses said one of the men was engulfed in flames and spoke "gibberish" as an official used a fire extinguisher to douse the fire.
Glasgow police spokeswoman Elisa Dunn said five bystanders were treated for injuries, and one was hospitalized with a leg injury. Scottish airline authorities said around 2,500 passengers had been evacuated from the airport.
A report at CNN includes this account:
Witness Jackie Kennedy told the BBC that after the crash, a passenger in the Jeep doused himself with fuel from a can and ignited it, then got out of the vehicle. Airport police used fire extinguishers on him, and he fell to the ground, she said.
"I realized that this was obviously deliberately done -- the fact that the guy was in flames and seemed to be enjoying himself, even smiling," Kennedy told the BBC.
An update on the Glasgow attack. "Flaming SUV Rams U.K. Airport; 2 Arrests," by Ian Stewart for the Associated Press:
A Jeep Cherokee trailing a cascade of flames rammed into Glasgow airport on Saturday, shattering glass doors just yards from passengers lined up at the check-in counters. Police said they believed the attack was linked to two car bombs found in London the day before.
Britain raised its terror alert to "critical" the highest possible level and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.
One of the men in the car was in critical condition at a hospital with severe burns, while the other was in police custody, said Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. He said a "suspect device" was found on the man at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location where it was being investigated.
Rae would not say whether the device was a suicide belt. British security officials said evidence pointed toward the Glasgow attack being a suicide mission.
"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Rae said. "There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."
[...]
A British government security official said the methods used in the airport attack and Friday's thwarted plots were similar, with all three vehicles carrying large quantities of flammable liquid.
"A US official told ABCNews.com that the intelligence reports led to the assignment of Federal Air Marshals to flights into and out of both Glasgow and Prague."
"US Warned of Glasgow Threat Two Weeks Ago," by Richard Esposito and Rhonda Schwartz for ABC News' The Blotter:
U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against "airport infrastructure or aircraft," a senior US law enforcement officials tells the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
The intelligence reports also warned that airports and aircraft in the Czech Republic could be the targets of al Qaeda-connected terrorists.
The warnings were kept secret for operational reasons, according to officials. In public, the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff have continued to maintain they know of no specific or credible threats involving the United States, even though the intelligence reports specify US aircraft as possible targets.
A US official told ABCNews.com that the intelligence reports led to the assignment of Federal Air Marshals to flights into and out of both Glasgow and Prague.
Air marshals had been added to flights into and out of Germany late last month, based on similar warnings.
From Sky News. The "critical" level warns of an imminent attack.
Watch this space for updates.
Also, "U.S. Orders Boost in Airport Security in Wake of London, Glasgow Terror Acts," from Fox News:
WASHINGTON — Some U.S. airports will tighten security in response to possible terrorist incidents in Britain, the White House said Saturday.
The United States, however, is not raising its terror alert status, President Bush's spokesman said. "There is no indication of any specific or credible threat to the United States -- no change in the overall security level," Tony Snow told reporters in Maine.
The Transportation Security Administration has taken steps to raise alertness at some airports, Snow said. More TSA agents will be posted outside some terminals, he said.
Eyewitness reports indicate this was no accident. "Blazing car crashes into airport," from the BBC:
A car on fire has been driven at the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport, police have confirmed.
Eyewitnesses have described a Jeep Cherokee being driven at speed towards the building with flames coming out from underneath.
They have also described seeing two Asian men, one of whom was on fire, who had been in the car.
Strathclyde Police said two people had been arrested and detained in connection with the incident.
The airport has been evacuated and all flights suspended following the incident at 1515 BST.
A Whitehall spokesman said the incident was not being treated as a national security threat however the prime minister is being kept informed of developments and is expected to chair a meeting of COBRA - the emergency committee later.
First Minister Alex Salmond has activated emergency procedures in response to the incident.
The incident comes a day after two cars were found containing explosives in central London.
The cars contained petrol, gas cylinders and nails but the devices did not detonate.
One eyewitness said: "I heard the sound of a car's wheels spinning and smoke coming out.
"I saw a Jeep Cherokee apparently as if it was trying to get right through the doors into the terminal building.
"There were flames coming out from underneath then some men appeared from in amongst the flames.
"The police ran over and the people started fighting with the police. I then heard what sounded like an explosion."
Molotov cocktails
Eye-witness Richard Grey told BBC News 24: "A green Jeep was in the middle of the doorway burning.
"There was an Asian guy who was pulled out of the car by two police officers, who he was trying to fight off. They've got him on the ground.
"The car didn't actually explode. There were a few pops and bangs which presumably was the petrol."
Stephen Clarkson said he saw people running towards him and "panicking" then noticed a crashed Cherokee jeep.
He said he helped police restrain one of the men.
"It was lucky that I was there," he said.
"I managed to knock the man to the ground with my forearm and the police got on top of him and restrained him and put handcuffs on him."
Thomas Conroy, a maintenance worker at the airport believes the men deliberately tried to set the car on fire.
"It looked like they had molotov cocktails with them," he said.
"They sort of burst them round about the flames to make sure the car would go up big style.
"Within minutes it was up and the terminal caught as well."
'No accident'
[...]
Taxi driver Ian Crosby said: "This was no accident. This was a deliberate attack on Glasgow Airport."
UPDATE: Sky News reports that this is "being treated as a terrorist strike," and "armed police have now closed off Blackpool airport."
"Was London Bomb Plot Heralded On Web?" by Tucker Reals for CBS News:
Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital's tourist-rich theater district, a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed."
CBS News found the posting, which went on for nearly 300 words, on the "al Hesbah" chat room. It was left by a person who goes by the name abu Osama al-Hazeen, who appears regularly on the forum. The comment was posted on the forum, according to time stamp, at 08:09 a.m. British time on June 28 -- about 17 hours before the bomb was found early on June 29.
Al Hesbah is frequently used by international Sunni militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, to post propaganda videos and messages in their fight against the West.
There was no way for CBS News to independently confirm any connection between the posting made Thursday night and the car bomb found Friday.
Al-Hazeen's message begins: "In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Is Britain Longing for al Qaeda's bombings?"
No.
Al-Hazeen decries the recent knighthood of controversial author Salman Rushdie as a blow felt by all British Muslims. "This 'honoring' came at a crucial time, a time when the whole nation is reeling from the crusaders attacks on all Muslim lands," he said, in an apparent reference to the British role in Iraq.
"We say to Britain: The Emir of al Qaeda, Sheikh Osama, has once threatened you, and he carried out his threats. Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed," the message reads.
Speaking at a news conference Friday after the bomb scare in central London, the Metropolitan Police force's Counter-Terrorism Commander Peter Clarke said that officials had "no indication that we were going to be attacked this way".
Prior to the Thursday night posting by al-Hazeen, there had been no specific allusions to threats against London or Britain seen on al Hesbah, or any other major jihadist forums in recent weeks.
Several responses to the posting by other forum members expressed hope that an attack against London would be realized in the near future.
In response, al-Hazeen urges patience, saying, "Victory is very close, but you are just rushing it."
Among other foreign jihadists. "Arrested Aussies 'not senior extremists'," by Ed O'Loughlin for the Sydney Morning Herald:
POLICE who arrested boxing champion Ahmed Elomar with two other Australian friends in Lebanon say that the three are not known to be senior wanted extremists.
"These are not names that I've heard of," said Lt Colonel Bassem al Ayoubi, the chief of police in Tripoli, when asked about the Elomar group. "I don't think they are major people."
But two other Australians arrested in connection to the bloody shoot-out in Tripoli on June 24 are still being interrogated by military intelligence over suspected links to the international jihadi movement.
Nine people died in a ten-hour gunbattle after former Australian taxi driver Omar Hadba broke under interrogation and led police to a militant cell hiding in an apartment belonging to Basam al Sayed, another dual Australian-Lebanese citizen.
Among the dead were five Sunni militants (three Saudis, a Chechen and a Lebanese), a Lebanese soldier, and an off-duty policeman and his two daughters, aged eight and four.
Police said that hours before the fatal raid they had recovered a substantial arsenal of weapons and other military equipment from Hadba's property.
The arrests of five Australian citizens in the north Lebanon city come at a time of high tension between the Lebanese government and the strongly Sunni Muslim local population
"We are arresting a lot of people at this time, some thanks to investigations and others due to suspicions," said Lt Colonel Ayoubi. "We interrogate them and if there's nothing we let them go."
Police have yet to make any specific allegations against the group of three Australian men who were arrested on June 20, including boxing champion Ahmed Elomar.
"The ministry had said the men arrested Tuesday were suspected of recruiting people to send to jihadist training camps in Africa."
From Agence France-Presse:
MADRID: Spain's Interior Ministry said Friday police had arrested a Moroccan man in Barcelona suspected of having links to Al-Qaeda, three days after three other Moroccans were detained for the same reason. The ministry said the man arrested Friday was "presumed linked to the Al-Qaeda cell dismantled this week." The ministry had said the men arrested Tuesday were suspected of recruiting people to send to jihadist training camps in Africa. Morocco is seeking the trio's extradition, the ministry said, adding they were thought to belong to an Al-Qaeda group which claimed responsibility for more than 30 deaths in attacks in Algeria. Al-Qaeda-linked fighters are being trained in countries in the Sahel region such as Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
This week's arrests follow an investigation launched in 2005 after Morocco dismantled a militant network with branches in Spain. The Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat changed its name late last year after it rebranded itself the North African branch of Al-Qaeda.
And then, sympathizers would accuse government forces of destroying the mosque themselves. Lal Masjid Update. "Suicide bombers hiding in mosque, claims Musharraf," from Reuters:
ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf yesterday said suicide bombers from an Al Qaeda-linked militant group are holed up in a mosque in the centre of the capital, Islamabad.
Authorities have been locked in a tense standoff for months with clerics and students associated with Lal Masjid, who are pushing for imposition of Taliban-style social values in Islamabad.
Clerics at the mosque had threatened suicide attacks if government used force against them. Speaking to reporters, Musharraf said militants of Jaish-e-Mohamed, an Al Qaeda-linked group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, were hiding in the mosque.
“They are indoctrinated people,” he told a workshop on journalism. “There are also people associated to Jaish-e-Mohamed. They have explosives. Many of them are ready to carry out suicide attacks,” he added.
Musharraf, who survived two Al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts, said the government had tried to resolve the standoff through negotiations to avoid bloodshed in the sprawling mosque complex.
“Action is ready but timing is important,” he said. “I am not a coward person ... but the issue is tomorrow you will say what have you done. There are women and children inside,” he said.
[...]
Maulana Abdul Aziz, chief cleric of the mosque, said his followers would carry out suicide attacks if the government used force.
The date of this statement is unclear from the article, but nonetheless telling, and the cleric certainly has not retracted it:
“If the government carried out an operation then we will follow the way of jihad... our male and female students can carry out suicide attack as a last option,” he said, his face covered with a scarf.
On American television, shows "jump the shark." On Hamas TV, apparently they "martyr the mouse." And then it's time to move on to new programming. An update on this story. "Hamas TV show kills militant mouse character," from the Associated Press:
GAZA CITY (AP) -- A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children's television program was the victim of a pretend beating death in the show's final episode Friday.
Gone with a final salvo of anti-Israel rhetoric:
In the final skit, the "Farfour" character was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a "terrorist."
"Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.
The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel. It was broadcast on Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV.
Station officials said Friday that Farfour was taken off the air to make room for new programs. Station manager Mohammed Bilal said he did not know what would be shown instead.
Israeli officials have denounced the program, "Tomorrow's Pioneers," as incendiary and outrageous. The program was also opposed by the state-run Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., which is controlled by Fatah, Hamas' rival.
"Two explosive-laden cars in London linked," from CNN:
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A vehicle containing fuel, gas canisters and nails found early Friday near Trafalgar Square is "clearly linked" to another explosives-packed car found outside a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus, Metropolitan Police said.
A "considerable" amount of fuel and gas canisters, along with a "substantial quantity of nails," was found in the blue Mercedes 280E, said Peter Clarke, Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner.
He called the discovery of the second bomb "troubling," but urged the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior to authorities.
The second vehicle was ticketed about 2:30 a.m. Friday (9:30 p.m. Thursday ET), Clarke said. It was near Trafalgar Square, roughly a half-mile from where the first vehicle -- also a Mercedes -- had been found about an hour earlier.
About 3:30 a.m., Clarke said, the Mercedes was taken to an impound lot in Hyde Park. Security sources earlier told CNN that workers who towed it thought the car smelled of gasoline, and became suspicious because of the reports that gasoline was among the explosive materials found in the first vehicle.
Clarke said the second device, like the first, was "potentially viable" but was rendered safe by police explosives officers.
And the neutralized bombs, of course, should prove to be a bonanza for forensic investigators.
"These vehicles are clearly linked," he said.
Not Methodists. Not from Phoenix. "Terror Plot Involves Islamic Extremists; Police Have 'Crystal Clear' Picture of Suspect," by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito for ABC News:
British police have a "crystal clear" picture of the man who drove the bomb-rigged silver Mercedes outside a London nightclub, and officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com he bears "a close resemblance" to a man arrested by police in connection with another bomb plot but released for lack of evidence.
Officials say the suspect had been taken into custody in connection with the case of al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot, who was convicted of orchestrating a vehicle bomb plot involving targets in London, New York, Newark, N.J. and Washington, D.C.
Officials say a surveillance camera caught the suspect "staggering from the Mercedes" shortly after parking it outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub.
U.S. and British law enforcement officials tell ABC News it is increasingly clear Friday's bomb plot in London involves multliple vehicles, and is described by a senior official as a "terror plot involving lslamic extremists."
The car contained five or six propane and butane gas cylinders as well as 33 gallons of gasoline, all rigged to detonate with calls to two cell phones. Officials say the cell phones failed to initiate the explosions, even after each phone had been called twice.
Hmmm. Methodists from Phoenix?
"Police avert car bomb 'carnage,'" from the BBC, with thanks to Mao:
...Police were alerted by an ambulance crew who saw smoke coming from the silver Mercedes, parked near the Tiger Tiger nightclub."International elements" are believed to be involved, the BBC has been told.
Police sources say it is quite possible the device failed to ignite - and might have been minutes away from exploding.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, said: "It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life."...
This call for "true SCHOLARS" comes into the Hate Mail Bag from ThanksToBeAMuslim@AllahSWT.org:
I hope some (few) commentators here are true SCHOLARS (started by Islam- during the WesternDarkAge- lol). It is clear the Autistic-Depressed-JewishCancerGene needs AGAIN...yes...AGAI..therapy. Now I know why GOD (Allah-SWT) "cursed" the jews...it speaks for itself in the hateful, proud-for-nothing-INTEREST-gulping Jews (not all few Jews know Islam is THE ANSWER). So, what is the deal with the "flip-flop" authors of the corrupted writers. You "changed" the message of Isa (Jesus-PBUH) and then God (Allah) sent ISLAM...yes..."swallow" that...it will "burn" your BLACK heart...fire from the HELL itself. WE...again..we DO NOT CARE about you.. got it YOU are free to worship your "golden cow" made out of INTEREST (RIBA) money of the "poor" citizens. LEAVE US ALONE TO OUR LIFE. "but, but" if you mess with us THIS TRUE Princess of the ARABS and Indian and CHINA and Africa will BLOW you out...
In "Kosovo conundrum" in the Washington Times (thanks to all who sent this in), Michael Djordjevich of the Studenica Foundation discusses U.S. aid for the Kosovo jihad:
...Kosovo is unfinished business, left over from the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia in the past decade and the legacy of fundamentally flawed American policies promulgated by the Clinton administration and then perpetuated by his successor. In terms and perspective of American long-term geostrategy and the ongoing struggle with radical Islam, it is indeed unfathomable how our foreign policy establishment has rationalized its strategy in the Balkans. Already, a body of impartial evidence strongly suggests an inexplicably steady policy of accommodation by the United States to Islamist demands. Essentially, at several key junctures on the road to peace and stability in the Balkans, America gave veto power to extreme Islamist leadership and its supporters worldwide.The U.S. objective in Bosnia has been to establish a unitary state governed by Muslims, in effect abrogating the international treaty, the Dayton Accords. Together with the European Union, the United States has exerted consistent and relentless pressure to abolish or at least severely diminish the Serbian entity.
Currently in Kosovo, America is aggressively forcing the establishment of the second Muslim state in Europe. This is in contravention of international law and despite serious misgivings in Europe and resolute resistance by Russia.
An independent Kosovo would be a failed state, ethnically and religiously cleansed of Serbs and other minorities. During the past eight years of U.N. and NATO control of the province, the non-Albanian population experienced ethnic cleansings, destruction of a great number of homes and more than 100 churches and other medieval evidences of overwhelming Christian presence. Add to this a flourishing international drug and white slave trafficking, Kosovo is rather far from the democratic and multicultural model that the U.S. foreign policy establishment professes to support. Obviously these are not credentials for independence.
Equally serious is the undeniable rise of the puritanical strain of Wahabbi Islam and real potential for increased interacting between heroin trafficking and crime with terrorists in Kosovo, Southern Serbia, Bosnia and Northern Macedonia.
Read it all.
When he spoke this week at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Islamic Center of Washington, President Bush said: "In the Middle East, we have seen instead the rise of a group of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power and a means of domination. This self-appointed vanguard presumes to speak for Muslims. They do not."
There we are again. The Administration and the mainstream media (both Left and Right) take it as axiomatic that the jihad we see all over the world today represents a perversion of Islam, repudiated by the vast majority of Muslims. The American Muslim advocacy industry, chiefly the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has recently been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case, has quite successfully portrayed any exploration of the elements of Islam that give rise to and justify jihad violence and Islamic supremacism as a manifestation of "hatred," "bigotry," "Islamophobia." Those who do not accept the iron dogma that Islam contains nothing within it that can reasonably be used to justify terrorism are vilified and marginalized.
However, consider for a moment that if the iron dogma is false, the dogmatists are doing a grave disservice to the United States and even to peaceful Muslims. For if there is nothing in Islam that needs reforming, we cannot possibly offer assistance to Islamic reformers. And if Islam is a fundamentally peaceful belief-system, then we need not reevaluate our immigration policies vis-a-vis Muslims entering the U.S. from a national security standpoint, and we need not call American mosques to account for what they are teaching. If we're just dealing with a few crazies, we need not call upon Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere to perform a searching and honest reevaluation of their beliefs, and decide whether they want to live in a state of conflict with the rest of the international community on an indefinite basis. I suspect that if the question were posed to Muslims worldwide, many would opt for otherwise universally accepted notions of human rights: the freedom of conscience, equality of dignity of women and men, equality of dignity of non-Muslims with Muslims. But we will never know, because Western leaders wouldn't dare pose the question on those terms. After all, they don't want to be seen as "hatemongers."
But there is another aspect to that hatemongering. And that is that the vision of Islam and jihad that the "hatemongers" present today is identical to the one that was universally accepted by academics, including Muslim ones, up until the age of political correctness and Said's Left-McCarthyite Orientalism swept propagandists like Carl Ernst, Omid Safi, Rashid Khalidi and others into our universities. If this is an unfair picture of Islam, motivated by hatred and powered by selection bias involving the ignoring of peaceful Muslim authorities, that is an exceedingly strange fact. But fact it is. Let us examine, to take just one example, the work of the great Islamic scholar Majid Khadduri, who died earlier this year at the age of 98.
Khadduri was an Iraqi and a scholar of Islamic law of international renown. I've lately been revisiting his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject. Khadduri says this about jihad:
The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God's law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world. It refused to recognize the coexistence of non-Muslim communities, except perhaps as subordinate entities, because by its very nature a universal state tolerates the existence of no other state than itself. Although it was not a consciously formulated policy, Muhammad's early successors, after Islam became supreme in Arabia, were determined to embark on a ceaseless war of conquest in the name of Islam. The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)
And:
Thus the jihad may be regarded as Islam's instrument or carrying out its ultimate objective by turning all people into believers, if not in the prophethood of Muhammad (as in the case of the dhimmis), at least in the belief in God. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have declared "some of my people will continue to fight victoriously for the sake of the truth until the last one of them will combat the anti-Christ." Until that moment is reached the jihad, in one form or another, will remain as a permanent obligation upon the entire Muslim community. It follows that the existence of a dar al-harb is ultimately outlawed under the Islamic jural order; that the dar al-Islam is permanently under jihad obligation until the dar al-harb is reduced to non-existence; and that any community which prefers to remain non-Islamic -- in the status of a tolerated religious community accepting certain disabilities -- must submit to Islamic rule and reside in the dar al-Islam or be bound as clients to the Muslim community. (Page 64)
Khadduri is, in Bush's words, explaining a doctrine that uses "religion as a path to power and a means of domination." Was Khadduri an "Islamophobe"? A "propangandist"? A practitioner of "selection bias"? A diabolical character misrepresenting the testimony of the texts? Did he ignore Islam's peacefulness and moderation? Those who level such charges at those who discuss the jihad ideology of Islamic supremacism today should kindly explain how it is that a scholar like Khadduri (and there are others like him, which I will discuss at another time) could have come to the same conclusions as the "venomous Orientalists" of the 1950s and the "Islamophobic propagandists" of today.
Fair-minded observers, however, should take Khadduri's scholarship as confirming the findings of those who say today that elements of Islam are giving rise to violence and terrorism today, and that that must be addressed by both Muslims and non-Muslims if there is ever going to be an end to it.
Not that Khadduri saw it coming, at least in 1955. In the same book, he wrote that the jihad ideology had largely fallen into desuetude:
The Muslim states, however, are quite aware that at the present it is not possible to revive the traditional religious approach to foreign affairs, nor is it in their interests to do so, as the circumstances permitting the association of religion in the relations among nations have radically changed....the jihad [has] become an obsolete weapon...Islam has at last accepted, after a long period of tension and friction with Christendom, its integration into a world order which, although originating in western Europe, now tends to encompass the entire world. (Pages 295-296)
Those assertions were much truer in 1955 than they are in 2007. Today we are dealing with a global movement that is doing all it can "to revive the traditional religious approach to foreign affairs," and who vehemently reject the idea that "the jihad [has] become an obsolete weapon." They are explicit opponents of the "world order" which originated in western Europe, and posit Sharia as an alternative to it. Note that Khadduri doesn't say that Islamic sects and schools have rejected jihad and reformed the doctrines that mandated Islamic supremacism. Rather, he says that these doctrines were set aside in practice. And now they are being taken up again, fifty years after Khadduri was ready to pronounce them dead -- and now many Western analysts, ignorant of history, think that only we introduce Western ideas into the Islamic world, they will be widely adopted.
In fact, those ideas have long been present, and today's global jihad represents a rejection of them, not a manifestation of ignorance of them. Hugh Fitzgerald has frequently pointed out here that Saudi oil money, massive Muslim immigration into the West, and the revolution in communications technology have made this reassertion possible. I would also add that the Khomeini revolution in Iran has encouraged jihadists in numerous ways, not least by demonstrating that they can capture a state and hold power.
But Bush's address is just the latest example of the fact that Western leaders are largely ignoring all this, and continuing to make policy based on fictions. Karen Hughes is reading John Esposito and Reza Aslan instead of Majid Khadduri and those who confirm his analysis. The negative consequences of this will only grow more obvious as time goes on.
Sheikh Sa'd Sharaf is proceeding from a fact that we have pointed out here again and again: that the jihadists appeal to Muslims by presenting themselves as the exponents of "true Islam," and moderate Muslims (not to say that Fatah is a genuine example of such people) have made no effective comeback. We have, incidentally, been harshly criticized for pointing this out; will Sheik Sa'd Sharaf now be denounced also as an "Islamophobe"?
"West Bank activists push peace, moderation," by Joshua Mitnick for the Washington Times (thanks to Davida):
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Some Palestinian political activists are encouraging the secular Fatah party, which controls the West Bank, to combat radical Islam by incorporating religious teachings that emphasize peace and moderation.Sheik Sa'd Sharaf said he is pushing Fatah leaders to enlist religious figures to openly debate the violent interpretation of the Koran as espoused by the rival Hamas militia.
"The prophet Muhammad says, 'Don't kill those who don't use weapons against you. Don't kill a woman. Don't kill a baby,' " he said.
He is reported to have said that. Unfortunately, the data on this point, as on so many others, is not unambiguous. There is also a hadith in which Muhammad is "asked about the women and children of the polytheists being killed during the night raid." Muhammad responded, "They are from them," which has generally been understood to mean that it was acceptable for them to have been killed.
Also, the idea that Fatah could possibly oppose Hamas because the latter kills women and children and the former doesn't is laughable on its face.
Sheik Sharaf, who preaches in mosques, lectures at a junior college and hosts a television program from the West Bank city of Nablus, said the key to Islamist group Hamas' success has been its ability to present itself as representing the one authentic version of Islam....
Oh Sheikh, you Islamophobe!
Another prominent Palestinian, Mohammed Dajani, has established a religious movement called Wasatia — a term from the Koran meaning "centrism," "balance" or "moderation."Unlike Sheik Sharaf, who hopes to moderate Fatah with religion, Mr. Dajani believes that a new political party is needed to fill a vacuum between Fatah and Hamas.
Although a secular party, Fatah militants are as deadly as Hamas. A radical offshoot of the group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, has also boasted of dozens of suicide bombings inside Israel.
"We are undergoing a social, religious, economic and a political crisis," said Mr. Dajani, who also teaches political science at Al Quds University in East Jerusalem.
"We feel that this crisis will not be addressed without the rise of a new party — a middle-ground Islamic party supporting tolerance and calling for dialogue. This is the only solution."
Alongside quotes from the Jewish holy book, the Talmud, and the New Testament, the Wasatia Web site quotes the Koran as saying "we have created you a midground nation" and ascribes to Muhammad the saying: "The best way to run affairs is moderation."
This "balance" and "moderation" or "midground" is Qur'an 2:143: "We have created you a balanced (or middle, moderate, midground, etc.) nation...."
Mr. Dajani said he wants to change pre-school and elementary school curriculum teachings on "jihad," which he says extol violence and discourage interfaith coexistence."Religion is being hijacked and misrepresented," he said in a recent interview with a Jewish peace group. "Palestinian society is moderate, but being pushed to extremism and fundamentalism. This is not the Islam we were raised on."
Sheik Sharaf, who wants to reform Fatah by creating a religious branch within the organization, acknowledges that politicians in the Fatah movement have largely ignored efforts.
"[Fatah] doesn't understand the danger. They are ignorant in this," he said.
But he also believes that in the two weeks since Hamas' takeover of Gaza and their public executions of Fatah members, more Palestinians have become disillusioned by the Hamas brand of Islam.
"I want to prevent the misleading of the people," he said.
Well, Sheikh, I hope you pull it off.
Olmert admits defeat, and tells the residents of Sderot to get used to jihad attacks. When has the leader of a nation ever spoken this way? The sooner the Israelis get a new Prime Minister, the better.
By Hana Levi Julian for Israel National News (thanks to WriterMom):
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned in a speech at the annual Caesarea Conference Thursday night that Sderot residents should not expect to be completely protected against Kassam rocket attacks fired at the town from northern Gaza.The Prime Minister declared that his government cannot offer reinforced rooftops for every edifice within rocket range, saying: "A country cannot protect itself ad infinitum, because there would be no end to it."
He added that providing rocket-proof structures to all the city’s beleaguered residents who have suffered continuous rocket attacks for seven years, would come at the expense of the security establishment's operational needs.
The Prime Minister also took a swipe at the media and said it should not "encourage, even mutely, demands of citizens that no normal government could accept."
Probably not Irish. From SkyNews (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
Shane Brighton, a counter-terrorism expert, told Sky the device may be linked to Al Qaeda in the wake of Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister.He said: "This is highly unlikely to be an Irish device, given the current state of politics there. Al Qaeda tend to go for symbolic timing."
Watch out: there could be more. From Bloomberg:
``The police did not have any advance intelligence of this which is worrying,'' said Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrew's University in Scotland. ``They will be concerned there might be other devices in the area or elsewhere in central London because if it is al-Qaeda one of their characteristics is to set off coordinated devices.''
With "potentially massive" destructive power.
By Guy Dresser and Avril Ormsby for Reuters:
LONDON (Reuters) - British police defused a bomb in an abandoned car in London's theatre district on Friday and launched a counter-terrorism investigation.The bomb, which Sky News quoted unidentified sources as saying was "potentially massive", was found inside a light green Mercedes left outside a nightclub in the early hours of Friday, a police officer quoted witnesses as saying.
The witnesses said the occupant drove "erratically" before smashing into some bins outside the nightclub and running off. Bouncers from the nightclub investigated, saw what looked like gas canisters inside the vehicle and called the police.
Officers sealed off the area at around 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) and found a bomb, the Metropolitan police said.
"They discovered what appeared to be a potentially viable explosive device. This was made safe," they said, adding that counter-terrorism officers were investigating.
[...]
Terrorism experts said an al Qaeda connection to the potential attack could not be dismissed.
"We couldn't rule it out," a security source said, noting that the threat from international Islamist terrorism was the main reason the official British threat level is placed at "severe", the second highest level.
"Numerically speaking, al Qaeda is a strong possibility but it just is too early to attribute specifically.
"It would be wrong and short-sighted to rule out domestic options as well. Obviously there are various extremist groups out there too," the source added.
The MI5 intelligence agency said last year it believed Islamist radicals were plotting at least 30 major terrorist attacks in Britain and it was tracking some 1,600 suspects.
One would think that the endless "Religion-of-Peace-hijacked-by-a-Tiny-Minority-of-Extremists" drumbeat would have headed off all such concern, but apparently Canadians still have eyes and the capacity for independent thought. "Canadians fear Muslim, Christian tensions: survey," by Randy Boswell for CanWest News Service (thanks to Twostellas):
Canadians believe that the country's traditional French-English tensions will be overshadowed by friction between Christians and Muslims when Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary a decade from now, according to a survey of attitudes on intercultural and interfaith relations by the Association for Canadian Studies.Of the 1,500 people polled, 34% said they were pessimistic about the future of Christian-Muslim relations and another 29% expected tense interaction between aboriginal Canadians and non-aboriginals by the year 2017.
Respondents were much more optimistic that white Canadians and visible minorities, as well and Christians and Jews, would enjoy good relations in 10 years. Only 16% and 14% respectively were pessimistic about those relationships, similar to the 19% who predicted troublesome French-English relations by the time Canada reaches the sesquicentennial of Confederation.
Twenty-three per cent said they were pessimistic about the relationship between religious and secular Canadians, and 22% were pessimistic about immigrant-non-immigrant relations.
"For the most part, the results reflect a fair degree of optimism," said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Montreal-based research association. "They do, however, suggest a shift in concerns away from language and inter-racial tensions to concerns over aboriginal-non-aboriginal and interfaith relations --in particular relations between Christians and Muslims."
He noted the Christian-Muslim relationship is a complex dynamic involving religious and cultural differences, highlighted by such flashpoint controversies as the debate over Sharia law and the expulsion of a female soccer player for wearing a hijab.
The attorney for the massive effort at legal intimidation and the impeding of anti-jihad efforts that is the Flying Imams lawsuit is unhappy. His clients, you see, have been getting a lot of bad press. Never mind that MSNBC's Contessa Brewer, to the surprise and delight of Ibrahim Hooper of unindicted Hamas co-conspirator CAIR, compared them to Rosa Parks. Others have exposed what they're really up to, and attorney Omar Mohammedi, a CAIR op himself, can't bear that. But he'll just have to put up with it, for now.
"Attorney for imams removed from plane loses bid to limit access," by Amy Forliti for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):
A federal judge overseeing a lawsuit filed by six Muslim men who were removed from a US Airways flight last fall has declined to limit public access to the case.Omar T. Mohammedi, a New York attorney for the six Muslim scholars, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he sought limited media access because he felt some of the coverage of the case has been biased against his clients.
"When you think of the media, and the way they have been portraying this case, it has not been very helpful. It has been biased," Mohammedi said. "That has caused a lot of stress, a lot of stress on our clients, as well as made it difficult for us to handle this case ... in a manner that it should be handled."
[...]
In a letter dated Tuesday and addressed to Mohammedi, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery noted that Mohammedi had requested that the court remove members of the media from an electronic distribution list, bar members of the media from attending hearings, and hold proceedings in closed session.
"The Court declines to treat this case in the extraordinary manner that you request," the judge wrote. She added that the public and press have an interest in full access to judicial proceedings under the First Amendment.
"You have provided no legal authority supporting your request to limit public access to this case," Montgomery wrote. "While it is regrettable that anonymous individuals have threatened violence, the Court Security Officers will insure that the United States Courthouse here in Minneapolis is secure."
What's a life looser, and where can I get one? From the Hate Mail Bag:
Never have I come accross such a sore looser such as the likes of robert spencer.Some low grade writer trying to get attention LOL
apreaing here and there for 5 mintues wiht his funny goofy smile and doing self promotion.
You can't hurt my faith you only make yourself look stupid trying to do so. You not only look stupid you ARE stupid.
Are you Christain ? must be really envious of the Prophet of Islam , Muhammad ( S A W ) to spout continuous garbage from your stupid mouth.
Your site is full of vile and vulgar cowards who have nohting better to do then get jealous from the one true Faith
Get a life loosers
Makeshift hijabs were the order of the day for Bush's female staffers, but there is one lone dissenter in the background. ("Dhimmi diplomats" just because they covered their heads? No.) Reuters' caption:
Senior White House staff members attend the rededication ceremony of The Islamic Center in Washington June 27, 2007. From L-R are: Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Frances Townsend, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, and Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES)
They really needn't have gone to the trouble to cover their heads. If they hadn't, their friends at unindicted terror co-conspirator CAIR could have just photoshopped the hijabs on.
Shock horror! Don't they...don't they want peace, like Condi Rice says?
By Yaakov Lappen from Ynet News (thanks to WriterMom):
Of 37 populations around the world, Palestinians rank first in their level of support for a nuclear-armed Iran, a new poll has revealed. The survey, taken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, found that 58 percent of the Palestinian public are in favor of Tehran acquiring atomic weapons, making Palestinians the only Middle Eastern population not opposed to an Iranian bomb."Most of the Muslim countries surveyed have negative or mixed opinions of Iran. Majorities among just three Muslim publics – in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Palestinian territories – say they favor Iran acquiring nuclear weapons," the survey said.
The poll added that "positive views of Iran have declined sharply over the past year in three Muslim countries – Indonesia, Egypt, and, especially, Turkey."
When it came to attitudes towards the US, Israel and the Palestinians were placed, unsurprisingly, on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Unsurprisingly? When you consider all the money the U.S. has poured into the PA, one would think Palestinians would be overflowing with gratitude. But of course, this sort of thing never wins over the hearts and minds of those who are imbued with jihadist attitudes -- which doesn't stop American officials from trying it over and over again anyway.
Apparently Elahi figures that as long as they've got this rage all worked up, why not expand the victims' list?
"BB is also guilty like blasphemer Salman Rushdie, says Elahi," from the PakTribune, with thanks to DFS:
LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has said that Benazir Bhutto is also guilty like blasphemer Salman Rushdie.[...]
He said that Benazir, who remained Prime Minister of Pakistan twice, has forgotten the name of Islam while living abroad and is disturbed for support of blasphemer Salman Rushdi.
He said that those who are supporting blasphemer Salman Rushdi are not only enemy of Pakistan and its masses but are also enemy of Islam and Muslim Ummah.
He said that the people cannot tolerate blasphemer Salman Rushdi and his supporters. He said that the people will never support such party which is against our country, religion and people.
He said that the future of democracy is safe in the country and the forthcoming elections would be transparent and fair.
Especially if they kill off those pesky blasphemers. Then the future of democracy in Pakistan will be exceedingly bright.
We've been posting a great deal of information lately about some disastrous misjudgments by Ehud Olmert, but an informed observer in Israel has just sent this to me:
I was down on the Gaza border yesterday, which is very interesting. I was observing the first big offensive against Hamas, which is testing the waters. Please note that everything Olmert says must be taken with reserve, and not as indicative of the majority view. For example, there are a lot of key people here arguing for cutting off Gaza with the absolute minimum. There is no decision on letting in a PLA brigade (actually an understrength battalion with no combat experience) or arming Fatah. I thought Olmert was a fool for the way he handled the Washington press conference, but that was typical Olmert. The new chief of staff is good--and has made some very tough statements as well as preparing for a war with Hizballah, Syria, or Hamas--and Barak is no fool.We are not as suicidal as some people seem to think. Of course it is true that the opportunity to explain why both Fatah and Hamas are bad was wasted. But people here are not so naive. And the assumption that Fatah might well collapse means that we should not be seen as responsible for it. Look at what Hani al-Hassan said! I know him and if he does not stand up for Fatah they are really doomed.
Strictly routine. "Scuba warning issued for instructors," from AP (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
WASHINGTON - The FBI is asking the nation's scuba instructors to watch for potential terrorist threats.The agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force recently alerted dive shops around the country to look out for divers seeking advanced training, including diving in murky water and in sewer pipes.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko described the advisory as routine and said it was not prompted by any threat.
The advisory asked instructors to be aware of "odd inquiries that are inconsistent with recreational diving." That includes advanced navigation techniques, deep diving and the use of underwater vehicles.
We keep hearing the same old rhetoric used to describe the new and improved moderate Fatah government: "New Government," "New Opportunity," "Fresh Start," etc. PA and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas continues to play his role in this ugly game to perfection. In the true spirit of "moderation," he has outlawed all weapons that are not in the hands of his Security Service (S.S.). "Abbas bans carrying explosives, arms without license in W. Bank," from Ha’aretz :
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday outlawed all armed Palestinian groups except for the official PA security services."On the basis of the declaration of a state of emergency in the Palestinian territories, and by virtue of my authority, all armed militias, groups and brigades that do not belong in practice to the security services shall be treated as illegal organizations," read the first order.
The order forbade such groups to conduct any activity, whether secret or public, and said that criminal investigations would be opened against anyone caught participating in such activity.
"The government must halt the phenomenon of armed groups, prevent the bearing of arms and confiscate guns, explosives and any type of weaponry purchased illegally, since they endanger the public order," the decree continued.
Needless to say, the point is moot. In "Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad Ignore Weapons Prohibition" in INN, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (a Fatah group) had this to say about the weapons ban:
The Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, which is linked to Abbas’s Fatah, was among those to announce an intention to keep their weapons. Zacharia Zubeidi, the group’s head in Jenin, said, “Abu Mazen [a/k/a Abbas] meant the illegal weapons owned by criminal organizations, but our weapons are legitimate—the weapons of the resistance organizations.” Another wanted terrorist, Abu Aziz, called Abbas’s proclamation “irresponsible,” but said he would consider turning in his weapons if Israel would guarantee his safety.
In fact, a spokesman from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade today denied there ever was an order to disarm. This from "Terrorists deny Abbas' disarm claims" by Aaron Klein for WND:
TEL AVIV – Members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' declared military wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, today denied claims by Abbas he asked the terror group to turn in their weapons, stating officials instead have encouraged them to continue their "resistance" activities."No one from Abbas' office ever asked us to disarm," Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank, told WND. "We will never disarm until all issues are settled, including a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Jerusalem and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees."
Abu Yousuf, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, told WND Abbas' claims the Brigades will disarm "are more of a message meant for the Israelis, the Americans and the international community."
"No one (from Abbas' office) addressed a single member of the Brigades and asked us to turn in our weapons," he said.
"A message for the West" is a common thread here. Say one thing and do the opposite. Whatever it takes to keep the cash flowing. And the West falls for it again and again.
One down. Hamas also cordially refused. "Hamas dismisses Abbas decree to ban all armed militia," from Xinhuanet:
Abu Obaida, spokesman of Hamas' military wing the al-Qassam Brigades, said President Mahmoud Abbas' decree was "mere ink on paper and doesn't worth the ink that was used to write it." "The resistance groups will not wait any decree when they go to combat the invasion and no one has the right to determine the groups' future as long as the occupation remains in place," said Abu Obaida.
So much for Abbas and his plans. As if he actually has a chance of enforcing this edict. As usual, it’s all smoke and mirrors. A pretty facade for Western consumption. Hi Mom…send money.
And what has Fatah been up to recently….conveniently ignored by the MSM? "Fatah combatants launch an RPG at an Israeli military base on Gaza's border," from Ma’an News Agency :
Date: 26 / 06 / 2007 Time: 21:00 Gaza – Ma’an – The Fatah-affiliated Al Buraq Army announced that they launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the Israeli military position at Karni Crossing, between Israel and the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday.“We are retaliating for Israeli aggression and assassinations and will stick to the choice of resistance,” said the brigades in a statement.
More Fatah activity: "Fatah and Hamas-affiliated fighters claim involvement in fighting Israeli forces in southern Gaza," from Ma’an News Agency :
Date: 27 / 06 / 2007 Time: 12:33 Gaza - Ma'an - The Fatah-affiliated Al Buraq Army has claimed to have been involved in a gunfight with Israeli Special Forces in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning.
The guns are not only still out there, but they are now pointed at Israel. RPG’s as well. I guess Olmert’s goodwill gestures weren’t rich enough.
The MSM still refuses to cover any Fatah hostilities -- to do so would surely interrupt the lovefest. As long as the naughty bits are swept under the rug, the West (and Israel) can continue to satisfy their undying hunger for appeasement.
We’ve been down this road before and nothing was accomplished. In fact, the situation is much worse. Iran -- that is, Hamas -- rules Gaza, and it seems like only a matter of time before the West Bank falls as well.
Why does anyone think that supporting the "moderate" Jihadists will work now?
Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.
Apparently Shi'ite retaliation for the last Sunni massacre. The law of retaliation (qisas), based on Qur'an 2:178, establishes a never-ending cycle of revenge.
By Sinan Salaheddin for Associated Press (thanks to Sr. Soph):
BAGHDAD - Twenty beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, while a parked car bomb killed another 20 people in one of the capital's busy outdoor bus stations, police said.The beheaded remains were found in the Sunni Muslim village of Um al-Abeed, near the city of Salman Pak, which lies 14 miles southeast of Baghdad.
The bodies — all men aged 20 to 40 years old — had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, two officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Meanwhile, a parked car bomb ripped through a crowded transport hub in southwest Baghdad's Baiyaa neighborhood at morning rush hour, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 50, another officer said on the same condition.
Malaysia's The Sun (thanks to RS) has an interview with Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong. One question was about the Malaysian government banning several of her books. Then follows:
What are your thoughts on this, and have you been banned anywhere else in the world?There are people who would love to ban me, such as the neo-conservatives Daniel Pipes or Robert Spencer in the United States...
Come on, Ms. Armstrong. You can't provide a scrap of evidence for the assertion that I would "love" to "ban" you. In fact, I want to debate you. And I am not the one who has turned down opportunities for this to happen, now, am I?
So I am once again offering you an opportunity to air your views in any forum that will host our debate, and to demonstrate the superior accuracy of your views of Muhammad and jihad warfare -- if you can. Contact me at director[at]jihadwatch.org.
You can download a pdf of Armstrong's entire steaming, acrid interview here.
"It is these radicals who are Islam's true enemy." Fair enough. Certainly the jihadists have never hesitated to target Muslims whom they didn't deem sufficiently Islamic. Just think for a moment, however, about what we do not see: we don't see comprehensive programs in American mosques to teach against the jihad ideology and political Islam, and the virtues of the U.S. Constitution and the non-establishment clause. We don't see any Islamic authority that has rejected not just the vague "terrorism," but the specific supremacist agenda that has always been part of the jihad imperative. These things make it unlikely that the President will succeed in convincing large numbers of Muslims to turn against their "true enemy" with more than mere words, and vague, half-hearted words at that.
By James Gerstenzang for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
WASHINGTON -- Visiting an Islamic mosque on Washington's Embassy Row, President Bush delivered a strongly worded denunciation today of Muslim radicals and said he would appoint for the first time a U.S. representative to a major international Islamic organization.Drawing a distinction between moderation in the practice of Islam and those seeking to use the faith for what he described as radical political ends, the president said "it is these radicals who are Islam's true enemy."
[...]
He cited U.S. support for Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina after the disintegration of Yugoslavia — a reference applauded by his audience — and said Americans offered such support out of "compassion, conviction and conscience." It reflected the proper course of supporting moderation against extremism, he said.
In the Middle East, he said, "we have seen the rise of groups of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power."
It is the radicals, Bush said, who stage "spectacular attacks" against Muslim holy sites to divide Muslims and push them into fighting each other, conducting "acts of butchery ... in the name of Allah."
It is such extremism, the president said, that needs to be turned back "before it finds its path to power."
Bush, like virtually everyone else, continues to ignore political Islam and to pretend that by ignoring it, it will disappear. Things will not prove to be that easy.
"Bush to name envoy to Islamic Conference," by Ben Feller for Associated Press:
WASHINGTON - President Bush announced Wednesday he will establish an envoy to a coalition of Muslim countries, with hopes of bolstering ties to the Islamic world and improving the image of the United States.Bush's special envoy, who has not yet been named, will be a liaison to The Organization of the Islamic Conference. The intergovernmental organization, representing more than 50 Islamic states, promotes Muslim solidarity in social and political affairs.
"Our special envoy will listen to and learn from representatives from Muslim states, and will share with them America's views and values," Bush said in a ceremony honoring the 50th anniversary of the Islamic Center, a mosque and cultural center in Washington.
"This is an opportunity for Americans to demonstrate to Muslim communities our interest in respectful dialogue and continued friendship," Bush said.
His move marks the first time a U.S. president has made an appointment to the Islamic Conference. The naming of a U.S. envoy comes as the plodding war in Iraq has fanned anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.
The smell of incense filled the mosque, originally dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Those attending the ceremony, including the president, took off their shoes as they entered. Bush listened as a verse from the Quran was read....
I wonder which one. 5:51? 3:28? 9:29? 98:6? 5:33?
"This Muslim center sits quietly down the road from a synagogue, a Lutheran church, a Catholic parish, a Greek Orthodox chapel, a Buddhist temple — each with faithful followers who practice their deeply held beliefs and live side by side in peace," he said.Bush singled out Iran and Syria and accused them of religious and political repression.
"Millions seek a path to the future where they can say what they think, travel where they wish and worship as they choose," he said. "They plead in silence for their liberty and they hope someone, somewhere will answer.
"So today in this place of free worship, in a heart of a free nation, we say to those who yearn for freedom from Damascus to Tehran: you are not bound forever by your misery. Plead in silence no longer. The free world hears you. You're not alone. America offers you its hand in friendship. We work for the day when we can welcome you into the family of free nations."
ADDENDUM: To give you a sense of the implications of an American envoy to the OIC, Charles at LGF offers a trip down memory lane.
In "A lawsuit without merit," Jeff Jacoby sums up the Islamic Society of Boston's now-dropped frivolous lawsuit in the Boston Globe (thanks to WriterMom):
ON MAY 29, the Islamic Society of Boston folded its cards. It abandoned the sweeping defamation lawsuit it had filed in 2005 against 17 defendants -- journalists, scholars, activist groups, and others who had expressed concerns about the Islamic Society's leaders, some of whom had ties to jihadist extremism, and about the land the city of Boston sold it at a cut-rate price in order to build a mosque.The complaint had accused the defendants of despicable behavior -- lying about the Islamic Society, vilifying innocent people, conspiring to deprive Boston-area Muslims of their civil rights. If even some of the charges were true, the defendants deserved to face harsh legal penalties and be shunned by the entire community. Instead, the Islamic Society dropped its suit without collecting a penny. Why?
Because the charges were false, that's why. And pretrial discovery -- the evidence being gathered through subpoenas and depositions -- was proving it.
For example, the Islamic Society claimed that publicity about its leaders' ties to Islamist extremism had "been devastating" to the organization's fund-raising. "Donations to the ISB have decreased," the lawsuit charged. In a press release, the organization lamented that negative media coverage had resulted in "donations trickling to a halt."
But in July 2005, well after the supposedly "devastating" news coverage had first appeared in the Boston Herald and on Fox 25 TV, a letter written by the Islamic Society's attorney and e-mailed by Chairman Yousef Abou-allaban conveyed a very different message. "Fund-raising has been robust," it reported, "and ISB has $2 million in cash."
Fund-raising had indeed been robust. Documents acquired during discovery revealed that some $4.2 million had been wired to an Islamic Society bank account in New Hampshire between April 2004 and May 2005 -- nearly all of it from Saudi Arabia. Another $1 million came from the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank in late 2005.
Those ties to Saudi Arabia were a key reason for concern . Saudi Arabia's state religion is Wahhabism, a radical and belligerent form of Islam, and as the 9/11 Commission reported, Saudi money is used "to spread Wahhabi beliefs throughout the world, including in mosques and schools. . . . Some Wahhabi-funded organizations have been exploited by extremists to further their goal of violent jihad against non-Muslims."
But in its lawsuit, the Islamic Society had denied any Saudi connection to the mosque it was building in Boston. It said it had been libeled by the "false information" that it received money "from Wahhabis and/or Muslim Brotherhood and/or other Saudi/Middle Eastern sources." As the evidence amassed during discovery made clear, however, that wasn't libel. It was the simple truth.
Repeatedly, the Islamic Society sought court orders blocking the release of such evidence. In one case, it warned that publishing certain documents would "create serious security risks" for Muslim worshipers, since it would reveal the new mosque's architectural schematics. The court denied that request after the defendants pointed out that the schematics were not exactly a secret: They are publicly posted on the Islamic Society's own website.
And so it went. One by one, the Islamic Society's claims and accusations proved groundless. By the time it dropped its lawsuit on May 29, it was clear that it had no chance of winning.
And yet the Islamic Society spins its loss as a victory, noting that the construction of the mosque is going forward. "It was never about money," said Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. "It was about religious freedom."
What the lawsuit was really about, it seems, was intimidation -- intimidation of anyone inclined to raise questions or express concerns about the Islamic Society's leaders and their connections to radical Islam. Libel suits have become a favorite tactic of Islamists, who deploy them to silence their critics. In yet another document produced during discovery, the head of the Islamic Center of New England advises Abou-allaban to "thwart" Fox 25 with a lawsuit. "If Fox is being sued for this story," he writes, "it stands to reason that they will be prevented from reporting on the story further while the case is in court."
Read it all.
Calls for Ahmadinejad's head…from Iranians. "Guns, fireworks, tanks, [President] Ahmadinejad should be killed."
"Iran fuel rations spark violence," from the BBC:
At least one petrol station has been set on fire in the Iranian capital, Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private motorists. Iranians were given only two hours' notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month.Tehran is trying to rein in fuel consumption over fears of possible UN sanctions over its nuclear programme.
Iran fears the West could sanction its petrol imports and cripple its economy.
"Guns, fireworks, tanks, [President] Ahmadinejad should be killed," chanted angry youths, throwing stones at police.
Eyewitnesses have seen at least one petrol station in the outskirts of the west of Tehran on fire.
All over the city there are huge queues and reports of scuffles at petrol stations as motorists try to beat the start of the rationing and fill their tanks.
Finally…a crack. This is proof positive that the West's approach to Iran must be hardened. Tougher sanctions lead to tougher times. Tougher times lead to unrest. Unrest leads to change.
Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.
Sticking to their guns. Incidentally, a question for you Jews and Christians who may be inclined toward moral equivalence: when was the last time you heard a sermon in your synagogue or church calling for anyone to be killed? "Ahmad Khatami from the Iranian Assembly of Experts in a Tehran Friday Sermon: Fatwa against Rushdie Must Be Carried Out. Fatah Staged a Coup d'Etat against Hamas," from MEMRITV (thanks to Hot Air):
Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon by Ahmad Khatami of the Iranian Assembly of Experts, which aired on Channel 1, Iranian TV on June 22, 2007:[...]
The old, decrepit, and colonialist English regime presents itself as the defender of human rights, yet it awards a medal to such a wretched, bankrupt man [Salman Rushdie], who has offended the sacred values of more than 1.5 billion Muslims. Are these your human rights?
Crowd chants: Death to England.
Death to England.
Death to England.
Ahmad khatami:Is this your civilization? This old, decrepit government of England should know that the days of its imperialistic aspirations are gone, and today it is considered America's branded slave. They must also know that the wave of Islamic revival in the world has begun, whether they like it or not. Under these circumstances, awarding England's highest honor to a wretched man, who lacks any talent whatsoever... He is not considered a prominent novelist or author. They awarded him this medal only because he cursed the Prophet. Under these circumstances, awarding a medal to such a man entails a conflict with one and a half billion Muslims throughout the world, and you will gain nothing from this. The one thing that will happen is that you will see the Islamic world roaring together. In Islamic Iran, this revolutionary fatwa still exists. It is unchangeable and with God's grace, it must be carried out.
Slick, oleagineous, is Hamid Karzai, but not more than one is used to in such regions. Think of Hussein of Jordan, in his celebrated role as plucky little king. Hamid Karzai, when he first appeared on the world scene, in that beautifully-colored robe he wears, seemed okay. He had brothers and a sister running restaurants in Maryland and Massachusetts. He was the son of a civic-minded Afghan. He seemed -- okay. He seemed to be one of those "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, or as close to it as one might hope for outside of Azar Nafisi and Fouad Ajami. He was not able to fess up to it all himself, but still...or so one thought.
Then came the Speech of Mahathir Mohamed, the sober-toned, yet hysterical and telling speech, at the O.I.C., when he made an appeal for the world’s Muslims to use their brains, not in order to investigate the nature of the brain or DNA or of the atom or the origins of the universe, but only -- the only thing he meant by "science" -- to acquire military technology, and to defeat, among others, "the Jews." Smooth Hamid Karzai, oily Hamid Karzai applauded. Interviewed just after, Karzai was enthusiastic about Mahathir’s speech. The oleaginous Karzai said he found the speech deeply impressive. He said he had found the speech wonderful, inspirational, tip-top. Well, that was it as far as Hamid Karzai was concerned.
Never mind that the poppy trade is flourishing and Karzai is weak. Never mind that he is better than the Taliban. His Muslim solidarity, of the kind he expressed after that speech, leaves a permanent impression: he is not to be trusted. Oh, he's more to be trusted than any conceivable Arab leader. He's more to be trusted than any conceivable Pakistani leader. But he's not to be trusted. That's it.
His government is famously corrupt. Oh, not as corrupt as that of the Al-Saud. Not as corrupt as that of Mubarak. Not as corrupt as that of Arafat and his successors and collaborators in the so-called "Palestinian" "Authority." But corrupt. And the American and NATO forces are tearing their hair out.
But he wants, he wants, he wants. A year or two ago he was lamenting all the money spent in Iraq because he thought it should go to Afghanistan. He wants, he wants, he wants.
And he wants the Western powers to prop up his government -- why? -- but to fight exactly as he wishes them to fight, obeying Marquess of Queensberry rules that will only cause more Western casualties, and that make no sense in the Afghani context.
He wants, he wants, he wants.
Afghanistan can be controlled, as much as it can be controlled, from afar. There is no need for such a NATO presence, that will only be a waste, and a cause for intra-NATO tensions, and will be as ineffectual in promoting Infidel aims as is the business in Tarbaby Iraq.
The belief or desire to remake Afghanistan springs from an impulse born of naivete. It is a manifestation of the Yankee-can-do spirit misapplied to things of the spirit rather than to objects one can indeed improve. See the observations on this American polypragmonic impulse. It springs from a reluctance, and even from a fear, to dare to confront the backwardness and social injustice that arises from the application of Islamic principles. In Afghanistan these effects are felt mainly by women. Women there are held in permanent thrall. As for non-Muslims, there are none left in the country -- the Jews and Hindus once described by Robert Byron in The Road to Oxiana all left, some before, some during, the rule of the Taliban.
The British could not hold Afghanistan, and intelligently left. The Russians, with a ruthlessness (and a geographical proximity) that the Western powers could never hope to approach, could not hold Afghanistan, and intelligently left (having self-inflicted great damage on their own economy, and on their own military morale).
Why are we in Afghanistan? Why do we wish to build roads, and other infrastructure, when we have every reason to believe that the poorer, more illiterate and isolated the Muslim villagers are, the less able they are to receive the Jihad-war-whoops and propaganda that greater prosperity would naturally bring? For that is what audiocassettes, and videocassettes, and access to satellite television, and Internet service, mean for Muslims who are pulled out of living (and fighting among themselves) at a subsistence level.
The misapplication of naive Western ideas -- that greater "prosperity" will perforce lessen the hold of Islam in Afghanistan -- has to be held up for public inspection.
J. B. Kelly and many others with some sense of what Afghanistan's history has been suggest it will "all end in tears" for the West. That is exactly the phrase Kelly used several years ago about Iraq, at the very beginning of the conflict, when there was such enormous oorah-excitement and pleasure all over official Washington at the magnificent achievement, at the certain great victory, at the impending "transformation" of the whole Muslim Middle East.
A little reading, a little thought, a little knowledge about Islam and Iraq, or for that matter Islam and Afghanistan, would help. It would help save lives. It would save a trillion dollars. It would save NATO from internecine wrangling. It would save soldiers from going to war wearing karakul kid gloves, and never taking those gloves off, lest Afghani hearts, lest Afghani minds, lest oily Karzai himself, be too much offended to be won, won, won.
"According to the official, some senior officers [of Fatah] have been suspected of cooperating with Hamas even prior to the decisive round of clashes with Fatah. He said the officers received money from Hamas in exchange for transferring information on the deployment of Palestinian Authority forces in the Strip." -- from this article
Hardly surprising. Fatah is hardly distinguishable from Hamas, except in the perfervid imaginations of Western leaders, and some dismal Israeli ones, determined to make a soap opera with "good" Fatah and "bad" Hamas playing their assigned roles. They differ only in that the people who sign up to get their checks from Fatah are a little more worldly and cynical. They have a better sense of the current balance of forces, and just a little more willingness to utter a phony phrase or two in order to keep the Jizyah flowing. But they have no intention of ever making real peace with Israel.
Rather, as Slow Jihadists, they differ from Hamas only in tactics and timing. They are quite willing, whenever the occasion presents itself, to be as murderous, or more murderous than Hamas. Everything in their history and in their statements for fellow Muslims proves it; not a single thing disproves it.
The inability of Western leaders is of course not helped by the terminal confusion and fear of Olmert and a few others in Israel. They simply do not wish to understand Israel's plight, because they cannot begin to figure out ways to manage what is, in fact, at this point still a most manageable situation.
And the same is true of leaders -- of those "taking a leadership role" -- in larger Infidel lands outside the Middle East. These lands are less obviously imperiled than Israel, but are definitely in the same boat. Or, to change the metaphor slightly, in an identical boat, headed at a slightly different rate over the same falls, if the course of the particular national narrenschiff is not to become the national naufragium.
Dumbing down, when it is also dumbing up -- so that those whose duty it is to properly and thoroughly inform themselves, so as to both instruct and protect those they claim to lead -- is a big problem. One cannot be raised up in a society that is as inattentive as ours currently is to history and to language (by which thoughts are formulated, and given shape, and also the means by which an enemy can manipulate by "capturing" the language that is to be employed), as well as to literature, which helps to strengthen the muscle of the imagination.
For what is going on in the Western world is a failure of historical understanding, and a simultaneous failure of imagination. There is a general inability to imagine a "war" that is not a war by the means which we, and assorted generals in and out of the Pentagon, have come to think of as the only means of "war." There is, furthermore, a general failure to imagine -- before it happens -- the consequences of the islamization of the countries of Western Europe, and what would mean for art, science, human freedom, and the physical safety of Infidels everywhere.
A failure of knowledge. A failure of imagination. A breakdown of education. It all connects. It is all responsible.
Meanwhile, how do you feel when you read about the Fatah-Hamas warfare, a war over turf and power? The Slow Jihadists are eager to turn on the tap of the Infidel Jizyah (that "foreign aid") and are willing to take their time in attacking Israel, while the truest of True Believers, the Fast Jihadists, are unwilling to do so. They are less worldly and less corrupt that the Slow Jihadists, who are emblemized by the outwardly-generally-accepted-accounting-principles soft demeanor of that longtime Arafat collaborator, up to his neck in blood, Mahmoud Abbas.
Are you sorry? Do you wish it would end? Do you think this "chaos" is a "catastrophe" for Infidels, or something else? Isn't it, rather, a very useful Demonstration Project of a society on Islam, without a despot to reign it in and to channel its aggression toward Infidels?
Can you think of other places in the neighborhood where such an outcome might do more to further American, and Infidel interests, and provide another example of Muslim failure to compromise, Muslim aggression, Muslim violence? Can you think of other contexts that would provide an even bigger Demonstration Project, particularly for those in Western Europe now waking from their deep sleep of unreason and evasion?
If you can think of one, please write the name of that place on a postcard, and send it to President George W. Bush, The White House, Washington, D. C. Just write on it: "After reading, please forward to Very Big Grand Strategy Office in the Pentagon."
Keep those cards coming in.
Eventually even those terminally confused in Washington will begin to get the idea.
Gee, that would be nice, now nearly six years after 9/11. But it isn't nearly enough. Muslim leaders of all kinds have already denounced "terror." The problem here is that no one is defining these terms; rather, everyone is assuming that we all mean the same things by them whenever we use them. By "terror" does one mean "an unprovoked attack against innocent civilians with the intention of causing undifferentiated mayhem"? Muslim leaders will have no problem denouncing that. But if one means "actions carried out in order to further the program of Islamic supremacism that advances through both nonviolent and violent jihad," that is quite another matter. No one is being specific enough. No one is speaking about "the jihad ideology of Islamic supremacism" and asking Muslims to denounce that. No one dares.
"Bush wants Muslims to denounce terror," by Jon Ward for the Washington Times (thanks to Alan):
THE WASHINGTON TIMES - President Bush will challenge Muslim leaders to denounce acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam during a speech today at the same Washington mosque he visited days after the September 11 attacks.Mr. Bush will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Islamic Center of Washington, a half-century after President Eisenhower spoke at its dedication on June 28, 1957.
The president's speech will focus on "the importance of religious freedom in the Middle East, and how securing that freedom requires Muslims to stand up to extremists," according to a White House briefing document released yesterday evening.
Mr. Bush also will thank Muslim leaders who have spoken out against terrorism.
Although the president will emphasize that "the face of terrorism is not the true face of Islam," he brings a different message with him to the mosque than he did six years ago.
On Sept. 17, 2001, Mr. Bush, seeking to prevent acts of retaliation against American Muslims after the September 11 attacks, said, "Islam is peace."
But since then, the president's rhetoric about Islam and terrorism has shifted. In 2005, he spoke about "Islamic radicalism," specifying that the enemy in the war on terrorism is a certain brand of Islam.
James Phillips, a Middle East analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said Mr. Bush was distinguishing between "an ideology and a religion."
Great. But this is an artificial distinction, imposed from without, and having no basis in traditional Islam.
"Muslims need to recognize that we distinguish between traditional Islam and the radical Islamists who want to use it as a means of seizing power and imposing a totalitarian vision on other Muslims," Mr. Phillips said.Then, last August, Mr. Bush referred to "Islamic fascists" after British authorities foiled a plot by Muslim terrorists to blow up several airplanes bound for the United States.
"This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," he said on Aug. 10, 2006.
Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that term was overly provocative, and was interpreted by many Muslims as a criticism of Islam itself.
"Why do you think we haven't heard it again since then?" Mr. Singer said.
White House spokesman Tony Snow yesterday reaffirmed that the president views Islam as "a religion of peace."
"He also believes that it has been hijacked, in some cases, by people who use Islam as a shield for murdering people, who use it as a way of spreading terrorism, rather than tolerance," Mr. Snow said.
A senior White House official said the president shifted away from using the term "Islamic fascists" because he did not think it helped him contrast radical Muslims with moderate Muslims.
A recent study found that there is substantial sympathy for Islamic terrorism among Western Muslims, including those in the United States.
The Pew Research Center found that 26 percent of 18- to 29-year-old Muslims in the United States think suicide bombings are sometimes justified to defend Islam.
Radwan Masmoudi, founder and president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, said that he was disturbed by those findings, but added that such views are "not reflective of who we are or what our religion teaches."
Maybe it isn't, but the jihadists are saying that it is, and making recruits on that basis. More than a simple denial is needed from Radwan Masmoudi and others like him, if this is ever going to stop.
The Taliban has claimed control of Helmand. And opium always provided a significant part of the Taliban's income. From the Mail & Guardian Online, with thanks to DFS:
Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where about 7 000 British troops are based, is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest drugs supplier, cultivating more opium than entire countries such as Burma, Morocco or even Colombia, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.The region was largely responsible for a huge increase last year in Afghanistan's opium-poppy harvest, the origin of most of the heroin on the streets of Britain and mainland Europe. And Helmand's poppy harvest is expected to increase again this year, according to the latest annual report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
"Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic and go a long way to bring security to the region," said Antonio Maria Costa, the UN agency's executive director.
The report will not be welcome reading for the British government. Five years ago, Tony Blair said Britain would take responsibility for overseeing Afghanistan's anti-narcotics programme. Last year, Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, said an increase in the opium harvest planted before British troops arrived in Helmand was one thing; a further rise this year -- now predicted by UN and British officials -- would be quite another.
"Drugs and the insurgency are intrinsically linked," a British official admitted on Tuesday. British military commanders, meanwhile, warn that attempts to eradicate the poppy crop without providing alternative incomes will simply increase hostility to foreign troops and increase support for the Taliban.
A United States proposal to spray the poppy crop was vetoed by the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai.
Why?
Not, in this view, "to coexist peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis."
More efforts to impede the anti-jihad resistance by playing on Western phobias about "bigotry": "West funds elite unit to destroy Islam: hardliners," by Mark Forbes for the Brisbane Herald (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
INDONESIAN Muslim hardliners have called for the Australian-backed anti-terrorism squad Detachment 88 to be abolished because they say it is financed and trained by foreign countries to destroy Islam.Islamic leaders including the cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged former leader of the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah, and lawyers for terrorist suspects recently arrested by the squad, made the demand at a press conference yesterday.
Throwing down the gauntlet to authorities after the capture of two JI leaders, Kholil Ridwan, of the Islamic Community Forum, said Detachment 88 was a US tool to "stigmatise Islam".
"We call on the Indonesian Government to stop co-operation with the United States and its allies in the global war on terror," Mr Ridwan said. "The United States' war on terror, with the help of its sheriff, Australia, and deputy sheriff, Singapore, is a war against Islam."
It most certainly is nothing of the kind. But this just shows that all the blather about the Religion of Peace, and all the efforts to emphasize that this is not a war against Islam, have accomplished nothing. We would have been much better off had Western leaders spoken forthrightly about this effort as a defense against the global jihad, and called upon peaceful Muslims to reject the ideology of the jihadists, instead of ignoring it and denying it exists.
Bashir denied terrorists existed in Indonesia, saying: "Those who did bombings, they are just doing counter-terrorism. They are holy warriors to defend Muslims terrorised in other countries." The real terrorist was America, he said, though it was a mistake for bombers to target peaceful areas....Dujana told CNN the group would continue its fight for Islamic rule but he wanted it to limit civilian casualties....
A team of 13 lawyers will today file a lawsuit demanding Detachment 88 be disbanded on behalf of Muslim activists who say they have been wrongfully arrested. "We don't want any more arrests taking place," said one lawyer, Munarman.
He said the unit was torturing holy warriors who were trying to defend Islam.
Bashir warned all Muslims against helping the squad. "We know that Detachment 88 is a tool of Americans and Jews and any Muslim who helps infidels is an apostate," he said....
All Muslims should fight to create an Islamic state, he urged. "There are only two options for Muslims; to win or to die."
No, no, not this guy
Here I go again, answering a critic. And every time I do this, some of you mugs write in below, saying, "Who is this cheesehead, anyway? Why are you wasting our valuable time making us read you arguing with him?" Well, I'll have you know that the critic in question this time is none other than Bob Crane himself, star of the beloved 1960s sitcom Hogan's Heroes, and -- what's that? It's not that Bob Crane? He's...dead? Foul play? Scandal? Oh...dear.
In reality, the author of "The Mission of Imams in America: Marginalizing Extremists by Revealing the Real Truth About Muhammad" in The American Muslim is Robert D. Crane, former Nixon aide, former Deputy Director (for Planning) of the U.S. National Security Council, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.A.E., former Principal Economic and Budget Adviser to the Finance Minister of Bahrain, and present-day Islamic activist. Well, all that sounds important enough, doesn't it? I mean, a Nixon aide. Who knows? Maybe it was old Bob Crane who whispered into his ear, "Now tell them, 'I am not a crook!'" -- or maybe it was Bob behind the deathless classic "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore!" We could be on the threshhold of history here!
Okay. Seriously, now, I am having a bit of fun with Bob, but in reality, I am answering this for the same reason why I answer everyone, even raving, spitting, blinkered, self-deluded types and their cleverer, slyly disingenuous friends. The point in all such cases has nothing to do either with me or with the identity or importance of the critic. The counterjihad, the resistance to Islamic supremacism, is much larger than any personality. I post these things as a pedagogical exercise. There is every possibility that you may find yourself confronted by the same arguments I deal with in this or that reply to this or that individual, be he a frothing-at-the-mouth repo man or a friend and advisor to Presidents and Emirs. Perhaps you will find my responses helpful. Forget about the people involved and concentrate on the issues, will ya?
All right. Now that that is out of the way, let me say that in reality Bob Crane has done me a great service, for which I offer him a hearty "Ho-gaaaannnn!!" (Okay, okay, I know it's not that one, already.) Lots of people have dismissed my book The Truth About Muhammad, but almost no one has even attempted to deal substantively with what it says -- and one of the few who did was the severely truth-challenged Karen Armstrong. But here ol' Bob dives right in -- to be sure, with somewhat Nixonian candor, and in the same spirit that led his old boss to devise his Enemies List -- but nonetheless, dive in he does.
My talk today, a first draft of which is available on the tables at the entrance and will be available edited post-conference on line at http://www.theamericanmuslim.org, addresses the professional hatemongering best illustrated by the New York Times bestselling polemicist, Robert Spencer, in his popular book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.This book is significant partly because it bases all its perversions of the Qur’an on statements by Muslims. This is designed to show that Muslims themselves properly interpret Islam as inherently terroristic and as a threat to America and to all traditional American values....
Bob veers close to the truth here -- my book is indeed made up of "statements by Muslims." How this amounts to "professional hatemongering" is unclear. I have never figured out how it can be hatemongering just to quote someone, but Bob seems to have it all figured out. Maybe it's something he picked up over in Bahrain:
The favorite tool of political movements is to adopt an enemy to demonize. The favorite enemy today is Islam, because it is potentially the most powerful force in the world capable of resisting any new international law that would legitimize global oppression by secular fundamentalism. Islam is demonized by interpreting the Qur’an and ahadith as the source of Muslim extremism and therefore as the ultimate cause of terrorism throughout the world.
Wait a minute, Bob. If I quote Muslims using the Qur'an and ahadith to justify violence, how does it qualify as hatemongering and demonizing? I'm just reporting on what's in the Islamic texts and how Muslims use them. If I were inventing quotations, or inventing interpretations of them, you might have a case. But you already acknowledged that I based everything on "statements by Muslims." So...shouldn't you be directing your energies toward disabusing your fellow Muslims of these ideas, rather than demonizing me for drawing attention to the use Muslims make of certain Islamic texts? (And I do mean demonizing -- read on.)
Of course, what Bob means is that I take the jihadists' "hijacked" Islam for the real thing:
There have always been extremists among Muslims who pervert the Qur’an in their efforts to hi-jack their own religion, just as extremists among Christians and members of other faiths have often done so in the past and continue to do so even today.
This, however, is false. As I have said many times, there is no "true Islam." But jihadists make recruits by presenting their Islam as the true Islam, and by pointing out chapter and verse of the Qur'an, as well as the example of Muhammad and the rulings of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. For peaceful Muslims to stop this from being a successful appeal, they have to confront it. Bob thinks so too, but he contends (in the face of quite a bit of evidence) that the original Islam and the example of Muhammad do not actually contain anything the jihadists can use:
This attack on Islam from within can be countered only when the imams assert their right and responsibility to bring their knowledge of classical Islam to bear in countering and marginalizing Muslim extremists. As I have been preaching for decades, Muslims must revive the classical teachings of the great Islamic scholars, almost all of whom have been imprisoned by one tyrant or another for trying to maintain the purity of Islam as revealed by Allah and taught by the words and actions of his prophet, Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam. Only Muslims can do this. Among Muslims only the most courageous can do so, because the extremists have tried to terrorize all Muslims who disagree with them. And among the courageous we must begin to rely on the imams among us, whose calling is to preserve the purity of the traditionalist teachings of all the world religions....
Crane attempts to establish this in discussing my alleged "lies":
For short-run impact, however, it would be useful to expose Spencer’s demonic lies directly and in detail. For this purpose, I have been asked to write a book for this express purpose. Exposing Spencer’s bias is very simple, because one needs merely show that in every case he quotes only Muslim extremists and ignores untold centuries of mainline scholars who taught the exact opposite of what he contrives to be the message of Islam. His bias is embarrassingly evident throughout the book. For example, he questions whether the Medina constitution calling for protection of the Jews ever existed, but he has little doubt that the story about the massacre of the treasonous Jewish Qurayzah tribe is true. He dismisses the scholarly investigation by W. N. Arafat reported in a lengthy article in 1976 in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, which concludes that the alleged massacre never happened. Spencer attacks Arafat by ridiculing one of his arguments, namely, that such a massacre would violate Islamic law. Since Spencer’s whole purpose is to brand Islam as terroristic, he dismisses every scholarly analysis that would undermine his diabolical strategy.
"Diabolical strategy"! (Hey Bob: Boo!) I stand by my points here. No reference to the Medina constitution is made in any of Muha