Jihadists threaten to murder lawyer defending Afghan against blasphemy charge

"I told them they could do what they like. It didn't stop me taking the case."

"Islamists threaten to murder lawyer defending Pervez," by Jerome Starkey for The Independent, August 1:

The Afghan lawyer defending a journalist on death row in Kabul has been bombarded with death threats urging him to drop the case.

Islamic extremists repeatedly threatened to murder Afzal Nooristani after he agreed to defend Sayed Pervez Kambaksh in his high-profile appeal.

The 23-year-old student writer was sentenced to death for circulating an article about women's rights. He was tried in a closed court, and denied a defence lawyer. His case has sparked worldwide protests.

In Afghanistan, conservative clerics have led rallies endorsing his conviction, while others have marched for his release. Most lawyers were too afraid to take his case.

"I received phone calls threatening to kill me," said Mr Nooristani. "I answered two of them and got lots of missed calls. But I told them they could do what they like. It didn't stop me taking the case."

More than 100,000 people have signed an online Independent petition demanding justice for Mr Kambaksh. The United Nations' high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, have all called for justice to be done.

But speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Afghan Bar Association yesterday, Mr Nooristani warned that the appeal was already deeply flawed, and he said it is almost impossible for Mr Kambaksh to get a fair trial.

"There's no concrete evidence against him, but still the court insists on keeping him in jail and postponing the trial," he said.

Mr Kambaksh was moved to Kabul, from his local jail in Mazar-e Sharif, to improve his chances of a fair trial. But the case has been postponed indefinitely following a brief court appearance in May.

"Even in Kabul the judge played the role of the prosecution. Now the court has to set a date for the trial but we haven't received anything for months," Mr Nooristani added.

Guilty until proven dead. Then still guilty.

Most of Afghanistan's 580 lawyers attended the Bar Association meeting, highlighting the desperate shortage of legal professionals in a nation of more than 25 million. Most court proceedings take place without defence lawyers. Organisers hope the new association will improve justice but admit it could take years.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews."

Common sense from a former Hamas member who has converted to Christianity. "Hamas' Christian convert: I've left a society that sanctifies terror," by Avi Issacharoff for Haaretz, July 31 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.

It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. "I'm now called Joseph," he says at the outset.

Masab knows that he has little hope of returning to visit the Holy Land in this lifetime. "I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God."

Nor does he attempt to hide his affection for Israel, or his abhorrence of everything representing the surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

"Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country," he says.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds.'"...

Fitzgerald: The Rand Corporation, the Left, and the Right

“In a new report, the Rand Corporation suggests the US replace the term ‘war on terror’ with ‘counter-terrorism.’” -- from this article

How much money, how big was the contract, that allowed a group at the Rand Corporation to come up with this kind of thing? A million? Ten? Were bound copies of the solemn report, distributed to the press and members of the government, on the heaviest-weight bond, the best that Crane produces, and bound, possibly, by Sangorski and Sutcliffe?

Please explain, Rand Corporation (and all you armies of consultants feeding so greedily at the trough of the "war on terrorism") what exactly you did, how many man-hours were involved, and who participated in, the report that includes such things as this?

We'd all like to know.

You don't "defeat" those who are already True Believers of the Al Qaeda sort. But you can make Islam far less attractive to weak-minded or alienated Infidels by limiting the efficacy of well-financed and incessant campaigns of Da'wa. You can make Islam far less attractive -- make it an embarrassment, really -- for many Muslims now living in the West. You can make Believers, whether living in the Lands of the Infidels or in Dar al-Islam, more likely to question Islam -- for example, cause the 80% of the world's Muslims who are not Arabs to begin to see that Islam is, and what's more always has been and will be, a vehicle for Arab supremacism, expressed sometimes in linguistic and cultural imperialism, and sometimes, as well, in the form of economic and political imperialism. You can make all Muslims see, or at least be forced to listen to, or eavesdrop upon, the proposition -- repeated endlessly and loudly -- that the failures of Muslim states and societies, political and economic and social, moral and intellectual, are the result of Islam itself. This has been discussed by me, and in detail, dozens of times before. Since I was the first to do so, and even now have yet to hear a detectable echo where it should have been picked up and endlessly repeated, I want the American government to send my check, care of this website, and to make it at least equal to the sums spent on assorted Rand Corporation reports such as this one, over the past seven years.

I need the money. And you, Dear American Government, need the advice that is worth its weight in...gold, diamonds, titanium -- well, a hell of a lot.

When you must husband resources for a war, because the war in question goes on forever, and when the main instruments of the enemy are not qitaal or terrorism, but an assault on the West, through the Money Weapon, Da'wa, and demographic conquest (though in some places, where the Infidels are deemed militarily not as powerful as that West, as in the Philippines and Thailand and Sudan and Nigeria during the Biafra War, qitaal or combat, and its handmaiden terrorism, are used), then you try to identify weaknesses in the enemy camp, and to exploit those weaknesses, to play on them. You certainly do not do anything to minimize or decrease the effect of those internal weaknesses.

The Bush Administration has not done that in its ill-named "war on terror," which includes large sums of money, and all sorts of other things as well -- men's lives, for example, and military equipment used up at a fantastic rate -- being squandered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. There are other ways. It takes a real effort to fail to see the sectarian and ethnic divides in Iraq (and Afghanistan, and Pakistan too). It takes a real effort not to see the resentment of poor Muslims at the largely-unshared and undeserved riches of the Gulf Arabs and others who have received the trillions, and who do almost nothing to relieve the poverty of other Muslims, save for a few well-chosen, publicity-stunt "donations" here and there.

But what is curious is that the critics of the Bush Administration also have failed to identify, to put their finger, on what is wrong with the policy. Perhaps those most exercised by Iraq are people who, often described as "on the left," who while they want the Americans out of Iraq, are not about even to hint at the very best, the very most convincing argument, in favor of an American withdrawal: that such a withdrawal will not only end the colossal squandering of resources, but also lead to a situation of permanent low-level hostilities between Shi'a and Sunni, as the latter do not acquiesce in, and the former refuse to surrender, the new power acquired by the majority Shi'a, the inevitable consequence of the removal of Saddam Hussein and his disguised Sunni despotism. So deep is the desire, by those critics "on the left" of the Administration, never to call Islam itself into question, that they never hint that perhaps the reason the Bush Administration's policy is so maddeningly wrong is that it is based on sentimental messianism, the desire to "bring freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" without noticing that these "ordinary moms and dads" are Muslim -- and therefore, even if this or that American officer may have allowed himself to be tremendously impressed with some Iraqi counterpart, whose interests temporarily coincide with those of the Americans, which leads to his being regarded as a true-blue ally, when in fact he is a true-blue ally only for this or that purpose, in the end, if he is a true believer in Islam, he will turn on the Americans the minute they either stop being useful (as in fighting those he regards as the enemies of his sect or ethnic group or tribe) or refuse to come through with more money and, especially, more military equipment.

Watch out for the more innocent American officers returning from Iraq who, knowing little of Islam, remember fondly only this or that liquid-brown-eyed Iraqi who was once fighting beside them, and manage to mistake these people for permanent friends -- a motley crew of friends, Shia or Sunni Arab or Kurd -- mesopotamian gunga dins whom the Americans can count on. In fact, the person who is raised up in a Total Belief-System that inculcates the notion that the only division of humanity that counts is that between Believer and Infidel is unlikely to be someone you can count on, unless he needs you, right then, or is hoping to inveigle out of you something in the near future.

No, the Left in America won't use the one argument that could prove successful in persuading the government -- of Obama or McCain -- to withdraw troops from Iraq, and not to put more troops, or give still more aid, to the meretricious government of Karzai in hopeless, but manageable (mostly through ruthless manipulation of local proxies) Afghanistan. They would rather keep the troops there than make an argument based on telling the truth about the meaning, and menace, of Islam.

As for the Right, what comes into play is simply blind, dumb loyalty to Bush and to those who, calling themselves "conservatives" (whatever that now means) and "Republicans," do not dare to recognize the folly of the venture that will enter history as Tarbaby Iraq -- or at least should. No, they won't reason why.

Programmatic Left, hating Bush but not wanting to suggest there might be a problem with Islam, and Programmatic Right, wishing not to suggest that there might be a problem with the tactics and strategy in this "war on terror," deserve each other. And they have each other.

The problem is that we who wish to be counted out of both camps, and simply would like threats identified, opportunities recognized and exploited, and nimbler wits to be employed, also must pay for the continued idiocy of others. As the wise man dieth, so dieth the fool, or expressed otherwise, As the fool dieth (because of his foolishness), so -- when the fools are ruling the roost, because there are so many of them -- alas, dieth the wise man.

It's happened so often before. See, for example, the last unappetizing century.

Head of jihadist school in Virginia guilty of not reporting child abuse

This is a sidelight on the main issue at the Islamic Saudi Academy, which is that it is teaching jihad and Islamic supremacism, and turning out jihadists. Maybe he didn't know he was supposed to file such a report. That is remotely possible, although generally school districts are quite adamant about this sort of thing, and it would be hard to miss.

But there are a few other considerations. First, on the sexual abuse of a five-year-old, this is a Saudi-run school. Just last month we saw Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, "a Saudi marriage officiant," saying that "there is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a one-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of nine, seven, or eight....But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions." With attitudes like that prevalent in Saudi Arabia, and of course they're reinforced by the fact that Islamic tradition says that Muhammad married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine, why should anyone be surprised that this Saudi academy would turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse of a five-year-old?

Then again, even if Al-Shabnan deplored what was going on, he may have hesitated to report it to the filthy kuffar, the "vilest of created beings" (Qur'an 98:6). It is considered a good thing to conceal the faults of a fellow Muslim, as Muhammad said: "The servant (who conceals) the faults of others in this world, Allah would conceal his faults on the Day of Resurrection" (Sahih Muslim 32.6267). The ordinary understanding of slander in the West is that it involves making false charges that defame another person. But in Islamic law, the definition of slander doesn't involve falsehood. The Shafi'i manual of Islamic law 'Umdat al-Salik defines "slander" as "to mention anything concerning a person that he would dislike." Nothing is said about whether or not what is said is true -- only that the person would dislike it. And this is based on a statement of Muhammad to the same effect.

Also, how would a five-year-old girl in ordinary circumstances know enough to make sexual abuse allegations just to get attention? Could it be that Al-Shabnan did not want to make known, especially to the unbelievers, what his Muslim brother would dislike? After all, as the Qur'an warns, "Woe unto every slandering traducer" (104:1).

This story yet again raises the question: does the United States really want, and can it really afford, to admit large numbers of people into the country who hold these kinds of assumptions?

"Head of Islamic School Guilty Of Not Reporting Child Abuse," by Tom Jackman for the Washington Post, July 31 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The director general of a controversial private Islamic school in Fairfax County has been found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse and fined $500.

Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, head of the Islamic Saudi Academy on Route 1 in the Mount Vernon area, was arrested last month by Fairfax police, who said Al-Shabnan had been informed of the possible sexual abuse of a 5-year-old student at the school. School authorities are required by law to report alleged child abuse within 72 hours.

Al-Shabnan was charged with misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse and obstruction of justice. He pleaded no contest July 24 to the failure to report charge, and Fairfax prosecutors agreed to dismiss the obstruction charge, according to court records.

Al-Shabnan did not return a phone call seeking comment yesterday. His attorney, Robert C. Whitestone, said, "We thought it was a fair resolution."

The Islamic Saudi Academy has come under criticism because some of its textbooks contain passages that extol jihad and martyrdom, call for victory over one's enemies and say the killing of adulterers and apostates is justified. The academy has rented the school from Fairfax County since 1984, and the county recently renewed its lease for three years....

Cultural differences might have led to the episode that resulted in Al-Shabnan's arrest. A police affidavit filed last month said that detectives learned in May that the 5-year-old girl attended the academy's West Campus on Popes Head Road, just south of Fairfax City, and her sexual abuse allegations had been reported to the school's administrators. No report was made to any state agency.

Detectives interviewed the girl and then visited Al-Shabnan, who said he "did not believe her complaint and felt she may be attempting to gain attention," according to the affidavit by Detective Doug Comfort.

Al-Shabnan told police that he met with the child's parents and advised them to seek counseling for the girl. Al-Shabnan then reportedly told the detectives that he "was not aware that he was required to make such a report" to child protective agencies, Comfort wrote. Police also found that Al-Shabnan had "ordered the written report deleted from the computer" of the school....

Jihadists develop "suicide underwear"

Unmentionables. "Terrorists develop ‘suicide underwear,’" by Imran Asghar for the Daily Times, July 31 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

RAWALPINDI: Would-be suicide bombers could be using explosives “underwear briefs” rather than explosives jackets to evade “conservative” body searches, sources said on Wednesday.

Sihala Police College forensic lab sources told Daily Times that the study of recent suicide attacks showed that suicide bombers used “explosives-laden” under-garments, briefs in particular, to carry out the attacks....

Philippines: Four Christians killed, one missing after jihadists ambush bus

"The signing of a peace accord between the central government and MILF rebels, held responsible for the July 24th attack in Davao del Sur, appears increasingly fragile."

Uh-huh. "Mindanao: four Christians killed, a fifth missing," by Santosh Digal for AsiaNews, July 30:

Cotabato City (AsiaNews) – Armed men stopped a mini-bus and murdered four Christian male passengers execution-style in Mindanao yesterday, while a fifth passenger is still missing.

According to police, the murder took place in an area considered a bastion of rebels from the Moro Islamic Front, where criminal episodes of this nature have occurred in the past. Security officials failed to confirm is if the assassination was of a confessional nature or whether the Muslim militants were responsible. The bus was carrying about 15 people when it was stopped near Malabang, Lanao del Sur, an area under MILF control. The passengers were robbed but the women were allowed to leave unharmed; then four of the five men were dragged into a forest and shot in the head at close range, the fifth abducted.

The signing of a peace accord between the central government and MILF rebels, held responsible for the July 24th attack in Davao del Sur, appears increasingly fragile. Also Yesterday 30 suspected MILF rebels attacked a paramilitary outpost in Dualing, Midsayap, North Cotabato, killing a civilian and wounding four others.

MILF maintains its right to control some of the majority Muslim regions of Mindanao, the theatre of bloody episodes of violence: on the negotiating table the creation of a “federal” state – the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), enlarged by the annexation of a further 72 Muslim majority villages – along with rights to exploit territorial resources. Villages will be able to decide by popular referendum whether to join the ARMM, but the deputy governor of North Nord Cotabato has underlined the uselessness of the vote because of “threats and vote rigging aimed at forcing the villagers to vote for annexation.”...

Objective journalism update: US detains Reuters photographer in Iraq

Seeing the kind of reporting that regularly comes from Reuters and the others, it does not require a great leap of imagination to think that some "journalists" are jihadists. "Iraqi journalist detained by U.S. military," from The Associated Press, July 31 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

BAGHDAD: Reuters news agency said Thursday one of its Iraqi photographers had been detained by the U.S. military and called on the American command to make public the reasons for his detention.

Ali al-Mashhadani, who also freelances for the British Broadcasting Corp. and National Public Radio in the United States, was picked up Saturday in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone where he had gone to apply for a U.S. military press card, Reuters said in a statement.

Al-Mashhadani is being held at the U.S. detention facility at Camp Cropper near Baghdad International Airport, the agency said.

The U.S. military confirmed the detention and told The Associated Press in an e-mail that al-Mashhadani was being held "because of a perceived security threat." The command did not elaborate.

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger called on the U.S. military to make public its accusations against the photographer so they can be "dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defense."

"Iraqi journalists like Mashhadani play a vital role in telling this story to the world," Schlesinger said in a statement Thursday....

Al-Mashhadani was detained in August 2005 after U.S. troops found photos of insurgent activity in his camera while searching his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.

He was released without charge in January 2006 but was detained for two weeks a few months later. No charges were filed after the second detention.

U.S. forces have held other Iraqi journalists working for foreign news organizations for long periods without charging them.

In April, the U.S. military released Bilal Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer working for The Associated Press, after holding him for two years.

An Iraqi television camera operator working for the AP in Tikrit, Ahmed Nouri Raziak, was detained by U.S. forces in June. He was recently ordered held for at least six more months.

Spencer: Turkey's Dilemma

In Human Events today I discuss Turkey and Rice:

Can democracy survive the closing of a major political party – the ruling political party in the country? Imagine if the Supreme Court had convened to discuss banning the Democratic Party. Something no less momentous is happening in Turkey this week.

Turkey’s constitutional court convened last Monday to discuss charges that the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling party in that country, should be closed down. The party is charged with trying to destroy Turkey’s secular government and impose Islamic law. Al-Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid estimates that the court should take “at least three to 10 days” to come to a decision.

Closing down political parties has long been a means by which Turkey’s highest court has protected the increasingly fragile secular system established in that country by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s. The court has shut down over twenty parties over the years – including the foremost proponents of the establishment of Islamic law in Turkey. The AKP is the linear descendant of the Nationalist Order Party (MNP), which the court shut down in 1971 because of its agitation on behalf of political Islam; the Welfare Party (RP), which was banned for the same reason in 1998; and the short-lived Fazilet Party (FP), which RP Parliamentarians established shortly after their party’s demise and was likewise closed down shortly thereafter.

The Turkish court has good reason to suspect that the AKP is working to undermine Turkish secularism and impose Islamic law over the country. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), while Mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s (and a prominent member of the Welfare Party), Turkey’s current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan railed against Turkish secularism. “If the people want it,” he declared, “of course secularism will go away. You cannot rule this people by force; you don't have the power to do that. This [i.e. secularism] cannot work in spite of the people.” And the people, he suggested, wanted Islamic law: “But the fact is that 99% of the people of this country are Muslims. You cannot be both secular and a Muslim! You will either be a Muslim, or secular!...For them to exist together is not a possibility! Therefore, it is not possible for a person who says ‘I am a Muslim’ to go on and say ‘I am secular too.’ And why is that? Because Allah, the creator of the Muslim, has absolute power and rule!”

His saying that Allah “has absolute power and rule” was not merely an expression of piety. Islam has historically always been a political and social system as well as an individual religious faith. Islamic law, Sharia, is a comprehensive system governing every aspect of individual behavior. It also contains laws for the governance of the state and the ordering of society. If it is imposed in Turkey, women and non-Muslims would be subjugated under a system of institutionalized discrimination; the freedom of conscience and of speech would be restricted; and the relatively Westernized aspects of Turkish society would wither away.

Oddly enough, therefore, the closing of the AKP, while not administering a definitive defeat to the forces of political Islam, may be necessary in order to safeguard Turkey’s relative democratic pluralism. And if that is not enough, the Turkish military may ultimately have to intervene, as it has done before. Under the Turkish constitution, the military has the obligation to preserve democracy against the establishment of theocracy.

Can democracy possibly be protected by the court-ordered closing of a political party, or even by a coup d’etat? If democracy is simply head-counting, then no, it cannot. But Turkey now faces the possibility that its secular system and relative (and I do mean relative -- relative to Sharia, that is) equality of rights for all its citizens can only be protected by these means.

Yet Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has warned the Turkish military, the historical guarantors of Kemalism, not to act against the government. There is no indication, however, that in this she has taken into account the fact that the AKP-ruled government is clearly moving to establish Islamic law in Turkey, and to destroy the elements of Turkish society that make it more of a natural ally of the U.S. than any other Muslim-majority state.

Is she not being short-sighted? Or worse?

Fjordman: The Organization of the Islamic Conference and Eurabia

The European essayist Fjordman elucidates recent Islamic initiatives to end free speech in the West, and shows what's at stake:

Dr. Andrew Bostom, editor of the excellent book The Legacy of Jihad and the recent book about Islamic anti-Semitism, warns that the 57 Muslim nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference are trying to impose Islamic blasphemy law -- which includes the death penalty for those who "blaspheme" the Muslim prophet Muhammad -- as the universal standard across the world.

These sentiments of the OIC were reiterated more brazenly by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. During a sermon in response to the Danish Muhammad cartoons which aired February 3, 2006, Qaradawi demanded action from the United Nations in accordance with sharia-based conceptions of blasphemy: "…the governments [of the world] must be pressured to demand that the U.N. adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets—to the prophets of the Lord and his Messengers, to His holy books, and to the religious holy places."

As German journalist Henryk Broder noted back then: "Objectively speaking, the cartoon controversy was a tempest in a teacup. But subjectively it was a show of strength and, in the context of the 'clash of civilizations,' a dress rehearsal for the real thing. The Muslims demonstrated how quickly and effectively they can mobilize the masses, and the free West showed that it has nothing to counter the offensive -- nothing but fear, cowardice and an overriding concern about the balance of trade. Now the Islamists know that they are dealing with a paper tiger whose roar is nothing but a tape recording."

In the aftermath of the Cartoon Jihad, in Norway in June 2007 members of dozens of newspapers, TV stations and organizations participated in an international conference on how to "report diversity" in a non-offensive manner, with Arab News from Saudi Arabia as a moderator. Keynote speaker at the conference, Dr. Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Envoy for racism, xenophobia and intolerance, urged the media to actively participate in the creation of a Multicultural society, and expressed concerns that the democratic process could lead to immigration-restrictive parties gaining influence in Western nations.

Diène said that it is a dangerous development when increasing numbers of intellectuals in the West believe that some cultures are better than others, and stated that "The media must transform diversity, which is a fact of life, into pluralism, which is a set of values." Getting diversity accepted is the role of the education system, and acceptance is the role of the law. "Promoting and defending diversity is the task of the media." Societies must recognize, accept and promote diversity, which always seems to mean sharia. Mr. Diène represents Senegal, an African Muslim country which is a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, sponsored by Arab oil money.

There were already signs that large portions of the mainstream media have been working according to similar ideas long before his conference. In Britain, leading figures of the BBC have proudly announced that they actively promote Multiculturalism. In Denmark in 2008, while their country was threatened by Muslims across the world, public broadcaster Danmarks Radio, the local equivalent of the BBC and with the same left-wing bias, decided to hold a "Miss Headscarf" beauty contest for women with the only requirement being that they are over 15 and wear a headscarf or veil, the way proper Muslim women are supposed to do.

In March 2008, the United Nation's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Dutch MP Wilder's movie Fitna as "offensively anti-Islamic," and said that "There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence." Does that mean that the UN is now going to ban the Koran? Earlier in March, the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Muslim countries, passed a resolution saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it. The only religion specified was Islam. The document was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

I have been saying for a long time that trying to export "democracy" to Islamic countries is pointless. Islam can be compatible with "democracy" in the limited sense of voting rights and majority rule, but this has never automatically implied individual liberty. (See my online booklet Is Islam Compatible With Democracy?)

It's a sick joke that American soldiers are bleeding literally and American taxpayers financially to export "democracy" to Iraq while Muslims are exporting sharia to us. Freedom is free speech, that's the simplest definition of it. Muslims are using the UN to limit criticism of Islam globally, which basically means putting the entire world under Islamic rule.

My view of the United Nations is quite clear: It is at best irrelevant. At best. Increasingly, it is turning into an outright enemy, an enemy funded by us but used to attack us. I'm tired of sponsoring enemies, at home and abroad. I'm all for boycotting the UN and making it truly irrelevant by bleeding it dry for funds and ultimately withdrawing from it.

Muslims have lots of oil and lots of babies and lots of aggression, but that's all they have. Otherwise, they're a spectacular failure. We need them for very little. They need us for virtually everything. We should exploit that. We should separate ourselves from the Islamic world as much as possible. They will suffer far more from this than we will. We can start by boycotting the UN, which is now little more than a tool for global sharia, and the Arab Muslims of the West Bank and Gaza, who reinvented themselves as "Palestinians" and started whining at the UN after the Israelis kicked their collective behinds in 1967.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called upon Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products, following the release of the Islam-critical movie Fitna by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Personally, I'm all for boycotts of and by Muslims. The more, the merrier. Mr. Mahathir held the notorious speech at the OIC conference in 2003 where he said that the Jews rule the world by proxy and that Muslims must unite to achieve a final victory over them. Not everybody remembers that he also boasted about the age when "Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage."

Somebody should remind him that the so-called "golden age" of Islam was a result of a still-large non-Muslim population. As soon as that declined, due to harassment and discrimination, the Islamic world never recovered. Malaysia is sometimes portrayed as an economically successful Muslim nation, but that is because it only recently became majority Muslim and still has a large Chinese, Indian and other non-Muslim minority. Since Islam is becoming more aggressive and Muslims increase discrimination of non-Muslims, infidels will leave, and Malaysia will gradually be reduced to just another failed sharia state.

In 2008, the current Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi warned his British counterpart, PM Brown, that Muslim extremism in Britain will grow unless the government and society learn to understand Islam and allow the country's Muslims to live under sharia law. What he didn't say is that sharia applies to all members of society, also non-Muslims, who should have their freedoms curtailed as well.

Historian David Littman is a representative to the United Nations of the Association for World Education. He has spent years tracking the rise of Islamic influence at the UN. According to him, "In recent years, representatives of some Muslim states have demanded, and often received, special treatment at the United Nations." As a result, "non-diplomatic terms such as 'blasphemy' and 'defamation of Islam' have seeped into the United Nations system, leading to a situation in which non-Muslim governments accept certain rules of conduct in conformity with Islamic law (the Shari'a) and acquiesce to a self-imposed silence regarding topics touching on Islam."

In May 2007, the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) expressed "grave concern" at the rising tide of intolerance against Muslims, especially in Europe and North America. They described "Islamophobia" as a deliberate defamation of Islam, and pointed out that whenever the issue of Islamophobia was discussed in international forums, the Western bloc, particularly some members of the European Union, tried to avoid discussing the core issue and instead diverted the attention from their region to the situation of non-Muslims and human rights in the OIC member states.

In June 2008, the OIC announced its plan for fighting Islamophobia. Here's what Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, their Secretary General, had to say: "We are encouraged to see however, that an awareness of the dangers of Islamophobia is gradually setting in the West. The condemnation by many Western leaders and governments of Islamophobic acts such as the [Dutch movie] Fitna are positive confidence building measures that lead us to believe that all is not lost and that the gap can be closed in time. But mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia will not resolve the issue as long as they remain free to carry on with their campaign of incitement and provocation on the plea of freedom of expression."

As Baron Bodissey of the Gates of Vienna blog commented, the phrase "as long as they remain free…" clearly reveals their agenda: "Obviously, the intention of the OIC is to do everything within its power to make sure that the citizens of the Western democracies do not remain free." Mr. Ihsanoglu unveiled a ten-point program that he proposed in order to meet the OIC's ambitious goals. The plan is all there, laid out in black and white for anyone to read. Unfortunately, not everybody understands its implications.

In Der Spiegel in June 2008, Dirk Kurbjuweit commented on the Irish popular rejection of the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution by concluding that "Europe's politicians are determined to avoid asking the people their opinion. And they are right to do so." According to him, "Again and again, they trick their populations into accepting the European Union. It's been going on for 50 years: politicians making policy against the people. The only time anyone ever notices is when the people -- one people, in this case -- are asked for their opinion. It happened in Ireland recently, when the Irish made it clear that they refuse to accept the politics of scoundrels."

Regarding German chancellor Angela Merkel, he speculates whether "she is in fact wholeheartedly behind a strengthening of the European Union, perhaps even knowingly against the wishes of German citizens." Dirk Kurbjuweit seems to approve of this strategy of denying citizens a say in the future of their countries and their children. He concludes:

"Perhaps the EU's secret strategy is called 'strategic boredom' -- attract no attention and make no waves, but continue to plod along, quietly and stubbornly, ignoring the murmurs of concern from all around. The scoundrels in Brussels have sold the European people a lot of things: a single market, the euro, the lifting of many border controls and, most recently, a binding global climate policy. These have all been good things, and they have helped make Europe an eminently livable continent. Despite the many dull moments and emotions that have been negative at best, the end result has been laudable. Most of these improvements would have been held up, if not outright prevented, by referendums. Democracy doesn't mean having unlimited confidence in citizens. Sometimes the big picture is in better hands when politicians are running it, and a big picture takes time."

The "big picture" which is being implemented by these same political elites does not only include political integration within Europe, it also includes European cultural, political and economic integration with the Arab-Islamic world, conducted largely without the approval of European citizens. Mr. Kurbjuweit didn't mention that part.

In March 2008, Terry Davis, a former politician for the British Labour Party and now the General Secretary of the Council of Europe, wrote a letter in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten denouncing the republishing of the Muhammad cartoons, stating that "freedom of speech should not be used as a freedom to insult." As Jyllands-Posten wrote in a response, "Freedom of expression is exactly the freedom to insult anyone within the framework of the law."

The Council of Europe (CoE) was founded in 1949, earlier than the European Community/European Union. It is still a separate organization but very much within the orbit of the EU's Eurabian networks and cooperates increasingly closer on "dialogue" with Islamic countries. For instance, the North-South Centre (for cooperation between Europe and the Arab world), officially named the European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity, is an EU/CoE partnership. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union from May 2007 outlines many areas of cooperation between the two organizations, including intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity, education and youth as well as the fight against discrimination, racism, xenophobia and intolerance (which includes "Islamophobia").

One of the websites linked to from the CoE's homepage is the organization "All different, all equal." Yes, it does sound like something out of George Orwell's classic novel Animal Farm. The organization champions many activities. One of them was when the Council of Europe's Directorate of Youth and Sport and the Directorate of External Relations and Co-operation of the Islamic Organisation for Education, Science and Culture (ISESCO) in 2007 organized an "intercultural course" on Arabic language and culture in Morocco, intended for members of European youth organizations between the ages of 18 and 30. It was intended to "develop their language skills, to promote intercultural and interreligious dialogue, international understanding, and to combat prejudice and all forms of racism and xenophobia."

There are also networks Combating Social Exclusion and Discrimination, and several youth organizations linked to by "All different, all equal" participated in a "Rainbow Paper" with recommendations for making Intercultural Dialogue happen on the ground. 2008 is the official "European Year of Intercultural Dialogue," jointly coordinated by the Council of Europe and the European Union. This "dialogue" is an extension of the EU's long-term plans for Euro-Arab dialogue, and focuses mainly on Islam and why Europeans should learn to love Islamic culture.

In connection with this, the Council of Europe in 2008 published a White Paper (pdf) on Intercultural Dialogue entitled "Living Together As Equals in Dignity." It places particular emphasis on providing proper "Multicultural" education to European children: "Within the formal curriculum, the intercultural dimension straddles all subjects.
History, language education and the teaching of religious and convictional facts are perhaps among the most relevant." Concerted efforts should be made to "avoid prejudice," and "In 2007, the European Ministers of Education underlined the importance of measures to improve understanding between cultural and/or religious communities through school education."

The White Paper focuses on the young: "Youth and sport organisations, together with religious communities, are particularly well placed to advance intercultural dialogue in a non-formal education context." "Educators at all levels play an essential role in fostering intercultural dialogue and in preparing future generations for dialogue." "Kindergartens, schools, youth clubs and youth activities in general are key sites for intercultural learning and dialogue." Moreover, "The workplace should not be ignored as a site for intercultural dialogue."

Among recommendations, the paper says the following:

"Public debate has to be marked by respect for cultural diversity. Public displays of racism, xenophobia or any other form of intolerance must be rejected and condemned, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, irrespective of whether they originate with bearers of public office or in civil society. Every form of stigmatisation of persons belonging to minority and disadvantaged groups in public discourse needs to be ruled out. The media can make a positive contribution to the fight against intolerance, especially where they foster a culture of understanding between members of different ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious communities. Media professionals should reflect on the problem of intolerance in the increasingly multicultural and multi-ethnic environment of the member states and on the measures which they might take to promote tolerance, mutual understanding and respect. States should have robust legislation to outlaw 'hate speech' and racist, xenophobic, homophobic, antisemitic, islamophobic and antigypsy or other expressions, where this incites hatred or violence. Members of the criminal justice system should be well trained to implement and uphold such legislation. Independent national anti-discrimination bodies or similar structures should also be in place, to scrutinise the effectiveness of such legislation."

"Islamophobia" is repeatedly singled out as one of the forms of "discrimination and racism" that needs to be ruthlessly stamped out through indoctrination as well as legal means across the entire European continent, a policy which is being implemented at an accelerating pace.

In addition to forcing the education system to teach European children to love "Islamic culture," the media should do the same with the adults: "The Council of Europe, together with media professionals and journalism training institutions, is launching in 2008 a campaign against discrimination, bringing into focus the role of the media in a multicultural Europe. Journalism, promoted in a responsible manner through codes of ethics as advanced by the media industry itself and a culture-sensitive training of journalists, can help provide fora for intercultural dialogue."

Finally, the White Paper lists many institutions it should cooperate with, most of them Islamic organizations or organizations geared towards appeasing Muslims, for instance the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, which is one of the EU's most important instruments for Eurabian cooperation:

"The Council of Europe will promote and expand co-operation with other organisations active in intercultural dialogue, including UNESCO and the 'Alliance of Civilizations' initiative, the OSCE, the EU and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, as well as other regional organisations, such as the League of Arab States and its educational, cultural and scientific organisation, ALECSO, representing a region with many ties to Europe and a distinct cultural tradition. The Council of Europe will also promote intercultural dialogue on the basis of its standards and values when cooperating in the context of specific projects with institutions such as the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA). The regional focus of this co-operation will be the interaction between Europe and its neighbouring regions, specifically the southern shores of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Central Asia."

Notice the cooperation with institutions dedicated to "Islamic history." Concerted efforts are underway to rewrite European school textbooks in order to promote Islam in a positive light. In the European Parliament, the German Christian Democrat Hans-Gert Pöttering stated that textbooks should be reviewed for intolerant depictions of Islam to ensure they don't propagate prejudice. He suggested that the EU could co-operate with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to create a textbook review committee. This is in line with the general policy of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which desires to rewrite textbooks around the world to remove anything critical of Islam, silence mentioning of the victims of 1400 years of Islamic Jihad and glorify the achievements of "Islamic civilization."

In June 2008, the OIC stated that "We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed." As Robert Spencer commented, "That sounds like the statement of a victor in a war, dictating terms to the vanquished." Muslims are happy with their "progress" in Europe and now concentrate their fire on North America:

"'We have established an OIC Group in Washington D.C.,' Ihsanoglu explained, 'with the aim of playing a more active role in engaging American policy makers.' This will involve agitating for laws restricting free speech: "And in confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film 'Fitna,'' (which showed Muslims acting on violent passages in the Qur'an), Ihsanoglu continued, 'we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed.' Ihsanoglu says it's already working: 'As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.' In other words, 'irresponsible' speech -- which is defined as speech he disagrees with -- should be banned."

As Spencer warned, "Can honest discussion really be outlawed? You bet it can. As long as free people do nothing to stop it from happening. As the OIC presses American politicians to use anti-discrimination and hate speech laws to 'stem this illegal trend,' we need to stand up now with Mark Steyn and all the others who are on the front lines of this battle, and tell them that what they're doing to Steyn in Canada must never happen here. We must tell our elected officials to stop this outrage, resist OIC lobbying, and reaffirm in no uncertain terms our commitment to free speech -- particularly now, when so much depends on our being able to speak with honesty about the nature of the jihadist threat, and so many powerful entities want to make sure we do not do so. So much depends on this -- possibly even including our survival as a free people."

In the USA, the New York Times has suggested that the US should become more like Europe and Canada, abandon the silly protections of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment and ban "racism and hate speech." "It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books, "when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."

The only "vicious attacks" today are those by Muslims against the free speech and liberty of non-Muslims around the world. The attacks by both individual Muslims and international organizations such as the OIC on criticism of Islam are part of a campaign to force the entire planet's population to accept sharia censorship and thus de facto Islamic rule, a scenario which will permanently end human freedom in any meaningful sense of the word. There can be no compromise with such an agenda. I do not always agree with American policies vis-à-vis Islam, and the US is far from free of Political Correctness and informal censorship, but when it comes to legal protection of free speech, the American approach is correct, and the European – and Canadian – one is dead wrong. We do not need more ideological censorship. On the contrary, we need to protect and expand the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Iraq: suicide attack leaves three dead, four wounded

Since this is an al-Qaeda affiliated attack, one wonders if the suicide bomber was a child. "Suicide car bomber kills three policemen in Iraq," from ABC News, July 31:

Three police officers were killed and four others wounded when a suicide bomber tried to ram his car into a police station in northern Iraq, police said.

The attack occurred in the small town of Al-Geyar, about 50 kilometres from the violence-ridden northern city of Mosul, police captain Ayhmed al-Jiburi said.

Suicide bombers have struck routinely in and around Mosul, a well-known Al-Qaeda stronghold, despite a series of military operations there.

The attack came as about 50,000 Iraqi police and soldiers, with support from US troops, carried out a major military sweep directed against another Al-Qaeda fighter bastion further south, Diyala province.

Pakistan forewarning al-Qaeda before American strikes, US asserts

Such otherwise traitorous behavior is in complete keeping with several Koranic injunctions which have led to the doctrine of Loyalty (to Muslims) and Enmity (for infidels), such as the following, which both insists Muslims are to have no loyalty to infidels, and also to deceive the latter when necessary: "Allah most high said: 'Let believers [Muslims] not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah -- unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions' (that is, taqiyya, deceit)." See Ayman Zawahiri's 60 page treatise on Loyalty and Enmity in The Al Qaeda Reader. "U.S. says Pakistani spies forewarn al Qaeda allies," by Zeeshan Haider for Reuters, July 31:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The United States has accused members of Pakistan's main spy agency of tipping off al Qaeda-linked militants before U.S. missile attacks on targets in Pakistani tribal lands, Pakistan's defense minister said.

Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar openly acknowledged American mistrust of Pakistan's main military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in remarks aired on Thursday on Pakistani television.

"They think that there are some elements in the ISI at some level that when the government of Pakistan is informed of targets, then leak it to them (militants) at some level," Mukhtar told Geo in Washington, having accompanied Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on a maiden visit to the United States.

And what do you think, Mukhtar?

"This is an issue on which they were a bit annoyed."
[...]

The U.S. no longer gives Pakistan advance notice when it targets militants in tribal areas.
[...]

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that a top Central Intelligence Agency official confronted Pakistani officials earlier this month with evidence of ISI ties to militants, and involvement in a suicide car bomb attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed 58 people, including two senior Indian diplomats.

Gaza summer camps teach kids to fire rockets

"Unity and principle maintaining camps"

"Hamas alone is currently conducting no less than 300 summer camps for tens of thousands of children." By Ali Waked for YNet News, July 31:

In the Gaza Strip, as in Israel, children are currently in the midst of summer vacation, and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s “summer camps” are in full gear. In the past few weeks, the Palestinian groups have been holding camps throughout the strip, some of them proudly displaying rockets and other weaponry.

Hamas alone is currently conducting no less than 300 summer camps for tens of thousands of children, and the focus is on familiarizing kids with the Palestinian towns and cities destroyed in 1948, as well as instilling religious fervor in them. The camps also feature sports and military-type trainings such as crawling under barbed-wire.

Islamic Jihad has also launched its own summer camps, offering some 10,000 children activities similar to those of Hamas. The kids study passages from the Koran and participate in quizzes on religious matters, with emphasis on the required commitment to political prisoners and Palestinian land. They also learn how to hold a Qassam rocket-launcher.

An Islamic Jihad operative told Ynet that the students were not exposed to real rockets but to ones made of plastic. “In the camps we emphasize the need to unite and put an end to the internal struggles. We called them ‘unity and principle maintaining camps.’”

The third organization conducting summer camps in the Gaza Strip is United Nations Relief Association (UNRA.) Fatah is abstaining from camp operation for the second year in a row, due to the limitations placed on the movement by Hamas, as well as its meager financial resources as a result of Hamas’ takeover.

U.K.: Syrian Muslim gets 7 years in prison for building bombs

Hassan Tabbakh Update. "Syrian national jailed in Britain for bomb-making," by Agence France-Presse, July 30:

LONDON - A Syrian national who attempted to make bombs for Al-Qaeda-style attacks was jailed for seven years by a British court Wednesday, after being found guilty of terrorism offences.

A judge in Birmingham, central England, told Hassan Tabbakh that the home-made devices could have been developed into viable bombs capable of causing death and destruction.

The 38-year-old physics graduate, who lived in the city, was convicted of "preparing for acts of terrorism" after a two-week trial.

A jury heard he had tried to make bombs using easily available materials such as fertiliser and had made handwritten notes about their design.

Judge Frank Chapman told Tabbakh he was not being punished for having Islamist beliefs or for supporting Osama bin Laden's extremist network and similar organisations.

But he added: "If you had developed this concept into a working bomb, there would have been great potential for destruction, injury and death."

Tabbakh, who claimed to have been tortured in his homeland, was given indefinite leave to remain in Britain in 2005 after applying for asylum, the court was told.

Prosecutor Max Hill said police had found numerous items following Tabbakh's arrest on December 18 last year that showed he was preparing to wage "Al-Qaeda-style" jihad or holy war.

They included computer files with speeches by bin Laden and the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, plus footage of attacks on coalition forces.

Tabbakh, who denied the charge, claimed he had been making fireworks with the materials, for use at religious festivals.

Detectives said after the case that it was not clear what targets, if any, Tabbakh had identified, nor whether he was going to pass the bombs to someone else.

"We can only speculate as to the damage that might have been caused in our communities," said Superintendent Kenny Bell, of West Midlands Police.

"We believe he was making a practical attempt to make a bomb and we arrested him at the right time to maintain public safety."

Ding dong, the dhimmi's gone: Olmert to quit

Of course, the equally clueless Livni will probably succeed him.

"PM announces he will resign after Kadima elects new leader," from the Jerusalem Post, July 30:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a special press conference on Wednesday at 8 p.m. where he announced he will not run in the Kadima primary scheduled to take place in September.

Olmert said he would resign from office upon selection of a successor, and would allow his successor to attempt to form a coalition.

The premier lashed out at his political adversaries without naming any of them - either from Kadima or other parties - personally.

Olmert opened his speech by expressing his pride to be a citizen of Israel: "As a citizen in a democracy I have always believed that when a person is elected prime minister in Israel, even those who opposed him in the ballot want him to succeed.

"But instead I found myself subjected to constant investigations and criticism. Almost from day one, I had to repel personal attacks and postpone decisions that are pertinent to the security of the State."

Olmert then proceeded to recount the successes of his premiership: "And yet, Israel's position has improved.

"The North enjoys tranquility; Israel's deterrence has immeasurably improved. I am proud of these achievements," he said.

Achievements? The North is threatened with imminent attack and the South is already under attack. And he is whining about personal attacks.

Iran preparing nuke strike on U.S.?

They did "exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States."

"U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.," by Kenneth R. Timmerman for NewsMax, July 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.

The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”....

Afghan charged with blasphemy faces death if convicted, vigilante murder if acquitted

The Qur'an, according to traditional Islamic theology, exists and can exist only in Arabic. Its Arabic language is essential to its character. Translations have long been forbidden, but they are allowed for purposes of da'wah -- Islamic proselytizing. Muslims themselves produce translations into almost all of the languages of the world. But Zalmay's translation, according to this BBC report, "misinterprets verses about alcohol, begging, homosexuality and adultery."

Considering the mainstream Western view of the Book of Peace, this means that Zalmay's translation must say that alcohol use, begging, homosexuality and adultery should be punished severely instead of being met with compassion and mercy, right? The BBC report is silent about what exactly the translation said that was so offensive, but actually, given the mainstream teachings of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and the content of Qur'anic verses such as 5:90 (alcohol is an abomination), 7:80-81 (forbidding homosexuality), and 24:2 (100 lashes for adultery), it is more likely that the translation was more relaxed than the Arabic Qur'an on these matters. It may be akin to the Laleh Bakhtiar translation of the Qur'an that drastically rewrites 4:34 to remove that verse's clear reference to wife-beating.

If that is so, then in the West Zalmay might have been hailed as a reformer. But in Afghanistan reformers are not hailed. This is the fruit of the Sharia provision in the Afghan Constitution, a provision that the U.S. government should not have allowed into that Constitution. But since the U.S. government is wedded to the idea that Islam is a religion of peace, what possible objection could it have had to Islamic law?

An update on this story. "Afghan Journalist Jailed for Blasphemy Faces Death If Convicted, Danger If Acquitted," by Ahmad Shuja for FoxNews, July 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

An Afghan journalist who printed a translation of the Koran in a Persian dialect is on trial for blasphemy and could face the death penalty if convicted. But with threats from various powerful groups, he could face the same fate even if acquitted.

Ghaws Zalmay was arrested last November trying to flee to Pakistan after Afghanistan’s Senate backed a group of powerful Sunni clerics who were calling for his arrest. He was scheduled to have a third hearing in a Kabul court on Wednesday.

Zalmay, who was a spokesman for the Attorney General and head of Afghanistan's Journalists' Union at the time of his arrest, was charged with 13 counts of blasphemy. He is accused of having "written his own Koran" in Dari, one of Afghanistan's official languages. His two brothers and a friend were imprisoned, too, charged with helping him flee.

Following Zalmay's arrest, there were demonstrations and calls for his death, including from former Prime Minister Ahmadshah Ahmadzai, a warlord and opponent to President Hamid Karzai in the 2004 presidential elections.

Now, as Afghanistan struggles with its nascent judicial system, Zalmay’s case — and others like his — are putting the country’s experiment with democracy to the test....

No kidding, really?

If the court acquits Zalmay, his life is in danger outside the prison," Afzali said....

No kidding, really?

Rand declares new strategy to defeat al-Qaeda!

Basically, to replace the term "war on terror" with "counter-terrorism." More silly semantics. "New strategy 'can beat al-Qaeda,'" from the BBC, July 29:

Al-Qaeda can be defeated if the US relies less on force and more on intelligence and policing to find its leaders, a leading US think-tank says.

In a new report, the Rand Corporation suggests the US replace the term "war on terror" with "counter-terrorism".

Profound!

Al-Qaeda is blamed for the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US and other attacks around the world.

Many analysts believe Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are hiding near the Afghan-Pakistan border.
[...]

'Shift strategy'

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," said Seth Jones, political scientist and lead author of the study.

There's always a "battlefield solution" -- to everything. Indeed, "battle fields" are the ultimate solutions, when all else -- diplomacy, passivity, apologetics, and even semantic-games -- fail.

"The United States has the necessary instruments to defeat al-Qaeda, it just needs to shift its strategy."

The researchers at Rand, which is funded by the US government, studied 648 militant groups which existed between 1968 and 2006 and, based on their findings, the report concluded that only 7% were defeated militarily.

Political settlements helped neutralise 43% groups and an effective use of police and intelligence information helped to disrupt, capture or kill 40% of leaders of such groups, the study says.

Fine, but "political settlements" will not assuage al-Qaeda and other "groups" motivated by an ideology believed to be endorsed by a god that says the only "political settlement" acceptable is for non-Muslims to live in subjugation to Islam -- and all around the globe.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is accused of being behind the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in East Africa and the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.

Since then, his al-Qaeda network has been linked with many other attacks around the world.

Ethiopia: Muslim mobs stone Christians

Guess this is the "thanks" the descendants of the great "Negus" -- the king of Ethiopia during Muhammad's time who provided shelter and refuge to the first Muslim community -- get in return. "Muslim Mob Stones Christians in Eastern Ethiopia," by Michael Ireland, for Worthy News, July 30:

ETHIOPIA (ANS) -- A mob of Islamic extremists stoned Seid Ahmed and Musa Ibrahim [names changed for security reasons] in Jijiga, a city on border with Somalia. The attack is the latest attack against Christians in Ethiopia where the spread of radical Islam is fueling the persecution of Christians.

ICC (International Christian Concern) www.persecution.org says that on July 19, 2008, Ahmed and Ibrahim were going to a church meeting when they were confronted by nine extremist Muslims yelling anti-Christian slogans. The extremists started hurling rocks at the two Christians.

Ahmed, who is a church leader, was hit by eight stones and suffered a severe concussion and injuries on his torso. He was admitted to Karamara Hospital where he was treated for his injuries.

Ibrahim escaped physical harm as he fled the scene to call the police who never arrived to stop the attack. The mob finally dispersed when Ibrahim ran in the direction of the local police station.

ICC says that Jijiga is the capital city of Somali Regional State, which is one of nine states in Ethiopia. The majority of residents in Somali State are ethnic Somalis who are majority Muslim.

According to ICC, this is not the first time that Christians have been attacked in Jijiga. On August 5, 2007, the Ethiopian Full Gospel Church in Jijiga was bombed. Though the church was packed with five hundred people, no one was hurt by the explosion. The same church was attacked by bomb five years earlier.

ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, Jonathan Racho, said, "Unless the growth of radical Islam is curbed in Ethiopia, the attacks against Christians will continue to rise. Ethiopian government officials, particularly local officials in Muslim dominated areas of the country, should be made accountable for failing to protect Christians against such attacks."

ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC delivers humanitarian aid, trains and supports persecuted pastors, raises awareness in the US regarding the problem of persecution, and is an advocate for the persecuted on Capitol Hill and the State Department.

India: Almost 2 dozen bombs found, defused in Gujarat

India Bombings Update. "Gujarat on the edge as more bombs found," from Indo-Asian News Service, July 30:

SURAT/AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI: Just when Gujarat was returning to normalcy after 50 people were killed in Saturday’s serial bombings in Ahmedabad, 23 low-intensity bombs were recovered from Surat by yesterday evening as cities across India remained on the edge.

“It’s been only because of a vigilant public that we managed to reach in the nick of time and defuse them. We have asked people to avoid crowded areas,” said the city’s police commissioner R M S Brar.

Brar ordered closure for the day of all cinema theatres, colleges, schools, malls and parks even as panic gripped people. He also asked leaders of textile industry and diamond market associations to keep their businesses shut today.

Seventeen bombs were recovered yesterday from Varachha area where a large number of diamond processing units are located. One bomb was recovered from the city outskirts in Mahinderpura. Four bombs were found from Varachha two days ago and one more late Monday evening.

Yesterday morning, the first bomb was recovered from behind the Labeshwar police post when a provision store owner was opening his shop around 9am.

As he was pushing his shutters up a packet fell down. He immediately called the police and a team led by police inspector V B Patel reached the spot with the bomb disposal and dog squads. A little later another bomb, placed inside an electric meter box, was recovered near the Baroda Bridge in Santoshnagar area close to a garment shop.

Later in the afternoon, a bomb was recovered near a tree close to the Matawadi police post in Varachha. Even as cops were heaving a sigh of relief, they had to rush to Varachha’s mini diamond market where four more bombs were recovered.

Of the 17 bombs found from Varaccha area, three were placed precariously on an advertisement banner over a bridge.

Strangely, none of the detected bombs exploded, leading to various theories on whether the city was being used as a staging post and a cache by terrorists on their way to Ahmedabad.

On Sunday, two abandoned cars laden with explosive materials were found from Surat, Gujarat’s second largest city....

Call for whitewashing Islam to be taught as a compulsory subject in universities

The call comes from Malaysia, but it is in response to the "Western media’s misrepresentation of Islam." Only in the eighth paragraph do we get any hint of the possibility that Muslims, and not just the Western media, might be responsible for some of the negative perceptions non-Muslims have of them.

But the key element of this story is that the proposed Whitewashing Islam courses, which is of course what they would be, given that they're coming from people who believe (or would have us believe) that negative reporting is responsible for Islam's poor image, would be compulsory. The coercive aspect of Islamic "tolerance" once again makes itself known: of course Jews and Christians are free to practice their faiths in the Islamic state, as long as they accept a humiliating second-class status, and if they protest, their "protection" is removed and they're liable to be killed. College students must be forced, similarly, to learn how Islam is peaceful and tolerant. They should not be free not to learn this.

"Call to teach journalism students proper reporting of Islam," from Bernama, July 30 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Reporting on Islam or religion should be developed as a compulsory subject by institutions of higher learning in light of Western media’s misrepresentation of Islam.

University Technology Petronas lecturer Prof Dr Ahmad Murad Merican who proposed this idea, also suggested the setting up of a centre to look into news reports on Islam and other religions, and rectify misconceptions.

He said currently the method of reporting news on Islam and other religions, was too westernised in nature because contemporary media had its roots in the Industrial Revolution.

“News reports and media began during the Industrial Revolution. The revolution emphasised materialistic concerns. The values journalists hold in their profession today reflect on timeliness, the now, to sell news, and news must have conflict to make it interesting.

“These are very capitalistic values. Religion, on the other hand, have opposite values, which are timelessness, transcendence, and peace as opposed to conflict.

“We need to learn how to report Islamic news or religious issues from an Islamic or religious point of view,” he said when presenting his paper titled “Orientalism, the Reportage of Religion and Journalism Education: Expanding the Space in the Dialogue of Civilisations”. Ahmad Murad, who spoke on the second and final day of the International Conference on the Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media (ICORM08) today, said no university had offered this much-needed subject.

“For so many years not one university in the world has a course called ’Reportage of Islam or Religion’. Yet this (misrepresentation of Islam or religion) is the problem we face today, everyday. I know a university in India had it in the 1950’s but I don’t know what has happened to it,” he continued.

He then asserted that the misrepresentation of Islam could not be accorded solely to the Western media since Muslims too had damaged their own image....

No kidding, really?

CIA confronts Pakistan over top-level ties to jihadists

Direct links between the Pakistani spy service and an Al-Qaeda group. Surprise, surprise.

"C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants," by Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt for the New York Times, July 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas....

Read it all.

Hirsi Ali seeks police protection in US

She's seeking it from the Dutch government. But if the American government had any sense of what it is really up against in this conflict against jihadists worldwide, and who the real warriors are against those jihadists, Hirsi Ali would get protection from the U.S.

"Netherlands: Former MP Hirsi Ali seeks police protection in US," from AKI, July 29 (thanks to Insubria):

Amsterdam, 29 July (AKI) - A court in The Hague has approved a request by Somali-born ex-MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali for witnesses to be heard in her claim for the Dutch state to pay for her security in the US, Dutch media reported on Tuesday.

The Dutch government stopped paying for Hirsi Ali's police protection after she moved to the US permanently last year.

An outspoken critic of Islam and advocate of women's rights, Hirsi Ali had to live under police protection in the Netherlands after receiving death threats. She now works for a conservative US think-tank. [...]

Hirsi Ali has also set up a fund to finance her security in the US. "She has raised a considerable sum but it is not enough to pay for everything," Van Ginkel said.

Hirsi Ali wrote the screenplay for 'Submission', a controversial film criticising domestic violence towards Muslim women made by Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

A Dutch-Moroccan extremist Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street soon after the film was aired on Dutch television.

Hirsi Ali was given round-the-clock police protection after Bouyeri pinned a letter to Van Gogh's chest containing explicit threats towards her.

She has just written a children's book with Anna Gray, entitled 'Adan and Eva', about the impossible friendship between a Muslim boy and a Jewish girl.

Hirsi Ali's co-author is writing under a pseudonym, as she fears the book could put her life in danger. It is being translated into English, Danish, Spanish and Italian.

Ahmadinejad says "big powers" are "going down," blames them for AIDS, criticizes indictment of Sudanese president for genocide

Playing the blame game like a pro. "Ahmadinejad blames West for AIDS," from the Associated Press, July 29:

Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the US and other "big powers" for nuclear proliferation, AIDS and other global ills and accused them of exploiting the UN and other organizations for their own gain - and the developing world's loss.

Projection Alert -- more about the Non-Aligned Movement below.

But, he said, time was on the poor countries' side.

"The big powers are going down," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Teheran. "They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era."

Specifically, he criticized the indictment of Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir by an international prosecutor on charges of genocide in Darfur.

Instead, he said the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, who indicted Bashir on July 14, should instead press charges against Israeli leaders for assassinating opponents and imposing a food and medicine blockade against Palestinians.

He also warned that US attempts to reach an agreement with the Iraqi government over the future presence of American troops in the country, "will undermine the independence and rights of the people of Iraq."

Ahmadinejad's comments fit both the venue and occasion of the meeting.

The more than 100-member NAM is made up of such diverse members as communist Cuba, Jamaica and India and depicts itself as bloc-free. But most members share a critical view of the US and the developed world in general. And with Iran assuming the chairmanship of the conference Tuesday, Ahmadinejad's keynote speech was tailored to reflect the struggle that some NAM members see themselves in against the world's rich and powerful countries. [...]

The Non-Aligned Movement is left over from the Cold War and refers to non-alignment (often in name only) with United States' and Soviet Union's respective spheres of influence. It is worth noting that among the NAM's current 118 members are nearly all of the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. That amount of, well, alignment, cannot be discounted.

While only infrequently mentioning the US by name Tuesday, Ahmadinejad made clear that he blamed Washington and its allies for trying to "impose their political will on nations and governments."

He accused the great powers of "fomenting discord .... to intensify the military and arms race" so they can feed their arms industries. AIDS, he said, also was the result of world conditions "imposed by big powers." [...]

"If the United Nations and the Security Council ... were supposed to deal with the problems of the world ... we would not have a problem called Palestine," he declared, in indirect criticism of the creation of Israel 60 years ago.

Amidst carnage, "Holy War leader" calls for "inter-Palestinian dialogue"

Trying to pull taqiyya on seasoned veterans of taqiyya. Regardless, Hamas and Fatah -- one nationality, one language, one religion (the one that "counts," anyway) -- continue persecuting and killing each other, all for the whole world to see, while, of course, accusing Israel of being the real oppressive force. "Islamic Jihad: inter-Palestinian dialogue only way to end tension," from China View, July 29:

GAZA, (Xinhua) -- An Islamic Jihad (Holy War) leader based in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday said inter-Palestinian dialogue was the only way to end recent tension between Hamas and Fatah.

"Holding a national dialogue in the current circumstances should be the only response to all parties that want to play with the Palestinian situation to return it to the zero point," said Khaled al-Batsh.

He welcomed a reconciliation call last month by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for launching dialogue with Hamas, adding that the call was "a step in the right direction."

Following a mysterious blast in Gaza late Friday, rival Fatah and Hamas began a verbal war and arrest campaign against each other in its own domain.

Hamas blamed Fatah movement behind the blast along the beach ofthe Gaza City which killed five Hamas members and a girl, but Fatah denied any involvement.

Hamas launched a crackdown against Abbas' Fatah supporters and organizations in Gaza, arresting up to 200 people and closing dozens of Fatah organizations, including a number of charities and associations not affiliated with Fatah.

In response, pro-Abbas forces increased detentions among Hamas members in the Fatah-controlled West Bank.

Hamas has been ruling the Gaza Strip since June last year when it routed Abbas' security forces following a week-long infighting with rival Fatah movement.

UN diplomat: Pretending that Pakistan is not supporting the Taliban is similar to "pretending that Niagara Falls doesn't flow"

Nice when politicians and diplomats -- you know, they who have so much influence on the world -- speak the simple truth."Courage, at last," by Jiti Khanna, for the Globe and Mail, July 29:

Vancouver -- At last, a Western diplomat - Chris Alexander, a former Canadian ambassador now serving as a United Nations special envoy in Kabul - has had enough of the political correctness to publicly acknowledge that Pakistan, through its Inter-Services Intelligence agency, is supporting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan (UN Envoy Backs Karzai Against Pakistan - front page, July 28). "Otherwise we really are pretending that Niagara Falls doesn't flow."

To date, the Western democracies have simply been shooting themselves in the foot by appeasing Pakistan's government, under whose watch Islamic extremists are spreading their jihad against the Western way of life.

U.S. air strike kills al-Qaeda's "mad scientist"; Pakistan complains

The strike was too unilateral, says Pakistani army, and "could be detrimental to bilateral relations." "U.S. air strike on al-Qaeda hideout lays bare Pakistan's border," by Saeed Shah and Graeme Smith, for the Globe and Mail, July 29:

ISLAMABAD AND KABUL — U.S. forces struck a suspected al-Qaeda hideout inside Pakistan Monday, exposing growing tensions between the allies over Pakistan's inability to deal with militants in its tribal regions.

The attack, believed to have killed a top al-Qaeda chemical and biological weapons expert, came as Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani arrived in Washington in an effort to reassure Americans of his country's efforts to eradicate the militants based in Pakistan, who are believed to be feeding the rising insurgency in Afghanistan.

While U.S. President George W. Bush praised Pakistan as a "strong ally and a vibrant democracy," yesterday's military strikes - the latest in a rash of such U.S. interventions - drew a quick rebuke from Pakistan's army, which warned they "could be detrimental to bilateral relations."
[...]

At a joint White House press conference, Mr. Bush and Mr. Gilani were left mouthing sentiments incongruous with events on the ground and the behind-the-scenes concerns. The U.S. President said that the "U.S. respects the sovereignty" of Pakistan, while Mr. Gilani reaffirmed his country's commitment to the fight against terrorism: "This is our war. This is a war against Pakistan."

Jihadist website urges attacks on Canadian, other Western targets

"[According to the website], urban cells should seek economic targets, such as Jewish investments in Muslim countries, international companies, international economic experts, exports from 'Crusader countries' and raw materials being 'stolen from Muslim countries by the enemies'."

Surprising? No. But the communique provides a useful display of tactics, ideology, and imaginary grievances like the "theft" of oil. "Jihadist cells urged to kill Canadians," by Ian MacLeod for CanWest News Service, July 28:

OTTAWA - A virulent al-Qaida website has issued a new call for followers to kill Canadians and other westerners and attack oil and economic targets.

The message on the password-protected al-Ekhlaas.net forum was posted July 7, the third anniversary of the London transit massacre. The website is a notorious and favoured site of hardcore jihadists.

Experts are debating the significance of the latest al-Ekhlaas threat calling for the targeting of Christians, especially those from Canada the United States, Britain, Spain, Australia and Italy.

Most unsettling, perhaps, is the instructional nature of the posting. Details of the Arabic-language posting, entitled "Clandestine work inside the city," were recently translated and reported by the Jamestown Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank.

Under the nom de guerre Abu Hajar Abdul Aziz al-Moqrin (the former leader of al-Qaida's Saudi wing killed in 2004), the posting explains how a four-unit jihadist cell should be properly trained in urban terror warfare before activation.

An urban cell needs a commanding unit, an intelligence unit, a logistics unit and an execution unit, it explains. The units are to communicate indirectly through using the dead letter box technique (or "save draft" drop box on a shared e-mail account.)

Further, the intelligence cell that collects information on a target must not know the purpose of the information. The cell that secures weapons and equipment must not know the target or the time of execution.

Al-Moqrin warns jihadists not to attack religious figures because it harms the cause. Instead, urban cells should seek economic targets, such as Jewish investments in Muslim countries, international companies, international economic experts, exports from "Crusader countries" and raw materials being "stolen from Muslim countries by the enemies," with al-Moqrin calling for attacks on oil wells, pipelines and oil tankers.

Human targets, according to the Jamestown synopsis, should be prioritized as follows:

1. Jews: Jews from Israel and the United States have priority over Jews from Britain and France.

2. Christians, especially those from Canada, the United States, Britain, Spain, Australia and Italy.

3. Apostates, particularly Muslim leaders who keep close ties with Jewish and "Christian governments," such as Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and the leaders of the Gulf States.

4. Secular individuals, including "spies and security officials" who "protect Jews and Christians."

Terrorism experts are divided on the message's import.

"The reference to Canada is fairly peripheral and embedded in a broad anti-'kufar' (non-believer) strategy targeting Jews, Christians, apostate Muslim leaders, and 'secular officials'," says Wesley Wark, a security expert and visiting research professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

"The main interest in the story would seem to me the effort taken on some jihadi websites to try to encourage professionalism and clandestinity in terrorist operations.

"This is surely a response to the knowledge that home-grown and loosely affiliated terror networks will normally be lacking in operational knowledge and experience, especially around surveillance and security. The website is another reminder that the Internet is a powerful tool for jihad and al-Qaida and recognized by them as such." [...]

The latest message, Rudner said Monday, should be viewed with real concern, but not alarm, for three reasons:

- al-Ekhlaas is a legitimate militant Islamist website;

- the call to target oil and energy infrastructure and individuals is specific;

- and, the message may be a formal warning required by Sharia law before jihadists can attack.

Indonesia: Muslims storm Christian school, injuring 265 students

While trying to chase a mouse into the street, a Christian student threw a slipper against a house owned by a local Muslim. The Muslim homeowner, enraged, kicked and punched the student. A crowd gathered. Rumors flew. “Many students suffered various injuries to the head. Others were burnt by Molotov cocktails.”

"Muslims storm Protestant school in Jakarta, injuring 265 students," by Benteng Reges for Asia News, July 28 (thanks to Insubria):

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Police evacuated the Christian Theological Arastamar Institute (STT SETIA) which is located in an eastern district of the Indonesian capital after it suffered damages during clashes between Christians and Muslims over the week-end. At least 1,500 students were moved to nearby police headquarters and a local Christian-based political party. The situation remains critical and further violence between opposite factions cannot be ruled out....

Last night hundreds of residents from the village of Kampung Pulo had taken up arms threatening to storm the school after being instigated by an imam at a local mosque who claimed that a bunch of Christian gangsters were coming to “protect” the school after it was attacked on Saturday by a Muslim mob, causing damage to the building and hurting hundreds.

In an attempt to solve the problem East Jakarta District Chief Murdani held a close door meeting with the warring parties to discuss the issue. At the same time though, he said that police would conduct a thorough investigation and check if the school’s legal status was in order and that it respected all building regulations. In case of violations he would issue orders to demolish the unlawful structures.

At present hundreds of agents are guarding the school and have orders to stop any act of violence and disarm people....

Tensions between Christians and Muslims flared up on Saturday following rumours that a SETIA student had stolen a motorcycle that belonged to a Muslim from a neighbouring village.

Senny Manafe, a spokesperson for the school, rejected the accusation, claiming instead that the attacks were triggered by a trivial incident. In an attempt to chase a mouse in the street, a student threw a slipper against a house owned by a local Muslim. Outraged by the deed, the latter kicked and punched the student as people gathered drawn by the rumour that a Christian student had tried to steal the Muslim’s motorbike.

“Many students suffered various injuries to the head. Others were burnt by Molotov cocktails,” Manafe said.

The violence and charges against SETIA are the work of Risman Hadi, chairman of Muslim Brotherhood Forum of Kampung Pulo Village, who in the past opposed the opening and continued existence of the Christian institute.

Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 36, “Ya Sin”

“The trumpet shall be sounded, when behold! From the sepulchres men will rush forth to their Lord!”

Sura 36, “Ya Sin,” is a Meccan sura that takes its name from the two Arabic letters that begin it (v. 1) – and as with all the chapters that begin with such letters, in the words of the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, “God knows best what He means by these.” Muhammad said: “Whoever recites Ya Sin in the night, seeking the Face of Allah, will be forgiven,” and “Surah Ya Sin is the heart of the Qur’an.” Maududi explains that this because it “presents the message of the Qur’an in a most forceful manner, which breaks the inertness and stirs the spirit of man to action.”

Muhammad also said that “Reciting Ya-Sin at the beginning of the day makes the rest of the day easy for the person till night approaches. Also, reciting it with the approach of the night makes the rest of the night easy till the next day.” He directed his followers to “recite Surah Ya Sin to the dying ones among you.” This should be done, says Maududi, “not only to revive and refresh the whole Islamic creed in the mind of the dying person but also bring before him, in particular, a complete picture of the Hereafter so that he may know what stages he would have to pass through after crossing the stage of this worldly life.” And indeed, this sura does indeed “revive and refresh the whole Islamic creed,” as it sounds a goodly number of the same themes that we have seen in many other suras.

Allah swears by the Qur’an (v. 2) – that is, according to the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, “the “Definitive Qur’an, made definitive by its marvellous arrangement and unique meanings.” The deity addresses Muhammad in verses 2-12, reassuring him that he is indeed one of the prophets (v. 3), sent to warn a people who had not been warned before (v. 6) – that people is, says Ibn Kathir, “the Arabs, for no warner had come to them before him.” However, he adds, “the fact that they alone are mentioned does not mean that others are excluded,” and “the mission of the Prophet is universal.” And once again denying that human beings have free will even when it comes to belief or unbelief and avoiding hellfire, Allah says he has set barriers around the unbelievers so that they “cannot see,” (v. 9); the Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that this depicts “the way in which the paths of faith are closed to them.” The Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn ‘Abbâs agrees, saying that this verse means that Allah has “covered the insight of their hearts (so that they see not) the Truth and guidance.” Abdur-Rahman bin Zayd bin Aslam also concurs: “Allah placed this barrier between them and Islam and Iman [faith], so that they will never reach it.” Ibn Kathir paraphrases this passage as “We [i.e., Allah] have blinded their eyes to the truth.” So whether Muhammad warns them or not, they will continue in unbelief (v. 10) – as Ibn Kathir says: “Allah has decreed that they will be misguided, so warning them will not help them and will not have any effect on them.” Thus only believers will benefit from Muhammad’s warning (v. 11).

Then verses 13-29 recapitulate in the form of a parable the story that has been told many times before in the Qur’an, in connection with specific prophets: messengers come to a city (identified as Antioch by many Muslim commentators), but the people reject them, saying they’re only “men like ourselves” (v. 15) – as those who rejected Noah said about him (11:27; 23:24). And of course, Muhammad is also just an ordinary man (18:110). They respond by saying that their “duty is only to proclaim the clear Message” (v. 17) – just as is Muhammad’s (5:92; 5:99). Another man then comes up to warn the people, and is rewarded with Paradise, whereupon this messenger, enjoying Paradise, wishes that people knew what he knows (v. 26).

Verses 30-46 repeats warnings to the unbelievers. Mankind rejects and mocks Allah’s messengers (v. 30); don’t they see how many people Allah has destroyed (v. 31)? Everyone will face the judgment (v. 32); they don’t see the signs of Allah’s power in the natural world (vv. 33-42). One of these signs is that the sun runs its fixed course daily, but only “for a period determined for him” (v. 38). About this Muhammad explained that at sunset, the sun “goes (i.e. travels) till it prostrates itself underneath the Throne and takes the permission to rise again, and it is permitted and then (a time will come when) it will be about to prostrate itself but its prostration will not be accepted, and it will ask permission to go on its course but it will not be permitted, but it will be ordered to return whence it has come and so it will rise in the west. And that is the interpretation of the Statement of Allah: ‘And the sun runs its fixed course for a term (decreed)’ [v. 38].”

Allah could drown the unbelievers and no one would be able to help them (v. 43). Verses 47-54 repeat some of the scornful remarks of the unbelievers: they don’t need to feed the poor, because Allah would have fed them if he had so willed (v. 47), and they ask Muhammad when the Day of Judgment will come (v. 48). But once it comes upon them, they will cry out in woe (v. 52). But the believers, in verses 55-58, will enjoy Paradise, reclining on couches with their wives (v. 56) — the famous virgins appear in the next sura.

In verses 59-64 Allah addresses the unbelievers on the Day of Judgment, telling them to depart from his presence (v. 59) and reminding them that he warned them not to worship Satan (v. 60) and now Satan has led them astray (v. 62) and they must enter hell (vv. 63-64). In verses 65-68 Allah discusses the unbelievers: on the dreadful Day they will be unable to speak (v. 65), and he could have blotted out their eyes (v. 66). Ibn Abbas paraphrases this as “If We willed, We could have misguided them all away from true guidance, so how could they be guided” – which of course Allah says that he does in many places in the Qur’an (including, but not limited to 7:179; 10:99-100; 16:37; 32:13).

In verses 69-83 Allah emphasizes the miraculous nature of the Qur’an (vv. 69-70); the signs in the natural world (vv. 71-73; 77-81); and the powerlessness of the idols (vv. 74-75). He tells Muhammad not to let the unbelievers get him down (v. 76), as he does also in 3:176; 15:88; 26:3; and 31:23. For Allah has power over all things (vv. 82-83).

Next week: Sura 37, “The Ranks.” Meet the houris: in Paradise, the blessed “will sit with bashful, dark-eyed virgins, as chaste as the sheltered eggs of ostriches.”

(Here you can find links to all the earlier "Blogging the Qur'an" segments. Here is a good Arabic Qur’an, with English translations available; here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)

Al-Qaeda calls for death of Saudi king for interfaith dialogue

Slow jihad? Dissimulation and creeping sharia? Al-Qaeda can't drive 55. "Al-Qaida urges Muslims to kill Saudi king for hosting interfaith dialogue," from the Associated Press, July 28:

An al-Qaida commander who escaped from a US prison has posted a Web video urging Muslims to kill the Saudi king for leading an interfaith conference in Madrid earlier this month.

Abu Yahia al-Libi, who escaped from Afghanistan's Bagram prison in 2005, says "bringing religions together...means renouncing Islam."

Saudi King Abdullah sponsored the dialogue among Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, and encouraged all faiths to turn away from extremism.

Yeah, because those extremist Buddhists are just wreaking havoc.

But al-Libi says "equating Islam with other religions is a betrayal of Islam." He calls for "the speedy killing of this tyrant."

The 43-minute video was posted late Monday on an Internet site frequently used by militants. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

Indonesia: Jihadists killed Christian teacher, had planned to kill American

More on this story. "Official: Terrorists killed Christian teacher, planned to kill American," from the Associated Press, July 28:

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian terror suspects executed a Christian teacher in front of his family and were planning to assassinate an American language teacher before their arrest this month, a top anti-terrorism official and the suspects' lawyer said Monday.

The ten alleged militants have also told officers they were plotting to attack the Supreme Court to avenge the upcoming executions of the Bali nightclub bombers and attack a joint Singaporean-Indonesian military exercise, the security official said.

The revelations point to the resilience of Islamist militant networks in Indonesia despite a U.S.-backed crackdown that has netted more than 400 suspects in recent years and reduced the risk of more large-scale attacks on Western targets, most experts say.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Indonesia has been hit by a string of suicide bombings blamed on members and associates of the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, including the 2002 nightclub bombings on Bali island that left 202 people dead, many of them foreign tourists. The last major strike was in 2005, also on Bali.

The group of 10 militants were arrested in early July in a series of raids on Sumatra island. Officers have said one of the suspects was a Singaporean who trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda. Twenty bombs packed with live bullets were seized from the men.

The men's lawyer Asludin Hatjani said Monday the group was responsible for shooting 59-year-old Dago Simamora, an Indonesian teacher, to death in front of his children last year in the south Sumatran town of Pekanbaru. The crime had previously been unsolved.

"It's true, they did that," the lawyer told The Associated Press. He gave no motive for the attack.

Late Sunday, the anti-terrorism officer revealed the men were also planning to execute an American teaching English in the town of Sekayu, which lies just west of Pekanbaru. He identified the teacher by his first name of Samuel.

A teacher at the SMU-2 school in Sekayu confirmed a U.S. citizen called Samuel used to work there, but left several months ago. She did not give her name. The U.S. Embassy in the capital, Jakarta, declined comment.

The anti-terrorism officer spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, saying that revealing his identity would jeopardize ongoing anti-terror operations.

Hatjani declined to comment on that allegation, saying interrogations were continuing.

The officer also said the group planned to detonate one of the devices in the car park of the Supreme Court in the capital, Jakarta, to coincide with the executions of three militants convicted in the Bali attacks.

Authorities say they expect to execute the trio before the beginning of September.

He also said the group was planning to attack a joint Indonesia-Singaporean military exercise at Baturaja, the Indonesian military's major combat training area. It is located in south Sumatra.

The official declined to say how advanced the planning was in the operations.

Officers have previously said the group also planned to attack a cafe in the Sumatran tourist town of Bukittinggi, but aborted it at the last minute out of fears there would be too many Muslim casualties.

Condemned Indonesian jihadists: Decapitation, please

"According to a defense attorney, the men have asked for judgment to be carried out according to 'the dictates of sharia,' which provides for death by decapitation."

On the other hand, wouldn't it only be correct if they deserved execution according to Sharia law? And defense attorneys are still attempting to argue against the legal validity of the sentence.

"Bali terrorist: 'For Islam, dying by decapitation is a blessing'," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News, July 28:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - According to Islamic law, it is better "to die by decapitation than by gunshot", and no "repentance or regret" must be shown over violence committed "in the name of holy war". This is the "spiritual testament" of Imam Samudra, one of the three people responsible for the massacre in Bali in 2002, in which more than 200 people died. The three are awaiting judgment from the Indonesian authorities.

"Until I die, I will show no repentance for my actions", the terrorist is believed to have said to his brother Lulu Jamaluddin during a recent conversation at the maximum-security prison on the island of Nusakambangan, in central Java. He also added that a holy war, conducted through "the use of bombs" and suicide bombing attacks, is "blessed by God", for which reason he will never make "appeals to clemency" to avoid the death penalty.

According to a defense attorney, the men have asked for judgment to be carried out according to "the dictates of sharia", which provides for death by decapitation: another sign of their effort to "promote the values of Islamic law until the end, even at the point of death: dying by decapitation is a blessing". The lawyer also added that the island of Bali was chosen for the attack because it was under siege by hundreds of "infidels", meaning American citizens and their closest allies, including the English and Australians, who crowd the island's beaches and nightclubs every year.

From Jakarta, another lawyer for the three men has asked for the sentence to be overturned, because "the country's supreme court did not follow the correct procedures to apply the death penalty". This position was immediately rejected by Andul Hakim Ritonga, the deputy attorney general for the district, according to whom "everything was done according to the law" and only "the last bureaucratic formalities" remain to be arranged....

Suicide bombings target Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update. "Spate of suicide attacks kill more than 50 in Iraq," from Agence France-Presse, July 28:

Three women bombers blew themselves up on Monday in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, one of a string of attacks in Iraq that killed at least 51 people, undermining hopes of a drop in violence.

Scores of people were also wounded in the attacks, which follow a relative lull in the sectarian violence that has ravaged the country since February 2006, when insurgents blew up a Shiite mosque in the central city of Samarra.

The triple attack in Baghdad killed at least 25 pilgrims as they headed to a holy shrine for a major religious ceremony on the Shiite Muslim calendar that has been marred by bloodshed in the past, security officials said.

Another 22 people were killed in a suicide bombing during a protest rally in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, and gunfire in a panicked stampede that followed, local officials said.

Among the dead in the Baghdad bombings were women and children, security and hospital officials told AFP, adding that about 70 other people were wounded.

The bombers struck in the Karrada district of central Baghdad as pilgrims were making their way on foot towards Kadhimiyah in the north of the Iraqi capital, site of a Shiite festival on Tuesday.

"At least 25 people were killed and more than 70 were wounded in three suicide attacks, probably by females suicide bombers," a police official said.

On Sunday, gunmen shot dead seven pilgrims in Madin, a town south of Baghdad, despite tight security for Tuesday's ceremony honouring revered imam Mussa Kadhim that is expected to attract up to one million worshippers.

Pilgrims from around the country are flocking to the Iraqi capital to mourn the revered imam who died 12 centuries ago, prompting authorities to step up security amid concerns over attacks.

Systematic violence -- suicide bombings and sectarian killings -- have dropped sharply in the capital since a peak in 2006, but Iraqi police are worried about a wave of attacks in the city of six million people.

Major General Kassam Atta, spokesman for city security, told reporters that his force had information regarding the possibility of attacks targeting pilgrims during this year's festival.

"We ask people to help in all ways with our security forces," Atta said, adding that up to one million people were expected.

Checks have been particularly stringent amid what appears to be [a] growing trend of using women in insurgent bombings, which have claimed hundreds of lives across the volatile country....

Somalia: Come, let us resolve our differences by "using Allah's book [the Koran] and traditional practices of Prophet Muhammad," offers clansman

Which can spell a lot of trouble for a lot of people. "Somali leader’s Clan urges opposition to unite, condemns Ethiopian troops," by Abdi Gulad, for Mareeg, July 28:

The Darod Council for the Implementation of Sharia law has said it is saddened by divisions among members of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia [ARS] in a press statement issued on Sunday.

Hasan Sheikh Adan who is the Chairman of the Darod Council for the Implementation of Sharia laws said the Alliance members should resolve their differences using Allah's book [the Koran] and traditional practices of Prophet Muhammad and make concessions for the sake of the Somali people.

They also encouraged groups opposed to the Ethiopian troops to continue with their struggle ["jihad"] as they put it.

The council also said they were condemning the massacre and displacement of civilians carried out by Ethiopian troops in Beled Weyne, Hiraan Region, during the past week.

Naturally, since it's the infidel Ethiopians; when it's sharia-promoting Somalis who "massacre and displace civilians", that's ok.

Iraq: from slayings to parliamentary quarrels, Sunnis and Shias continue demonstrating their antipathy for one another

Though the two stories relayed here seem to have nothing in common -- Shia pilgrims being slain and the Iraqi parliament quarreling over laws -- they are in fact related: just as Sunnis and Shias have been at each other's throats since the Battle of the Camel to this recent slaying, so too will Sunnis and Shias in a Western style democracy never see eye to eye -- that is, as long as they take their religious tenets seriously. "Gunmen Kill 7 Iraqi Pilgrims Near Baghdad," from VOA News, July 27:

Iraqi security officials say unidentified gunmen have killed seven Shi'ite pilgrims who were walking to a shrine in the capital for a major religious commemoration.

Gee, wonder which Islamic sect these mysterious "gunmen" belong to -- Sunni maybe?

Officials say the gunmen ambushed the pilgrims Sunday in the town of Madain, south of the capital, as they traveled to a revered mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiyah.

The pilgrims were among the tens of thousands of people expected to converge in Kadhimiyah this week to commemorate the death, 12 centuries ago, of one of the 12 Imams of Shi'ite Islam who is believed buried there.

Iraqi military spokesman General Qassim Moussawi says his forces have tightened security around the area.

In other news, Iraqi politicians have been given two days to offer changes to a draft provincial elections law that was rejected last week.

A deputy speaker of parliament, Sheikh Khalid al-Attiyah, on Saturday said committees are trying to determine why the law was rejected and are working to submit a final report to parliament within 48 hours.

Iraq's Presidential Council rejected the draft law Wednesday, sending it back to parliament and most likely delaying U.S.-backed elections that were scheduled for October.

The United States has urged Iraq's government to hold elections by the end of the year, saying the vote would help to further reconcile Iraq's different ethnic groups.

But that's just it, and why there is a delay: the different "ethnic" groups (read: Shias and Sunnis) have a long way to go before they can be "reconciled," as evinced by the Shia slayings.

Yemen: new al-Qaeda suicide attack

Surely this too has nothing to do with Islam (see previous post). "Al-Qaeda claims car bomb attack on Yemen police compound, from M&C, July 27:

Sana'a, Yemen - An al-Qaeda wing in Yemen on Sunday claimed responsibility for Friday's suicide car bomb attack on a police compound that killed a policeman and wounded 18 others.

The group, known as 'The Jihad of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - Yemeni Soldiers Brigade,' said in a statement that the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of five al-Qaeda members by police forces in Yemen.

As if jihadists ever need to rationalize or "justify" their attacks -- it's simply jihad in the path of Allah against infidels, apostates, and idolaters everywhere.

The statement, posted on Islamic web sites often used by al-Qaeda, identified the suicide attacker as Ahmad bin Saeed al-Mashjari, alias Abu-Dijana al-Hadhrami.

The attacker rammed an explosive-laden sedan car into the entrance of a police complex in Sayoun of the Hadhramout province, some 900 kilometres south-east of the capital Sana'a.

He drove at high speed and tried to force his way into the compound's central yard. The car blew up after a police guard tried to stop it.

On Saturday, Hadhramout Governor Ahmed Salem al-Khanbashi said evidence gathered by police had indicated al-Qaeda was involved in the attack.

Not to mention OBL has strong tribal ties in Hadhramout -- which, in Arabic, somewhat appropriately means "Death's presence."

'The same scenario and materials used in previous al-Qaeda attacks were used in this attack,' the governor said.

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for three recent car bomb attacks in Yemen, including the July 2007 one on a tourist convoy in the central province of Marib that killed eight Spanish tourists.

In September 2006, two al-Qaeda suicide attackers blew up an explosives-laden pickup in the Safer oil refinery in the neighbouring province of Marib. A simultaneous bombing hit an oil exporting port in Hadhramout, killing a security guard and two suicide attackers.

Hadhramout was the scene of a shooting attack on a convoy of Belgian tourists that left two Belgian women and two Yemeni drivers dead on January 18. Al-Qaeda also claimed responsibility for those attacks.

India: Muslim leader insists media should not associate recent bombings with Islam

Ostrich head-in-the-sand behavior or euphemisms will not change the facts about Islam and its "highest summit" -- jihad. "Dont' term perpetrators of blasts as Muslims: IUML," from the Hindu, July 27:

Tiruchirapalli (PTI): Condemning Friday's serial blasts in Bangalore, the Indian Union Muslim League has asked the media and public to not to brand the perpetrators of the deed as Muslims.

"I appeal to the media and the public not to brand the perpetrators of the Bangalore blasts as Muslims," State president of IUML K M Khader Mohideen told reporters here on Saturday night.

"These kind of people are neither Muslims, Hindus or Christians. The Centre and the state government should take steps to nab them quickly," he said.

As weapons stream into Gaza, Olmert says of truce: "I fear that a reality is being created in the south, which, in five years we'll be asking ourselves - How could we let this happen?"

Would an aide kindly lean over to Olmert and whisper in his ear: "Mr. Olmert, you're the head of this government"?

"'Large amount of weapons and explosives flowing into Gaza'," from the Jerusalem Post and Associated Press, July 26:

Hamas has smuggled four tons of explosives, 50 anti-aircraft missiles, dozens of Kalashnikov rifles and materials used to produce rockets into the Gaza Strip since the inception of the cease-fire, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin said Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting.

That shouldn't be at all surprising, at least when one pays attention to Islamic doctrine and tradition on truces.

According to Diskin, Hamas has also taken control of all smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt, and cement being brought into Gaza was intended for construction of bunkers.

The Shin Bet head added that the recent prisoner exchange with Hizbullah had encouraged various Palestinian groups to attempt carrying out abductions.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on the truce that "I fear that a reality is being created in the south, which, in five years we'll be asking ourselves - How could we let this happen?"

But Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the "balance" was so far a positive one. "The calm was intended to give [us] a timeout which we would do well to take advantage off," he said.

According to a government official, Barak said Hamas was doing more than expected to prevent truce violations by smaller terrorist groups. He said Israel was correct not to retaliate for sporadic mortar and rocket attacks from Gaza during the truce.

However the official quoted Barak as telling the cabinet on Sunday that Israel's "lack of response so far does not mean there is anything to stop us taking action when we decide we should."

During the same meeting, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke of the shaky Gaza cease-fire, telling the cabinet that "Israel needs to respond to truce violations, fire against fire."

"Israel's response needs to give the message that we won't accept fire, regardless of which organization it comes from," she went on.

Livni added that opening the Rafah crossing would strengthen Hamas and as such must be connected to the issue of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, in conjunction with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' forces.

"The Turkistan Islamic Party warns China one more time"

Here, for a change, is a more primary source discussing jihadist activity in China, minus the usual filtering of state-controlled media. And one might find it interesting that jihadist movements near and far certainly seem to "misunderstand" their religion with remarkable uniformity. "Group threatens Olympics terror, claims bus bombings," from Reuters, July 26:

A group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for recent deadly explosions on two Chinese buses, a terrorism monitoring firm said.

IntelCenter, a US-based terrorism monitoring firm, said the group had released a video entitled "Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan," featuring a statement by the group's leader, Commander Seyfullah, threatening next month's Olympics.

"Despite the Turkistan Islamic Party's repeated warnings to China and international community about stopping the 29th Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings," IntelCenter quoted Seyfullah as saying.

"The Turkistan Islamic Party volunteers who had gone through special preparations have started urgent actions."

Seyfullah said the group bombed two public buses in Shanghai on May 5 and "took action against police" in Wenzhou on July 17 with a tractor loaded with explosives.

The group also bombed a plastic factory in Guangzhou on July 17 and bombed three public buses in Yunnan on July 21, according to IntelCenter.

The bus explosions killed at least two people and injured 14 in the southwestern city of Kunming on Monday amid a security clampdown ahead of the Olympics.

The official Xinhua news agency had blamed the blasts on "sabotage" and was seeking to find out who was responsible.

"The Turkistan Islamic Party warns China one more time," Seyfullah said, according to the IntelCenter transcript.

"Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics. We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed."

He urged spectators and athletes "particularly the Muslims" planning to attend the Olympics to change their mind.

"Please do not stand together with the faithless people," he said. "The Turkistan Islamic Party volunteers will conduct violent military actions against individuals, departments, venues and activities that are related to the Olympics in China."

U.S. military: Iraqi detainees imposed sharia law on other prisoners

They've moved to separate the "extremists" to keep them from influencing the general inmate population in U.S. prisons in Iraq. A wise next step would be to do the same in domestic prisons to prevent prison dawa and plots like this. "US military: Iraq inmates imposed Islamic justice," by Kim Gamel for the Associated Press, July 26:

BAGHDAD - For years, extremist Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody held self-styled Islamic courts and tortured or killed inmates who refused to join them, military officials said, disclosing new details about the use of American prisons to recruit for the insurgency.

The problem became the main catalyst for a decision to separate moderate detainees from the extremists, part of a broader reform package aimed at correcting widespread U.S. prison abuses that sparked international criticism.

"We were having people who weren't insurgents who were being forced to be insurgents because of the power of these courts, the power of al-Qaida and other extremist groups," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Plowman, a spokesman for Task Force 134, which operates coalition detention facilities in Iraq.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert:

He told The Associated Press Friday that the jailhouse Sharia courts were formed, despite the presence of U.S guards, to enforce an extreme interpretation of Islamic law. They were then used to convict moderate inmates, who were then tortured or killed, he said.

In comments published in the Sierra Vista Herald in Arizona, Brig. Gen. Rodney L. Johnson, commander of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, put the number of detainees tried by the courts in the double-digits. Neither he nor Plowman would give specific numbers.

The courts were eradicated and none has been detected in six months although some gang-related issues persist, Plowman said.

"We have a detainee population of about 21,000. You're gonna have extremists who will find a way to communicate and to form these kind of organizations," he added.

But he said guards had stepped up to block efforts to form new courts. [...]

"The problem's been apparent and when Stone took command that was one of his first initiatives — to separate out the detainees into categories like moderate, extremists etc. in order to resolve this issue," Plowman said. "There hasn't been any real Sharia court for six months or so." [...]

Plowman said the military is using Muslim clerics and prison board members to determine to which category they should be assigned.

Jihad group claims credit for India blast

Jihadists possibly trained in Pakistan or Bangladesh. India bombings update. "India on alert after two days of bombings," by Alistair Scrutton and Bappa Majumdar for Reuters, July 27 (thanks to Rightist):

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) - India's major cities were put on high alert on Sunday, with fears of more attacks after at least 40 people were killed in two days of bombings that hit a communally-sensitive western city and a southern IT hub.

At least 16 small bombs exploded in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least 39 people and wounding 110, a day after another set of blasts in Bangalore killed a woman.

A little known group called the "Indian Mujahideen" claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attack on Saturday. The same group said it carried out bombs attacks that killed 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May.

It is unusual for any group to claim responsibility, but India says it suspects militant groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh are behind a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains....

Some analysts say there is evidence of local Muslim groups, for years seen as unaffected by the rise of global Islamist militancy, of taking up violence against India, where they are a poor and often neglected minority. They may be getting training and financial backing from Pakistan or Bangladesh.

"Over the last few years, the dissatisfaction among Indian Muslims has hitched onto the wagon of the global/regional jihad," said C. Uday Bhaskar, a security analyst and former director of New Delhi's Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

"If you have 150 million Muslims in India, only 0.0001 percent of that figure would mean a militant nucleus of 15,000 people."...

After satirical cartoon, Taliban tells editor of Pakistan's Daily Times to repent; "otherwise you would meet the fate of other nonbelievers"

"Other clerics of the Red Mosque argued that since Ms Hassan was teaching the Koran to her students in the mosque, any attempt to belittle her was blasphemous."

That's quite a stretch. But it underscores how conveniently blasphemy laws and other provisions of sharia lend themselves to being used to settle scores and elevate those in power beyond insult or challenge. "Death threat for editor Najam Sethi over Islamic cartoon," by Zahid Hussain for the Times Online, July 26:

A newspaper editor has received death threats from militant groups for publishing a cartoon of a radical woman Islamic leader encouraging her pupils to wage holy war.

Najam Sethi, chief editor of the Daily Times, one of Pakistan’s most respected English language newspapers and its sister paper Daily Aaj Kal, now moves under heavy security after ultra-conservative Islamic elements warned him of serious consequences if he did not repent. His house in Lahore is now guarded by six army commandos.

The threats were provoked by the publication of a cartoon in Aaj Kal depicting Umme Hassan, principal of a radical women’s madrassa, in a veil “educating” female students to wage jihad and embrace martyrdom.

Ms Hassan is the wife of Abdul Aziz, the prayer leader of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, who was jailed after the mosque was stormed by Pakistani troops last year. The madrassa she headed was demolished in the operation in which more than 100 people, including 11 soldiers, were killed. Addressing a rally on the anniversary of the Red Mosque raid in Islamabad last week, Ms Hassan declared that the cartoon was blasphemous, equating it with Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Other clerics of the Red Mosque argued that since Ms Hassan was teaching the Koran to her students in the mosque, any attempt to belittle her was blasphemous.

After the rally, anonymous callers threatened staff in the paper’s Islamabad offices. Security officials said that the threat was serious as soldiers involved in the raid on the Red Mosque had been the target of suicide attacks.

“The spate of threats by the Red Mosque leaders was particularly worrying given their well-documented record of similar actions in the past,” a senior official said.

Mr Sethi, who received the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) International Press Freedom award in 1999, has been an outspoken critic of Islamic extremism. AntiTaleban articles published in his papers have provoked strong reactions from militants. “By accusing the paper of blaspheming and including me in the category of antiIslamic elements the clerics have provoked people to kill me and my staff,” Mr Sethi said.

A letter posted by the Islamic Taleban Movement warned him to repent of his sins and change his editorial policy, or else he would be killed. A picture of a murdered Pakistani, who allegedly worked for the Americans, was attached. “It is our Islamic duty to warn Muslims who have gone astray to repent and come to a right path,” the note said. “Otherwise you would meet the fate of other nonbelievers.”...

Ibrahim: Islam's appeal and Captain Hook

In recent headlines, three American converts to Islam—Gregory Patterson, Levar Wasington, and Kevin James—were recently arrested and tried for intending to wage jihad against the U.S. They are by no means the first American converts to Islam to go terrorist.

There was Christopher Paul, who was tried for conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction; John Walker Lindh, who, as a “warrior of Islam,” was captured post 9/11 fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan; “Azzam the American” (formerly “Adam Gadahn”) who, after being graciously introduced by al-Qaeda leader Aymin Zawahiri on a video made some months ago proceeded to harangue and mock his fellow Americans—including JW’s own Robert Spencer—into abandoning Christianity and submitting to Allah; and Jose Padilla (aka “Abdullah al-Muhajir”).

Then, of course, there are the countless European converts. There’s the British “shoe-bomber,” Abdul Rahim (formerly “Richard Reid”) who attempted to achieve “martyrdom” by detonating explosives in his shoes while aboard a passenger aircraft; the late Abdullah Shaheed (formerly “Germaine Lindsay”) who did achieve “martyrdom” by killing himself and 56 of his fellow citizens, and injuring over 700, in the London bombings of 2005; and Abu Abdullah (original name unknown), the native Briton turned fiery Islamist preacher who, before finally being arrested, made no secret of his vitriolic hatred of the West (all, of course, while enjoying Western liberties, such as freedom of speech).

At any rate, what causes such men, born and raised in the West, often from Christian backgrounds, to abandon their heritage, embrace Islam, and conspire to kill the very people they grew up with?

As for Islam’s “intrinsic” appeal, it has long been argued that, unlike Christianity, which can be "heavy" on theology, Islam is relatively simple and straightforward. So while Christianity revolves around metaphysical concepts and topics, such as the Trinity, Christology, the nature of salvation, grace, free-will vs election, and the futility of the law, Islam, in black and white terms, commands its adherents to do this and not do that. In fact, the Arabic word “sharia,” that comprehensive body of laws Muslims must follow, means the “pathway”—as in, “the pathway to paradise.” (In pre-Islamic Arabic, of course, it specifically means pathway to water for camels.)

Yet there is another more subtle factor that makes Islam attractive, especially to men. Traditional masculine roles are well preserved in Islam—the sort that have been the norm for almost all societies, including Christian and Western, up until recently. Pride, honor, courage, patriarchy, and a sharp division between the sexes are at the core of Islam’s social mores. This may appeal to Western men who find it difficult to assert their “manhood” in increasingly neutered Western societies. Harvey Mansfield, author of Manliness, defines that term as “a quality both bad and good, mostly male, often intolerant, irrational, and ambitious. Our gender-neutral society does not like it but cannot get rid of it.”

With an ethical code that coalesced in an extremely un-neutered 7th century, Islam today is an avenue for men attracted to the most exaggerated, patriarchal styles of manliness. Even philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who despised organized religions due to their emasculating effects and who preached the need for man to be transformed into an amoral “hyper-man,” professed some admiration for Islam, describing it as “masculine” and “affirmative.”

Of course, traditional masculine roles are not the sole domain of Islam. As previously mentioned, historically almost every civilization has lived in accordance to “masculine-centric” norms; “gender-neutral” societies are historic aberrations. It is only natural, then, that disaffected young men living in a “postmodern” West, who feel that they do not fit into a “gender-neutral” society, find a religion which emphasizes traditional masculinity appealing.

John Walker Lindh especially seems to fit this category. Precipitating his conversion to Islam was his teenage discovery that his father was homosexual—an event that, by all accounts, traumatized and alienated Lindh. Islam’s masculine ideals and condemnation of homosexuality undoubtedly baited young Lindh, who soon after his father left his mother and moved in with another man, converted to Islam at age 16.

The main reason, of course, that Islam possesses what are seen as “masculine virtues,” has to do with the fact that its very essence is trapped in the 7th century—when, as the saying goes, men were men, for good or ill. Such is the “golden era” of Islam, when the Muslim prophet Muhammad, paragon of all Islamic virtue, whom Sunnis are exhorted to emulate in every possible way, walked the earth, sword in hand, accepting no insult, and conquering his”infidel” neighbors.

But just as traditional masculine virtues are upheld in Islamic culture, so too do traditionally masculine vices abound—for it is often a very fine line that separates hyper-virtue from hyper-vice. Honor, courage, as well as patriarchic ethics can and do (as Jihad Watch daily documents) easily morph into destructive pride (e.g. “honor killings”), disdain for life (e.g. suicide-bombings), and misogyny.

Nor is that all. For those more “adventurous” men looking to add a bit of “excitement” to their lives, Islam offers avenues. Based on the Koran and Muhammad’s history, raiding, killing, and plundering infidels, abducting their women and enslaving their children, are all legitimate, so long as they are at least nominally done in the “service” of Islam. In fact, that is exactly how the Islamic prophet and first Muslims spread Islam, as attested by the Koran and other sacred texts and histories—all written and compiled by Muslims themselves.

Of course such behavior was somewhat “normal” in the 7th century. Then, wherever one looked, men of all races, creeds, and religions were raiding, pillaging, and plundering their neighbors. In Islam, however, the actions of one 7th century man—Muhammad—are seen as perfect and to be literally emulated today no less than yesterday. The Koran declares: “O you who believe [i.e. Muslims]: wage war on those infidels who live near to you, and let them discover harshness in you” (9:123; see also, 9:5 and 9:29). After defeating the infidels, the faithful are free to enjoy the plunder and captives, which are described as “lawful and good” in Koran 8: 69 (see also 8:67, 48: 20-21, and 69: 30-37.) Moreover, any moral scruples the potential jihadi may experience over such barabarous practices -- that is, should his conscience momentarily get the best of him -- immediately dissipate in light of Allah’s explicit approval. For instance: “Married women are prohibited to you [Muslims]—but not those taken captive in war” and “Successful indeed are the Believers who … restrain their carnal desires, except with their wives and captives” (Koran 4:24 and 23:6 see also 33:50-52, emphasis added).

Little wonder that Islam appeals to certain Western men over Christianity: it comports much better with man’s most carnal lusts—for war, booty, and women—than do Jesus’ teachings, such as “turn the other cheek,” “pray for those who persecute you,” and “he who lusts after a woman in his heart has already committed adultery.” Even Islam’s version of paradise is far more alluring—there, rivers of alcohol and super-natural, “high-bosomed” women await the holy-warrior who dies battling infidels (see Koran 47:15, 78:31, 37:40-48, 44:51-55, 52:17-20, 55:56-58, 55:70-77, 56:7-40).

And so like mischievous little boys who find the pirate life-style fascinating—raiding, killing, plundering, abducting (not to mention hiding in caves)—so, undoubtedly, do some Western men find the lifestyle of the Islamic warrior fascinating. And so they convert. Perhaps even more telling is the fact that the physical appearance of some of radical Islam’s most charismatic heroes is reminiscent of those wily pirates of legend, such as the furtive Taliban leader “One-Eyed” Mullah Muhammad Omar, or, more illustrative, London’s radical ideologue Abu Hamza, who not only is one-eyed, but also has a metal hook for a hand which he used to shake menacingly when referring to infidels. (Like Walt Disney’s “Captain Hook,” he is affectionally referred to by his followers simply as “The Hook”…)

None of this is to say that Muslims in general are murderers, plunderers, hedonists, or misogynists. It is to say, however, that very valid interpretations of the Koran and Islamic history certainly justify and make such behavior, under the rubric of “religion,” legal for any would-be Muslim (“If it was ok for Muhammad and the first Muslims, it must be ok for us”).

Further revealing is the fact that many of the aforementioned proselytes had criminal records previous to their conversion to Islam: Reid and Abdullah had convictions for muggings, Padilla for gangster activity, and Lindsay for drug-dealing. Not to mention the vast majority of American blacks who convert to Islam while serving time in prison. Most recently, the Californian jihadists began their "cell" while serving time in prison, under the leadership of James; Patterson and Washington conducted over a dozen armed robberies previously.

One of the reasons ex-cons turn to religion is to change their evil ways. Not so these Westerners turned Islamic terrorists. It would seem that they turned to Islam merely to receive divine sanctioning to gorge their villainous appetites. From being petty criminals, they went on to embrace Islam and became major criminals—terrorists and traitors.

Grover Norquist: "Spencer hates Muslims"

A week or so ago Ed Morrissey put up a post at Hot Air lauding Grover Norquist for his work for tax reform. I added this comment:

Grover Norquist has been responsible, more than any other individual, for the infiltration of Islamic supremacists into the highest levels of the U.S. government. See here the seminal expose by Frank Gaffney of the immense damage Norquist has done.

The continuing general ignorance among conservatives of the political aspects of Islam, and of the efforts by Islamic jihadists to impose political Islam, piece by piece, over the West, can largely be attributed to the baneful influence of Norquist. He has energetically aided and abetted the branding by CAIR and others of critics of Islamic supremacism and of those who tell the truth about this Islamic political and societal agenda as “bigots” — such that frank discussion of the full nature and magnitude of this issue has been generally unwelcome even in conservative gatherings and on conservative media outlets.

David Horowitz, in an introduction to the Gaffney piece to which I linked, says: "On the basis of the evidence assembled here, it seems beyond dispute that Grover Norquist has formed alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities. Equally troubling is that the arrests of these individuals and their exposure as agents of terrorism have not resulted in noticeable second thoughts on Grover’s part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends."

Indeed. And Grover Norquist will not discuss these matters -- at least not with me. In the comments field on the Hot Air post I told Ed I'd be happy to debate him, but that I doubted that Norquist would agree to debate me. And then yesterday I received this email from Jihad Watch reader Alan:

I met and talked with Samah Norquist [Grover Norquist's wife] this afternoon at the New America Foundation where James Glassman, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, spoke. Glassman called Islam a "great religion" and said the "extremists" had "twisted" this religion, saying that there are millions of Muslims around the world who dont follow this extremist ideology.

Also, in the q&a after the Glassman talk, I asked him if we would be more specific about the appeal of terrorism among young male Muslims (neither he nor I mentioned "jihad" and I didnt have time to ask about his non use of that word) and all he said was they had "twisted" Islam for political power. In his talk, he mentioned in passing that the Saudis were doing a lot of good to help fight terrorism. I also asked him in what ways the Saudis were promoting tolerance and peace in the world but he never got around to answering that.

I also happened to meet Samah, an intelligent, well spoken attractive woman, wife of course of Grover, who was also there. I mentioned to Samah that what I knew about Islam and its supremacist ideology was from Spencer and Grover piped in, "Spencer hates Muslims." I engaged Samah in questions and she didnt proselytize at all, but attempted to explain that Islam truly does stand for tolerance of all people and faiths and that people have taken isolated verses of the Koran out of context. Samah also said that the tax was imposed on non Muslims in the early mixed faith communities predominated by Muslims in order that the Muslims would be able to provide security for all in community. She was anything but dismissive of me, and in fact invited me to stay in touch with her. She gave me her card and I was thinking of engaging her in dialogue just to get her views and arguments.

A few considerations:

1. Glassman appears to be as clueless as his predecessor, Karen Hughes. Here is detail on that.

2. Samah Norquist deals in tired cliches that we have seen hundreds of times here when she says that people have taken isolated verses of the Qur'an out of context, etc. As I show here, it is Muslims, not non-Muslims, who have interpreted the Qur'an's verses of violence as enjoining warfare against non-Muslims ever since the beginning of Islam. To act as if Islamic jihad supremacism is a problem of non-Muslims taking verses out of context is simply to engage in denial -- at best.

3. In saying "Spencer hates Muslims," Norquist does what he has done for years. Gaffney says in his article that Norquist "made repeated ad hominem attacks on Fox TV and elsewhere against me and anyone else (including noted experts like Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson) who dared to warn about the dangers of Islamism. More often than not, he portrayed such warnings as bigoted, racist denunciations of all Muslims."

The bottom line on that, however, is that even if Pipes and Emerson and Gaffney and I really did hate Muslims, that wouldn't establish a thing about the Islamic supremacist agenda, or about how Grover Norquist has helped to push that agenda forward. If we really did hate Muslims, would that mean that Grover Norquist has not enabled Islamic supremacists to gain access to the highest levels of the U.S. government? As common as this "hate" charge is, it is just a red herring, a diversion from the genuine issues.

And it is, of course, an effective diversion on many levels. It moves the onus from Norquist and the Islamic supremacists to those who are resisting them. It changes the categories, so that Muslims become the victims of "hate" -- the cardinal sin in today's multiculturalist fog -- instead of perpetrators of Islamic supremacist oppression. It lines up anti-jihadists for vilification and marginalization as bigots and for possible prosecution under hate speech laws, if Islamic supremacists can succed in ramming those through.

And it isn't even true. I don't hate Muslims. In fact, I like Muslims so much that I don't want them to fall victim to the stonings and amputations and denial of the freedom of conscience mandated by Islamic law. As I said here, "I would like nothing better than a flowering, a renaissance, in the Muslim world, including full equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies: freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, equal employment opportunities, etc." Is all that "anti-Muslim"? The Muslim correspondent to whom I first wrote that thought so. He responded: "So, you would like to see us ditch much of our religion and, thereby, become non-Muslims."

So would Grover Norquist rather see women beaten (per Qur'an 4:34) and stoned for adultery, and those who leave Islam hunted down and killed? For my protesting against these things is what makes him say that I "hate Muslims."

This demonstrates the superficiality of Norquist's analysis as well as a propagandist's unwillingness to debate honestly and tendency to demonize his opponents. It shows what he is really standing for, and whom he is standing with.

Nevertheless, my invitation to debate him is still open.

India: Second serial bombing in two days

"Suspicion is already falling on Islamist militants intent on destabilizing India by fanning tensions between Hindus and Muslims..."

Breaking reports point to higher casualties and more bombs than reported below. "Seven bombs hit India's Ahmedabad, two killed," by Rupam Jain Nair for Reuters, July 26:

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - At least seven small bombs exploded in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding 55, just a day after another set of blasts in the country's southern IT hub, officials said.

On Friday, eight bombs exploded in quick succession in the southern IT city of Bangalore, killing at least one person and wounding six others.

Saturday's blasts were in the Ahmedabad's crowded old city dominated by its Muslim community. One was left in a metal tiffin box, used to carry food, another apparently left on a bicycle.

"We have been told of seven to eight blasts," the central government's junior home minister Shriprakash Jaiswal told the Sahara news channel.

"These were low-intensity bombs," he said. "This has been done by some terrorist group which wants to destabilize the country."

Another junior home minister, Shakeel Ahmad said at least two people had been killed and 55 wounded and taken to hospital.

"The government had received a threat e-mail and we are probing into it," local state government Home Minister Amit Shahe told Reuters.

One television channel showed a bus with its side blown up, shattered windows and the roof half-destroyed. Another showed a dead dog, with blood nearby, lying beside a blownup bicycle.

Ahmedabad is the main city in the communally sensitive and relatively wealthy western state of Gujarat, scene of deadly riots in 2002 in which 2,500 people are thought to have died, most of them Muslims killed by rampaging Hindu mobs.

Both states targeted in the bomb attacks are ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and are among the country's fastest-growing.

Suspicion is already falling on Islamist militants intent on destabilizing India by fanning tensions between Hindus and Muslims, and police were swiftly deployed in Ahmedabad on Saturday to maintain calm. [...]

So far though, police say they have few leads into Friday's Bangalore bombings.

On Saturday, another unexploded bomb was found near a shopping mall in Bangalore, but it was unclear whether the bomb was newly planted or meant to have exploded during Friday's attacks, police said.

"Special squads have been formed to find out who is behind the blasts. We have not got any conclusive leads yet," Bangalore's Additional Commissioner of Police M.R. Pujar told Reuters on Saturday.

India has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains.

It is unusual for any group to claim responsibility for attacks, but India says it suspects militant groups from neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh of helping to plan and carry out many of the attacks.

India's home ministry said on Friday it suspected "a small militant group" was behind the Bangalore attacks, while some police officials said they suspected the blasts could be the work of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India....

Iraq: "Vengeful" women increasingly engaging in suicide attacks

Despairing women and the craven men who exploit them -- is this what the "great" jihad has come to? "US says women suicide bombers seeking revenge in Iraq," from AFP, July 26:

BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) — In the war-ravaged streets of Iraq, US-led forces say insurgents are recruiting women driven by despair or revenge to act as suicide bombers in the latest tactic against coalition troops.

Motivated by poverty, desperation or vengeance against the US-led military they blame for the deaths of family members, vulnerable women are easy prey for insurgents promising them a place in a paradise afterlife.

Thursday evening a female suicide bomber killed eight people and wounded 20 after she detonated her explosives-filled vest in Baquba, the capital of Diyala, one of the most dangerous regions in the country.

The bomber targeted a Sahwa or Awakening patrol of Iraqi forces -- former insurgents recruited to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq and paid by the US military.

The blast demonstrates a growing trend of using women in insurgent attacks attributed to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which have claimed hundreds of lives across the volatile country.

On July 7, another female suicide bomber killed two people and wounded 14 others after blowing herself up at a bustling street market in Baquba.

"One of the reasons for women to kill like this is a desire for vengeance," said Captain Kevin Ryan, commander of a US base in Baquba. "Often, they have lost parents, brothers or children in the fighting."

Revenge is a powerful motive which followers of Osama bin Laden are keen to exploit, said Iraqi army Colonel Ali Al-Karkhi, who is responsible for security in the Khan Bani Saad district 30 kilometres (19 miles) outside Baquba.

"Some want vengeance for the fact their families have disappeared," he told AFP, adding, "and it is easy for them to target those people they believe are responsible."

"Last year in the Magdadiya district, a woman who had five sons killed by the Iraqi police, blew herself up close to a group of police recruits looking to join up. She killed 30 civilians and 15 police officers," he said.

Women without education, or even those who suffer from learning disabilities, are particularly targeted by extremists.

"Al-Qaeda look for this type of profile, then they train them and indoctrinate them," Ryan said.

"They keep them locked up and tell them over and over again that if they blow themselves up, they will go to paradise," Karkhi said.

If only all of al-Qaeda had this same strong "conviction" to go to paradise, after a flurry of explosions, the organization would soon be gone -- only, of course, to be replaced by the next batch of jihadis and would-be "martyrs."

[...]The two officers believe the reliance on suicide attacks reveals Al-Qaeda forces in the region have been pushed back.

The use of female suicide bombers "shows the cowardice and the weakness of Al-Qaeda in Baquba. They send suicide bombers because here, (Al-Qaeda's) time has passed," Zarra said.

ISNA, NAIT admit ties to Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas

A very significant update on this story: in trying to get themselves off the uninidicted co-conspirator list in a Hamas funding case, two of the leading Islamic organizations in the U.S. admit that they have been connected with the Muslim Brotherhood -- an organization that is waging, in its own words, "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

"ISNA Admits Hamas Ties," from IPT News, July 25 (thanks to LGF):

In its latest filing before the federal district court in Dallas on behalf of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and its affiliate organization, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in the Hamas-terrorism financing case, the ACLU has made a noteworthy admission.

Rather than deny that there is copious evidence tying ISNA and NAIT to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the brief argues that such evidence is merely dated. In a curious footnote on page 7, the reply states:

Assuming the authenticity of documents' dates, the most recent documents to mention either ISNA or NAIT are dated 1991, Gov. Exhs. 3-3 and 3-85, but the majority of the documents are older. Almost all of the numerous exhibits that purport to show financial transactions and that contain any mention of ISNA or NAIT are dated 1988 and 1989 (there are two dated 1990), almost a decade before the majority of the overt acts the government alleges in support of its conspiracy charges against the HLF defendants.

So ISNA and NAIT are not saying that the documents tying their organizations to Hamas are "inauthentic," but that the problem with the evidence is just that it is old. Then, even more curiously, the reply goes on to argue something that the government has not even alleged:

Even if the "evidence" provided some basis for alleging criminality against petitioners, the government's discussion of it shows the government utterly fails to grasp the singular weight and consequence that an official accusation of criminal conduct carries in our criminal justice system and in our society.

But, of course, the government has not charged ISNA or NAIT with criminal conduct, or the two groups would be indicted in their own right, rather than un-indicted co-conspirators who worked with the Holy Land for Relief and Development (HLF), the defendant and alleged Hamas-front. The reply brief then, as Shakespeare might write, "doth protest too much."

Indeed. Read it all.

Somali jihadists denounce "recent peace talks," prepare to renew jihad

They must be getting stronger again, no longer in need to feign an interest in "peace talks" with their "apostate" countrymen -- which, according to sunna, is to be resorted to only when jihadists are weak, needing time to regroup. "Somali opposition says could fight UN," by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, for the AP, July 26:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Somalia's new opposition leader said Friday his supporters could take up arms against U.N. peacekeepers if they deploy the lawless country and side with the country's weak government.

Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who took over leadership of Somalia's exiled opposition movement this week, is suspected by the U.S. of collaborating with al-Qaida. He denies any terror links.
[...]

Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when clan warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other, creating chaos in the Horn of Africa nation.

A radical Islamic group known as the Council of Islamic Courts — led by Aweys — brought a semblance of stability in 2006, but terrified residents with threats of public executions and floggings of criminals. His group ruled the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months before powerful troops from neighboring Ethiopia arrived to push them out.

The group then launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians and shattered a country that already was one of the most violent and impoverished in the world. The opposition leaders went into exile in Eritrea, under the leadership of a moderate cleric, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

On Tuesday night, Aweys forced Ahmed out, denouncing his recent peace talks with the government.

Naturally, as Muhammad said "He who takes an oath but eventually finds a better way should do that which is better and break his oath" (Sahih Muslim 15: 4057). This outlook governed his actions as attested in the biographies and hadiths, not to mention the entire sequence of "revelation" of the Koran -- which preached "peace" when Islam was weak (Meccan verses), only to renounce it, as Aweys did, for war, when Islam became strong (Medinan verses).

[...]

Violence in the Horn of Africa — and in Somalia in particular — has long been a deep concern of the United States, which fears the region could become a haven for al-Qaida.

Corrupt governments, porous borders, widespread poverty and discontented Muslim populations have created a region ripe for Islamic fundamentalism. Roughly half the area of the United States, the Horn of Africa is home to about 165 million people in in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Djibouti.

Kenya, and Tanzania just to its south, have already been victims of al-Qaida terrorism, with the bombings at the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002.

The attacks emanated from neighboring Somalia.

"Islam is no more immune from criticism or mockery than Christianity, Judaism or Scientology"

Or at least it shouldn't be. There are some terrific points made along these lines in "Nobody Is Murdered for Christian or Jewish Satire" in the Wall Street Journal letters section, July 26 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist) -- and a letter from a Muslim reader who comes out decidedly against free speech:

In his letter regarding the controversy over cartoons offensive to Muslims ("Why We Don't See Islamic Cartoons," July 18) reader Shahid Kinnare asks each offending cartoonist to consider if "he could survive" if the subject of his work were changed to the Holocaust. The answer is yes. Although a cartoonist who produces a cartoon that uses the Holocaust in an offensive way would no doubt be harshly criticized, the cartoonist wouldn't be murdered and there wouldn't be riots by enraged Jews outside embassies. In fact, a number of newspapers recently reproduced, without incident, some despicable cartoons published in Iran concerning the Holocaust.

Alan S. Ritterband
Philadelphia

[..]

Letter writer Tom Lawrence's theory -- that the decision of Muslims to live in a Western society is theirs and, as a result, they need to accept the societal traditions of those countries needs close scrutiny in the context of the constitution of a democratic country. At stake isn't whether the decision of Muslims to live in a Western society is theirs but whether a Western society, such as the U.S., protects the religious rights of any group so that the citizens of that group have a right not to be offended by other groups.

B.K. Shah
Pearl River, N.Y.

Does anyone or any group really have a "right not to be offended"? This seems to be the implication, unfortunately, of "hate" laws in the West -- that an assault is somehow worse if someone is called a racial epithet in the course of being throttled. But of course offense is in the eye of the beholder. One person may be mortally offended by words that appear innocuous to another -- so who will be the judge? That is the key question. Does B. K. Shah want the U.S. government to set itself up as the arbiter of what is offensive to Islam? Or does he want some Muslim body to have that power? In either case, the unrelenting and unanimous practice among Muslims of labeling any honest discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists use to teach violence and supremacism as "hate" will bear bitter fruit in this: if it indeed becomes illegal in the U.S. to say something that Muslims deem offensive, it will be impossible for us to speak about the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism precisely as they are advancing here.

In America, I am allowed to insult whomever and whatever I like. Islam is no more immune from criticism or mockery than Christianity, Judaism or Scientology. In 1987, an "artist" (a term I use loosely) displayed a photograph "Piss Christ," depicting a crucifix in a glass of urine. There were many complaints and much negative press, but at no point did the artist need to fear for his life. Jews and Christians might not be happy to see their religious figures mocked, but they understand that in a free society such actions must be permitted.

If Theo van Gogh had produced an anti-Christian or anti-Jewish movie, he would be alive today. If "Satanic Verses" had been about Judaism, Salman Rushdie wouldn't have spent years in hiding under a threat of death. So do not lecture me about "sensitivity" toward Islam until its followers are willing to demonstrate tolerance toward dissent.

Daniel Palmer
Evanston, Ill.

The Muslim Brotherhood: Now on Facebook

Forget Scrabulous, will there be a Halal or Haram application? "Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood goes on-line on Facebook," from Adnkronos International, July 25:

Cairo, 25 July (AKI) - The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has launched a discussion forum on Facebook, the popular social networking website.

A group of young Muslims decided to put the Muslim Brotherhood on Facebook after they received the go-ahead to do so from the Brotherhood's second-in-command, Muhammad Habib.

The creators of the project decided to call themselves an "electronic student cell of the Muslim Brotherhood" and their aim to to push for the return of an Islamic Caliphate [a Muslim state]."

The Muslim Brotherhood has been outlawed by the Egyptian government, which accuses the group of encouraging violence in order to establish an Islamic state.

This new youth wing decided to choose the Internet as a way to spread their message.

Their political activity is also not limited to Egypt either but is aimed at Muslims all around the world.

The new discussion forum on Facebook is based on five points.

The first is the organisation of protests in all Muslim countries for the salvation of Islam and issues of the Islamic nation.

The second issue refers to the spread of the stories of the Prophet Mohammad with regards to the caliphate and the third point is a request to all imams to talk about this issue in their sermons.

The fourth and fifth points are spreading of leaflets to remind Muslims of the importance of the caliphate and to sensitize all Islamic parties and organisations to support this initiative.

This forum on Facebook was endorsed by Habib, even if he believes that this group of young people are not actually militants of his movement.

"I do not think that the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood do something like this because they cannot think in this way," said Habib in an interview with Arab satellite television network Al-Arabiya.

"Our young people follow the direction of the management and they do not work separately, starting individual activities without waiting for the common decision of the movement," he said.

Despite the remarks by Habib, other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, such as the parliamentarian, Hamdi Hasan, have strongly criticised the initiative of the youth group.

"It is based on a campaign that does not have sense and could be read as an internal division of his movement promoted by the new generation," said Hasan.

Serial bombings in Bangalore, regional jihadist groups suspected

Another serial bomb attack in India; the various news organizations differ on the exact number of bombs.

"7 blasts rock Bangalore; two killed, 20 wounded," from the Times of India, July 25:

BANGALORE: Seven synchronized small bombs shook Bangalore during the busy lunch hour on Friday, leaving two killed and injuring 20 others, officials said.

Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar Bidri said the seven blasts went off within several minutes of each other at different spots across the city. One woman was killed in an explosion at a bus stop in the city's Madiwala neighborhood, he said.

Another person died later of his injuries, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said.

Bidri said each of the small bombs contained the amount of explosives equal to "one or two grenades".

The blasts took place at the Madiwala bus depot, Mysore road, Adugudi, Koramangla, Vittal Mallaya road, Langford Town and Richmond Town. The blasts took place within a span of 60 minutes.

"In all these cases they have created the blast using timer devices," Bangalore Commissioner of Police Shankar Bidri told reporters at the site of one of the blasts. [...]

M R Pujar, additional police commissioner for Bangalore said "crude explosives" had been used. "There were seven low-intensity explosions," he said. "Some of them were in crowded areas."

According to IB sources, SIMI [Students Islamic Movement of India] and LeT [Lashkar-e-Toiba] may be behind the Bangalore blasts and they could be retaliatory in nature....

More from Rediff, in "9 blasts rock Bengaluru; 2 killed, 6 injured," by Vicky Nanjappa, July 25:

[...] The first two blasts occurred at Adugodi at 1.30 pm behind the famous Forum Mall, which is a major shopping destination in Bengaluru. The second bomb was placed near a granite factory under some granite slabs.

The blast at Madiwala occured near the check post at 1.50 pm, which were followed by a blast at Nayandahalli in a bus shelter at 2.10 pm. Between 2.10 and 2.30 pm very low intensity blasts were reported near the Mallya hospital at a park and on Richmond and Langford road. [...]

Preliminary investigations show that the bombs were attached to a timer device and were triggered off by a mobile phone. A similar pattern was used in the Hyderbad twin blasts and also at Jaipur and Ajmer. [...]

The IB says that the attack could be three pronged -- one to scare the IT sector in Bengaluru, two to warn the Karnataka police in the wake of the arrests of SIMI cadres in Karnataka which led to the arrests of 10 supremos of SIMI in Indore and lastly as a retaliatory measure since the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power for the first time in south India.

Adopting the methodology of earlier bombings would help to create panic, while low-intensity, low casualty bombs, coupled with the coordination of the attacks would aim to intimidate with the message that the group is capable of more:

Looking closely at the manner in which the attacks were carried out, the IB says that it was more of an attempt to scare the people rather than kill. The bombs were of low intensity and the places in which they were hidden is a clear indication that the intention was more to scare the general public and in the case of the Madiwala and Adugodi explosions, the IT sector in particular. There are large number of IT professionals living in these two areas.

"I'm Muslim and hate Jews"

Now why would a Muslim say such a thing? It's all about Israel, right? Wrong. Note, for example, this exposition of Qur'anic antisemitism from IslamOnline. In it, Sheikh 'Atiyyah Saqr, the former Head of the Fatwa Committee at Cairo's Al-Azhar (which the New York Times praised after 9/11 as a beacon of moderation), invokes Qur'an verses to claim that the Jews "used to fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah" and "love to listen to lies." He accuses Jews of "disobeying Almighty Allah and never observing His commands (invoking Qur'an 5:13 to show that Allah has cursed them); "hiding the truth"; "giving preference to their own interests over the rulings of religion and the dictates of truth"; "wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them"; and more. He says that Jews "feel pain to see others in happiness and are gleeful when others are afflicted with a calamity," and that "their impoliteness and indecent way of speech is beyond description." He says that "it is easy for them to slay people and kill innocents. Nothing in the world is dear to their hearts than shedding blood and murdering human beings." For "they are merciless and heartless"; "they never keep their promises or fulfill their words"; "they rush hurriedly to sins and compete in transgression." And much more.

Note that he found all that in the Qur'an, not in some analysis of the contemporary political situation, or some later religious polemic. Click on the link above and you'll find Qur'anic texts supporting each of the above assertions. So is it any wonder that Mustafa Taj, or any Muslim, might hate Jews? Hatred of Jews is justified by numerous Qur'an verses, and we can see from this article also that at least some contemporary Muslims understand them as being valid for all time and applicable to the Jews of today.

What all this means, of course, is that while Mustafa Taj is indeed a Jew-hater, by his own words, convicting him of a hate crime will not end his Jew-hatred. (Hate crime laws are always wrongheaded, always ill-advised, even when the person accused of hate really is a hater and not a truth-teller who is telling truths that are inconvenient to those in power. But there will be more people like Mustafa Taj, and more incidents like this, unless and until the Canadian authorities, and Western authorities in general, begin to act: above all by ending Muslim immigration into their countries and by requiring Muslims who are already in their countries to institute transparent and inspectable programs teaching against Qur'anic antisemitism and antisemitism in general.

Each one of these incidents should not be seen as a separate, discrete, never-to-be-repeated crime, but as an indication of a pattern that we are going to see more and more in America and the West. Unless we recover the will to act.

"Muslim man jailed for hate crime," by Kevin Martin for the Calgary Sun, July 24 (thanks to Twostellas):

Attacking a Jewish girl and the friends who came to her rescue has landed a Muslim man a one-year jail sentence.

Mustafa Taj must also serve a year of probation following his release for what provincial court Judge Bill Cummings ruled was a racially motivated assault....

Taj, 21, was convicted in May of attacking four teenagers the night of Nov. 3, 2006, while they waited for a C-Train at the Sunnyside LRT station.

Taj approached the group around 10:45 p.m. and asked "who's Jewish." Nichola Cordato, then 16, stated "me" and Taj grabbed her and said, "I'm Muslim and hate Jews."

He then slapped her in the face and pulled her hair before her friends, Jessica Motta, Kayla Hungle and Daniel Ball attempted to intervene.

Hungle attempted to prevent Taj from further attacking Cordato and was punched in the face by him.

Motta then intervened and was punched in the face, pulled to the ground by her hair and kicked in the stomach and ribs.

When Ball tried to stop the assaults, he was thrown onto the C-Train tracks where he fell onto his back and was spat upon by Taj.

During the melee, Taj called Cordato a "Jewish piece of (crap)."...

Welcome to the New Canada!

Mysterious blast in Iran: sabotage of Hizballah arms convoy?

Good news -- sabotage inside Iran?

"'Mysterious Iran blast likely an attack on Hizbullah arms convoy,'" from the Jerusalem Post, July 25 (thanks to Dennis):

A mysterious explosion in a suburb of Teheran that killed 15 people last Saturday was likely an attack on a Iranian military convoy carrying arms to Hizbullah, the Telegraph reported Friday.

The Revolutionary Guards imposed a news black-out immediately after the blast, but the UK newspaper reported that it looked like sabotage was responsible for destroying the convoy as it traveled through Khavarshahar.

The newspaper noted that the company responsible for moving the military equipment, LTK, was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was allegedly involved in shipping arms to Hizbullah.

Last Saturday's incident was the latest in a series of mysterious explosions in the country....

Turkey's dilemma

Can democracy be protected by the court-ordered closing of a political party, and possibly even by a coup d'etat? If democracy is simply head-counting, as Hugh Fitzgerald puts it, then no, it cannot. But Turkey faces the possibility that its secular system and relative (and I do mean relative -- relative to Sharia, that is) equality of rights for all its citizens can only be protected by these means. Condoleeza Rice has warned the Turkish military, the historical guarantors of Kemalism, not to act against the government, but she doesn't seem to have taken into account the fact that the government is clearly moving to establish Islamic law in Turkey, and to destroy the elements of Turkish society that make it more of a natural ally of the U.S. than any other Muslim-majority state.

Is she not being short-sighted?

"Domesticating political Islam," by Yusuf Kanli in the Turkish Daily News, July 25:

Letters poured into my mailbox, some protesting what they considered a “shift” in my attitude regarding the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP and of “opposing” a possible closure decision, while some hailed me for becoming a “lesser Kemalist” and “more democratic” as I “agreed” with the thesis of the AKP and some of its supporters in the Islamist and allegiant media that indeed closure of parties by the Constitutional Court is very much like a criminal court condemning an individual to the death penalty. Some have gone to the extent of accusing me of “betraying the secular democratic Republic…”

Self-catering democrats, self-catering secularists, self-catering supporters of individual rights and liberties may not of course comprehend the need to demand justice for all, equality of all in front of justice, to oppose all anti-democratic moves without discrimination and even to be able to say “if in principle I am against closure of political parties by a military junta or by the Constitutional Court, I am against – in principle – the closure of the AKP as well though like many people I have very strong doubts that the ruling party has an agenda incompatible with the secular democratic Republic.”

But, of course, from a purely legalistic point of view, a possible closure of the AKP by the court has to be respected by everyone irrespective of whether we like it because there is such a penalty in our laws and as long as a law remains in the penal system of a country it must be applied without discrimination.

Corrective penalty:

Some readers, on the other hand, provided food for thought by suggesting that the past practice demonstrated that the clauses giving party closure power to the Constitutional Court were indeed “corrective measures” aimed at “protecting the secular democratic Republic against separatist, Islamist and some totalitarian aspirations.”

Yes, indeed, if the history of political Islam is examined, over the past many decades the “political” element of “political Islam” in Turkey appears to have been “domesticated” with the closure of one of the other four previous parties of the movement. Yes, in each case, some time after the closure decision by the military junta or the Constitutional Court, political Islam re-organized in one or more new parties but the new parties were established with “safeguards” against the reasons cited for the closure of the previous party and thus newer parties, at least in the initial phases, were more in conformity with the secular democratic order of the country than the former ones....

So ultimately, party closure hasn't worked. But what else can be done?

Australia: Police raid Muslim "charity" that admitted channeling aid to organization banned for jihadist links

And the executive director says he's shocked -- shocked! -- that the illegal activity was still going on.

"Police raid on Muslim charity," by Richard Kerbaj for the The Australian, July 25:

A SYDNEY charity that admitted channelling aid through an Islamic organisation banned in Australia for its alleged terror links was yesterday raided by the federal police.

It was also attacked by one of its directors for failing to scrap a fundraising appeal that has been under investigation.

AFP and NSW Police counter-terrorism agents seized computer files and financial records from Muslim Aid Australia's headquarters in Lakemba, Sydney's Muslim heartland, during a seven-hour raid.

The police action was prompted by The Australian's revelations this month about the charity's connection to Interpal, a humanitarian network proscribed by Australia and the US.

British-based Interpal, also known as the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund, has been cleared by the British Charity Commission of terror links, but failed three years ago to have its proscribed status revoked by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

MAA executive director Mohammed Taha Alsalami, who was interviewed by the AFP, said last night he was shocked that his organisation had failed to pull from its website a fundraising appeal that links its charity work to Interpal.

When told by The Australian of the "Gaza Crisis" appeal banner still bearing the logo of MAA and Interpal, Dr Alsalami said it was wrong to persist with the fundraiser.

"It's a shock that it's still there," said the former member of the Howard government's Muslim reference group.

"It shouldn't have been there in the first place. This whole matter is very sensitive now."

Dr Alsalami said he expected MAA staff - including executive director Iman Partoredjo, who is believed to be in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage - to co-operate with the authorities.

He confirmed the AFP had already interviewed many of MAA's staff members.

"We have to abide by the law, and there's no question about that," he said.

"If there was any wrongdoing it should appear."

Dr Alsalami, one of five MAA board members, maintained he had little to do with the day-to-day operations of his group. He refused to say whether he was considering stepping down from his role.

In a series of reports this month, The Australian revealed that MAA had admitted distributing aid in the Palestinian Territories through Interpal, which was banned by then foreign minister Alexander Downer in 2003, three months after it was proscribed by the US for being "part of a web of charities".

It was suspected of raising funds and co-ordinating fundraisers on behalf of the Palestinian organisation Hamas.

Mr Downer added Interpal on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Consolidated List, which names banned groups and people.

It is a criminal offence under the Charter of the United Nations Act for Australian individuals or organisations to deal with groups identified by DFAT's Consolidated List.

Breaching the act can result in a maximum 10-year prison sentence and fines of more than $275,000 for individuals andmore than $1.1 million for organisations.

The Australian Council for International Development, the charity-industry body, launched an investigation into MAA after Mr Partoredjo, retracted an earlier admission to The Australian about working with Interpal.

ACFID's executive director Paul O'Callaghan said last night that his body was still investigating MAA.

The NSW Government, through its Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, is also investigating MAA.

Thug-In-Chief: August 5 will be "Islamic Human Rights Day"

Will they have a parade of amputees? A gallery of stoning victims? A museum of dhimmitude? Seminars on the how-tos of wife-beating?

"Iran: President declares 5 August 'Islamic human rights day,'" from AKI, July 24 (thanks to C.C.):

Tehran, 24 July (AKI) - Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolution Council headed by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared 5 August an annual international Islamic human rights day.

The conservative-dominated council also nominated 12 July as an annual 'National Virtue Day for the Veil'.

Imagine the fashion shows!

American Spectator: Isn't it great that all this snake oil is being peddled?

Peter Hannaford, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, announces in "Mozart in Arabia" in The American Spectator, July 22, that "the forces of moderate Islam are finally beginning to emerge vocally and in numbers."

Great news! After Western governments and the mainstream media have engaged in an unstinting and largely uncritical seven-year hunt for "the forces of moderate Islam," at last they're on the scene, "in numbers"! Since these forces have been and remain such an object of Western desire, it is important to examine Hannaford's evidence.

Mozart's music gets around a lot, but never before in Saudi Arabia where it was recently on the program of a first-ever concert of European music to be performed in the desert kingdom. Not only that, the German quartet was playing before an audience composed of both men and women in the same hall.

In Saudi Arabia's carefully gender-segregated society, the event was unprecedented.

Unprecedented, and indeed, fine. With a few exceptions music is forbidden in Islamic law, so the Saudis clearly set themselves up for criticism from hardliners by doing this. Still, while I'm glad Mozart finally made his debut in the "Kingdom of the Two Holy Places," this is not quite on the level of the Saudis, say, allowing churches and synagogues to be built in the Kingdom, or granting non-Muslims equality of rights with Muslims, or any number of other things that could have been done that would have signaled much more strongly that the days of strict Sharia in Saudi Arabia are over -- if indeed they are. So perhaps it would be unwise to get too enthusiastic about this alone -- but Hannaford has much more.

This came on the heels of King Addullah's [sic] call for an interfaith dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews -- this in a country where conducting religious services other than Islamic can land one in prison.

The king followed through with his call, first by convening in June a group of 500 Muslim scholars -- Sunni and Shiite -- in Mecca to exchange views about interfaith dialogue. The conference closed with an endorsement of such a dialogue.

The conference also called for "exerting efforts to clarify misconceptions about Islam," which has always in the last few years meant assuring non-Muslims that Islam is peaceful and has no doctrines of warfare or supremacism that should make anyone feel concerned. It also "recommended taking action at the media level to counter distorting campaigns and confront calls for confrontations among civilizations, urged international organizations namely the UN to face the culture of hatred among nations and racist and arrogant attitudes that contradict religious messages and international charters."

Asking the UN to "face" the "racist and arrogant attitudes that contradict religious messages and international charters" looks like a veiled reference to the ongoing Muhammad cartoon controversy, and the efforts by the Organization of the Islamic Conference to compel Western governments to restrict free speech and place Islam beyond criticism. After all, Islamic spokesmen have maintained that the cartoons are "racist," even though Islam is not a race, and have asked the UN to work to restrict them, along with honest discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and supremacism.

This led to King Abdullah's invitation to 200 Muslim, Christian and Jewish clerics to meet with him last week in Madrid to discuss areas where all could find common ground. While this meeting produced no breakthroughs, it was not intended to. Spain was chosen for the meeting site because, from the 8th to the 13th century, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived more-or-less in harmony there.

More or less! Anyway, not only did this meeting "produce no breakthroughs," but in the words of one participant, it was filled with "the same old rhetoric that has led to more hatred and the building of a wall between the Jews and the Muslims for the last 60 years." Steven Emerson reports that "it was sponsored by the Saudi monarch and organized by a man who justifies Palestinian suicide bombings and is alleged to have links to a senior Al Qaeda financier."

Hannaford continues by portraying Abdullah as a moderate who must proceed cautiously against Saudi hardliners, and then says:

MEANWHILE, MODERATE VOICES in Islam are beginning to speak out elsewhere. In Late May, several thousand Indian Islamic clerics and madrassa teachers met in New Delhi for an Anti-Terrorism and Global Peace Conference. The major event was the issuance of what has been called the world's first unequivocal fatwa against terrorism. The fatwa states, "Islam is a religion of peace and security. In its eyes, on any part over the surface of the earth, spreading mischief, rioting, breach of peace, bloodshed, killing of innocent persons and plundering are the most inhuman crimes." The fatwa was developed at Darul Uloom Deoband, the world's second largest Islamic seminary which controls thousand of Islamic seminaries in India. The fatwa was validated with pledge by the approximately 100,000 people at the conference.

As we saw here (see also here and here), the statement rejected the killing of innocent people, while not defining "innocent." In a world in which at least some Islamic jihadists maintain that no non-Muslim can be innocent, this is not enough. The statement also says that "Islam rejects all kinds of unjust violence." There again, the door is left open for violence that can be just. And it says nothing whatsoever about the Islamic supremacist imperative to impose Sharia wherever possible.

Other Muslim groups are speaking out against Islamist terrorism. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, with 20 million members worldwide, routinely takes the position that there is nothing in the Koran to justify violent jihad in modern times.

And they're routinely persecuted by mainstream Muslims for, among other things, saying just this. And they do not, meanwhile, renounce Islamic supremacism. They just advocate jihad by means other than violence.

In Britain, which tends to handle matters pertaining to its Muslim minority with kid gloves, the government is developing a plan to send imams into schools to teach students that extremism is wrong and to emphasize citizenship and multiculturalism.

This would be more reassuring if we knew who these imams were, and how they were being vetted, and what the content of their preaching of "multiculturalism" was going to be. Will they teach that Muslims should live together with non-Muslims as equals under non-Muslim law on an indefinite basis? Or something short of this? Is anyone even attempting to find out?

In Pakistan, an idea of a Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gulen, himself steeped in the Sufi tradition of introspection, has materialized in the form of seven schools in Pakistan cities. There, Turkish teachers dispense a Western curriculum of courses, in English, from math to science to literature. They also encourage the maintenance of Islam in the schools' dormitories. In a country with a weak public school system which competes with many hard-line madrassas, the Turkish schools have found a strong following.

"The Fethullah Gulen community...is the largest and strongest Islamist community in Turkey."

While suicide bombings may capture the attention of the evening news's cameras, the forces of moderate Islam are finally beginning to emerge vocally and in numbers.

Hannaford's article is, unfortunately, just another example of just how eager Western analysts are to find moderate Muslims, and the weak reeds they will depend upon in this search (Mozart in Saudi Arabia!). Any sincere Muslim reformer who acknowledges and rejects the violent and supremacist elements of Islam, and works sincerely against them in the Islamic community, deserves support. But there are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there, and a lot of eager buyers.

Intel bill passes with Hoekstra amendment to ban funding to promote gov't guidance on "jihad"-free lexicon

Some good news, in an update on this story. "Michigan rep fights terrorism words ban," from UPI, July 23:

HOLLAND, Mich., July 23 (UPI) -- The intelligence bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives includes a ban on a new policy about which words officials should use to describe terrorists.

The new policy, contained in guidelines issued by the National Counter-Terrorism Center and the departments of State and Homeland Security), warns that that using terms like "Jihadi" or "Islamic terrorist," might alienate moderate Muslims and inadvertently build support for terrorists.

But an amendment to the 2009 Intelligence Authorization Act passed last week bans the use of any government money to promote the guidance in U.S. intelligence agencies.

The amendment, authored by U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, [R]-Mich., was approved by a 249-180 vote. Fellow Republican Michigan Reps. Joe Knollenberg and Thaddeus McCotter supported the amendment, The Detroit News reported Wednesday, and 55 Democrats joined them, despite the opposition of the party leadership.

"I am sympathetic to the argument that if used inappropriately, the words can be counterproductive but I find that the people who are criticizing this are very short on alternatives," Hoekstra said. "So how do they want us to describe al-Qaida and what they are involved with?"

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan said there were alternatives. "CAIR supports using terminology such as 'criminals,' 'murderers' or 'terrorists' that help isolate extremists and remove the false cloak of religiosity they use to justify their barbaric actions," he told the newspaper.

More importantly for CAIR, limiting the terminology in that manner disconnects actions from ideology so no one starts asking questions, particularly about notions like the "false cloak of religiosity."

Al-Qaeda group recruiting jihadis with videos of "martyred" children

From adults in bunny suits inciting children to jihad, to the "ghastly" images of dead children inciting adults to jihad -- jihad knows no bounds. "Video of 'martyred' child used for recruitment by Al Qaeda-linked group," by James Gordon Meek, for the Daily News, July 23:

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda allies running terror camps for tots on the Afghan-Pakistan border are using video of a boy “martyred” in combat to recruit jihadis.

The apparently lifeless body of the child, an Uzbek boy younger than 11, is the focus of the grisly half-hour video by the Islamic Jihad Union — a radical Uzbek group practically indistinguishable from Osama Bin Laden’s network, according to U.S. officials.

"In a fierce battle in Waziristan between the soldiers of Allah and the friends of Satan, Abd al-Rahim was wounded by an arrow," says an Uzbek narrator, referring to a bullet or shrapnel.

Waziristan is part of the Pakistani tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other thugs stage attacks on U.S. and allied forces.

"They couldn't find doctors, and under these conditions it wasn't possible to treat his wound. So, our young mujahid, Abd al-Rahim, reached martyrdom," the narrator says as the camera pans over the dead boy's face shrouded in a white cloth.

The video was obtained from the terrorism research service SITE Intelligence Group.

The ghastly film follows Abd al-Rahim and a dozen young boys in camouflage shirts and black headbands reading "There is no God but Allah" as they train with rocket-propelled grenades, pistols and Kalashnikov rifles.

The dead boy was "a translator between the native fighters and the mujahideen," the video says. Al Qaeda is littered with Uzbeks who marry into local Pashtun clans for protection. Many were slaughtered last year by their Pashtun hosts for abusing women, sources have said.

NATO and U.S. military officers told the Daily News it’s rare to find juveniles on the battlefield.

Last week, a boy in a suicide vest killed himself and two Afghan soldiers in Helmand province. In early June, NATO troops "caught two IED trigger persons who were later released due to their age, ten and under," said Army 1st Lt. Nathan Perry.

In May, Pakistani troops raided a compound they claimed was used to train kids as young as nine for suicide bombings in Afghanistan. But a U.S. special operations document referred to the army raid as a "ruse."

Russia to give Iran new anti-aircraft defenses

John VI Cantacuzenes Alert: "Iran to get new Russian air defences by '09 -Israel," by Dan Williams for Reuters, July 23 (thanks to Mackie):

TEL AVIV, July 23 (Reuters) - Iran is set to receive an advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft system by year-end that could help fend off any preemptive strikes against its nuclear facilities, senior Israeli defence sources said on Wednesday.

First delivery of the S-300 missile batteries was expected as soon as early September, one source said, though it could take six to 12 months for them to be deployed and operable -- a possible reprieve for Israeli and American military planners.

Iran, which already has TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles from Russia, announced last December that an unspecified number of S-300s were on order. But Moscow denied there was any such deal. [...]

"Based on what I know, it's highly unlikely that those air defence missiles would be in Iranian hands any time soon," U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said in a July 9 briefing when asked about the S-300 -- also known in the West as the SA-20.

An Israeli defence official said Iran's contract with Russia required that the S-300s be delivered by the end of 2008. A second source said first units would arrive in early September.

The official agreed with the assessments of independent experts that the S-300 would compound the challenges that Iran -- whose nuclear sites are numerous, distant, and fortified -- would already pose for any future air strike campaign by Israel....

New intelligence indicates that "global jihad" is "substantial" threat

Would that the Israeli intelligence's Western counterparts took jihad as seriously. Of course, that the State Department has essentially censored the use of words like "jihad," may be part of the problem. "Intelligence bodies warn threat from global Jihad 'substantial'," from YNet News, July 23:

Substantial threats to Israel, its citizens, and Jewish people all over the world exist from worldwide Jihad organizations, specifically al-Qaeda, intelligence reports discussed by the government's Security Cabinet on Wednesday stated.

Representatives from IDF Intelligence, the Shin Bet, and the Mossad said during the discussion that global Jihad constitutes a threat to all Western countries, democratic regimes, and moderate Arab nations. They also expressed fear that the worldwide organizations would develop cooperation with local extremist groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah.

The representatives also mentioned that the Jihad organizations' operatives make use of civilian infrastructures such as the internet and information technology in order to enlist and mobilize terror cells.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert directed the intelligence officials to continue their efforts in gathering information and thwarting the threats, through cooperation with other countries seeking to battle terrorism.

On Sunday Director of Military Intelligence Major-General Amos Yadlin told the cabinet that Israel's enemies have no interest in provoking any military conflict while US President George W. Bush is still in office.

What about when Barrack Hussein Obama is in office?

The military, he warned, does believe a limited military campaign, which will probably not escalate into a full-fledged war, is possible.

Yadelin also surveyed the circumstances that could instigate terror attacks on Israel. "We have intelligence indicating terror activities are possible both on the northern and southern fronts. Hizbullah may choose to use one of their still disputed subjects, such as the Shaaba Farms or Imad Mugniyah's assassination," he told the cabinet.

As for the Iranian threat, Yadlin briefed the cabinet on the latest intelligence assessments, saying that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear developments, despite the international community implementing some diplomatic and financial duress.

Syria, he said, is slowly by surely "escaping its international isolation, despite assisting Hizbullah. Damascus is taking several steps in order to get closer to the West, but is still very much a part of the axis of terror."

"Better we go fight for Allah maybe at least we go [to Paradise]...Over there we have good wives, everything."

But despite saying things like that, which makes it clear that these Muslims wanted to kill people at Fort Dix because they thought Allah would reward them for doing so, the defense wants prosecutors to stop talking about "jihad" in connection with this case -- it is "inflammatory."

"US: Don't drop jihad references from charges," by Geoff Mulvihill for AP, July 18 (thanks to Writer Mom):

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say they should not be forced to drop references to al-Qaida and jihad from the indictment of five men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix.

Lawyers for the men last month asked a judge in U.S. District Court in Camden to delete such language, saying it was "inflammatory" and was included in earlier court filings to incite prejudice against the defendants.

In a response filed Friday, government lawyers said the terms in question are central to the case, arguing that jihadist principles motivated the defendants.

Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer and the brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka have pleaded not guilty to the May 2007 charges that they were planning to sneak onto the base and kill soldiers.

The government said they chose the Army installation, which is used mostly to train reservists for deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, largely because Tatar's father owned a pizza shop nearby and he knew his way around the area.

An attack was never carried out, though prosecutors say the men trained for it on trips to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.

The men, all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s, have spent much of their lives in the Philadelphia area. [...]

In 2006, the government says, Shnewer said that he owned a gun and had considered camping near the White House and trying to assassinate President Bush.

He also told the informant, according to the filing: "This is what we chose for ourselves. If you do not want to assist us in such dire times, that means shut up. No good will ever come out of you."

In another conversation, the government says Dritan Duka told an informant, "Better we go fight for Allah maybe at least we go Jannah (heaven or paradise)... Over there we have good wives, everything."...

Fitzgerald: McCain, Bud Day, and Islam

Bud Day was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, but he has a long history of heroism before that. He first went to war at age seventeen (I think), in World War II. He was in that war, and the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. If you have seen him speak, as I have, you would know who Bud Day is and why he is so important -- and why we all in the end must depend, for certain tasks important for our survival, on those who are like Bud Day.

Let's start with his remark: "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us." Is this, as one news report self-assuredly says, a "gaffe"? Is it incorrect? What do the texts of Islam teach about how non-Muslims are to be treated under Muslim rule? And we already know that the duty of Jihad is that of removing all obstacles to the spread, and then the universal dominance, of Islam. Does it say to "make them kneel"? Well, not in that precise genuflecting mode, but in essence, of course it does.

For what does it mean to say, as the Qur'an does, that non-Muslims must either be killed or converted or, where they belong to the category of ahl al-kitab, the People of the Book, that is, Christians and Jews, may stay alive, may even continue -- in a restricted and insecure manner -- to practice their own religions? We know that the status of these Christians and Jews under Islamic law is that of "Protected People." This bland phrase is used by Muslims entirely unselfconsciously, as if they simply do not realize, or hope that we won't, that what those Christians and Jews are being "protected from" are Muslims themselves -- should those Christians, or should those Jews, not comply with all the "terms" of the "agreement." And there is no agreement, of course: it's simply a Muslim diktat. This status as “Protected People” means that they must accept their status as dhimmis. And then that status comes with a whole host of political, economic, and social disabilities, of which the best known is the Jizyah, the payment by non-Muslims to support the Muslims and the Muslim state. Indeed, this was the reason for treating the Zoroastrians of conquered Sassanian Persia, and the Hindus (after tens of millions had been massacred), as "honorary" People of the Book who could stay alive and be treated as dhimmis -- and thus continue to supply the Jizyah which the Muslim overlords required.

Along with the Jizyah, there were rules about clothing, including at some point the requirement, imposed first in Baghdad, of a yellow star for Jews and a blue belt for Christians. Why, just a few years ago the Taliban was insisting on orange robes to be worn by Hindus, for, a Taliban spokesman said, "their own safety." Non-Muslims could not ride horses (a prohibition equivalent to telling someone today he cannot use a car), but only donkeys, and had to dismount if crossing the path of a Muslim. New churches and synagogues could not be built; old ones could not be repaired without the permission of Muslims; church bells were not allowed, and indeed, any symbolism that drew attention to these non-Muslim houses of worship was forbidden. Non-Muslim males could not marry Muslim females; the reverse was not true, for the non-Muslim females were not equal to, but often treated as chattel by, the males in Muslim societies, and so a non-Muslim female was no threat to a social order that always and everywhere required that Muslims be on top.

This is what should be stated by those who wish to defend -- or at the very least not to abandon -- Bud Day. Is the McCain campaign up to it? So far it has shown no signs of being able to coherently explain, or even to quote, the easily-retrievable Qur'anic passages -- a click away -- that they should bring to public attention. They should do this for no other reason than to show that they know their Qur'an, and that they intend, if attacked, to bring out more and more such items from Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira. This would show that they intend to perform that most important of tasks for those who would be entrusted with the responsibilities of rule -- that is, the ability to usefully instruct those whom one claims to be able to intelligently protect.

Iraqi forces preparing for grand siege on al-Qaeda bastions

But Shiites trained in Iran may pose a more persistent threat. "30,000 Iraqi troops poised for assault on Qaeda bastion," from AFP, July 23:

BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) — Some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and police are to launch a military assault against Al-Qaeda fighters and insurgents in Diyala province from August 1, army and police officers said Wednesday.

"The operation is aimed at cleansing the region of insurgents, Al-Qaeda and militias who are still there," a senior Iraqi military officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said some 30,000 soldiers and policemen from across Iraq would take part in the crackdown in the central province starting August 1.

Senior Iraqi police officials in Baquba, the capital of Diyala, confirmed the assault would start on August 1.

"It will be an operation led by the Iraqi army. The US army will probably only watch... If they need help, we'll help them. If not, we will not do anything," a US military officer said.

Iraq's interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf announced on July 13 that the Iraqi military would launch an assault in Diyala but did not specify the date.

He said troops expected tough fighting during the assault.

Diyala and its capital Baquba are Iraq's most dangerous regions with insurgents regularly carrying out attacks, including by female suicide bombers.

The looming assault in Diyala follows similar Iraqi military operations in the southern provinces of Basra and Maysan, and the northern province of Nineveh.

Aided by the US military and Iraqi forces, local anti-Qaeda groups known as "Sahwa" or Awakening councils, have inflicted severe blows on Al-Qaeda but the extremist group continues to carry out attacks in the region.
[...]

But "foreign countries have sown the disorder," lamented Colonel Karkhi, pointing a finger at Shiite Iran, which shares a border with Diyala.

"We captured five people (Iraqis) who 45 days ago were in Iran for training. They receive instructions from the Iranian services and their business is to kill people," he said.
[...]

"The problem is that when we apply pressure they flee to Iran," Karkhi said.

Losing the war of ideas

In "Winning the War of Ideas" in the New York Sun, July 23 (thanks to Ethelred), James K. Glassman, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, says many positive things. He points out that our primary task is not to make foreigners love the United States -- which has been the focus of many of our "ideological" initiatives up to now. Instead, he says that "our priority is not to promote our brand but to help destroy theirs."

Great! Does that mean that he will confront the Sharia imperative and Islamic supremacism, and try to make the millions of Muslims who implicitly accept Western values make that acceptance explicit? No. He doesn't seem to have any idea of the stealth jihad at all -- that is, he doesn't seem to have any idea that jihadists might be trying to advance their agenda by means other than violent attacks. Glassman demonstrates this lack of awareness by praising Lawrence Wright's article about how Muslims are turning away from Al-Qaeda, which I discussed in detail here. Glassman seems to have no comprehension at all of the significance of one telling phrase in the Wright article: "jihad did not have to be restricted to an armed approach."

This does not bode well for his attempts to "destroy" the enemy's ideology: if he doesn't even understand it, how can he possibly expect to destroy it? For he cannot even name that ideology (which is no surprise these days), and declares: "We also should not shrink from confidently opposing poisonous ideas — even if they are rooted in a twisted interpretation of religious doctrine." That the jihadists are proceeding according to a "twisted interpretation" of Islam, rather than according to core and mainstream principles of the religion, is of course an iron and never-to-be-questioned dogma at State, but it rests upon the word of Muslim Brotherhood-linked "experts," and ignores the copious teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, as well as of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, about warfare against and the subjugation of infidels.

Not an auspicious beginning for a war of ideas: Glassman only dimly understands the ideas he is fighting, and can't even call them by name.

[...] In the war of ideas, our core task is not how to fix foreigners' perceptions of the United States. Those perceptions are important — we want foreign publics to trust and respect us. But America's image is not at the center of the war of ideas.

Instead, we need to recognize that there is a complex, multi-sided battle going on in Muslim societies for power. This is a battle in which we cannot be a bystander. Instead, the battle within many Muslim societies for power affects America directly and was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people seven years ago. In this battle, our main role is to support constructive alternatives to violent extremism.

Our priority is not to promote our brand but to help destroy theirs. We do that by showing foreign populations that the ideology and actions of the violent extremists are not in the best interests of those populations.

It is the fact that the battle is going on within Muslim society that makes our role so complicated and that requires that we ourselves not do much of the fighting. The most credible voices in this war of ideas are Muslim.

So here is our ultimate goal: A world in which the use of violence to achieve political, religious, or social objectives is no longer considered acceptable; efforts to radicalize and recruit new members are no longer successful; and the perpetrators of violent extremism are condemned and isolated.

How do we achieve such a world? Three ways:

First, by confronting the ideology that justifies and enables the violence. We try to remove the fake veneer on the reputation of extremists and allow publics to see the shame and hostility of life in terrorism. That is what worked in Al Anbar province in Iraq, as well as in Jordan and Morocco. Support for suicide bombing throughout the Muslim world has dropped sharply. The proportion of Jordanians with "a lot of confidence in Osama bin Laden" has fallen to 20% in 2007 from 56% in 2003.

This is an effort that requires credible Muslim voices to work effectively — especially voices of those, like Fadl, born Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, and known as Dr. Fadil, whose story was told recently by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker. Fadl helped build the Al Qaeda ideology and now repudiates it for its wanton violence.

We also should not shrink from confidently opposing poisonous ideas — even if they are rooted in a twisted interpretation of religious doctrine.

Second, we achieve our desired goal by offering, often in cooperation with the private sector and using the best technology including Web 2.0 social networking techniques, a full range of productive alternatives to violent extremism.

The shorthand for this policy is diversion — powerful and lasting diversion, the channeling of potential recruits away from violence with the attractions of culture, literature, music, technology, sports, education, and entrepreneurship, in addition to politics and religion.

While winning hearts and minds would be an admirable feat, the war of ideas adopts the more immediate and realistic goal of diverting impressionable segments of the population from the recruitment process. The war of ideas is really a battle of alternative visions, and our goal is to divert recruits from the violent extremist vision.

Going beyond diversion, we seek to build counter-movements by empowering groups and individuals opposed to violent extremism — movements (using both electronic and physical means) that bring people together — including believers in democratic Islam — with similar, constructive interests, such as mothers opposed to violence, built on the Mothers Against Drunk Driving model.

Our role is as a facilitator of choice. We help build networks and movements — put tools in the hands of young people to make their own choices, rather than dictating those choices. In the words of the National Security Strategy: "Freedom cannot be imposed; it must be chosen."

We have already done a major reorganization — both at State and the interagency — to help in the overall effort. The five focal points of our programs are: Muslim society, especially involving young people, at the grassroots; Middle East elites, who involve themselves in ideology and religious doctrine; foreign fighters, who have poured into Iraq and Afghanistan; Iran; and private sector expertise.

There are signs that the war of ideas, even in its nascent stages, is working. But no serious person involved in this battle thinks it is close to being won. The flow of new recruits has not stopped. Our work is ahead of us.

In the end, the mission of 21st century public diplomacy is to tell the world of a good and compassionate nation and at the same time to engage in the most important ideological contest of our time. This engagement must, by its nature, involve non-Americans that we nurture, support, and encourage

The will, as I said, now exists. As for strategy: I think that we have it right. This is a contest that we have now engaged vigorously — a contest we will win.

Good luck with that.

Indonesia tries selective "deradicalization," condemning only some jihadist violence, leaving political Islam untouched

As with Saudi Arabia's "rehabilitation" efforts, the main goals here appear to be protecting the regime and stopping domestic jihad attacks -- those could hurt Muslims. While the article notes that "the Indonesian police believe 'that if they could overcome this … then other deeply held jihadist tenets would also be questioned'," is there any effort to follow through on that opportunity? And before they reduce or drop charges, are authorities sure the "deradicalized" detainee has truly had a change of heart, and wasn't simply telling them what they wanted to hear?

"Analysis: Indonesia tries deradicalization," by Shaun Waterman for UPI, July 22:

WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- Indonesia is one of several Southeast Asian nations that are following the lead of Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and launching programs to rehabilitate jailed Islamic extremists -- known as deradicalization.

But according to experts and two recent studies, Indonesia's deradicalization program -- a much smaller and less formalized affair than those run by its neighbors Singapore and Malaysia -- does not try to get the extremists to break with their radical, political interpretation of Islamic ideology, but rather to renounce violence, specifically suicide bombings and other mass casualty attacks on civilians.

The program "doesn't try to deradicalize them (in the sense of abandoning their interpretation of Islam) -- they're trying to get them to renounce violence," Zachary Abuza told United Press International. [...]

Kirsten Schulze, a senior lecturer in international history at the London School of Economics, writes in this month's edition of the center's publication, CTC Sentinel, that "there are two key issues that (the program's leaders) wanted to deradicalize in the jihadist mindset: the killing of civilians and the 'need' for an Islamic state."

The latter principle is at the root of the anti-state aspects of Indonesian jihadi ideology, which sees "everyone who works with or for the government" as an unbeliever.

Schulze writes that the Indonesian police believe "that if they could overcome this … then other deeply held jihadist tenets would also be questioned."

But the program, in Schulze's telling, does not seem to systematically challenge the basic justification of violent jihad.

"While the killing of civilians by suicide bombings is being challenged," she concludes in the study, "jihadist violence perpetrated in the Ambon and Poso conflicts has been condoned."

In both areas, armed Islamic militias took part in bitter and bloody religious conflict, but it was seen by radicals as part of a defensive jihad, a struggle for survival by the Muslim population -- in which it is legitimate to use violence. [...]

There's more to it than that. Poso has been the site of a great deal of violent clashes and persecution of local Christians. Ambon saw widespread violence between Christians and Muslims between 1999 and 2002, and was part of a failed bid for independence in 1950.

In his experience of the program, "Violence is the bright line," he told UPI. "They are not trying to get people to turn away from political Islam."

All three experts commented on the specific, perhaps unique, history of Indonesia -- an Islamic nation with very tolerant traditions towards its non-Muslim minorities.

O'Brien said the program is based on "building a relationship, building trust" with the participants, and involves providing for the families of those who want to take part.

And sometimes a party.

"It is difficult with people (directly) involved in killings," he said, adding the program was aimed primarily at people "on the periphery."

The intervention begins when the jihadis are in police custody, he said, and indeed, their participation in the program can result in their charges being lessened or dropped altogether.

"That's an option: charge them with a lesser (non-terrorist) offense or nothing," he said....

Iranian blueprint for nuclear talks: Buy time. Lots of it.

"'The paper calls for a huge exercise in talking,' said one senior European official. 'If you were to try to implement it, it would take a minimum of several years'."

That's the idea. "Iran Offers 2 Pages and No Ground in Nuclear Talks," by Elaine Sciolino for the New York Times, July 22:

PARIS — The Iranians called their proposal a “None paper.”

Indeed, for officials of the six countries sitting on the other side of the table, the paper addressed none of their ideas for resolving the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.

Instead, the informal two-page document that Iran distributed at nuclear talks in Geneva on Saturday ignored the main six-power demand on curbing Iran’s enrichment of uranium and called for concessions from the other side.

The title of the English-language text had two mistakes. “The Modality for Comrehensive Negotiations (None paper),” it read, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. (Diplomatic jargon for an unofficial negotiating document is “nonpaper.”)

For the six powers — the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany — the paper’s substance was just as disappointing as its style. Sergei Kisliak, the Russian deputy foreign minister, could not suppress a laugh when he read it, according to one participant.

The talks on Saturday included the participation of a senior American official for the first time. The six powers were hoping that Iran would accept a compromise formula to pave the way to formal negotiations. For six weeks, Iran would not add “any new nuclear activity,” refraining from the new installation of centrifuges that enrich uranium, and the United States and other powers would not seek new United Nations sanctions.

But both in their paper, and throughout the talks, the Iranians did not discuss the formula, called a “freeze for freeze.” As a result, they left the impression that they wanted to lure the parties into an open-ended, cost-free, high-level negotiating process.

“The paper calls for a huge exercise in talking,” said one senior European official. “If you were to try to implement it, it would take a minimum of several years.” [...]

The Iranian document, which has not been made public, offered a snapshot of Iran’s negotiating style. It put the burden on the other parties. Its imprecise language and misspellings were in sharp contrast to the rigorous approach by Iranian negotiators, many of them career diplomats, who were in charge in 2003 when France, Britain and Germany began the initiative of incentives in exchange for suspension of major nuclear activities. Those diplomats have since been replaced.

Likely a tradeoff of expertise for ideological purity.

The paper called for at least three more meetings with Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, who represents the six powers. Those would be followed by at least four meetings at the foreign ministers’ level, which would start with the halting of any sanctions against Iran, “both inside and outside” the United Nations Security Council.

The Iranian document also seemed to suggest that there could be no discussion of the main issue of contention: some sort of limit on Iran’s production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make electricity or to fuel bombs. “The parties will abstain from referring to or discussing divergent issues that can potentially hinder the progress of negotiations,” the paper said.

Negotiating that thing we're supposed to negotiate could potentially hinder negotiations, you see.

Spencer: McCain vs. Muslim Radicals

My column in FrontPage this week discusses the Muslim outrage over remarks by McCain's friend Bud Day (news links in the original):

Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. are outraged over remarks made last Friday by Bud Day, a key supporter of John McCain. Day, a much-decorated Air Force Colonel and Medal of Honor recipient who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain, said during a conference call organized by the Florida Republican Party that “the Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us.” Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel, and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

The reaction was swift. Saif Ishoof, president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, said that Day’s remarks were “perpetuating a form of Islamophobia.” Khaled Saffuri, the Executive Director of the Islamic Institute (which he co-founded with Grover Norquist), was also deeply offended. “‘This is as close to racist as it gets,” he declared. “These are cheap street tactics. Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.” (Keith Olbermann also termed Day’s words “racism and religious hatred,” although neither he nor Saffuri explained what race Islam is.)

Corey Saylor, national legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), also called on McCain to distance himself from Day, stating that “CAIR would like to see Senator McCain come out and make a clear statement repudiating these remarks. We don’t believe they’re helpful at all in either putting out the campaign’s message or winning the hearts and minds in the Muslim world that America needs to be winning.”

However, a repudiation from McCain was not immediately forthcoming. McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb said only: “The threat we face is from radical Islamic extremism.” However, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party, according to the Miami Herald, “said later that Day acknowledged he misspoke and ‘made an unfortunate mistake’ because he meant to say ‘terrorists’ and not ‘Muslims.’ The Herald itself took for granted that Day had said something wrong, calling his remarks a “gaffe on Muslims.”

Unnoticed, however, in the controversy over Day’s remarks was the fact that what he said was essentially accurate. While it is certainly true that not all Muslims are trying to “make us kneel,” there can be no legitimate question whatsoever that there are indeed Muslims who are engaged in such an effort. The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States is, according to a Brotherhood operative, engaged in a “grand jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

What’s more, there is considerable reason to suspect that some of the Muslim leaders who have been most indignant over Day’s words are involved in this “grand jihad.” Investigative journalist Kenneth Timmerman wrote in 2004 of Khaled Saffuri’s considerable influence in Washington, and then noted that “some of the very people Saffuri introduced to Bush and Rove are in federal prison on terrorism-related charges. Others have been expelled from the country. Still other former colleagues and donors have become subjects of a massive federal probe into U.S. funding of terrorist organizations that is code-named Operation Greenquest….Saffuri’s ties to radical Islamists and apologists for terror are neither superficial nor coincidental.” And CAIR, of course, was in 2007 named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case, and has had several of its officials arrested and convicted on terrorism-related charges.

Why was none of this been mentioned in mainstream media coverage of this story? It isn’t really surprising that it wasn’t, given the tendencies and perspectives of the mainstream media – indeed, it would have been more surprising if they had mentioned it. But Bud Day’s remarks should have been judged for their accuracy: are there, or are there not, Muslims trying to make us kneel? No one would have objected in 1944 if a military spokesman had said that “the Germans are trying to make us kneel,” and someone who took offense to such a statement on the grounds that not all Germans were pro-Nazi would only have been ridiculed. However, CAIR has shown in the past that the accuracy of statements to which it takes umbrage does nothing to mitigate their hurt feelings. And now the primacy of hurt feelings has been enshrined into law in Canada: as we have seen in the Mark Steyn trials in Canada, truth and accuracy is no defense against charges of “hate speech.” In a sane world, instead of taking offense, Islamic spokesmen in the U.S. would have been assuring reporters that they were working energetically within Muslim communities against those who wished to make non-Muslims kneel. But sanity is at a premium in the public debate on Islamic jihad today.

Spencer: Good Will Wasted

My column in Human Events this week discusses the Administration's continued attachment to Fantasy-Based Policymaking regarding Israel:

In a gesture of good will, Israel last week released five imprisoned terrorists, plus the remains of two hundred others, in exchange for the remains of two Israeli soldiers. How was this received by the Arabs?

If the Lebanon government were not in thrall to the Iranian-Syrian terrorists of Hizballah, if there were a pretense of action against terrorism, these men would have gone from one prison to another. But Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and other dignitaries greeted the freed jihadists at the Beirut airport as heroes. Among the terrorists was Samir Kantar of the Palestinian Liberation Front, who bludgeoned a four-year-old girl to death with his rifle butt on an Israeli beach in 1979. There followed a huge rally in Beirut, where Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah exulted that the “age of defeats” was over.

Cheered by the crowd, Kantar and the other freed jihadists walked a red carpet to the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior member of Hizballah who was killed in February 2008. Mughniyeh has been linked to many terrorist attacks, including the bombings of the Marine barracks and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983, as well as the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. Addressing Mughniyeh, Kantar declared: “We swear by God...to continue on your same path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature that God bestowed on you” – that is, the status Islamic martyrdom that is attained by those who “kill and are killed” for Allah, in accord with Qur’an 9:111. Each of the five freed prisoners vowed to continue their jihad against Israel.

Amid all the festivities it may be easy to lose sight of the fact that Israel agreed to this prisoner exchange in order to try to end that jihad against Israel, and to try to demonstrate its willingness to make peace. But the reception accorded these prisoners show that peace is the last thing on the mind of Hizballah and other jihadist forces. David Baker, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, remarked: “Kantar is a brutal child murderer who instead of being rejected upon his return was cheered and greeted like a rock star and this is disgusting and deplorable.”

It is indeed – and it is also revealing. The Olmert and Bush administrations have been proceeding on the assumption that the Palestinians sincerely want peace, and that if Israel and the U.S. demonstrate their good will and willingness to make concessions, these gestures will be met with similar gestures by the other side. All right. So where are these “moderates” today? Why wasn’t there anyone at that massive rally in Beirut, or anywhere else in the Middle East, who was willing to agree with Baker that Samir Kantar was not someone to be hailed as a hero, but shunned as an obstacle to the peace that all desire so fervently?

If any such moderates exist at all, they did not see fit to seize upon the occasion of this prisoner release to make their presence known. And so the “extremists” continue to be in the driver’s seat, even while the media establishment enforces the iron dogma that the moderates are the dominant mainstream in the Islamic world, and anyone who suggests otherwise is just a hatemonger.

Can America really afford to formulate foreign policy on the basis of this wishful thinking? President Bush has said that he wants to create an independent and contiguous Palestinian state before the end of his term. If the reaction in Beirut to this lopsided prisoner exchange is any indication – and it very much is – his efforts to that end will only be seen as signs of weakness by the various jihad groups in the region (as well as by their Iranian backers), and they only be further emboldened. The problem for the State Department is that there is no reliable partner on the Palestinian side with whom the Israelis and Bush can negotiate a lasting peace. The fiction that the jihad ideology is held only by a tiny minority of extremists who have hijacked the peaceful Islamic faith falls apart most definitively in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which there is no group on the Arab side that is convincingly and unconditionally dedicated to acceptance of the existence of Israel and definitive peace with the Israelis.

But this is not simply an Israeli problem. Hizballah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has led his followers in chants of “Death to America,” and has made it clear that his grievance against the Americans is not limited to its support for Israel: should the United States continue to support policies that only strengthen such groups and increase their confidence?

Jihadi Jack-Rabbit continues vowing death and destruction to infidels

And you thought cartoon characters that inspire children to jump out of windows to see if they can fly were bad. "Pictured: The TV rabbit preaching hatred and telling young Muslims to 'kill and eat Jews,'" from the Daily Mail, July 23:

An Islamic TV station using a Bugs Bunny lookalike to preach hatred to children has been slammed by religious leaders in the UK who fear it could brainwash vulnerable British children.

Assud the rabbit, who vows to 'kill and eat Jews' and glorifies the maiming of 'infidels' appears on Palestinian children's show, Tomorrow's Pioneers.
[...]

In one episode, Assud admits stealing money and is seen begging for mercy after young viewers and parents phone in demanding his hands are cut off as punishment.

At that point the 11-year-old presenter intervenes - and rules that the bunny should only have his ears severed because he has repented.

The rabbit is played by an actor in fancy dress and is one of the main characters on the show broadcast in Gaza by the al-Aqsa channel - known as Hamas TV.
[...]

The Association of Muslim Schools, which represents the UK's 143 Muslim schools, said it was opposed to any shows that incite violence.

Spokesman Dr Mohamed Mukadam said: 'It goes without saying that any programme which promotes the killing or injuring of human beings is wrong.

'Regardless of religion, shows that incite or inspire others to inflict violence of any kind should be condemned.

'Such shows are against the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and we would urge people of all ages not to watch them.'

If that is the case, surely the Association of Muslim Schools -- and Muslims all around the world -- should unequivocally denounce Hamas as apostates.

Set up as a regional station prior to the Palestinian elections in January 2006, al-Aqsa TV now airs on a satellite slot.

It broadcasts what many call a mixture of news of Islamic propaganda, but has picked up a substantial following across the Arabic-speaking world.
[...]

The show originally featured a Mickey Mouse-style character called Farfur who urged children to fight against the Jewish community and form a world Islamic state.

Farfur was later replaced by a bumble bee called Nahoul, who told viewers to 'follow the path of Islam, of martyrdom and of the Mujahideen'.

He was 'martyred' earlier this year and replaced by Assud, who tells children in his first episode: 'I, Assud, will get rid of the jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up.'

In a discussion with 11-year-old host Saraa Barhoum, the young viewers are referred to as 'soldiers'.

Assud asks Saraa: 'We are all martyrdom-seekers, are we not?'.

To which she replies: 'Yes, we are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland.'

The phone-in show accepts calls from children as young as nine on topics about life in Palestine.

During one show broadcast in February, Assud vows to kill and eat all Danish people over the cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad which appeared in a newspaper.

He also pledges to assassinate the illustrator and Saraa also agrees that she would martyr herself for the cause of Palestine.
[...]

Al-Aqsa was today unavailable for comment.

Islamic suicide bombings not a recent phenomenon, as once thought?

We're all used by now to "radical" Imams instructing the Muslim youth to strap on some dynamite, detonate, kill infidels, and enter paradise--as this Imam told British Muslims, or as "superstar" Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi told millions of al-Jazeera viewers--and well demonstrated by polls that show that a considerable number of young Muslims think suicide bombings are justifiable. But many have insisted that suicide bombings were a recent phenomenon. According to some Pakistani ulema, however, suicide bombings in the name of Islam and shahada (martyrdom) go back to the 1965 war with India. "Suicide bombing and Islam," by Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd) for the Pak Tribune, July 23:

Though most Ulema condemn suicide bombing as unIslamic, yet a few offer bizarre justifications for it. A few days back a so called aalim was heard over the TV saying that during 65 war Ayub Khan had ordered his soldiers to lay in front of the 500 Indian tanks advancing on Lahore with anti tank mines tied to their chests as there was no other way of stopping them. About three days ago yet another religious authority said on the TV that Pak army soldiers lay in front of 600 Indian tanks in Chowinda sector with mines on their chest and embraced Shahadat. These gentlemen who did not have the foggiest idea of a tank battle or knew as to where the Indian tanks were – Lahore or Chowinda - were narrating such concocted stories simply to justify the suicide bombing in Islam.

"You will not meet a young Muslim man in the world who is not angry about something"

More on this story: how would you like your ex-fiancee to say this about you? "He wasn't the brightest crown in the box . . . not the handsomest guy in the world . . . thick mentally. My sister described him as a blowhard, somebody who like to talk a lot, and just listen to the sound of his own voice."

Anyway, she is making much here about the distinction between jihad and terrorism, and that is an excellent illustration of why this is "Jihad Watch" and not "Terrorism Watch." Zeba Khan says: "Just because he supports them (violent jihadists) in theory is not actually proof of his involvement as such." Indeed. But if they want to survive (which cannot be said to be completely clear at this point), Canada and other Western countries are sooner or later going to have to shift focus away from "terrorism" to the ideology that drives that terrorism, which is jihad and Islamic supremacism. And that ideology is not being spread today solely by bombs and terror attacks, but also by numerous other initiatives that have nothing to do with violence at all.

And at some point Western countries are going to have to ask whether those who support violent jihadists in theory are welcome here at all, any more than those who supported Nazis in theory would have been welcome in Canada or the United States in 1943.

There is much more in Zeba Khan's remarks below. I found piquant her adoption of the moronic lingo of teenage girls in conjunction with her support for jihadists and Islamic supremacists: "My sister was like, 'You know what? This guys seems like, really extreme, you know?" And her observation that I made the title here, "You will not meet a young Muslim man in the world who is not angry about something," is certainly quite true. This is a culture that today is thriving on rage, and whose leaders are encouraging rages in order to recruit foot soldiers to help them implement their agenda.

"Khawaja 'not the brightest,' but not a terrorist: Ex-fiancee," by Ian MacLeod for Canwest News Service, July 22 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

OTTAWA - The prosecution closed its case against Momin Khawaja Tuesday, its final witness testifying the young Muslim was angry over Iraq and Afghanistan but showed no sign he was a terrorist intent on bombing London.

"Just because he supports them (violent jihadists) in theory is not actually proof of his involvement as such . . . it's not the same as blowing up London," Zeba Khan, Khawaja's former finance, told the court via video link from Dubai.

"Jihad and terrorism are different things."

"You will not meet a young Muslim man in the world who is not angry about something. Anyone who watches the news, if he wasn't mad then: a) there's something wrong with him or: b) he's ignorant."...

During the first interview at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that July, Khan referred to one of several e-mails from Khawaja expressing his plan to join the mujahedeen fight against western military in Afghanistan.

"I never thought that he would ever take it seriously, that he would do anything, see. This is all just talk. My sister was like, 'You know what? This guys seems like, really extreme, you know? He seems like he's very much supporting of like blowing things up and stuff.'

"And my response to her was, 'I bet he's not gonna do it. And I bet that if we got married and he tried to do it, I would stop him.'"

Her testimony Tuesday, most solicited during cross-examination by defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, expressed confidence in Khawaja's innocence in the London bomb plot. Not once, she said, in all their e-mails and two brief visits he made to her home, did he mention anything about the London plot or any other terrorist activity,

But her credibility with the court likely suffered when she said the nearly 3,000 people murdered on 9/11 were unintentional victims - "collateral damage" - of what was intended as an economic assault against the United States and an act she compared to the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany during the Second World War. The Dresden bomber crews were not terrorists, she said. "Some things happen in war, innocent people get killed. In America you call it collateral damage, I don't see this as much different."

Now 27, married and living in Dubai, Khan was then a 23-year-old American living in Pakistan when she entered into an e-mail courtship with Khawaja in 2003. She later admitted to police it was more about trying to escape from her parents' home in Islamabad than love.

"He wasn't the brightest crown in the box . . . not the handsomest guy in the world . . . thick mentally. My sister described him as a blowhard, somebody who like to talk a lot, and just listen to the sound of his own voice."

Khawaja broke off the engagement a few months later.

For nearly an hour, the poised, intelligent and well-spoken woman in a light pink hijab insisted Khawaja had a strong moral compass, had shown no signs of wanting to harm innocent people and had never talked of a plot to bomb public sites around the British capital in 2004.

She said they shared a belief in jihad - struggle - that fell far short of terrorism.

"I do believe in jihad, but my belief in jihad is vastly different from what many believe it to be. To say that I believe in jihad does not mean I believe in terrorism, that I believe in blowing things up. When I say I support this, I do not support blowing up miscellaneous things in Britain and the U.S."

In her July 2004 statement to police, she said fighting U.S. troops in Muslim lands, "is not an act of terrorism."...

"Levant and Steyn are fighting for the defining ideal of Western civilization which, once lost, would spell the beginning of the end of all our other freedoms"

In "Paving the way for 'soft jihad,'" Barbara Kay ably explains the significance of recent Islamic advances against free speech -- which are part of what I call the stealth jihad. From the National Post, July 22:

When Ibn Warraq’s secularist manifesto Why I Am Not a Muslim was released in 1995, a fellow dissident was disappointed to learn the ayatollahs hadn’t called for the author’s head: “It’s such a damn good book, I don’t understand why you haven’t had a fatwa.”

Ayatollah-prescribed fatwas are so pre-9/11. Nowadays, as liberal elites rush prophylactically to ward off charges of tolerating “Islamophobia,” the fatwas (in all but name) against damn good books like Mark Steyn’s America Alone aren’t bruited in mosques; they issue forth from human rights commissioners.

An unintended but all-too-predictable danger inherent in the prosecution of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn (the latter via Maclean’s magazine) was the encouraging message it would send to more fevered imaginations. As reported on his blog on Monday morning, Ezra Levant has received an anonymous e-mail death threat: “Ezra, you will be killed by my hands.”

Although this is doubtless a hollow menace (real killers rarely serve notice), the sender’s wish to sow fear in Levant, and by extension all journalists, is merely a cruder version of the impulse behind the human rights complaints.

Many Canadians believe the nation’s human rights commissions (HRCs) are motivated by high ideals and good intentions. But in conspiring to silence what a handful of Muslims deem “hate speech,” these good intentions are paving the way for the hell of global “soft jihad.”

The soft jihad is gradualistic and law-abiding, but no less desirous of Islamic domination of the West than its violent counterpart. Soft jihad strategy exploits liberal discourse and weaknesses in our legal system to induce guilt about a largely mythical “Islamophobia.”

The list of complaint-triggering speech offences is long in all Western countries, and ranges from the trivial to the politically existential: A decoration on a lid of ice cream distributed by Burger King offends because it resembles Allah in Arabic script; Fox Entertainment’s drama 24 portrays South Americans, Bosnians, Germans and Muslims as terrorists, but only Muslims complain; a Turkish lawyer sues an Italian soccer team because the red cross on their jerseys reminds him of the Crusades.

More alarmingly, this spring a report from the 57-nation strong Organization of the Islamic Conference announced that leaders of Muslim nations “are considering legal action against those that slight our religion or its sacred symbols.” This offensive has the potential to rival the frighteningly successful phenomenon of “libel tourism,” in which Muslim litigants seek out friendly jurisdictions for launching HRC-type fatwas against writers critical of Islamic practices like shariah, or even certifiably Islam-related terrorism.

The most recent case involves the book Funding Evil by Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy and a pioneer investigator of the financial networks that fund terrorism. She has irrefutably proven many networks are Saudi-based. [...]

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Levant and Steyn are fighting for the defining ideal of Western civilization which, once lost, would spell the beginning of the end of all our other freedoms.

Fitzgerald: Churchill and beyond

Many at this site are familiar with Churchill's comment about the menace of Islam to Western Christendom, and the fanaticism of Muslims (whom he called "Mohammedans" -- a term that, given the centrality of Muhammad to Islam, as uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil -- is hardly unfair or even, as some suggest, misleading).

It is a comment that deserves to be printed out, and placed on refrigerators everywhere, but especially on refrigerators in Georgetown, and McLean, Virginia, and Silver Spring, Maryland -- and of course at Camp David and at the White House and in those office refrigerators that Congressmen may keep.

So here one mo' time is Churchill, with everyone's favorite quote about Muslims:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property -- either as a child, a wife, or a concubine -- must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -- the science against which it had vainly struggled -- the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

There is what Churchill saw, in the very same African neighborhood as Chad, where Jihad now rages -- for Churchill, last-cavalry-charge-at-Omdurman Churchill, was reporting from what is now the Sudan, where Jihad also rages.

The "fanatical frenzy" which is "as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog" and that can burst out, whether in the Sudan, or anywhere else.

Think of Pakistan. How many mob scenes do you need to recall -- perhaps the one of the Pakistani mob besieging the American Embassy in November 1979 because one group of Muslims seized the Great Mosque in Mecca from another group, the Al-Saud? Think of Bangladesh -- remember what has happened to hapless Hindus passing by a mosque as Friday Prayers are getting out? Think of all the cheering, clapping, delighted mobs of Muslims, handing out confetti if they were poor -- in the "West Bank" -- or treating others to multi-course dinners if they were rich, as in Riyadh and Jiddah, and all those in-between, in Cairo and Amman and elsewhere, who were simply delighted, in their fine frenzy, their ill-concealed hydrophobic blood-lust, when they heard the glad tidings about the attack on the World Trade Center.

And you need go no farther than supposedly "civilized" Lebanon, where the Christian presence is said to have uplifted, in an unrecognized mission civilisatrice, the local Muslims and quasi-Muslims, to see the same blood-lust on display just the other day, when a child-murderer was given a hero's welcome, hailed by one and all, held up for the nation's youth as an example of how to heroically behave.

"Frenzy."

"Hydrophobia."

Yet there is no need for Winston Churchill. There is a need, in each country, for sensible people to behave sensibly. Some of them may take time to comprehend a belief-system about which a few years ago they knew nothing. Some will take time to overcome the platitudes of the present, to remove the layers of indoctrination and self-indoctrination, the sheer crappiness of the age.

Not Churchill, but a hundred Jacques Barzuns are called for. They exist. Some of them exist outside the regular channels, the conventional institutions, the validation that those institutions offer and that so many who are incapable of making judgments without that validation by others fail to recognize. Many are lone wolves by nature. But they exist. Find them, support them, promote them, and if they happen to be candidates for office (that too can be achieved, in this suddenly topsy-turvy and most unsettled world), vote for them.

"Lions of Islam" joining jihad in Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chechnya and Turkey

The recruit for jihad across borders always proceeds along explicitly religious lines, with stress placed upon the supranational character of the Islamic umma, and upon the traditional Islamic idea that defensive jihad becomes obligatory upon each and every Muslim if a Muslim land is attacked. The fact that jihadists would travel to Afghanistan at this point, as they previously traveled to Iraq, Bosnia, and elsewhere, also illustrates the hollowness of the common idea that Muslims are engaged in a series of nationalist struggles across the globe, but the religious character of them is purely incidental.

"Afghanistan's 'pristine jihad' draws in outsiders trained in Pakistan: Afghani warlord insurgents are being bolstered by men from Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Turkey and Pakistan," by Tom Coghlan in the Times, July 21 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Afghanistan is replacing Iraq as the destination of choice for international jihadists, Western intelligence agencies claim. Analysts have monitored a surge in online recruitment of “lions of Islam” to join the war in Afghanistan through jihadist websites, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chechnya and Turkey, in the past year.

That is now being matched by evidence of an increase in foreign fighters entering Afghanistan, mostly from training bases established in the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

One Kabul-based Western diplomat, who did not want to be named, said: “There is a change with an increase in attacks in the east [along the Pakistan border] and more chatter of foreign voices is being detected.”

Intelligence officials say that the number of al-Qaeda-linked foreign fighters involved remains small within the overall context of the Taleban insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, on a trip to Kabul last week Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters: “There are clearly more foreign fighters in the Fata than have been there in the past. What that really speaks to is that's a safe haven and it's got to be eliminated for all insurgents, not just al-Qaeda.”

Brian Glyn Williams, who researches jihadist websites for the Combating Terrorism Centre at the US military academy at West Point, told The Times that jihadist websites across the Middle East had shown a huge increase in the number of epitaphs for foreign fighters killed in Afghanistan in recent months. They have also reflected the despair of many al-Qaeda followers at the reverses the group has suffered in Iraq since the Sunni Awakening, an alliance of US forces with previously anti-government Sunni militias that turned against al-Qaeda, particularly in the province of Anbar.

Dr Williams said: “The Anbar Awakening really broke the hearts of a lot of al-Qaeda followers who saw the jihad in Iraq in black-and-white terms. Sunni Arab al-Qaeda were pushed out by fellow Sunni Arabs.

“Iraq is seen as a defeat. The image of Afghanistan is seen as a more pristine jihad.”...

Former fiancee of convicted jihadist could have sworn that he was only interested in the "greater jihad" against one's daily struggles

Daddy always warned me about men like that. Odd too that "Khawaja" is the Arabic word for "Westerner" or "Christian." "Terrorism claims against Khawaja stunned his ex-fiancée," from CBC News, July 22:

The ex-fiancée of the Canadian man accused of involvement in a British bomb plot testified at his trial in Ottawa that she was surprised he had been arrested on terrorism charges and that he held views typical of many young Muslim men.

Sure reveals a lot about the "views" of "typical Muslim men."

Khan, testifying about her e-mail correspondence with Khawaja in late 2003, before they broke off their engagement, said she was stunned when her sister told her that a man with the same name as her one-time fiancé had been arrested.

Khawaja's involvement with Islam "did not in any way line up to terrorist activity," Khan said, and was more in the spirit of, "Let's work in a refugee camp or something."

Heard that one before. Here, for example.

And Khawaja certainly never suggested setting off a bomb in London during their e-mail correspondence, Khan testified.

"Oh, very definitely no," Khan said.

The prosecution read excerpts of Khawaja's letters to the court. In one e-mail, he wrote: "We need [constant] economic J [jihad] blow after blow until they cripple and fall never to rise again." In another, he asks, "Would you not say that the actions of 19 men on Sept. 11 are the most accurate, effective and honourable way of conducting economic J? Imagine if there were 10 Sept. 11s."

Such "views" may be problematic indeed, if "they are typical of young Muslim men"

In response, Khan explained that "jihad" to her has a much broader meaning, referring to engaging with life's big struggles. "So, of course I believe in jihad," she said. "It does not mean that I believe in blowing things up."

Tell that to the typical young Muslim man.

Iranian government response to Fitna "aims to introduce the real Islam"

Fitna, of course, simply contains Qur'an verses and depicts Muslims preaching violence and committing acts of violence on the basis of those verses. So the best response to it from the Iranian government or anyone else would be a comprehensive, honest, and transparent effort to convince Muslims (not non-Muslims -- that's easy, and unhelpful) to reject the Islamic imperatives to violence or Islamic supremacism, and to adopt principles of peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis.

But instead, we will get more soothing propaganda that will fool the credulous but do nothing to prevent Muslims from committing acts of violence in the name of Islam.

"Pro-Islam Film to be Released in Response to 'Fitna,'" from The Media Line, July 22:

A short film titled Beyond Love will soon be released by the Iranian-based NGO Islam and Christianity (IC), in response to the anti-Islamic Dutch film Fitna, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported.

"The film aims to introduce the real Islam. It will be useful for those who want to get acquainted with Islam," said IC spokesman Muhammad Karimi.

Earlier this year, Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders produced Fitna, which claimed to have explored Quranic motivations for terrorism. The film was condemned by many in the West, as well as in the Muslim world. Al-Qa'ida even issued a religious decree against Wilders, while the Dutch government was quick to distance itself from the film.

While IC claims to be an independent organization, Radio Netherlands quoted an Iranian journalist a few months ago as saying that it was created by the government itself.

"It is an NGO of 'convenience'; it is absolutely clear that this is a government initiative," said Mina Sa'adi, a journalist working for the independent Farsi-language website Shahrzad News.

Lawmakers call on NYC to pull Islamic subway ads

Snapped Shot has some ideas for Wahhaj's marketing campaign

The ads are being paid for by the Islamic Circle of North America, which, as Marisol noted here, is one of the organizations listed in the infamous 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memo as participating in a "grand Jihad" aimed at "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Siraj Wahhaj, meanwhile, has warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has lamented that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” In the early 1990s he sponsored talks by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in mosques in New York City and New Jersey; Rahman was later convicted for conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, and Wahhaj was designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator.”

"Winner Takes Allah: MTA's Islam Ad Furor," by Jeremy Olshan for the New York Post, July 22:

Elected officials and straphangers called on the MTA yesterday to pull the Islamic subway-ad campaign being promoted by a controversial Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to acts of terrorism.

The push to promote Islam on the rails this September, in a $48,000 ad campaign sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America, was reported in The Post yesterday.

"I strongly believe the MTA should pull the ads," said Rep. Peter King (R-LI), a ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee. "They are especially shameful because the ads will be running during the seventh anniversary of September 11, and because the subways are considered a primary target of terrorists."

Although the group says the ads - which will coincide with the holy month of Ramadan - aim to educate non-Muslims and reach out to those interested in joining the faith, many are incensed that Imam Siraj Wahhaj was chosen as the pitchman in a YouTube video for "The Subway Project."

In 1995, federal officials named Wahhaj an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to blow up city landmarks, although he was never formally charged.

A former member of the Nation of Islam, Wahhaj also served as a character witness in the trial of convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and has said that he hopes one day all Americans are "persuaded" to become Muslims.

MTA officials said the ads are protected as free speech under the First Amendment. Mayor Bloomberg agreed.

"If you were to advocate becoming a Muslim, I assume the First Amendment would protect you," he said. The content of the ads themselves is not offensive or suggestive of violence or terrorism, officials said....

Another tractor attack in Jerusalem

"A man" is responsible for this one. Time to turn over all the tractors to women.

"New digger 'attack' in Jerusalem," from the BBC, July 22 (thanks to Visvas):

A man driving a mechanical digger has carried out an attack in Jerusalem and has been shot dead, the Israeli emergency services say.

Police say the driver rammed other traffic before he was shot dead. Eleven people were reported injured.

The driver's identity was not immediately clear.

Earlier this month, a Palestinian driving a similar vehicle killed three people and wounded dozens of others in Jerusalem before being shot dead.

The attack took place in a busy part of central West Jerusalem, close to the King David Hotel where US presidential candidate Barack Obama will be staying on Tuesday night during a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories....

Chad: after listening to "an inflammatory sermon" against Christians and atheists, jihadis become "intoxicated by indescribable extremism...almost mad," and go on wild rampage

As the following anecdote demonstrates, when infidels do not overly concern themselves with "winning the hearts and minds" of jihadis, success quickly follows. “Counter-Insurgency, Chad-Style,” by David Axe for Danger Room, July 21:

“An alleged [up]rising led by an Islamic preacher in the oil-rich southern region of Chad was repressed with great loss of life by government forces in the first days of July," Andrew McGregor reported in Terrorism Focus last week. "The incident in the town of Kouno came in response to calls for an international jihad from Ahmat Ismail Bichara, a fiery 28-year-old religious leader, and the destruction of most of the town by his followers."

Funny -- I was in southern Chad at the time, and I didn't hear a peep about this until after the fact. N'Djamena's violent quashing of an embryonic terror and insurgent group, in a total media blackout, demonstrates an ugly brute-force alternative to the West's counter-insurgency strategy, which aims to understand the "human terrain," win hearts and minds, and enlist the support of local tribes before rolling in with tanks and artillery.

Right. Makes you think which of these two methods is more effective when dealing with an implacable foe—swift decisive action or trying to "win hearts and minds.”

The crisis began on June 3 when Bichara issued a manifesto declaring jihad against "Christians and atheists."

What, no Jews?

"After Bichara's followers went on a rampage in Kouno, destroying four churches, 158 homes, a medical clinic and a police station, government forces decided to respond in force," McGregor writes:

The government assault apparently began as Bichara's followers were listening to what was described as an inflammatory sermon. ... Chad's security minister described Bichara's followers as "intoxicated by indescribable extremism ... almost mad" as they "threw themselves" against the fire of security forces in the belief they were immune to bullets.

This of course is a natural enough phenomenon in many Muslim nations: after listening to the local imam's fiery harangues, filled as they generally are with anti-infidel rhetoric, Muslims often go on rampages. Or did you think it was just coincidence that many of the most devastating Muslim riots against non-Muslims occur on Friday -- mosque-sermon day?

As many as 75 people died, most of them extremists. Four Chadian soldiers died. Bichara was captured.

Canadian Islamic Congress plays race card, says PM Harper indifferent to "brown-skinned" Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr

Never mind the fact that Khadr was captured in a jihadist compound in Afghanistan after killing a U.S. Army medic, according to survivors.

"Harper indifferent to 'brown-skinned' Khadr: Islamic group," from the Canadian Press, July 21:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is indifferent to Omar Khadr's plight because the Guantanamo Bay prisoner is "brown-skinned" and a Muslim, the leader of one of Canada's largest Islamic groups said Monday.

Harper's resistance to calls to repatriate the Canadian citizen shows he is pandering to Islamophobes, said Canadian Islamic Congress president Mohamed Elmasry.

"In this case, Mr. Harper is playing politics because of the backdrop of Islamophobia in this country," Elmasry said.

"This is where a leader comes in, to say this is really wrong and I have to correct that wrong by bringing this person (back to Canada) even if I lose some political points with Islamophobes."

Khadr's lawyers and others want Ottawa to repatriate Khadr, who was 15 when he was accused of killing a U.S. army medic in Afghanistan in 2002, from Guantanamo Bay.

In an opinion piece released to the media, Elmasry said Harper has shown a "shocking indifference" to those calls.

Elmasry contrasts Khadr's case with that of dual Canadian-British citizen William Sampson, who was freed from a death sentence in Saudi Arabia in 2003.

Prior to his release, Ottawa had said it had made pleas on Sampson's behalf to the highest levels of Saudi government.

"Why is Stephen Harper so callously indifferent to Omar Khadr's case?" Elmasry wrote.

"It's painfully obvious: William Sampson is a white Westerner while his fellow Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, is brown-skinned and a Muslim."...

Details on Sampson's case can be found here. While both Sampson's and Khadr's cases involve accusations of murder, comparing them is a bit of a stretch. For that matter, it's worth noting that Harper wasn't Prime Minister when Sampson was released in 2003.

California: Member of jihadist cell targeting military sites and other "infidel" interests sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison

Note the origins of the plot in the California prison system in the 1990s. What precautions are in place to keep that from happening again? Gregory Patterson Update. "Homegrown U.S. terrorist sent to prison," from UPI, July 21:

SANTA ANA, Calif., July 21 (UPI) -- A California terrorist who plotted to wage war against the United States was sentenced Monday to more than 12 1/2 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Gregory Patterson, 24, of Gardena was part of a domestic terrorist cell that intended to wage jihad, or holy war, against U.S. military facilities, as well as Israeli and Jewish targets and "infidels," the U.S. Justice Department said.

Another member of the cell, Levar Washington, 30, was sentenced to 22 years in prison last month. The men had pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last December to conspiring to wage war against the United States.

The man who organized the terror cell -- Kevin James -- also has pleaded guilty and is to be sentenced Feb. 9.

A fourth alleged member -- Hammad Samana -- has been found unfit to stand trial and is receiving psychiatric care at a federal prison facility.

James created Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh while in California's New Folsom Prison in 1997. Washington and Patterson conducted about a dozen armed robberies of gas stations to get money for the group's planned attacks in the Los Angeles area, Justice Department officials said. Their targets allegedly included the Los Angeles airport, the Israeli consulate, Army recruiting centers and a military base at Manhattan Beach, prosecutors said.

NYC: Siraj Wahhaj, unindicted co-conspirator in '93 WTC bombing, to appear in planned pro-Islamic subway ad blitz for Ramadan

As the ads say, you deserve to know. "Train-ing Day for Jihadists: Muslim Subway Ads Have Terror Tie-In," by Jeremy Olshan for the New York Post, July 21 (thanks to Awake):

Allah board!

An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.

The group says its mission is to explain the true nature of Islam to non-Muslims who believe the religion is bent on acts of violence - but Siraj Wahhaj, the inflammatory imam who appears in a promotional YouTube video for the project, has defended convicted bomb-plotters and called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists."

US Attorney Mary Jo White even named Wahhaj one of 170 unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the thwarted plan to blow up a slew of buildings.

"In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam," Wahhaj said in one of his sermons.

He also said: "if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate."

The stark, black-and-white ads of the Subway Project promote Islam with the goals of clearing up long-held misconceptions about the faith and reaching out to those interested in becoming Muslim, according to the Islamic Circle of North America, the group behind the campaign.

The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Timed to run during the month of Ramadan, the ads come in pairs, reading "Q: Prophet Muhammad?" or "Q: Islam?" and the corresponding answer is always "A: You deserve to know."

Those interested in knowing more are directed to call (877) WHY-ISLAM or to visit whyislam.org, which provide literature that teaches and proselytizes about the faith.

The group insists it is not looking to transform subway cars into the "G-had train."

"Anyone who looks at this ad objectively can see that it is not preaching anything," Azeem Khan, the group's assistant secretary general, told The Post. "There is a lot of Islamaphobia out there. We provide people with a chance to speak with an actual Muslim who is informed."

Wahhaj, imam of Al-Taqwa mosque, is a former member of the Nation of Islam and was the first Muslim to give an invocation at the House of Representatives.

Formal charges were never filed against him by White, although he did serve as a character witness for the defense in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, "the blind sheik" who is now serving a life sentence for his role in plotting the 1993 WTC bombings.

In the promotional video for the Subway Project, Wahhaj is the first to speak.

"Every day in this city, some 4.9 million people ride the subways - that is a lot of people," he says. "Imagine them seeing the word Islam. Imagine them seeing the word Muhammad."

The MTA confirmed that the group has signed a contract for the ad campaign but would not comment further.

UPDATE: Promotional video on YouTube.

Pakistan: Madrassa ignores deportation order for female American student

"Yes we have received the deportation orders but we will not hand her over"

How many more "Karachi Kids" are there? "US American girl's fate hangs in balance in Pakistani madressa," from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, July 21:

KARACHI - Pakistan's immigration authorities issued immediate deportation orders on Monday for an American girl awaiting an uncertain destiny holed up in a fundamentalist Islamic seminary.

Muna Abanur Mohammed is among the eight students at Jamia Binora, a leading madressa in southern port city Karachi, who were placed on a black-list last month by Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, due to the expiration of their religious education visas to study Koran.

"Yes we have received the deportation orders but we will not hand her over," Maulana Mufti Mohammed Naeemi, founder and head of the madressa, a 12-acre sprawling walled compound seminary, told Deutsche Presse-Aguntur [sic] dpa.

"No one could dare come near a one mile radius of our compound," he said.

Senior immigration officers at state Federal Investigation Agency, requesting anonymity, said they had no immediate instructions from the federal authorities to carry out any swoop against the madressa to remove students holed up inside.

Meanwhile, a US embassy official in Islamabad said they were closely watching the situation.

"We are aware and monitoring the situation," Press Attache Megan Eliss said.

A madressa insider told dpa that the US embassy was in constant touch with the girl.

So far, out of the eight students, two American teens, known as the Khan brothers, were removed last week by US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Pakistani authorities and sent back to Atlanta, Georgia, following the intervention by US Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas.

Both brothers were evacuated following a documentary "Karachi Kids" shown by US-based Fox Television, which claimed that teens were forced to study at Jamia Binoria.

Naeemi said the madressa would try its level best to negotiate with the Pakistan government for an extension of Muna's visa.

But he could not say how long he would manage to violate Pakistan's writ by holding the girl at his seminary.

The other five students who have also been served deportation orders include four girl students from Thailand and one male from Fiji.

Muslims trying to blow up a British plane admit they were "conspiring to commit public nuisance"

In this context, would hate to consider what one has to do to be considered a "public menace." "Two British Muslims admit conspiring to commit public nuisance," from the Herald.ie, July 20:

In the UK, two British Muslims accused of plotting to blow up an airliner have admitted conspiring to commit public nuisance.

They have pleaded guilty to distributing al Qaida-style videos threatening suicide bomb attacks in Britain.

Last week, five of their co-defendants admitted the same charge.

They all deny plotting to smuggle home-made liquid bombs on board passenger jets flying from Heathrow.

Muslims outraged over McCain backer's words: "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us"

Will McCain throw Bud Day under the bus? More on this story. "McCain's war buddy riles Muslims," by Marc Caputo and Beth Reinhard for the Miami Herald, July 19 (thanks to Alan):

A war buddy of John McCain's upset Muslims by comparing them to terrorists, creating another headache for the Republican presidential candidate bedeviled by misstatements from some of his surrogates.

One of John McCain's fellow Vietnam POWs compared Muslims to terrorists during a defense of the Iraq War on Friday, saying ``The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.''

There are indeed Muslims who have said things like that. There is a Muslim organization that is dedicated, in its own words, to "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Why does that come in for no mention in this story? It isn't really surprising, given the tendencies and perspectives of the mainstream media -- it would have been more surprising if they had mentioned it. But in a sane world, Bud Day's remarks would be judged for their accuracy: some Muslims are indeed doing what he said, and to claim offense and pretend that he was tarring all Muslims is just more CAIR victimology. Of course, if it weren't effective, they wouldn't do it. Here once again, the attention is on Day's "gaffe," not where it should be: on the accuracy of his remarks and the activities of jihadists in the U.S. and around the world.

Col. Bud Day riled Muslim leaders with the remarks made in a conference call with reporters arranged by the Republican Party of Florida on McCain's behalf.

He added: ``I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel.''

McCain's presidential campaign wouldn't comment. A Republican Party spokeswoman said later that Day acknowledged he misspoke and ''made an unfortunate mistake'' because he meant to say ''terrorists'' and not ``Muslims.''

Of course. Because as everyone knows, the terrorists aren't Muslims. They're Methodists. And they aren't acting in the name of Islam and according to Islamic teachings. Rather, they're acting according to the teachings of John Wesley.

Muslim leaders and Arab-American groups quickly denounced the ''bigoted'' comments by Day, a Pensacola resident, Medal of Honor recipient and member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack machine from 2004.

''This is as close to racist as it gets. These are cheap street tactics,'' said Khaled Saffuri, who helped organize Arab outreach for President Bush's 2000 campaign but is now a Libertarian. ``Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.''

Kenneth Timmerman wrote in 2004: "Saffuri's ties to radical Islamists and apologists for terror are neither superficial nor coincidental."

''It's perpetuating a form of Islam-ophobia,'' said Saif Ishoof, a Miami Republican and president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, a nonpartisan group in Florida that educates Muslims about the political process.

[...]

Day's gaffe on Muslims adds to what the community describes as a sweeping backlash from many directions. Many leaders complain that they have been vilified as terrorists since the Sept. 11 attacks launched by a segment of radical extremists who don't represent the 1.1 billion Muslims worldwide. [...]

Muslim leaders say there are about seven million Muslims in the United States, but other estimates put the size of the community around 2.5 million. The founder of the American Arab Institute, James Zogby, said Thursday that the ''rhetoric'' of Bush and McCain have furthered misunderstanding of Muslims by frequently pairing ''Islam'' and the words ''terrorist'' and ''fascism'' in stump speeches.

Once again, the fact that Muslims themselves are furthering these "misunderstandings" by committing acts of violence and justifying them by reference to Islamic teaching goes utterly ignored, as if it were only Bush and McCain (and their "Islamophobic" advisers) who are responsible for linking Islam with terrorism.

But as for calling Obama a Muslim, Zogby said, Democrat Hillary Clinton's supporters bear some of the blame.

''I got those e-mails. I saw them. They were nasty,'' Zogby said. 'They try to sow suspicion and fear by saying: `We don't know him. He's not one of us.' The insult is to all American Muslims. To use 'Muslim' as the the ultimate slur does real damage here and abroad. And it's bigoted.''

That wasn't Day's intent, said Republican Party of Florida spokeswoman Katie Gordon.

'Clearly, he did not intend to alienate the Muslim community in any way. He was talking about terrorists. He mistakenly used the word `Muslim,' '' Gordon said. ``That was 30 seconds of a 30-minute call in which he talked eloquently about his and the senator's experience in the war and the senator's leadership qualities.''

He didn't mean it! Please don't hurt us!

Is CAIR using political alliances and legal threats to get special treatment for Muslims from courts?

Patrick Poole asks the question and marshals the evidence in "Are Muslim Defendants Getting Special Treatment in Court?" at Pajamas Media, July 16 (thanks to Isabella the Crusader):

An otherwise unremarkable hearing in the Fairfax County, Virginia, general district court last Thursday marked an ominous trend with respect to the cherished American judicial principles of the rule of law and equality before the law. The hearing on four misdemeanor charges against Dr. Mustafa Ahmed Abbasi featured all of the usual players — judge, bailiff, clerks, prosecutors, police officers, criminal attorneys, and defendant — but with one notable addition to the judicial drama, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR’s intervention in the Abbasi case is a manifestation of a larger campaign against law enforcement to use political alliances and legal threats to intimidate police in cases involving Muslim defendants and to establish separate and preferable treatment for Muslims in the American legal system.

The circumstances concerning the charges against Dr. Abbasi are as unremarkable as last Thursday’s hearing. On February 9, Abassi committed an improper turn which prompted a traffic stop by Fairfax County police. After consent for a search of the vehicle was given, police discovered loose pills, needles, and prescriptions written to other individuals in the trunk of the car, violations of Virginia law. Dr. Abbasi admitted that he treated members of his mosque out of his vehicle, also a violation of Virginia medical rules (it should be noted that he is also a U.S. Customs and Immigration Service-approved immigration doctor). Abbasi received a summons for unlawfully prescribing drugs and three others for possession of controlled substances, and was allowed to leave the scene on his own recognizance.

More than two months later, a letter was sent from CAIR national legal counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili to Colonel David Rohrer, chief of the Fairfax County Police Department, claiming that the traffic stop was made on the basis of profiling and that Dr. Abassi’s consent to the vehicle search was never given. She also claimed that Abbasi’s arrest was part of a pattern of “religious discrimination” by the department.

The CAIR letter made a series of demands, including an internal affairs investigation of the incident, a reprimand for the officer who made the stop, a written apology for Dr. Abbasi, a dash-cam video of the traffic stop, audio of the related police radio transmissions, and the institution of CAIR’s workplace sensitivity and diversity training for the entire Fairfax County Police.

An important fact to note is that CAIR’s narrative was derived entirely from Dr. Abbasi’s own self-serving account. Al-Khalili’s letter admitted that they had not even attempted to review any factual evidence that might exist in the case (dash-cam video and police radio transmissions), which could have been easily obtained through an open records request before making their accusations of religious discrimination. Before then, she had not asked for any evidence. It seems that CAIR’s demands were clearly aimed at having their “diversity” training instituted by the police department, as there was no indication that Al-Khalili was acting as counsel for Abbasi (she did not appear at last week’s hearing), but was rather acting in CAIR’s own organizational interests.

CAIR’s hysterical claims in this case — Al-Khalili’s letter raises the specter of “the Fairfax County Police Department’s repeated and relentless attacks on American Muslims” — are belied when reviewing the special relationship between CAIR and Fairfax County officials, including the chief of police, Col. David Rohrer, and the County Board of Supervisors chairman, Gerry Connelly.

Read it all.

Iraqi women to be trained in neutralizing "al-Qaeda's aspiring female suicide bombers"

The "Daughters of Iraq" to do battle with the "Female Martyrs of al-Qaeda." "Terrorism: Women trained to tackle al-Qaeda's female suicide bombers," from AKI, July 21:

Baghdad (AKI) - Iraqi authorities have trained 130 women from Sunni tribes to seek out and prevent attacks carried out by al-Qaeda's aspiring female suicide bombers.

According to a report on the London-based Arabic language daily, Al-Hayat, this special team of women are known as "Daughters of Iraq".

The new unit has been set up to deal with the rash of female suicide bomber attacks in the province of Diyala, the most volatile part of the country.

The team of women will work side-by-side with the Awakening Councils, US-funded Sunni groups who have turned against the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The councils are known to have achieved significant success in the fight against terrorism and its members are often targets of the al-Qaeda suicide bombers.
[...]

The US forces have been trying for some time to form a women's unit of the Awakening Councils in the Sunni areas of Iraq.

Up until now they have not succeeded in doing so because of social prejudices against women doing such work.

In Diyala's capital city of Baquba, some 16 female suicide bombers have carried out attacks in the past three months.

In the past two weeks, Iraqi security forces have been searching for another three female bombers who are reportedly planning to carry out attacks.

Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 34, “Sheba,” and Sura 35, “The Angels”

“And the Unbelievers say of the Truth when it comes to them, ‘This is nothing but evident magic!’”

Sura 34 dates from the Meccan period, during a time when, according to Maududi, “the Islamic movement was being suppressed…by resort to derision and ridicule, rumor mongering, false allegations and casting of evil suggestions in the people’s minds.” It is noteworthy how large such incidents loom in Islamic sacred history, and helps illuminate the furious reaction some modern-day Muslims have had to mild ridicule in the form of political cartoons. In any case, objections to Muhammad’s message are repeated, each introduced by the phrase “the unbelievers say,” in verses 3, 7, 29, 31, and 43, and Allah at each point answers them.

Verses 1-9 warn the unbelievers of Allah’s omniscience and the coming Judgment. Given the universal Islamic teaching that Allah is the sole speaker throughout the Qur’an, v. 1 may seem jarring, what with Allah saying, “Praise be to Allah.” Such a phrase would be much more natural in the mouth of Muhammad – but having Muhammad speak would be inconsistent with the idea that the Qur’an is the perfect word of Allah that existed forever with him. In any case, this has never posed any difficulty for Islamic exegetes. Ibn Kathir is typical in ignoring the difficulty and glossing the verse as meaning that “Allah tells us that all praise belongs to Him alone in this world and in the Hereafter.”

In any case, despite Allah’s knowledge of everything (v. 2), the unbelievers deny that the Hour of Judgment will ever come (v. 3). Allah tells Muhammad to swear “by my Lord” that it will indeed come – as he does also in two other places: 10:53 and 64:7. Those who work against Allah’s signs (ayat, the word that is also used for verses of the Qur’an) will be painfully punished (v. 5).

These unbelievers ridicule the idea of a physical resurrection (v. 7) and ask if Muhammad is inventing lies about Allah (v. 8). Allah responds by saying that those who disbelieve in the afterlife are the ones who are wrong (v. 8), and that the fact that he can destroy the earth is a sign from Allah for the believers (v. 9).

Verses 10-21 invoke David (vv. 10-11), Solomon (vv. 12-14), and the people of Sheba (vv. 15-21). Allah orders the mountains and birds to join David in singing Allah’s praises (v. 10): Ibn Kathir says that Allah had blessed David “with a mighty voice. Such that when he glorified Allah, the firm, solid, high mountains joined him in glorifying Allah, and the free-roaming birds, who go out in the morning and come back in the evening, stopped for him, and he was able to speak all languages.” Then follows a list of Allah’s blessings to Solomon (vv. 12-14). The people of Sheba were also blessed with two bountiful gardens (v. 15), but when they rejected Allah, he turned the gardens’ fruit bitter (v. 16). Allah never does such things except to the ungrateful (v. 17) – a verse that strongly supports the commonly held idea in the Islamic world that piety in Islam will equal earthly success, and rejecting Allah will bring disaster in this world as well as in the next. Said Mujahid: “He does not punish anyone except the disbelievers.”

In verses 22-31 Allah tells Muhammad various things to say to the unbelievers: their idols are powerless (v. 22); no one will intercede for them on the Day of Judgment (v. 23). In v. 25, according to Ibn Kathir, Muhammad is instructed to disown the unbelievers, “saying, ‘you do not belong to us and we do not belong to you, because we call people to Allah, to believe that He is the Only God and to worship Him alone. If you respond, then you will belong to us and we to you, but if you reject our call, then we have nothing to do with you and you have nothing to do with us.’” Allah will ultimately judge between the believers and the unbelievers (v. 26). Muhammad is a universal messenger (v. 27); the Indian Qur’an commentator Maulana Bulandshahri records a hadith in which Muhammad says, “By Allah! The person, be he a Jew or a Christian, who does not believe in me after hearing of me shall be of the inmates of hell.”

Verses 32-54 continue these themes: the arrogant reject Muhammad’s message, but they will believe when they taste Allah’s punishment (v. 33); wealth holds people back from following Allah (vv. 34-37); but Allah decides who is wealthy and who isn’t (v. 39); the angels will disavow those who worshipped them (vv. 40-41); Muhammad seeks no reward from men, but only from Allah (v. 47).

Sura 35 is also Meccan, and repeats many familiar themes. Says Maududi: “The discourse is meant to warn and reprove the people of Makkah [Mecca] and their chiefs for their antagonistic attitude that they had then adopted towards the Holy Prophet’s message of Tauhid [the unity of Allah].” It also starts with the curious “Praise be to Allah” (v. 1). In it, Allah affirms his omnipotence (vv. 1-3) and tells Muhammad that if he is rejected, so were the earlier prophets (v. 4). Men should not be deceived by this present life (v. 5) or by Satan (v. 6); the unbelievers will suffer terrible punishment (v. 7); the believers and unbelievers are not equal, “for Allah leaves to stray whom He wills, and guides whom He wills,” so Muhammad shouldn’t waste his time grieving over the unbelievers. (v. 8).

Verses 9-17 and 27-28 detail Allah’s power as manifest in the natural world, in contrast to the powerlessness of the idols (vv. 13-14). Verses 18-22 stress the sharp contrast between believers and unbelievers. No one can bear another’s burdens; everyone must come to Allah individually (v. 18). Verses 23-26 are addressed to Muhammad, and he is reminded that he is only to warn the people of Allah’s punishment (v. 23); if they reject him, they rejected also the earlier prophets (v. 25). Verses 29-35 promise bountiful rewards to the righteous, and verses 36-37 return once again to the torments of hell, when the damned will cry to Allah for help and he will remind them that he sent them a messenger to warn them (v. 37).

Verses 38-45 conclude the sura with more warnings. The Muslims are “inheritors in the earth,” so those who reject Allah are simply cheating themselves (v. 39). Those whom people worship besides Allah are powerless, and don’t even have a book (as does Muhammad) (v. 40). The arrogant should travel through the earth and see how those who rejected Allah in earlier generations were destroyed (v. 44). Yet even so, Allah doesn’t punish men as they deserve (v. 45).

Next week: Sura 36, “Ya Sin,” which contains yet another ringing denial of free will: “And We have put a bar in front of them and a bar behind them, and further, We have covered them up; so that they cannot see. The same is it to them whether thou admonish them or thou do not admonish them: they will not believe.”

(Here you can find links to all the earlier "Blogging the Qur'an" segments. Here is a good Arabic Qur’an, with English translations available; here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)

Jordan: "Islamists" push to free killer of Israeli schoolgirls

You might call it the Samir Kuntar Effect. "Jordan urged to free killer of Israeli schoolgirls," from Agence France-Presse, July 21:

AMMAN: King Abdullah II was urged on Sunday to pardon a Jordanian soldier who is serving a life sentence for killing seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997. "After around 12 years in prison, Ahmad Dakamseh deserves your majesty's special pardon," a group of 70 Islamists, unionists, lawyers, human rights activists and former officials said in a signed letter to the king. In March 1997, Dakamseh fired an automatic weapon at a group of Israeli schoolgirls as they visited Baqura, a scenic peninsula on the Jordan River near the Israeli border, killing seven and wounded five others as well as a teacher. "Following the recent release of Arab prisoners, we hope to see Dakamseh free again," they said, referring to Israel's prisoner swap with Lebanon's Hizbullah last week. The signatories Islamic Action Front secretary general Zaki Bani Rsheid, former prime minister and intelligence department director Ahmad Obeidat, Jordan Bar Association head Saleh Armouti, and Hani Dahleh, president of the Arab Human Rights Organization. "The current political stage requires a policy that would make people happy and ease their socio-economic and political pressures. Pardoning Dakamseh will have a great effect on people," the letter said

Al-Qaeda's finances in Algeria targeted

Great. Thereafter, tackle the billions of Wahhabi petro-dollars that fund the jihad. "A road map to dry financial sources of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb," from El Khabar, July 20:

Experts from the US Bureau of Terror Proprieties Control participate today and tomorrow in a workshop in Algiers on financial support mechanism of Al-Qaeda worldwide networks. The workshop is to display methods of drying terror financing sources.

Algerian Press Agency, APS quoted a communiqué issued by the Presidency saying “an information workshop” is to be held today and tomorrow, on sanctions against Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban movement, in accordance to the 1267 regulation issued by the UN Security Council in 1999.

The same source said the workshop has been initiated by “competent national authorities,” without précising the party, with a contribution of the UN which is to be represented by analytical support and supervisory team against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

A source within the workshop told El Khabar that the UN mission is made up of officials from “the commission of 1267,” referring to the UN regulation targeting fighting terrorism fighting sources, established in 1999.

The commission has elaborated a secret list of more than 400 people and 125 organizations charged of attributing financial support to terrorism worldwide.

The same source said the US experts and the UN mission are to present a line of recommendations in terms of fighting financial sources of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb by freezing assets of its leaders in Europe and the US.

Palestinians complain of Zionist rats

They were probably trained by the same crack force that unleashed the Zionist squirrels. You Can't Make This Stuff Up Alert: "Palestinians: Israel uses rats against J'lem Arabs," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, July 20 (thanks to Block Ness):

The Palestinian Authority's official news agency Wafa says Israel is using rats to drive Arab families out of their homes in the Old City of Jerusalem.

In the past the news agency, which is controlled and funded by PA President Mahmoud Abbas's office, has accused Israel of using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes and fields in the West Bank. In the reports, Palestinians were quoted by the agency as saying that they had seen Israelis release herds of wild pigs, which later attacked them.

But this is the first time that Palestinians have spoken of rats being used against them.

"Rats have become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents of the occupied Old City of Jerusalem," Wafa reported under the title, "Settlers flood the Old City of Jerusalem with rats." The report continued: "Over the past two months, dozens of settlers come to the alleyways and streets of the Old City carrying iron cages full of rats. They release the rats, which find shelter in open sewage systems."...

Jihadists kill three in Thailand after "ceasefire"

At Hudaibiyya in the year 628, Muhammad concluded a disadvantageous treaty with the pagan Quraysh. Then, when he was in a position of strength, he broke that treaty. This has become the pattern for treaty-making in Islamic jurisprudence. Treaty of Hudaibiyya Alert: "Three killed in Thai Muslim south after ceasefire,'" from Israel National News, July 20 (thanks to Twostellas):

Militants fired on an army outpost and killed three villagers in separate attacks in Thailand's restive Muslim south, police said on Sunday, days after an unknown rebel group declared a ceasefire....

"Those who don't want to convert will be able to live in peace under the authority of Islam. Then we have to fight -- just like our brothers on Sept. 11"

Stop the presses: New jihadist group follows Muhammad's teachings! "'Compared to Us, Hamas Is Islamism Lite,'" by Ulrike Putz in Speigel, July 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Global power is their goal, and they are willing to slaughter innocents to get there. A group of ultra-radical Islamists are training in the Gaza Strip, and SPIEGEL ONLINE met with one of their leaders.

Salafi extremist Abu Mustafa says more and more Hamas militants like these are defecting to his group.

It's not easy to find a place to meet the man who goes by the name of Abu Mustafa. A number of places were agreed on and jettisoned. Finally, after hours of cruising around Gaza City with Abu Mustafa's driver, the call came. The meeting would take place on the beach. There are enough people on the beach that one doesn't attract so much attention, the caller explained. How absurd this notion was would soon become clear.

Most people don't stick out on the beaches of Gaza to the degree that Abu Mustafa does. He picks his way across the sand on crutches, his leg wrapped in a cast up to his thigh. The Pakistani clothes he wears are also foreign -- and the white shirt that hangs to his knees makes walking on crutches even more difficult. Finally he slumps in a plastic chair. "Peace be upon you," he says quietly, welcoming his guest.

Many people would like to speak with Abu Mustafa these days -- he guesses about 10 men call him each day. Abu Mustafa holds the key to an ideology that many are turning to in the Gaza Strip: Salafist jihadism, a belief in the most radical form of Islam. "We meet secretly in mosques and private homes," says Abu Mustafa, who has become an entry point to the movement for many. He says the Salafis now number up to 5,000 people, not counting the women and children.

'A Very Dangerous Man'

"We aren't well enough organized yet, but we are in the process of building networks," says the 33-year-old. Eventually, he hopes, a powerful movement will be born. Members are already receiving weapons training and are schooled in both dogma and strategy. "When the fight begins, they will show no mercy," said a middleman for the interview -- himself a fighter in an armed militia -- prior to the beach meeting. "Abu Mustafa is a very dangerous man."

Salafis -- sometimes referred to as Wahhabis -- dream of a world before Islam became cluttered with new innovations and cultural influences. They seek to live a pious, god-fearing life governed by the laws of religion, a life resembling those of the original Muslims. At first glance, such a belief system doesn't differ much from that of other utopian sects -- were it not for their ideas related to holy war. To make their vision a reality, Abu Mustafa and his men are willing to fight -- and they are willing to slaughter innocent bystanders.

"Look," says Abu Mustafa, whose beard cascades down his chest, "there will be three possibilities. Some will find their way to Islam. Those who don't want to convert will be able to live in peace under the authority of Islam." For those who don't want to accept the hegemony of Islam, however, holy war is the only recipe. "Then we have to fight -- just like our brothers on Sept. 11," Abu Mustafa says.

This is in accord with Muhammad's directions: "Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

The attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. seven years ago were a response to the contempt held for Islam by the Western world, he says. "If Muslims are attacked anywhere in the world, one has to hit back, and it doesn't matter where." Salafist Islam is like a cat, he says. "It is very friendly, but if it is attacked, it turns into a tiger."

This idea -- that "one has to hit back" -- is traditional Islamic theology: that defensive jihad is fard ayn, obligatory on every Muslim to aid in some way, if a Muslim land is attacked.

Read it all.

Somalia: Jihadists killing aid workers

Gratitude. "Somali killings of aid workers imperil relief," by Jeffrey Gettleman for the IHT, July 20 (thanks to DFS):

NAIROBI, Kenya: At a time of drought, skyrocketing food prices, crippling inflation and intensifying street fighting, many of the aid workers whom millions of Somalis depend on for survival are fleeing their posts — or in some cases the country.

They are being driven out by what appears to be an organized terror campaign. Ominous leaflets recently surfaced on the bullet-pocked streets of Mogadishu, Somalia's ruin of a capital, calling aid workers "infidels" and warning them that they will be methodically hunted down. Since January, at least 20 aid workers have been killed, more than in any year in recent memory. Still others have been abducted. [...]

A plane with at least a dozen Somali aid workers left Mogadishu on Friday. Several workers said it was the leaflets that scared them away.

"These people are serious," said one Somali aid professional who is now hiding with her family outside Mogadishu.

The leaflets were tacked onto walls and scattered on streets in Mogadishu about 10 days ago. They could not have made the threat any clearer. "We know all the so-called aid workers," they read. "We promise to kill them, wherever they are." [...]

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush" -- Qur'an 9:5.

War Is Deceit Update, plus the obligatory This Has Nothing To Do With Islam segment:

But several factions of Somalia's Islamist movement, which is fighting an intense guerrilla war against the government, have condemned the attacks.

Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, a leader of the Shebab insurgent group, said Islamic militants were actually guarding food convoys. United Nations officials have mixed feelings about the Shebab, saying that some factions are violently anti-Western while others recently helped free two kidnapped aid workers.

Some Western security analysts theorize that in the violent murkiness that has overtaken the country, unsavory elements within the Somali government may be killing aid workers to discredit Islamist opposition groups and draw in United Nations peacekeepers, who may be the government's last hope for survival.

The government admits that it desperately needs peacekeepers. But it denies that it is attacking aid workers to get them.

"It's obvious who's doing this," said Abdi Awaleh Jama, a Somali ambassador at large. "It's hard-liner Islamists who hate the West. They are forces of darkness, not forces of light."...

Al-Qaeda's star falling in Iraq but rising in the Maghreb

That is, rising again in the Maghreb. And then there are the jihadist groups that are not formally or closely affiliated with Al-Qaeda, but which share the same ideology. But of course, the prevalence and spread of that ideology is apparently not a matter of concern for anyone.

"Hearts and minds," from The Economist, July 17:

THE “Islamic State of Iraq”, as al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies in that country like to call themselves, pumps out a stream of triumphant videos showing its fighters blowing up American Humvees. But these days the swagger has gone as the jihadists have been greatly weakened by the Americans and Sunni tribesmen. Their predicament was summed up in an interview by a man calling himself Abu Turab al-Jazairi. Described as one of al-Qaeda’s leaders in northern Iraq, the movement’s last bastion, he acknowledged losing several cities “because a large number of tribal leaders betrayed Islam”. And some of al-Qaeda’s fighters “got carried away with murdering and executions”.

Note how Abu Turab al-Jazairi describes the people who turned against Al-Qaeda: they "betrayed Islam." This approach will always find resonance among some Muslims. And in light of it, the State Department's plan to refer to the jihadists as "evildoers" and "criminals" rather than "jihadists" may seem to be a clever attempt to deny Al-Qaeda the Islamic legitimacy it needs to survive and grow. However, it presupposes that Muslims will be impressed by what the non-Muslim State Department calls or doesn't call the Muslims of Al-Qaeda, and it effectively bars State analysts from examining the ideology of our foes in any depth -- since we cannot even use the terms that they use for themselves, and have to accept a dogmatic declaration that they are using them inauthentically, without examining the jihad theology in depth to determine whether that is true in the first place, and if it is, to what extent.

One of America’s justifications for invading Iraq in 2003 was that Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaeda. That claim, like the one that he had weapons of mass destruction, has been discredited. In fact, it was the invasion of Iraq that revived al-Qaeda after its eviction from Afghanistan in 2001. By early 2006, America’s National Intelligence Assessment on terrorism concluded that the Iraq conflict was “breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement”. [...]

Yes, and if America fights jihadists anywhere, learned analysts will be able to go into Muslim countries and find out that that fight is breeding deep resentment among Muslims. I expect that the invasion of Normandy and advance into Europe in 1944 bred deep resentment of America among Germans.

Grit, determination, an eleventh-hour change of tactics and the Sunni tribal movement helped America to avoid the defeat in Iraq that seemed perilously close less than two years ago. Al-Qaeda is not so much fighting to beat America in Iraq but to survive. Increasingly, say Western officials, foreign fighters now prefer to take themselves to Pakistan.

But counter-terrorism experts worry about the consequences of America’s success. Might Iraq now start exporting seasoned veterans, as Afghanistan did in the 1990s? Optimists say the danger is less acute than many fear, for three reasons. First, many of the foreign jihadists went to Iraq on a one-way ticket: to die as suicide-bombers. Second, governments are more aware of the danger of returning jihadists. And third, Zarqawi’s death seems to have removed the main impetus behind exporting Iraq’s violence.

Zarqawi’s decision to bomb three hotels in Amman in November 2005 backfired badly, causing a wave of revulsion, especially in his native Jordan. Among the bombed-out ruins of his hideout, American forces found a letter from a man calling himself Atiyah who said he spoke on behalf of the whole of al-Qaeda’s leadership. Written just weeks after the Amman bombs, it warned Zarqawi that his actions were alienating potential supporters. He risked repeating the jihadists’ ruinous bloodletting in Algeria during the 1990s when, Atiyah said, “their enemy did not defeat them, but rather they defeated themselves, were consumed and fell.”

The savagery of the Algerian jihad took the lives of more than 100,000 people through the 1990s. The worst of the fighting was waged by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which denounced democracy and embraced jihad as the only means to power. The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), broke away in 1998. It had always been close to al-Qaeda, with strong links to fighters in Iraq.

In September 2006, thanks in part to matchmaking by Zarqawi, the GSPC rebranded itself as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and introduced suicide tactics, attacking a series of foreign targets, including the United Nations office in Algiers. It also kidnapped Western tourists in Mauritania and Tunisia. The jihadists use the vast expanse of the Sahara to train recruits from across the region.

Other al-Qaeda offshoots have emerged, for instance, in Yemen and Lebanon. Whether these franchises will fare any better than Algeria’s earlier kind of jihadism, or than the troubled one in Iraq, remains to be seen. Mr Jazairi, for one, thought the bombings in his native Algeria were “sheer idiocy”. Better to fight in Iraq, he said. Still, it may be only a matter of time before AQIM, in particular, leaps across the Mediterranean into Europe.

The underlying assumption of this piece seems to be that one must never fight back against one's enemies, for fear of provoking a further reaction. Whatever one thinks about the wisdom or ultimate likelihood of success of the Iraqi democracy project, that is a cry of defeatism and surrender.

Hamas: Kidnapped Israeli soldier "will continue to serve as a bargaining chip" to secure release of jailed jihadists, "including prisoners with blood on their hands."

Israel established a precedent for that with the release of Samir Kuntar to Hizballah.

More on this story. "'Schalit is Hamas's bargaining chip'," from the Jerusalem Post, July 19:

Hamas will not give up on any prisoner in negotiations to free kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday.

Speaking at a ceremony at the Islamic University in Gaza, Haniyeh added that "Schalit will continue to serve as a bargaining chip in our hands, and will in the end bring about the release of many prisoners, including prisoners with blood on their hands."

Haniyah also mentioned the release of convicted murder Samir Kuntar, in the framework of last week's prisoner exchange with Hizbullah.

"I spoke with Kuntar, and blessed him on his release from the Zionist prison," he said.

The Hamas prime minister added that he had decided to grant Kuntar a Palestinian passport in honor of his release.

Jihadi leader warns Israel "that failure to comply with Hamas's demands would prompt the movement to kidnap more IDF soldiers in the future to release Palestinian prisoners"

More demands; more threats. "Hamas, Islamic Jihad threaten to end Gaza Strip cease-fire," by Khaled Abu Toameh, for the Jerusalem Post, July 19:

One month after the cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip came into effect, Hamas said over the weekend that it might end the truce because of Israel's "continued failure to honor the agreement."

Hamas also said that it was convinced that "sooner or later, Israel would give in to our conditions" regarding the case of kidnapped IDF St-Sgt. Gilad Schalit.

Abu Obaidah, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, the group that is holding the IDF soldier, claimed that Israel's "intransigence" was behind the delay in achieving an agreement over a prisoner release.

Referring to the recent deal between Israel and Hizbullah, Abu Obaidah expressed hope that it would serve as an incentive for a new agreement between Israel and Hamas.

"Hamas considers the deal with Hizbullah an honorable achievement for the Lebanese resistance," he said. "This deal also proves that Israel's criterion for releasing [security] prisoners has been shattered. In the past, Israel refused to free prisoners serving lengthy sentences."

He expressed confidence that Israel would eventually succumb on the case of Schalit.

"Sooner or later Israel will have to accept our conditions," he added. "Unless Israel accepts all of our demands, there will be no agreement."

Such as wearing distinctive, yellow clothing, and non-matching shoes, perhaps?

[...]

He said that the problem until now was Israel's "reluctance" to accept Hamas's demands. "Israel is continuing with its stubbornness," he charged. "But following the deal with Hizbullah, there are growing calls inside Israel for striking a deal with Hamas at any price."
[...]

Abu Obaidah warned that failure to comply with Hamas's demands would prompt the movement to kidnap more IDF soldiers in the future to release Palestinian prisoners. Accusing Israel of failing to abide by the cease-fire agreement by refusing to reopen the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Abu Obaidah said he did not rule out the possibility that Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions would end the truce.

"We will end the truce and resume our operations against Israel to force it to reopen the border crossings," he said. He also warned Israel against invading the Gaza Strip, saying that the Palestinians were prepared more than ever to thwart such an offensive.
[...]

The Islamic Jihad organization also threatened to end the truce. Nafez Azzam, a senior Jihad official in the Gaza Strip, accused Israel of failing to live up to its commitments under the terms of the cease-fire accord.

France files charges in transnational jihad funding scheme

Eurabia Alert: Here's the case of a man "of Turkish and Dutch origin," extradited from the Netherlands to face charges in France for funding a group seeking to establish "an Islamic regime across Central Asia."

"Suspected head of Uzbek extremist funding group charged," from Agence France-Presse, July 19:

PARIS - The suspected head of a group providing funding to Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan was charged in France after being extradited from the Netherlands, a source familiar with the case said on Saturday.

Irfan Demirtas, of Turkish and Dutch origin, was accused late Friday of funding terrorism by French judges Thierry Fragnoli and Philippe Coirre and placed in custody, the source said.

Demirtas was one of 10 people arrested in May in a crackdown led by France on people suspected of helping fund the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which was formed in 1998 and claims to be linked to Al-Qaeda.

Eight arrests took place in a suburb of the eastern French city of Mulhouse and in the central Rhone region, one in the Netherlands and one in Germany. One suspect was later released in France.

Police found several firearms and a large amount of cash during searches of the suspects' homes on Friday, a police source said at the time. Computer discs and files were seized.

The French domestic DST intelligence agency had been investigating the ring for close to a year and the arrests were ordered by anti-terrorism judge Fragnoli.

Originally formed to overthrow Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov and set up an Islamic regime across Central Asia, the IMU is said to be active on the volatile border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and is listed as a terrorist group by the United States.

Iraqi jihadis going to the aid of Afghani jihadis?

Update to yesterday's story. Not only is al-Qaeda summoning jihadis from all around the world to rally around them in Afghanistan, but even those in Iraq, indicating, perhaps, that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is their priority. Either that or Iraq is seen as a lost cause. "Petraeus: al-Qaeda fighters may be migrating to Afghan frontier," by Ronert Burns for the AP, July 19:

BAGHDAD — Senior leaders of al-Qaeda may be diverting fighters from the war in Iraq to the Afghan frontier area, the top American commander in Iraq told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Gen. David Petraeus also said al-Qaeda may be reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front.

"There is some intelligence that has picked this up," he said in the interview in his office at the U.S. Embassy along the Tigris River. "It's not solid gold intelligence," he added, stressing that the reliability of the information has not been confirmed.

Nonetheless, he cited the signs as part of a broadly positive review of conditions in Iraq, where al-Qaeda fighters have been driven almost entirely from Baghdad and pummeled in other urban areas.

Petraeus said the information was based on human intelligence, meaning informants.

Sunnis rejoin Iraq's Shia-led government

An end of sectarianism in Iraq? The establishment of a stable multiparty parliamentary democracy in Iraq? I still rather suspect that the political character of Islam and ancient hatreds between Sunnis and Shi'ites will reassert themselves, but history has taken surprising turns in the past. Certainly the jihad efforts about which the West should be most concerned are not in Iraq today, but in Europe and the United States: no official has yet noticed the stealth jihad. "Sunni bloc rejoins Iraqi cabinet," from the BBC, July 19 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

The main Sunni Muslim bloc in Iraq has rejoined the Shia-led government, in what correspondents called an important step for national reconciliation.

The return of six ministers from the Accordance Front to the cabinet was approved by lawmakers.

The Sunni bloc withdrew almost a year ago following a row over power-sharing.

A spokesman for the Accord Front said its return was "a real step forward for political reform" in the predominantly Shia country.

The spokesman, Salim al-Joubouri, added that the bloc's approved candidates would attend the next cabinet meeting.

Most of them are new faces nominated by the party.

Their return is especially significant ahead of provincial elections that are expected later this year, the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says.

Crackdown on militants

The move is also a sign of changed and considerably improved times, our correspondent says.

The Accord Front's main reason for leaving the cabinet last August was that the government and security apparatus were dominated by Shia factions with an allegedly sectarian agenda.

The main thrust of security operations at that time was against Sunni-based insurgents, and many thousands of Sunnis were detained, our correspondent says.

But in February, many prisoners were freed under a new amnesty law.

This spring, Iraqi security forces, along with American troops, also launched a concerted crackdown on the Shia militias, especially Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army.

A number of Sunni Arab states have also been persuaded to revive their diplomatic presence and activities in Baghdad - another demand of the Iraqi Sunnis, our correspondent says.

On Saturday, Iraqi parliament also voted another four ministers to replace those from Moqtada Sadr's political bloc.

"Virtual Jihadi" video game challenges players to kill President Bush

"'The game itself is not an act of terrorism,' said one protester. 'But it simply promotes it.'" Indeed: there is freedom of speech and there is incitement to murder. A cartoon of Muhammad harms no one, although there are those who chose to consider themselves harmed by it, and think that it gives them a license to commit murder. This video game, on the other hand, encourages the murder of a living human being. Yet no one will be particularly concerned about this, while attempts to limit free speech because of the cartoons continue.

"Artist's Video Game Challenges Players To Kill President," from KNBC, July 16 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

CHICAGO -- An artist's video game that is being exhibited at a free-speech exhibit in Chicago challenges players to kill the president.

The video game is part of a "confrontational art" exhibit by Chicago-based artist Wafaa Bilal.

In the 3-D game, "The Night of Bush Capturing; A Virtual Jihadi," players are sent on a mission to kill President George W. Bush.

Bilal, 42, said his art is a personal attempt to deal with the deaths of citizens in the country of his birth. The artist said his brother died in Iraq in 2004 from a U.S bomb.

The game is part of the Freedom of Speech exhibition at FLATFILE Galleries. It runs until Aug. 22.

The game was scheduled for exhibition in March at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., but school administrators shut it down after less than a day, according to a TimeOutChicago blog post.

"The game itself is not an act of terrorism," said one protester. "But it simply promotes it."

In a statement on its Web site, FLATFILE said, "censorship of any artistic expression is wrong, and (FLATFILE) proudly supports the right of its artists to show their work regardless of political content and previous censorship."...

Sure. It isn't as if anyone drew a cartoon of Muhammad in this exhibit. That would be crossing the line, now, wouldn't it?

Recent Pipes interview on Islamism

JW friend Daniel Pipes on Islam:

Q: You have written extensively about the distinction between Islam and “Islamism”, also called “militant Islam”, or “fundamentalism”. How do you explain the difference?

DP: Islam is a personal faith, and there are many different ways of understanding what it means to be a Muslim. One can be a Sufi, a mystic, one can be someone who lives by the law in a very strict way, one can be a nominal Muslim, who does not pay that much attention to his faith; all these and other ways are possible within the religion of Islam.

Islamism is a very specific approach, one that holds that Muslims would be powerful and rich were Muslims to follow the Islamic law in its complete detail. Islamists aspire to apply that law everywhere in the world, and see non-Muslims as inferior, and to be defeated. It’s an ideology that has its roots at the origins of Islam, but developed in its present state about 80 years ago. It is part of Islam, but not the whole of Islam.

Q: However, hard-line Muslims as well as some critics of Islam insist that you cannot be a real Muslim unless you follow the Islamic law – that would make the distinction between Islam and Islamism disappear?

DP: It is curious to note that Islamists and those who say that Islam itself is the problem both agree that I’m wrong, and that Islamism is Islam. The Islamists say that because they want to portray their version of Islam as the only one. And those who see Islam as the problem, conflate the religion and the ideology. I think it a mistake. Even if you believe that’s the case, and you’re a Westerner and a non-Muslim, I would argue that you’d have to adopt my point of view, because a Western government cannot fight Islam. Ours are not crusader states. Therefore, you have to fight the ideology of Islamism, not the religion of Islam. We know how to fight ideologies. We fought Fascism and Communism and now there’s Islamism. We can’t fight a religion. So if it’s reduced to a religion, then we lack the tools to protect ourselves.

Q: Would non-Islamist Islam mean a secularized, privatized Islam?

DP: Secularism means two different things. A secular person is one who is not religious. A secular society is one that divides religion from politics. Non-Islamist Islam needs not be secular in a personal sense; a person can be pious, but not Islamist. But it does mean secular in the latter sense, in that society divides politics from religion. For example, the Atatürk regime in Turkey is secular, you can be religious, but you cannot bring religion into the political sphere.

Q: What do you think about the term “Islamophobia” – it has been used a lot in Europe lately?

DP: “Islamophobia” is a fundamentally flawed notion, because the people who are worried about Islam are not phobic. “Phobic” implies they have an unjustified, wrongful dislike of something, whereas people who are worried about terrorism, about the imposition of the Islamic law, or the Sharia, are dealing with an actual set of problems. To call them names is both unfair and delegitimizing. Their concerns are real and legitimate, and need to be addressed.

Read it all here.

Islamic cleric: "Pakistan is Islam’s fort that cannot be broken up on Jews’ behest by the U.S. and its allies"

Paranoid Fantasy Alert: he has also said that "the U.S. and India are directly involved in the terror attacks in Pakistan."

"Cleric: U.S. Cannot Break Up Pakistan On Jews’ Behest," from MEMRI, July 18 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Qari Saeed ur Rehman, the head of the Red Mosque Action Committee, has said that the U.S. and India are directly involved in the terror attacks in Pakistan. The Urdu-language newspaper Roznama Jasarat quoted Qari Rehman as saying that the U.S. and India are working to break up Pakistan.

According to the report, Qari Rehman said that Pakistan is Islam’s fort that cannot be broken up on Jews’ behest by the U.S. and its allies. He was addressing a function in a local madrassa in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

Speaking on the occasion, Maulana Mufti Kifayatullah, a legislator and leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), said that as per a Pentagon plan, the people and the army are being made to fight against each other in Pakistan.

Source: Roznama Jasarat, Pakistan, July 10, 2008

Prosecutors in Fort Dix jihad case challenge move by defense to purge "jihad" and "al-Qaeda" references

The defense says references to jihad and al-Qaeda would be "inflammatory" -- never mind establishing motive.

"US: Don't drop jihad references from charges," from the Associated Press, July 18:

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) - Federal prosecutors say they should not be forced to drop references to al-Qaida and jihad from the indictment of 5 men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix.

Lawyers for the men last month asked a judge to delete such language, saying it was "inflammatory" and was included in earlier court filings to incite prejudice against the defendants.

In a response filed Friday, government lawyers said the terms in question are central to the case, arguing that jihadist principles caused the defendants to undertake the criminal conduct.

The five men were charged in May 2007. An attack was never carried out.

In other court papers filed Friday, the government said the trial should not be moved from Camden. It's scheduled to start in October.

The men, all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s, have spent much of their lives in the Philadelphia area. They are being held in the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.

Hamas children's show tackles amputation for theft

Doesn't everybody's mom and dad have a portrait of Sheik Yassin on the night table?

Now, didn't Bert and Ernie have this same discussion once? "Hamas Children's Show Discusses Severing Hands As Punishment for Theft," by Steven Hoffer for Fox News, July 17:

A popular Hamas children's television program shows a giant bunny character who is lured into stealing money — and then is sentenced by a child host to have his hand chopped off.

In the July 11 installment of "The Pioneers of Tomorrow," which aired on Al-Aqsa TV, the recurring character "Assud the Bunny" creeps away from his napping father with a handful of cash. Assud begins to second-guess his decision to steal his father's money, but Satan successfully encourages him to go through with the petty theft.

Assud then discusses his "crime" with child TV host Saraa, and a young girl is heard saying, "The Prophet Muhammad said: 'If my daughter Fatima had stolen, I would have chopped off her hand. If you were in Saudi Arabia now, they would chop off your hand.'"

A heated debate follows between Saraa and two young viewers, who discuss whether Assud deserves to have his hand chopped off. (Under strict Sharia law, a person caught stealing is subject to having his hand amputated.)

In the end, Assud vows never to repeat his sin and pleads with his young counterparts until they consider his repentance, according to The Middle East Media Research Institute, a media monitoring group that provided a translation of the show.

Luckily, Saraa has just the right compromise to resolve the conflict.

"Well, if we don't chop off his hand, maybe we should chop off his ear?"

While such children's programs are considered shocking for U.S. audiences, they are widespread and popular in Arabic culture. Other characters on the network have included a "Farfour the Mouse," a militant Mickey Mouse look-alike who martyrs himself fighting Israel, and "Nahoul the Bee," designed to inspire future homicide bombers....

Say, Assud's been on the air for a while. Better stay tuned for the season finale.

Muslim "judge" rules kidnapped Christian girls "converted to Islam and cannot return home"

Update about the adolescent girls who were kidnapped and forced into conversion. Seems they did so "voluntarily." "Kidnapped Christian girls, judge ratifies marriage and conversion," by Qaiser Felix, for Asian News, July 16:

The district of Muzaffargarh rules in favour of the Muslims, rejecting the request from the family that wants to bring home the two sisters - 13 and 10 years old - kidnapped last June 26. Christian associations charge that they could end up as prostitutes.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) - District judge Mian Muhammad Naeem, of the section of Muzaffargarh, has ruled that the two Christian sisters "have converted in a legitimate manner to Islam", and for this reason they cannot be "restored to their family of origin". Setting aside the request from their father to regain custody of his daughters, the judge also admitted the "validity" of the marriage of the girls to two Muslims.

Saba Younas, aged 13, and her sister Anila [aged 10] were kidnapped last June 26 in the village of Chowk Munda, in the province of Punjab, where they had gone to visit their uncle, Khalid Raheel. This is the same uncle who in recent days reported their kidnapping, asking for help from news organisations and human rights groups. According to Raheel's account, a Muslim fruit vendor named Muhammad Arif Bajwa kidnapped the girls, and then handed them over to a friend, Falak Sher Gill, who then organised the marriage between his own son and the older of the Christian sisters, Saba. In court, moreover, father and son both stressed the "complete willingness of the girl to contract marriage".

The girls' uncle does not conceal his preoccupation, and denounces to AsiaNews that the Muslims involved in the kidnapping are acting as a "gang", recruiting the girls in order to "make them work in a bordello". This alarm has also been heard by the Catholic commission for justice and peace (NCJP) in the country, which confirms the words of Khalid Raheel: the kidnappers are believed to be human traffickers linked to prostitution, known to the police and under the protection of some local politicians. "For these unscrupulous people", charges Naeem Asghar, local coordinator of the NCJP, marriage is a pretence in order to control the girls, run their lives and exploit them for their own business purposes".

"We are here to prevent a symbol of Milanese sport from being transformed into a mosque"

More Muslims not fitting in; more Europeans not taking it. Nor can this be credited to "Islamophobia" since the mosque in question has already been accused of terrorist ties, including with al-Qaeda. "Evicted Milan Muslims pray at stadium 'mosque,’” from Earth Times, July 18:

Milan, Italy - Italian police were out in force Friday at a Milan stadium converted into a makeshift mosque by Muslims who were forced to abandon their previous place of worship, a downtown garage which has been linked to Islamist terrorism.

Organizers of the Friday prayers, said they expected some 5,000 Muslims at the Vigorelli velodrome which also contains a disused cycling track.

The decision by Milan's town hall to allow Muslims to use the facility on a temporary basis has triggered protests from local residents, raising concern of possible attempts to disrupt the prayer session.

On Friday, around a several dozen protesters, including far-right political leader, Daniela Santanche, gathered near the stadium.

"We are here to prevent a symbol of Milanese sport from being transformed into a mosque," Santanche, who leads the opposition party, The Right, said.

Earlier this month, Italy's centre-right government ordered the closure of the so-called Jenner mosque - the converted garage where for over 20 years, thousands of Muslims in Italy's financial capital attended prayer sessions.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the decision was based on public order and health concerns - worshippers often spilled out on the street - and complaints from local residents.

Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Northern League, drew sharp criticism for the move, with one a prominent Catholic cleric, Monsignor Gianfranco Bottoni, who deals with inter-faith issues in Milan, describing it as "fascist".

The Jenner mosque, which takes its informal name from the street where it was situated - had come under the spotlight several times for alleged links to extremism.

Investigators have suggested it may have served as an international clearing-house for al-Qaeda ahead of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

A Muslim cleric, Abu Omar, at the centre of an alleged "rendition" case involving US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents, says he was kidnapped on his way to the mosque in 2003 and then transferred to Egypt, where he was tortured.

Twenty-six suspected CIA agents and several Italian intelligence officials are currently on trial in Milan over his alleged rendition.

Jihadis around the world, unite: in Afghanistan

Afghanistan, always overlooked, always forgotten, seems to also always be the rallying point for jihadis, at least since the Soviet era. "Al Qaeda luring recruits to fight in Afghanistan," from the Associated Press, July 18:

A fresh influx of jihadi fighters is being drawn to Afghanistan from Turkey, Central Asia, Chechnya and the Middle East, one more sign that al Qaeda is regrouping on what is fast becoming the most active front of the war on terror groups.

More foreigners are infiltrating Afghanistan because of a recruitment drive by al Qaeda, as well as a burgeoning insurgency that has made movement easier across the border from Pakistan, U.S. officials, militants and experts say. For the past two months, Afghanistan has overtaken Iraq in deaths of U.S. and allied troops, and nine American soldiers were killed Sunday at a remote base in Kunar province in the deadliest attack in years.

Islamic charity leader gets year in slammer for lying to the FBI

He met a leading jihadist in Afghanistan, and then lied about it. The Justice Department said he "abused the tax system to send money to organizations that have since been branded by the government as terrorists." There is a lot of talk here about whether or not the jihadists in question were considered terrorists at the time of his trip. If the U.S. government had the fortitude and realism to talk about "jihad" rather than "terrorism," this problem would never arise.

"Muntasser gets jail for lying to FBI: Muslim charity founder sentenced in U.S. court," by Lee Hammel for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, July 18 (thanks to Tom Syseskey):

WORCESTER— The founder of a Muslim charity was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to a year in prison and fined $10,000 for lying to an FBI agent when he denied traveling to Afghanistan in 1994-1995.

In sentencing Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, former president of Care International Inc., a defunct Boston charity, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV doubled the maximum amount of prison time and the fine called for under the federal advisory sentencing guidelines. Mr. Muntasser, 43, is a former Worcester resident and Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate living in Braintree. He must report for his prison sentence within four weeks.

The U.S. attorney’s office called for a five-year prison term, saying the case is being watched around the world to see how the United States will treat someone the Justice Department said abused the tax system to send money to organizations that have since been branded by the government as terrorists. But Mr. Muntasser’s lawyers pointed out that guidelines called for a sentence of between zero and 6 months and that the U.S. Probation Department recommended a sentence within that range on a simple false statement case.

Mr. Muntasser was detained Jan. 11, the day a federal jury convicted him in Boston on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and scheming to conceal material facts as well as lying to a federal agent. But expectations that Mr. Muntasser might be freed on a sentence of time served were raised after Judge Saylor reversed the jury verdict on the two most serious charges and freed Mr. Muntasser June 13 on conditions to await sentencing yesterday.

Judge Saylor also reversed all of the convictions against Samir Al-Monla of Brookline, another Care former president, but left all except one of the convictions intact against a third defendant in the case, Muhamed Mubayyid of Shrewsbury, a former treasurer of Care International. Mr. Mubayyid is scheduled to be sentenced today.

All of them had been charged with conspiring to get or keep tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service by concealing Care’s support for Islamic Holy War and those who fight it and that it was an outgrowth or successor to Al-Kifah Refugee Center, which had been tied in news accounts to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

Judge Saylor called this conviction “a serious offense, not a garden variety” false statement. He said the FBI might have gained some useful information about the Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom Mr. Muntasser met with in Afghanistan, as well as whether the government of Pakistan helped him gain passage through the dangerous frontier bordering Afghanistan....

Judge Saylor said Mr. Muntasser showed many charitable and other worthy attributes. The judge said he was having trouble reconciling that with the views showing support of suicide bombings and other violence in the newsletter, Al Hussam, published by Care.

That's because he knows nothing about the Islamic jihad ideology.

Islam had been brought into the trial numerous times, Judge Saylor noted, but there are millions of Muslims who do not support violence.

Judge Saylor has learned his PC Catechism well, but the existence of millions of Muslims who do not support violence does not change the fact that those Muslims who are committing acts of violence and working for the supremacy of Islamic Sharia in other ways are doing so in accord with traditional teachings of the religion. As long as this goes unrecognized by the politically correct establishment, this will continue. Only by recognizing it can non-Muslim authorities formulate effective ways to resist the jihad threat in all its forms.

Jihadists plotted to kill Bush in Israel

By shooting down his helicopter. No one, however, had the bright idea to try to shoot down his appeasement-minded "peace-processing." "Israel makes arrests in alleged plot against Bush," from Reuters, July 18:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel accused six Arabs on Friday of trying to set up an al Qaeda cell in Israel and said one of them had proposed attacking helicopters used during a visit by President George W. Bush.

Israel's Shin Bet counter-intelligence agency said one of the suspects had used his mobile phone to film helicopters at a sports stadium in Jerusalem that was used as a landing site for Bush's delegation.

The suspect then posted queries on Web sites frequented by al Qaeda operatives, asking for guidance on how to shoot down the helicopters, the agency said in a statement....

The Shin Bet identified four of the suspects as Palestinian residents of Arab East Jerusalem and two as Israeli Arabs.

Wahhabi cleric complains about religous intolerance

Taqiyya in full-swing in Madrid. "Attempts to impose views lead to conflicts," by Badea Abu Al-Naja for Arab News, July 18:

MADRID: Sheikh Hassan Al-Saffar, a prominent Saudi Islamic scholar, expressed his hope that the World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid would help defeat instigators of wars and conflicts as well as proponents of a clash of civilizations.

Read: help defeat all who speak the truth about Islam, revealing its most troubling doctrines.

Speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of the conference, Al-Saffar said the move to impose one’s ideology over others was the main factor that threatens peaceful coexistence of people of different faiths.

“Some people think that it’s their right to impose their views on others as they believe that only their religion is correct and others are wrong.This attempt to dominate over others undermines coexistence and human relations,” said Al-Saffar. “Those who want to propagate their ideas should present them in a decent manner and give the public the choice to accept or reject them. This will encourage free thinking and generate respect for the views of others.”

Really now, coming from a “prominent Saudi scholar”—in other words, a radical wahhabi—and unless he is specifically talking about Muslims, how can anyone take such talk seriously? While everything he said is true, of course, he, as well as all objective students of Islam, Muslim and non-Muslim, know that the only religious group that’s in the bad habit of “imposing” its view on others, attempting to “dominate” them, “propagate” their ideas, and undermining “coexistence,” all while “believ[ing] that only their religion is correct and others are wrong, are—drum roll please—Muslims. History unequivocally portrays this; while Islam’s sacred texts—from Koran to Hadith—command it. Koran 9:29 alone (said to abrogate the more tolerant Meccan verses) commands Muslims to do all those things he descried: "Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture [Jews and Christians] as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low."

[…] Al-Saffar said religions like Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism have undergone changes during the past several centuries, like the changes that have taken place in Islamic thought. “We cannot draw a picture of another religion based on an old book that was written centuries ago.”

Huh? So if Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism (why no mention of Hinduism, incidentally?), had undergone absolutely no changes, would that then make them bad? And what, exactly, is so troubling about the messages of their “old books”? No where in these books, unlike the Koran and Hadith, are believers commanded to hound, persecute, and subjugate others. Oh yea, the Hebrews purged Canaan: not the same thing. The commandments given the Hebrews to fight and slay the Canaanites were of a temporal quality, then and there, whereas Islam's commandments are transcendent and apply at all times.

Of course, al-Saffar may have been specifically talking about Muslims; but if he was, he would not be a "prominent Saudi cleric." He would probably be facing apostaty charges.

NPR: No jihad here

NPR, predictably, loves the new Administration guidelines on Speak No Jihad, Hear No Jihad, See No Jihad. "What Does 'Jihad' Really Mean?," by Jamie Tarabay for NPR, July 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Morning Edition, July 17, 2008 · After years of using the word "jihadist" to describe terrorists who carry out attacks against civilians and the U.S. military, the Bush administration has finally realized that doing so actually pays those groups a compliment in the eyes of some Muslims.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has relied on terms like "jihadist" and "Islamic extremists." But jihad has very positive connotations in the Islamic world. It is akin to religious duty: when someone wants to better themselves, they embark on a jihad. Whether it's to quit smoking, pray more, and in some cases, fight off anyone preventing them from practicing their religion.

"Just like you wouldn't call Josef Stalin a hero of the revolution, you don't want to call Osama bin Laden a jihadist. He loves it," says Duncan MacInnes, a spokesman for the State Department's Counterterrorism Communication Center.

Tactically, that might possibly be an effective tool. But as a manifestation of political correctness, and of a fear of offending peaceful Muslims who allegedly reject violent jihad and Islamic supremacism, it is suicidally stupid, for it takes away the one key we have to understand why these people are fighting us, and what they might do and not do.

The State Department has issued a memo to all its employees cautioning them against using Islamic references whenever condemning terrorist attacks. The Department of Homeland Security has also advised its employees to avoid those same mistakes.

Great. So the only people making Islamic references in connection with terrorist attacks will be Islamic terrorists. And this one part of the puzzle, dismissed as irrelevant or offensive or both, is the only piece that reveals the actual motives and goals of these terrorists.

Mohammed Magid is imam of ADAMS Center, a collective of seven mosques in Virginia. He says the changes are late but welcome. When officials criticize the word jihad, they offend Muslims, Magid says. "You isolate so many people by using that. We need to discredit terrorism."

From a February 2008 report: "Another D.C.-area mosque, the ADAMS Center, was founded and financed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma."

But there are critics of the change in policy.

Author Tawfik Hamid was once a member of Egypt's Jemaah Islamiyah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and other governments.

After breaking from the group, Hamid has become an outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism. He says some Islamic legal books still continue to define "jihad" in its most violent contexts.

"When these books change the meaning of jihad into a pure and peaceful meaning and stop the other violent ones, then and only then the Western countries should say jihad is only peaceful," Hamid says.

Tawfik Hamid is right -- and it isn't just "some" Islamic legal that "still continue to define 'jihad' in its most violent contexts. But as long as even "some" of them "continue" to do this, and jihad groups continue to gain recruits among peaceful Muslims on this basis, we are foolish to pretend as if the term has no violent or supremacist connotations for Muslims, and to restrict ourselves from using it or exploring its meaning in Islam as a way to understand what the jihadists are doing and why.

Spencer: De uitvinding van de Islam

Dutch-speaking readers of Jihad Watch may be interested in picking up the latest issue of Academy magazine, which contains my essay "De uitvinding van de Islam."

Free speech in an age of jihad

On Thursday, April 10, I was one of the speakers at a conference at the Princeton Club in New York, co-sponsored by The New Criterion and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: "Free Speech in An Age of Jihad: Libel Tourism, 'Hate Speech,' and Political Freedom.”

Now The New Criterion has published a special pamphlet of the same name, including essays by Mark Steyn, Roger Kimball, Andrew McCarthy, Stanley Kurtz and me, along with responses by a variety of luminaries, including Ibn Warraq and Steven Emerson. While many of these essays correspond closely or exactly with the speakers' addresses at the conference, mine doesn't -- it is an essay I prepared for the occasion, but in the moment I decided to depart from my prepared remarks. It is, however, on topic and you may find it worth reading. You can order the pamphlet here.

Chertoff: "European terrorists" trying to enter the U.S.

Conspicuously absent from this story is any mention of the ideology driving this group of "terrorists" and why it is present in Europe, aside from passing mention of al-Qaeda in the third paragraph. Yes, anyone reading will know Chertoff isn't talking about a band of disgruntled Lichtensteiners, but the unwillingness to call jihadists "jihadists" (or even "Islamists" or other variations) reflects a more general mindset that misdirects efforts in both foreign policy and national security. And of course, it also puts the remarks in the article in line with current DHS policy.

"Chertoff: European terrorists trying to enter US," by Eileen Sullivan for the Associated Press, July 18:

WASHINGTON - European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Chertoff's comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January — all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.

In his last scheduled appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee, Chertoff said that the more time and space al-Qaida and its allies have to recruit, train, experiment and plan, the more problems the U.S. and Europe will face down the road.

"The terrorists are deliberately focusing on people who have legitimate Western European passports, who don't appear to have records as terrorists," Chertoff told lawmakers. "I have a good degree of confidence we can catch people coming in. But I have to tell you ... there's no guarantee. And they are working very hard to slip by us."

Chertoff and other intelligence officials have delivered similar warnings before, and he offered no new information about specific threats or an imminent attack.

Chertoff reiterated his concern that terrorists could sneak radiological material into the country on small boats or private aircraft. This material could be used to create an explosive device known as a "dirty bomb."...

Morocco to send "moderate" Muslim preachers to Europe to fight "extremism" in Moroccan communities during Ramadan

Where did the "immoderate" ones come from? And what, again, constitutes moderation?

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert. "Morocco sends moderate Muslim preachers to Europe," from the Associated Press, July 17:

RABAT, Morocco - Morocco plans to send scores of moderate Muslim preachers to Europe during the holy month of Ramadan to help fight extremism in the Moroccan community abroad, the ministry for religious affairs said Thursday.

The government will send 167 men and nine women preachers to address Moroccan immigrants during Ramadan, which runs during September this year. Muslims traditionally fast and attend sermons at mosques during the holy month.

The preachers are instructed to "answer the religious needs of the Moroccan community abroad, to protect it from any speeches of extremism or irregular nature, and to shelter it from extremism and fanaticism," said a statement from the religious affairs ministry in Rabat, the Moroccan capital.

Abdellatif Begdouri Achkari, the religious affairs minister's chief of staff, said Morocco has been sending preachers to minister to expatriates for many years but hand-picked the latest batch to make sure they specifically address extremism.

"The needs of the Moroccan community abroad may vary from one community to another, and these needs evolve with time," Achkari told The Associated Press.

Islam is Morocco's state religion and King Mohammed VI is officially "the commander of the believers."

But the country's official, moderate practice has faced a growing wave of extremism in recent years. Security officials have voiced concerns about terrorist links among Moroccans and dual Moroccan-European citizens. Suicide bombers killed dozens of people in attacks in Casablanca in May 2003.

The religious affairs ministry said 100 preachers would go to France and Belgium, while Italy and Germany would get 10 each, and Spain and the Netherlands seven. The rest will head to Scandinavia and Britain, while one preacher will go to Canada.

Strict criteria were applied in choosing the candidates. Besides being well-versed in the Quran and knowledgeable about theology, they must be "known for their good reputation, devout beliefs and high moral standards," the ministry said.

There are an estimated 3.3 million Moroccans living abroad, 10 percent of the total Moroccan population. Most live in Spain, France and Belgium or the Netherlands.

Hamas: Egyptian negotiators too pro-Israeli; we'll see if Germany can get us a better deal for Schalit's release

Emboldened by the assymmetrical swap with Hizballah, Hamas wants more. "Hamas: Germany will get us a better deal on returning Schalit," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, July 18:

In the aftermath of Wednesday's prisoner swap between Israel and Hizbullah, there are increasing calls in Hamas to replace the Egyptian mediators with German intermediaries in the talks on abducted IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit.

Several Hamas officials have been quoted over the past 24 hours as expressing deep disappointment with the way the Egyptians have been handling the Schalit mediation effort.

"The Egyptians have proved that they are unable to put enough pressure on Israel to accept our demands," one Hamas official reportedly said.

Another Hamas official said his movement was under the impression that the Egyptians "were on Israel's side more than on our side."

It may not be so much that Egyptians are trying to cut a great deal for Israel's sake as it is that they stand next in line after Israel to lose the most from a stronger, bolder Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has smuggled weapons continuously from the Egyptian side of the border, and has already blown open a border crossing with Egypt once. For that matter, an increase the stature of Hamas, which is itself an Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, could energize the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and add to the threat to the current regime (which, of course, is no prize either).

Hizballah now moving into Lebanese towns without Shi'ite majorities

Not only has the Lebanese government shown it won't challenge Hizballah's increasing presence, it has allowed the group veto power in governmental decisions, and has shown the depth of its support for Hizballah's jihad by giving Samir Kuntar a hero's welcome, even in Beirut. If it is trying to liquidate any and all international sympathy it garnered due to the Hariri and Gemayel assassinations, its efforts to shake off Syrian influence, and its brief resistance to Hizballah in May, it's doing a fine job.

"Hizbullah moves into 'every town'," by Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post, July 18:

Hizbullah is bolstering its presence in south Lebanon villages with non-Shi'ite majorities by buying land and using it to build military positions and store missiles and launchers, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The decision to build infrastructure in non-Shi'ite villages - where Hizbullah has less support - is part of the group's post-war strategy under which it has mostly abandoned the "nature reserves," forested areas in southern Lebanon where it kept most of its Katyusha rocket launchers before the Second Lebanon War.

Behind the change is the mandate given to UNIFIL by the United Nations after the war in 2006. According to the mandate, the peacekeeping force can patrol freely throughout southern Lebanon but cannot enter villages or cities without being accompanied by soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces, which regularly tips off Hizbullah ahead of the raids.

News of the change in Hizbullah strategy came as Israel is trying to persuade the UN to strengthen UNIFIL's mandate to give it the right to patrol the villages freely.

"Hizbullah is moving into every town that it can," a senior defense official told the Post. "This is in order to evade UNIFIL detection."

On Thursday, Lebanese complained they were receiving recorded phone messages from Israel promising "harsh retaliation" for any future Hizbullah attack. The automated messages also warn against allowing Hizbullah to form "a state within a state" in the country....

Update: Altruist turned terrorist motivated by "childhood anger"

So now his original story has changed. He didn't go to Pakistan to "help earthquake survivors," as he first claimed. No, now the real reason he went to Pakistan (only to return with enough information "that would have enabled him or others to carry out terrorist attacks here or abroad in a variety of ways") is "childhood anger." Odd that---especially considering his "hobbies" are "Islamic history, jurisprudence, warfare - contemporary, historical and classical warfare - books on jihad in the past, jihad today." We've a classic chicken-or-the-egg conundrum here. Did "childhood angers" lead him to the study of jihad (which only validated them) or did the study of jihad lead to his "childhood angers"? Or is he simply another jihadist trying to exploit the Western proclivity to sympathize with angry children? "Anger fuelled jihad interest," from the Yorkshire Evening Post, July17:

A MUSLIM caught with computer files about weapons, explosives and poisons, told a court how childhood "anger" fuelled his interest in "jihad".

Officers found the material on a laptop hard drive in Aabid Khan's luggage when they arrested him at Manchester Airport on his return from Pakistan two years ago.

He is in the dock at London's Southwark Crown Court alongside three co-accused, including Hammaad Munshi, 18, from Saville Town, Dewsbury, who were detained during raids in West Yorkshire and London.

The 23-year-old, of Otley Road, Undercliffe, Bradford, said by the age of 12 he was so concerned about the suffering of fellow believers overseas he regularly accessed internet news bulletins about them.

The four accused, which also includes Sultan Muhammad, 23, of Hanover Square, Manningham and Ahmed Sulieman, 30, from south-east London, variously deny 13 counts of possessing articles for a purpose connected with terrorism and making a record of information likely to be useful in terrorism between November 23 2005 and June 20 2006.

Freed Lebanese jihadists vow to continue fighting Israel

Gee, didn't see that coming. "Freed Lebanese prisoners vow to fight Israel," by Zeina Karam for the Associated Press July 17:

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Five militants freed in a prisoner swap with Israel prayed and laid wreaths at the grave of a slain Hezbollah commander Thursday, vowing to fight Israel as supporters showered them with rice.

Eight tractor-trailers loaded with coffins carrying the remains of 199 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters returned by Israel in the swap made their way from south Lebanon to the capital Beirut. Villagers showered rice and rose petals on the coffins wrapped in Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and covered with flowers. A banner on one of the red and yellow trucks read, "The Martyrs of Victory."

The vehicles were stopped often along the route by throngs of supporters, some of them women relatives in black headscarves and clothing who held up pictures of those killed in fighting with Israel over the past three decades.

In Beirut, the five freed prisoners dressed in military fatigues walked a red carpet laid out for them to the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a shadowy figure Israel and the West accused of masterminding terrorist bombings in the 1980s and 1990s. He was killed in a car bomb in neighboring Syria in February which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Israel denied it.

"We swear by God ... to continue on your same path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature that God bestowed on you," said Samir Kantar, who had been the longest-held Lebanese prisoner in Israel.

He referred to Mughniyeh's "martyrdom," saying, "This is our great wish. We envy you and we will achieve it, God willing." [...]

Later in the day, hundreds of people welcomed Kantar in his hometown of Abey, a mountain hamlet 10 miles south of Beirut.

"This time yesterday, I was in the hands of the enemy. But at this moment, I am yearning more than before to confront them," Kantar said.

Obama shuns Michigan Muslims

This is a phenomenon I explained here. "They've met with other communities, so why is the Arab-American, Muslim community out of the loop?'' Because Obama, or at least those around him, recognize that there is real concern about Muslims in America. Whether he recognizes that there are any legitimate grounds for such concern is another question.

"Obama Steers Clear of Michigan Muslims He May Need to Win State," by Heidi Przybyla for Bloomberg, July 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- The cover of this week's New Yorker magazine may explain why Barack Obama isn't reaching out to Michigan's Muslims.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is shown in the Oval Office, wearing a turban and bumping fists with his wife, Michelle, who is in combat boots with a rifle slung over her shoulder. The cartoon, intended as satire, is a reminder of the dangers of any association with Muslims for Obama, who has fought false rumors that his middle name, Hussein, indicates he was born into the Islamic faith.

Muslim- and Arab-Americans represent 4 percent of the vote in Michigan, a battleground in this year's election. Yet Obama, who has held 13 events in the state during the presidential campaign, hasn't visited a mosque or met with Muslim leaders.

Bill Ballenger, editor of the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, said Obama, 46, has to strike a delicate balance. The Illinois senator ``doesn't have to pander'' to such voters, who are likely to back him anyway, though he can ill- afford to ``dismiss them in an arrogant fashion.''

While Obama is leading in Michigan polls, some politicians said it would be a mistake for him not to actively court the state's Muslim voters, who went for Democrat John Kerry four years ago and Republican George W. Bush in 2000. [...]

``We're not asking for much,'' said Imad Hamad, regional director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn. ``We're asking for equal opportunity and equal time and equal respect. They've met with other communities, so why is the Arab-American, Muslim community out of the loop?''

Some Muslim Obama backers said they understood their candidate's motivation in keeping his distance.

``There's an Islamophobic wave,'' said Ron Amen, an Obama volunteer who is also the facility manager at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn. ``I understand him making an effort to convince people that he's not a Muslim; I don't want to see Obama get saddled with any more baggage as a result of support from Arabs and Muslims.''

UPDATE: Debbie Schlussel says this story is false, and that Obama has been meeting privately with Muslim leaders in Michigan -- including one with ties to Hizballah.

Telling the truth is Islam-bashing?

A question I have often asked.

The courageous Iranian dissident Amil Imani considers it here.

Pakistani clerics: End U.S. involvement in Pakistan, enforce Islamic law

"The West and the Jews are conspiring against Muslims and Islam on a big scale, and are using different strategies to impose a Western system on Muslim nations."

"Clerics: End U.S. Involvement In Pakistan, Enforce Islamic System," from MEMRI, July 16 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

A conference of Pakistani clerics has demanded an end to U.S. involvement in Pakistan’s internal affairs and enforcement of shari’a in the country....

The conference was organized by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F). According to the newspaper report, Jamiat leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman told the conference that that the struggle to make Pakistan stable and shari’a-compliant should continue.

Also according to the report, Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani, the Emir of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) in the Baluchistan province, said that the West and the Jews are conspiring against Muslims and Islam on a big scale, and are using different strategies to impose a Western system on Muslim nations.

Speaking on the occasion, Jamiat Secretary General Maulana Abdul Ghafur Haidari said that all rulers of a nation (Pakistan) created in the name of Islam have put Islamic teachings on the back burner and have adopted policies to please their Western masters.

Source: Roznama Jang, Pakistan, July 11, 2008

New York: Muslim stabs his sister because she was a "bad Muslim girl"

Avenger of bad Muslim girls

An attempt to add to the rapidly increasing number of Islamic honor killings in the U.S. Is this the kind of society we want to have in America? Are the assumptions that underlie this practice really compatible with Western principles of the rights and dignity of the human being? If our public officials at this point truly had the best interests of American society at heart, they would begin to examine this phenomenon as part of an examination of Muslim immigration into the U.S., with an eye toward ending that immigration. They would be calling upon Islamic groups in America to confront and fight against the assumptions that lead to honor killing.

Instead, we get the boilerplate "this has nothing to do with Islam" statement in this article, and the blaming of "South Asians" again. Yet Amina and Sarah Said were murdered by their father just months ago -- and they were Egyptians, not South Asians. If this practice has nothing to do with Islam, why did Jordan's Parliament quash an attempt a few years back to stiffen penalties for honor killings -- with Islamic politicians leading the way and making their arguments on Islamic grounds? When will American officials call on Muslim leaders in the U.S. to stop the blame-shifting and finger-pointing and take some real action against this practice?

"Henrietta Muslim knifing called 'honor attack,'" by Michael Zeigler for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, July 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Infuriated because his younger sister was going to clubs, wearing immodest clothing and planning to leave her family for a new life in New York City, Waheed Allah Mohammad stabbed her outside their Henrietta home, prosecutors allege.

Afterward, he told Monroe County sheriff's investigators that he attacked his sister because she had disgraced their family and was a "bad Muslim girl," according to court documents.

Mohammad, 22, is scheduled to appear Friday in Monroe County Court on charges of attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the May 8 attack on Fauzia A. Mohammad, 19.

The case is the second in four years in Monroe County in which an immigrant from South Asia is alleged to have killed or tried to kill a family member over the perceived loss of family honor — an occurrence that is not uncommon in South Asia but is rare in the United States.

Although the defendants in both cases are Muslims, resorting to homicide to restore family honor in mostly Muslim South Asia is a custom that predates Islam, said Aly Nahas, a retired professor of pharmacology at the University of Rochester who is a student of Islamic tradition.

"In my belief, it has nothing to do with Islam," said Nahas, a practicing Muslim. "I know Islam well, and I do not believe it is Islamic. There is nothing in Islam that talks about honor killing."

Nahas said, however, that many Westerners don't accept his assertion.

"And they will not because it occurs in countries that have been Muslim for 1,000 years," he said. "People will ask, 'Why isn't it stopped?' I can't answer that."

According to the United Nations Population Fund, up to 5,000 women are killed each year in South Asia for allegedly disgracing their families. Some of the women are killed after becoming rape victims or rejecting arranged marriages.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph Waldorf, who is prosecuting Mohammad, declined to characterize the case as an "honor attack" or otherwise.

Fauzia Mohammad is recovering from her wounds, Waldorf said....

"As Muslims we have fully integrated into British society, but we have no desire to assimilate to an inferior culture"

Foster Friess, who, among other things, is on a mission to help truly peaceful Muslims, such as Tawfik Hamid, moderate their faith, writes a revealing article in his blog demonstrating the many obstacles on the way to reform: “My meetings with Iraqi Shiite clerics angered me,” by Foster Friess, July 16:

I spent a long weekend in London meeting with a handful of prominent Iraqis, including two leading Shiite clerics. The group’s mission is to memorialize the brutality that existed under Saddam Hussein and to create a museum akin to the Holocaust Museum.
[...]

On a visit to Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner, I engaged a British Imam. Here are a few highlights of that exchange:

Should leaving the Islamic faith be punishable by death? His response, "In Britain, no, but in an Islamic state, yes." In an Isalmic state, conversion to a different religion is considered synonymous with treason.

Some people are concerned about Muslim immigrants not assimilating into the British culture. The Imam's response - "As Muslims we have fully integrated into British society, but we have no desire to assimilate to an inferior culture." Ironically, Britain today has "reverse assimilation" as exemplified by the fact that British police sniffer dogs wear "booties" with rubber soles so as not to offend Muslims.

On the Muslim who was found not guilty of beating his wife in a German secular court because it did not violate Shari'a law, his response was, "Just as we punish our children to reprimand them, so too sometimes it is justifiable to reprimand our wives. It is our duty."

How does a multiculturalist embrace two cultures where one hangs homosexuals as they did the 14-year old boy in Iran last month, while the other protects and advances the rights of homosexuals? Similarly, is multiculturalism possible when we contrast Islam with Christianity?

One says the Quran must dictate the function of government in a theocratic caliphate-type system of government. The western worldview embraces Jesus' comment, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God’s”... one of the earliest statements on the separation of church and state. How do multiculturalists justify the concept of religious freedom and a culture that kills those who leave the Muslim faith?

Dining at the House of Lords, graciously hosted by Baroness Caroline Cox and Lord Malcolm Pearson, joined by my friend Gerard Batten, who ran for Mayor of London, we discussed the impact of political correctness on British culture. A UK judge recently said that Shari'a law is permissible in domestic relationships, distressing women's rights advocates.

Adding to this, the recent resolution passed by the United Nations, banning criticism of Islam and Mohammed, essentially making it akin to 'hate speech', drives all of us to discern what we can do, as private citizens on both sides of the pond, to maintain the free speech traditions we've enjoyed in western civilization, and for which so many have died.

Fitzgerald: McCain admires "the Islam"

"I admire the Islam [sic]. There are a lot of good principles in it." -- John McCain

This comment is worth holding up for inspection and criticism.

The Republican McCain is still apparently a sentimentalist, because still apparently misinformed, or under-informed, about Islam.

McCain tells us that he admires "the Islam." And he admires it because there are "a lot of good principles in it." What are those "good principles"? And is there anything else in Islam -- in the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira -- that might lead non-Muslims to worry, and not just a bit, about the Muslim texts and tenets as they relate to all non-Muslims? Anything at all? And, further, is there anything in the observable behavior of Muslims today, and not just those in Al-Qaeda or a hundred other groups, or ten thousand groupuscules from Pakistan to Great Britain, from Thailand to France, from Algeria to Russia, that should give non-Muslims pause?

The next President should be someone who does not have to learn about Islam, but will have learned already. Neither candidate at this point is satisfactory. Not McCain, with his sentimentalism that echoes that of Bush: the Higher Bomfoggery, in which we are asked to belief that deep beliefs do not matter, that despite what Islam teaches, deep down inside People Are the Same and All Want The Same Things The Whole World Over. It isn't true.

McCain's insistent clinging to Tarbaby Iraq bespeaks a miscomprehension of the main instruments of Jihad, and the best use to which Iraq, or rather the sectarian and ethnic fissures in Iraq, which are not to be solved or even mitigated by American intervention, could be put to use or exploited in order to divide and demoralize and thereby weaken the Camp of Islam and Jihad.

Neither Obama, nor McCain, has ever visited the real Muslim societies of the Middle East or Pakistan, and now it is too late for them to learn anything, because every visit for a dignitary is a false visit, a portable Potemkin village, that is immediately inflated on arrival of the prominent visitor. It is a Potemkin village not physical, but intellectual, in the facade thrown up by the local leaders, as they make claims, and pretend this, or feign indignation about that, and keep far away from the texts and tenets that really explain their indignation, their pretenses, their claims.

But it is not too late for the sentimental Tarbaby-Iraq-clinging McCain to start reading, start listening to intelligent expositors (expositors, not espositors), and beginning to do what millions of people in the Western world have done, or have started to do, over the past seven years -- which is to learn what is in the Qur'an, Hadith, Sira, to find out what is on Muslim websites, to look at what is the daily fare on Muslim (especially Arab) television, including the sermons of respected clerics. In other words, it is not too late for him to do something as utterly unremarkable as to educate himself.

McCain should know better than to subscribe to the naive assumptions of the kind that George Bush has made, in his own version of the Higher Bomfoggery -- that is, the dreamy belief that other peoples' beliefs don't really matter, that they don't really take them seriously, because you, you see, don't take your beliefs that seriously, or your beliefs are strictly religious in nature, and not also political and geopolitical. Those who fall prey to this fail to recognize that Islam is a unique case, unlike any other of the world's faiths that we call, faute de mieux, "religions." It is, rather, a Total Belief-System, and the Five Pillars of worship -- shehada, zakat, salat, ramadan, hajj --hardly exhaust Islam. What is central to Islam, not tangential, is the duty of "jihad," that is, the "struggle" to remove all obstacles, wherever they may be, of whatever sort they may be (the American Constitution, and especially the First Amendment, is a formidable obstacle to Islam), to the spread, and then the necessary dominance, of Islam.

The next President should be someone sufficiently well-versed in Islam to understand that Jihad is not now mainly being conducted by warfare, in the traditional sense. The main weapons of Jihad, especially in Western Europe, are the Money Weapon (which comes mainly from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs) and campaigns of Da'wa. These campaigns are well-financed and carefully targeted at certain populations, those that are socio-economically marginal, such as black prisoners. Such men are already alienated from the circumambient society. The campaigns also target the psychically marginal, including the usual upper-class twits or spoiled and confused brats On Their Spiritual Search, who keep getting on and off the bus, but when they get off the bus at the stop marked "Islam" they are prevented from ever getting back on again.

It would be a great idea for both McCain and Obama -- and the one who does it first will win a great many votes, and should -- to meet with, to talk to, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Wafa Sultan, and Ibn Warraq. They should find out about Islam not from the espositos and armstrongs, not from the bought-and-paid-for boys or the apologists for Islam. The fiasco in Iraq comes directly from a failure of intelligence: of intelligence about Islam, and about how to weaken the Camp of Islam and Jihad. (See my article "The Failure in Iraq Is A Failure Of Intelligence.") The next president cannot do either of two things. He cannot squander the lives of men, and money, and materiel, and morale, in any more acts of sentimental messianism, as the fiasco in Iraq has been. And he cannot, even though he should immediately withdraw from Iraq, ignore the real threat of Islam because of the unhappy and wrong-headed undertaking in Iraq, but must more cunningly resurrect a NATO-like alliance that will again harness the power, and the intelligence -- in every sense -- of those most aware of the civilizational legacy they inherited and are morally obligated to defend.

McCain seems less willing to grasp reality, or to supplant the false reality supplied by the Bush Administration with the true reality of Iraq as presenting, on a platter, sectarian and ethnic fissures that it would be foolish to ignore, foolish not to recognize and exploit in furtherance of our goal, which after all should not be lost sight of: to weaken the Camp of Islam and Jihad everywhere in the world. No more invasions of this nature are needed. Rapid attacks on military targets, such as a nuclear project, of course. Rapid seizure of easily-seized territories whose populations are either non-Muslims or non-Arab Muslims, both suffering from genocidal attacks by Arab Muslims -- as in the southern Sudan, as in Darfur -- of course. That not only can be done, but should be done, simultaneously with a withdrawal from Iraq, to make sure that nobody gets the wrong, and everybody gets the right, idea.

Is McCain up to it?

So far, it doesn't look good.

Obama and McCain have a great responsibility. They are asking us to trust them, to trust them with the adequate protection of the West, and indeed of the entire Infidel world, against the forces of Jihad, and against the many, and varied, instruments of Jihad -- including what Robert Spencer has called "the Stealth Jihad."

Yet neither has given any signs that he has been studying the texts, the tenets, the attitudes, the true atmospherics of Islam -- not what smiling Kenyan relatives, not what childhood companions, making faces and acting up in class, tell you.

We have a right, we voters, to demand that they do. They can start with the texts, and a meeting, or two, or five, with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq. I've met all three. They won't bite. They're articulate, intelligent, humorous, wonderful. What more could a candidate ask for, surrounded as he is by the dullards of official politics and fund-raising and all the rest of it?

Good God, come to think of it, what more could anyone ask for, then to spend time with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, and Ibn Warraq?

Next: a Harry Potter jihadi series?

Just when you thought Harry Potter was a Zionist agent comes this: "Call them the Harry Potter books on Islam," by Syed Ali Mujtaba for the Dinar Standard, July 16:

[A] New Delhi based publisher, Saniyasnain Khan has come up with the splendid idea to bring out a wide range of children’s books on Islam in English. Published under the banner Goodword Books, its popularity is slowly climbing the charts, and distributors call them the Harry Potter books on Islam.

[…]

Originally known as Al-Risala [Arabic for "the Message"], Goodword Books boasts a wide range of children’s products: Islamic children's books, Islamic story books, board games, puzzles, gift packs, coloring books, mazes, crosswords, word searches, Quran stories, seerah stories, and many more exciting and fun-filled ideas and activities. With a hundred distributors in 20 countries its main markets are the UK, USA, India and Pakistan.

[…]

Some of the titles: Tell Me About the Prophet Muhammad, Tell Me About Hajj, Tell Me About the Prophet Musa, Tell Me About the Prophet Yusuf, My First Quran Storybook, and many more are very popular. His books have been translated into French, Danish, Turkish, Urdu, Arabic, Malay, and Uzbek languages.

One can't help but wonder if these themes meet Saudi Arabia's children-textbook standards?

Talking to DinarStandard Saniyasnain Khan says Islam is essentially a religion of peace and harmony but there are two main reasons why some people dislike Muslims and Islam. One is violence that has been associated with it while the other is the perceived bad treatment of women by Muslims.

‘I felt that there was a pressing need to educate the new generation about the real Islamic values so that they become little ambassadors of Islamic goodness and they also stimulate them to learn about Islamic ideals as they grow up,’ said Mr. Khan, whose first book “Tell Me About Hajj” has sold over 30,000 copies.

"Children get a lot of negative information about Islam. There is a big need to give them the right picture so that they grow up to be peace-loving individuals” said Mr. Khan who often contributes articles on spirituality to the Times of India.

Interesting statement. At first, when Khan says that Muslim children “get a lot of negative information about Islam” it seemed that he was indicating the negative “propaganda” surrounding Islam. But the “big need to give them the right picture so that they grow up to be peace-loving individuals” implies that the “negative information” about Islam isn’t what infidels say about it, but how Muslim adults teach it.

A trustee of CPS International, a non-profit organization working towards peace and spirituality, Khan says “my endeavor is to present books for children that provide a solid foundation of Islamic moral values. The basic purpose of these books is to teach themes carefully chosen from the Quran and other Islamic sources so that the children not only learn its ethical values but also embody them in their lives.”

Why all the "care" when choosing themes, Mr. Khan? Why not represent them all? Surely you don't find some of those "themes" problematic?

[…]

Goodword’s area of specialization is Islamic stories for children based on the Quran and Hadith. There are more than 500 plus titles to its credit. These books are completely dedicated to developing meaningful and wholesome Islamic and moral values.

[…]

Mr. Khan, sums up his dream saying the long term vision of Goodword is to generate the love of Islam in children and young people so that when they grow up they spread its beauty around them.

Saudi king says they're tacking terror's "intellectual roots"; Saudi textbooks still teach jihad against infidels

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, July 15, 2008, as quoted in "Dialogue will remove mistrust: King," by P.K. Abdul Ghafour for Arab News, July 16, 2008:

We have adopted a comprehensive anti-terror strategy that not only focuses on the security side but also includes preventing financing of terrorism and dealing with its intellectual roots as well as rehabilitating the followers of deviant ideologies after giving them counseling.

Yet these "intellectual roots" of jihad violence remain undealt with:

Center for Religious Freedom of Hudson Institute, "2007-2008 Academic Year Excerpts from Saudi Ministry of Education Textbooks for Islamic Studies: Arabic with English Translation":

When God sent his Prophet Muhammad, He abrogated with his law all [other] laws and He commanded all people, including the people of the book, to believe him and to follow him. The people of the book should have been the first to believe him because they find him in their scriptures. Their prophets had informed them of Muhammad's mission. But most of them denied and rejected him.

The clash between this [Muslim] nation and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills. In this hadith, Muhammad gives us an example of the battle between the Muslims and the Jews.

Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, "The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him. Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.’"

Al-Bukhari: 103/6, number 2926. Volume: Jihad; Chapter: Fighting the Jews. But it does not contain "except for the gharqad..." [The hadith is also cited in] Muslim, including said expression: 2239/4, number 2922. Volume: Pertaining to the turmoil and portents of the last hour; chapter: The hour [of judgment] will not come until a man passes by a man's grave and wishes to take the place of the deceased.

Thanks to Paul Green.

Pakistan: Tensions over rumors of burnt Qur'an

What if this unfortunate child really had burnt a Qur'an, or used a page from it as wrapping paper? How would that have harmed the Muslims who called for his punishment and who may have beaten him? "Pakistan: Tension grips town over Koran burning," from AKI, July 17 (thanks to C.C.):

Hyderabad, 17 July (AKI/DAWN) - Tension gripped a small town in Pakistan, after rumours that a Hindu child had burnt a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

The incident took place in a remote mountainous area between Hyderabad and Karachi.

Following the incident, people reportedly gathered in the town of Thano Ahmed Khan to pressure police to take action against the child.

Later it was revealed that the child, who works in a grocery store, had mistakenly given a buyer some goods wrapped in a page from a textbook which had a Koranic verse on it.

According to reports, the child was taken to a guesthouse, stripped and beaten up. Another report, denied by police, said that the boy was paraded naked in the area.

The boy's father, Maharaj Jaman Das, who holds an important religious position in the community, offered an unconditional apology to the protesters and said his son did not know what was written on the paper.

Police tried to verify the incident but no one in Thano Ahmed Khan could produce the paper which contained the Koranic verse.

Police in Thano Bula Khan told the Pakistani daily, Dawn, that no charges had been laid as no one had given any evidence that an act of blasphemy had occurred.

Israelis worried that prisoner release could embolden Hizballah

"Anyone that kidnaps an Israeli will now know that Israel is willing to pay an extremely high price, totally out of proportion with what the other side will pay."

No kidding, you think that might embolden Hizballah?

"Israelis uneasy over prisoner release: Critics say the deal, which they see as lopsided, could embolden Hezbollah," by Ilene R. Prusher and Joshua Mitnick for the Christian Science Monitor, July 17 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

JERUSALEM and NAHARIYA, ISRAEL - Israel received two black coffins on Wednesday containing the remains of the soldiers abducted in a Hezbollah raid at Israel's northern border two summers ago – a surprise attack whose aftereffects are still reverberating.

The long-awaited prisoner exchange, far from closing a chapter that included a 34-day war and raising hopes for peace, instead has Israel grieving over its losses and watching for further military maneuvers by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Moreover, the inherent disparity of the deal has sparked concerns that it will embolden Hezbollah, Hamas, and other foes of Israel to kidnap soldiers and civilians, knowing that they can extract large concessions. Israel agreed to receive the soldiers dead or alive in exchange for the remains of 200 Lebanese as well as the release of five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Kuntar, who was convicted of murdering an Israeli father and child in Nahariya nearly 30 years ago.

"Anyone that kidnaps an Israeli will now know that Israel is willing to pay an extremely high price, totally out of proportion with what the other side will pay," says Danny Yatom, former head of Mossad, the intelligence agency....

Pat Buchanan says Israeli "Fifth Column" stirring up war with Iran

Pat Buchanan has been going from bad to worse, suggesting that the war against Hitler was unnecessary, and now charging that "Israel and its Fifth Column in this city seek to stampede us into war with Iran."

Fifth Column. The term comes from the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalist General Emilio Mola said he had four columns approaching the city, and a fifth column already inside the city. The Fifth Column, then, would undermine the enemy from within, by spying, sabotage, etc.

So Pat Buchanan is saying that Israel is actually trying to undermine and destroy the United States. He glosses over the real evidence of genocidal intentions among the mullahcracy, the reality of Iran's nuclear program, and the obligations of the United States' alliance with Israel.

And Pat Buchanan has had nothing whatsoever to say about a real Fifth Column that has stated its intentions quite clearly:

The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

That's from "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," a 1991 presentation by Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram.

Of course, Pat Buchanan is not alone in ignoring this and pointing the finger at other, chimerical threats.

Fitzgerald: The speech Obama should deliver

"We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair." -- Barack Obama, in a statement a few days after the 9/11/2001 attacks, quoted by Michele Malkin here

I think that paragraph deserves a little rewriting. And I would like to track much of its language, to recycle it even -- thrift, thrift, all you Horatios! -- so that instead of being about the murderers, and about the possible sources, as Obama saw it, of what he also saw as their mental disarray, having nothing to do with Islam, it becomes instead a paragraph about some of the Infidel victims or potential victims of the carriers of that ideology, the Total Belief-System of Islam. We know, after all, we who have taken the time to study, what is actually in, and not what is dreamily and vaguely told us is in, the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira. We can read. And we can read hundreds of Western scholars who studied and wrote about Islam, especially before the Great Inhibition set in, and Muslims and non-Muslim apologists for Islam, often backed by Arab money, took over most of the teaching about Islam and the Middle East all over the academic archipelago.

And even better than Joseph Schacht or Henri Lammens or Snouck Hurgronje or Edmond Fagnan or Ignaz Goldziher, has been the testimony of those born into and raised up within Islam -- people who not only know the texts and tenets, but have seen the effect of those texts and tenets on real people, Muslims among whom they lived. In fact, among them they themselves were to be counted, until, in the free West, they began to think, and to compare, and to contrast, and to study both Islam and the free societies of the West. These are our most valuable witnesses -- Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, and many others -- for they, the most morally and intellectually advanced people born into Islam, have now, in our free but imperiled West, truthfully conveyed to us what this ideology is all about and how it works on the minds of men.

Barack Obama, back in late September 2001, completely ignored Islam itself. He found the roots for Muslim terrorism not in Islam but in "a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair." He did this because he did not and does not know the contents of Islamic texts, and the tenets and attitudes that naturally arise from them. He did not ask himself then -- has he done so since? -- why it is that of all the impoverished and despairing peoples of this world, only Muslims seem to behave this way. Surely there is plenty of suffering among the poor Hindus in rural or urban India, or among Andean Indians, or the poor in Brazilian favelas, or in sub-Saharan Africa. But while there may be individual crime and violence, there is no ideology that inculcates the need for, and holds out the greatest of rewards for, violence toward vast numbers of people -- people who are remote in space, people who, far from being responsible for any of that "poverty" and "despair," have often gone out of their way to lavish aid on so many Muslims.

What Obama does not wish to consider is what so many do not wish to think about: could it not be that the very "poverty" and "despair" of Muslims is a result of the belief-system to which they adhere? Could that belief-system lead to the despotisms and inshallah-fatalism that discourages intelligent remedial action? Does it instead supply the universal and permanent explanation and scapegoat, the Infidel, the same Infidel with whom, Muslims are taught, they are in a permanent state of war (though not always of open warfare)?

What Obama could not, and apparently cannot, allow himself to do is to investigate the nature of Islam, to find out what it teaches about Believers and Infidels. I can help out a bit. I can tell him, right now, right here, that Islam is based on a clear division of the universe between Believers and Infidels. The former owe their allegiance, their sole allegiance, to fellow members of the Umma, and to Islam itself. They all have a duty to engage in the "struggle" or Jihad to promote Islam, to remove all barriers or obstacles to the spread, and then to the certain dominance, of Islam. This need not be pursued only, or mainly, through the instrument of qitaal, or combat -- the main instrument available in Muhammad's day. Nor need it necessarily require individual participation in acts of violence, though many who do not so participate nonetheless offer financial and moral support, and do not denounce the use of violence --either qitaal in the conventional sense, or those acts which we Infidels have no trouble identifying as terrorism and that many Muslims regard simply as another form of qitaal, one justified by the conventional military superiority of the Infidel enemy. Obama knows as little about Islam as McCain does, or Bush. He has failed to notice, much less to name, the other more effective and currently more dangerous, weapons of Jihad: the Money Weapon, Da'wa, and demographic conquest.

Eventually, however, reality will have to break in. Will it be after more squanderings of men, money, materiel, as in Iraq, but this time possibly in Afghanistan? Will it be after a year, or two, or three, go by, without any understanding of how much more effective and less costly it would be to simply identify, and then to exploit, the pre-existing fissures -- sectarian, ethnic, and economic -- within the Camp of Islam?

Now, to get back to Obama's paragraph, and a little editing job.

Again, here’s what Obama wrote in late September 2001, prompted by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

But what does this mean? It’s true. The attackers did have a “fundamental absence of empathy” toward those they attacked. They regarded them as fit objects for murder -- these men and women (and even a few children) working away in an office building. The Muslim terrorists did exhibit an “inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others.” And not only they, but millions of other Muslims, especially in the Middle East, responded to the glad news of the mass-murders of Infidels with wildly honking horns, and hilarity, and dancing in the streets, and handing out bonbons, and inviting people home for special feasts. All of that occurred in Cairo (see Frank “Help Me, I’m A Muslim” Gardner’s report in the BBC, and all over the “Palestinian”-occupied territories, and in Riyadh and Jiddah, and indeed even in Beirut -- see the report by an eyewitness in The Wall Street Journal). It happened everywhere in the Muslim Middle East, that is, except in Iran, among a few hundred Iranians who, sufficiently alienated by the Islamic Republic and by Islam, publicly displayed sympathy for the Americans.

Let’s rework that paragraph so that it is about us, the still-uncomprehending Infidels, rather than about them, the Muslims who are engaged in Jihad, using whatever instruments are available and prove effective. Here is an alternative speech Barack Obama could deliver:

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence on the part of Infidels to imagine what it must be like to grow up within the closed world of Islam, in a civilization of one book, unius libri, which teaches or inculcates the idea that you are not to have any empathy with Infidels, but to regard them with permanent hostility. You are never to connect with the humanity and suffering of others -- which is why, for example, Muslims everywhere are hailing as a hero Samir Kuntar, who killed four Israelis, one of them a four-year-old girl whose head he smashed in. Kuntar was taken, alive, and kept alive and well, by the Israelis, who have just traded him for the bodies of two Israelis taken alive by Hizballah, and then murdered. We in the Western world have lavished every sort of aid, tried to extend every sort of understanding, made for too long every sort of excuse, for all kinds of samir-kuntar-like behavior. We in the advanced Western world have made a cult of tolerance, a cult of understanding, a cult of indifference to the evil inflicted by others -- as in southern Sudan, or southern Thailand, or in Pakistan or Bangladesh -- even where the victims of Islamic supremacism, and violence made legitimate, even mandated, by Islam, have not been white or Western, but have been black, brown, yellow Christians, Hindus, Buddhists.

No, violence is not unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. But we cannot ignore, either, the immutable texts of a particular belief-system, even one that we too easily, too reductively, call, and then endow with the respect we think is due, a “religion.” For Islam is not only, not even mainly, a “religion.” It is also a politics. It is also a geopolitics. The Bush Administration singularly failed to understand that, and out of that failure, other failures came. It chose, further, not only not to examine and understand the ideology of Islam, but chose to identify only one of the instruments of Jihad -- terrorism -- and to focus exclusively on that, by declaring a “war on terrorism.” This confused us, the American people, and it confused the Administration itself. It still does not understand either the doctrine, or the goals, or the instruments, of Jihad. Perhaps because of my own history, what I have taken to calling my “improbable” background, I have been able to be less inhibited, less solicitous of the supposed easy hurt that can be inflicted, so we are told, if we dare to examine and hold up for inspection, much less to act upon whatever threat we come to realize naturally results from, the texts and tenets of Islam. I suffer no such inhibitions.

I understand that ideologies vary; some are good, some less good. Some are in the business of recommending certain behaviors and of discouraging others; other ideologies, more unyielding, do not recommend or discourage but, rather, command and prohibit. And some ideologies offer a model, as we Christians are offered the model of Jesus. We may seldom match, in our own behavior, that model, but the model stands shining before us. Others may be presented, in other faiths, or other belief-systems, with other models. What did Buddha do in this or that circumstance? And what did Confucius say? And there may be yet another kind of model, such as Muhammad, a warrior whose acts and words, offer a model of behavior quite different from that offered by the life of Jesus. Some beliefs do not inculcate permanent hostility toward others; others, on the other hand, may be based on the very idea of a permanent division between the adherents of that faith, and all others, and on the need to subdue the entire world, so that that particular faith everywhere dominates, and adherents of that faith rule, everywhere.

I am not going to allow a diseased sympathy, a dreamy bomfoggery, a misplaced and unexamined belief that “we all want the same things” or, in another variant, “all religions stand for the same things,” to get in the way of an intelligent analysis of the dangers we have passed, and that we are passing, and that are to come. I will not be tied to sentimentalism. I have a responsibility to inform myself, and then to help instruct others, and that comes with the larger responsibility, the first duty of any democratic government, which is to protect the lives and wellbeing of its citizens.

Oh, something like that.

Reality behind crying Gitmo kid vid: "My lasting image of Omar is of him crouched in the rubble waiting for U.S. troops to get close enough so he could take one of them out"

Just a kid

Footage of Omar Khadr weeping and calling out for Mommy has been circulating around, renewing charges that Guantanamo is a torture camp. Yet a soldier who encountered Omar Khadr in different circumstances says that he deserves what he has been getting. "Khadr 'earned' Guantanamo stay, says soldier," by Stewart Bell for the National Post, July 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A retired U.S. soldier who was ambushed by armed fighters holed up in the mud compound where Omar Khadr was captured said on Tuesday the Canadian deserves to be at Guantanamo Bay.

Sergeant Layne Morris said he had not seen the dramatic interrogation video released by Mr. Khadr's lawyers, in which the young detainee cries for help, but he brushed off the footage as a public relations exercise.

Sgt. Morris said the defence lawyers' strategy seemed to be to win sympathy for their client, and that he found it "troublesome" the public had to be constantly reminded of what Mr. Khadr is alleged to have done six years ago.

Indeed.

"My lasting image of Omar is of him crouched in the rubble waiting for U.S. troops to get close enough so he could take one of them out, and he did that successfully and that is the underlying reason why we're all here in the first place," Sgt. Morris said.

"Omar is not a kid that was just snatched up off the street somewhere and has been wrongly charged and judged unfairly. I think he is precisely where he needs to be. He's earned that stay."...

Altruist or Terrorist?

The "Arab mujahadin" who went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation also claimed an altruistic desire to help their fellow Muslims. They also later went on to become al-Qaeda. "Jihad 'interested terror accused,'" from the BBC, July 15:

Aabid Khan, 23, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, told Blackfriars Crown Court he went to Pakistan in 2006 to sell phones and help earthquake survivors.

[…]

Mr Khan told the court he decided to emigrate to Pakistan following his second marriage in 2005, which he did the following year.

He said he and several others hired a taxi to Balakot, which he said was a "staging post" for travelling to areas worst affected by the earthquake.

Mr Khan said: "My purpose for going to that area was to evaluate the situation... to speak to the locals, to see if they needed anything, what kind of help they required.

"I could then ask people in the UK, - friends, relatives and others - to try and help them, whether it's money or whatever else they required."

[...]

When Mr Khan's barrister Abbas Lakha QC asked him what his interests were, he replied: "Islamic history, jurisprudence, warfare - contemporary, historical and classical warfare - books on jihad in the past, jihad today."

We've a future Ayman Zawahiri in the making.

He said his main interests were computers and religious studies.

The prosecution says the contents of his luggage - which Mr Khan says he did not pack himself - "showed he was dedicated to the pursuit of a violent holy war against anyone, any person or any country which did not believe in his religious faith".

Simon Denison, prosecuting, said the information found on him "amounted to a terrorist encyclopaedia or library that would have enabled him or others to carry out terrorist attacks here or abroad in a variety of ways".

Also in the dock are Sultan Muhammad, 23, from Bradford, Ahmed Sulieman, 30, from Woolwich, south-east London, and Hammaad Munshi, 18, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

They deny 13 counts of possessing articles for a purpose connected with terrorism and making a record of information likely to be useful in terrorism between November 2005 and June 2006.

The trial was adjourned until Wednesday.

Hamas says "Let [Israel] answer our demands" as jihadists get heroes' welcome in Lebanon

As predicted here, the exchange of live, guilty jihadists for the bodies of soldiers kidnapped and killed by Hizballah has emboldened Hamas to press its demands in return for the release of Gilad Schalit.

"Lebanese militant released in Israel prisoner swap," by Hussein Dakroub for the Associated Press, July 16:

NAQOURA, Lebanon - Israel freed a notorious Lebanese attacker and four others Wednesday after Hezbollah handed over two black coffins with the bodies of Israeli soldiers, a dramatic prisoner swap that closes a painful chapter from the 2006 war in Lebanon.

The five — including Samir Kantar, who had been serving multiple life terms in Israel for a grisly 1979 attack — were brought home in International Committee for the Red Cross vehicles and received a red-carpet welcome at this coastal border town.

In Israel, family and friends outside the homes of the two captured Israeli soldiers burst into tears when TV images showed Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas taking the coffins out of a black van.

Though officials had suspected Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead, the sight of the coffins was the first confirmation of their fate.

The swap — mediated by a U.N.-appointed German official who shuttled between the sides for 18 months — reopened another searing moment from Israel's past with the release of Samir Kantar and four other Lebanese prisoners.

Kantar was convicted in a 1979 nighttime attack that killed a 4-year-old girl, her father and a policeman. Although polls show Israelis solidly endorse the exchange, many see Kantar as the embodiment of evil.

In Lebanon, a hero's welcome was prepared for Kantar, a Lebanese Druse who acted on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Front, a small faction of the PLO. The swap is likely to provide a significant boost to Hezbollah, which is trying to rebuild a reputation tarnished when it turned its guns on fellow Lebanese in May.

Winning freedom for Kantar was one of the reasons Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah cited at the time for going to war with Israel in 2006.

Wednesday's exchange was a wrenching end to the war for Israel, which launched the fighting in response to the servicemen's capture. The campaign to bring them home had become a national crusade.

Israeli forensic experts examined the remains for several hours, checking dental records among other things, before confirming the soldiers' identities. Israeli generals then went to the families' homes to deliver the news.

"The military bows its head and lowers its flags and warmly embraces the families, remembering its fighters who fell and were held by the enemy for two years," Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, the chief military spokesman, said at the Rosh Hanikra border crossing.

The two soldiers, who were promoted posthumously, are to be buried on Thursday, he said. [...]

In the Gaza Strip, controlled by the violently anti-Israel Hamas group, people handed out sweets to celebrate Kantar's impending release.

Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza's Hamas prime minister, warned Israel that it also will have to "pay the price" for an Israeli soldier that Hamas has been holding since June 2006 and presumed alive.

"There is a captive Israeli soldier, and thousands of our sons are in prison," Haniyeh said. "Let them answer our demands."

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, speaking in Germany, said he hoped Wednesday's prisoner swap would be "the beginning of many to come in the future."

"For a sincere Muslim, guns, warfare and weaponry are...something which enables him to carry out the obligation of the Jihad"

Who said that? Spencer? Bostom? Trifkovic? Davis? Some other greasy Islamophobe?

Nope. It was Momin Khawaja, now on trial in Ontario on terror charges, writing mash notes to his beloved. Of course, the Correct Thinkers would have us believe that Momin Khawaja is yet another Misunderstander of Islam, a benighted fellow who somehow missed the Qur'an's many injunctions of peace and tolerance. Yet still glaringly absent from the scene is the peaceful Muslim group that will teach Muslims -- not eager-to-be-reassured non-Muslims -- that guns, warfare and weaponry are not instruments that enable a Muslim to carry out the obligation of the Jihad, and should indeed be eschewed forever in favor of peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis, under a government that does not establish a religion. The learned analysts continue to assume, without evidence, that most Muslims want this kind of coexistence, and indeed, that they are working for it.

"Emails criticize 'West's dominance,'" by Richard Brennan in the Toronto Star, July 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Here's a sampling of what Momin Khawaja wrote in a series of emails in 2003 with Zeba Khan during an Internet courtship:

• "For a sincere Muslim, guns, warfare and weaponry are a means of defense, a means of deliverance and something which enables him to carry out the obligation of the Jihad . . . a war-like mentality is needed against the . . . governments, armies, supporters because they are at war with us. America is at war with Islam, Israel is at war with Islam . . . how can we put down arms, when today we are in our worst state ever. Country after country is taken over, yet no one is willing to fight."

• "Not a day goes by, that I do not wish to be with the Mujahideen in the front-lines of Jihad."

• "I get really cheesed when I turn on the TV and see all the negative propaganda directed against Islam, the insidious kind, the one where all the badguys in the movies are Muslim terrorists and the evil villain in the movie is a corrupt religious figure and all the women in hijab are oppressed . . . There are no positive Muslim characters in the media these days."

OTTAWA–Momin Khawaja said in a 2003 email that he couldn't stand by and watch "blood-thirsty" imperialists attack Afghanistan and other Muslim countries while he held down a cushy 9-to-5 job.

"There is no excuse deep down, just reaping the benefits of life in the West," wrote Khawaja, who was arrested four years ago and is now on trial in Ontario Superior Court on seven terrorism-related charges, including allegedly funding known terrorists and building a device to be used to explode a 600-kilogram fertilizer bomb in a failed attack on London.

"I was not content with the idea of a 9-to-5 life where you just put on a smiley face and pretend you can't do anything, change anything, while the muslim (sic) world is in flames," the now 29-year-old computer programmer said in an Aug. 8, 2003, email to his former Pakistani fiancée.

Almost 200 pages of emails, most of them related to the courtship between Khawaja and Zeba Khan, 23, were released to the public yesterday. Khawaja worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs as a software developer.

Khawaja wrote that to do nothing was to "watch the West's dominance, blood-thirsty imperialism, and the Ummah's (Muslim world's) oppression. It's just like Bush said ... you are either on their side or our side."

If only Bush had followed through on that.

Calling a spade a spade: jihad, genocide, slavery and sharia law

Any mention of ‘sharia’ is now outlawed at the UNHRC. More reflections by David G. Littman:

“Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” - Lady Macbeth [nor oil from Arabia and the Persian Gulf]

A day after our July 7 report on the UNCHR, “Sharia: What’s in a name?,” Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Terre des Hommes and 20 other NGOs – backed by Iran’s Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi – spoke out against the Iranian policy of executing juvenile offenders under 18. It was pointed out that Iran is a signatory of both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child, “both of which prohibit the execution of persons under the age of 18 at the time of their offence.” A detailed list of 138 child offenders on death row in Iran, including five girls was provided – although the true numbers are said to be very much higher.

The Reuters report (UN, Geneva) also stated a known fact – that “murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran’s sharia law, practised since the 1979 Islamic revolution”. The same sharia law applies in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and other countries where, as in Iran, girls can be married off as early as 9 years old by their fathers. In Saudi Arabia, clandestine forms of slavery are tolerated on a large scale, as described in a recent New York Times article [“Saudi Arabia: Workers Abuse Cited” by Peter Gelling, July 9]. Sudan is just as bad.

* * * * *

This month the Zurich and Washington-based NGO Christian Solidarity International (CSI), led by dedicated activists Dr. John Eibner and Gunnar Wiebalck, facilitated the liberation of 102 Southern Sudanese slaves – Christian and others. This was in addition to the tens of thousands (women and children) freed by CSI since 1995.
The constant denunciation by CSI of the Sudanese regime’s grave human rights violations in the 1990s, particularly its jihadic slavery practises, led to a travesty at the Commission on Human Rights in 1999, after which CSI – on a simple procedural error – lost its accreditation to the United Nations on the initiative of the Sudan.

Five years earlier, Sudan’s ambassador circulated a letter at the UNCHR accusing the UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan, Gaspar Biro, of making a “vicious attack on the religion of Islam”. He alleged that the report “contained abusive, inconsiderate, blasphemous and offensive remarks about the Islamic faith”. In another tract titled, “Attack on Islam” – also distributed at the CHR – it was claimed that portions of the report “represent a vicious attack on the religion of Islam.” In fact, the report merely indicated inconsistencies between the international human rights Conventions (to which Sudan had been a signatory party since 1986) and some provisions of Sudan’s Criminal Act of 1991 that follow the sharia law. In 1994, Sudan failed to impose the charge of “blasphemy”; this was later achieved by the OIC in 1997 on another theme.

CSI’s ouster was a result of another scandalous landmark “affair”. The late Dr. John Garang – the charismatic leader of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and head of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA), the southern mostly Christian rebel force fighting the government of Sudan and its sharia law since 1983 – appeared dramatically at the UNCHR on March 23, 1999 after we had introduced him to Mary Robinson the previous day. He was prevented from speaking for CSI by the Sudanese delegation before he could reach the second sentence in his statement describing “the genocidal character of the war waged by the present regime in Khartoum.” Sudan’s representative raised a point of order claiming that “the statement being made by the representative of CSI was not germane to the agenda item”. Here are the exact words which Garang had spoken at his press conference the previous day, widely circulated to the media and the CHR:

In 1992 the regime in Khartoum declared jihad against the people of southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. Since then jihad has been declared again and again. I ask this very important question: is the jihad a religious right of those who declare and wage it, or is it a violation of the human rights of the people against whom it is declared and waged?

The very next day, a detailed letter was sent by the former Sudanese Prime Minister Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi – ousted in 1989 by Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s coup d’état – to the High Commissioner. In this widely circulated letter to the CHR he referred to jihad and slavery in Sudan; under the heading “War Crimes,” he asked – as a 5th question:

Is it legitimate for the ruling regime in an Islamic State to call for a JIHAD against its citizens, be they Muslims or Christians?

He concluded by affirming that, although no one would justify slavery today, under the sharia “the traditional concept of JIHAD does allow slavery as a by-product.”

* * * * *

As a young journalist at the end of the 19th century, Winston Churchill described the situation in an Arab slave market in Sudan. Over 100 years later, little has changed.

The stronger race soon began to prey upon the simple aboriginals; some of the Arab tribes were camel-breeders; some were goat-herds; some were Baggaras or cow-herds. But all, without exception, were hunters of men. To the great slave-market of Jedda a continual stream of negro captives has flowed for hundreds of years. The invention of gunpowder and the adoption by the Arabs of firearms facilitated the traffic by placing the ignorant negroes at a further disadvantage. Thus the situation in the Sudan for several centuries may be summed up as follows: The dominant race of Arab invaders was increasingly spreading its blood, religion, customs, and language among the black aboriginal population, and at the same time it harried and enslaved them.” [The River War, 1899, page 25]

Non-Muslim slaves in Sudan had always been referred to by UN officials as having been abducted (“abductees”) not enslaved – in order not to offend the regime, the OIC or the Arab League. But African Muslims enslaved today in Darfur by janjaweed militias are called “slaves.” Why this distinction between “abductee” and “slave”?

Finally, evidence of genocide in Darfur – earlier recognized by a Special Rapporteur as being carried out by Arab Muslims against African Muslims – is now recognized (not yet officially at the UN), which led the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to seek an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes since 2003 in Dafur – and genocide against its three main ethnic groups: the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa.

* * * * *

Turning again to the “Sharia Affair” at the UN Human Rights Council on June 16, we also referred to Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi’s denunciation in Geneva of another taboo subject: “In Iran a girl is considered an adult and liable to punishment, even execution, at 9, and a boy at 15.” When referring to these matters in a joint statement for the Association for World Education (AWE) and International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), an inappropriate ‘point of order’ by Iran stopped us. Here is what was said - although the words in brackets were not pronounced as the president had informed us that no mention of ‘sharia’ or an ‘evaluation’ of a religious law would be permitted:

The stoning of women for alleged adultery still occurs regularly in Iran, Sudan and other [Muslim] countries [that apply Sharia law]. In Iran, they are buried up to their waists in pits and [by law] blunt stones are used thereby increasing their agony in death. The marriage age for girls in Iran remains at 9 years [based on Sharia law]. In the year 2000, the Iranian Parliament attempted to increase the age to 14 but the law was overturned by the Council of Guardians [claiming Qur’anic justification].

The delegate of Iran then took the floor on a ‘point of order’ to deny everything:

the statement and the references made by this speaker in this statement is false and has nothing to do with the realities in my country. I just wanted, for the record… he said that…“the stoning of women for adultery still occurs regularly in Iran” – it’s not true, it is completely false, and is out of the question.

In an earlier point of order, Pakistan’s delegate Imran Ahmed Siddiqui declared:

the voices which we hear in this Council and the issues they raise are not unfamiliar. There is an agenda behind it and you have already given a ruling on the discussion of sharia law in this Council. We have strong objections on any discussion, any direct or indirect discussion, any out of context, selective discussion on the sharia law in this Council. I would therefore request the president to exercise his judgement and authority and request the speaker not to touch issues which have already been debarred from discussion in this Council.

Later, on yet another point of order (there were 16), Siddiqui declared, inter alia:

I would like to state again that this is not the forum to discuss religious sensitivity. It will amount to spreading hatred against certain members of the Council.

The “ruling” that he was referring to was made on March 13 2008, when the same Pakistani representative raised a point of order against a statement on behalf of the IHEU, made by its main representative Roy Brown. He claimed: “It is an insult to our faith to discuss sharia law in this forum”. President Doru Costea, on that occasion, did not prohibit discussion of the sharia, but said that “as long as the speaker refrains from making evaluative judgements of any system of law, he may continue”.

* * * * *

It is worth comparing these comments to what Pakistan’s Ambassador Munir Akram stated a decade ago (April 29, 1999) at the CHR, when – speaking on behalf of the OIC – he proposed a resolution on the “Defamation of Islam” (later changed to “Combating the defamation of religions”, but only Islam is mentioned).

"It was Islam which gave the world the first Charter of Human Rights in the Holy Qur'an; the Declaration of Human Rights in Prophet Muhammed's last address; and the first Refugee Convention in the mithâq-i-Medina – The Constitution of Medina."

[UN verbatim recording, summarised in E/CN.4/1999/SR.61, §1-2. For a contradiction of this statement from many scholarly texts on the “The Constitution of Medina”, see Andrew Bostom (Edited), The Legacy of Antisemitism: from Sacred Texts to Solemn History. Foreword by Ibn Warraq (New York: Prometheus Books, 2008), pp. 66-76]

Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim Bin Nasir ath-Thani repeated this general Muslim viewpoint:

There is no doubt that Islam, which preceded the Universal Declaration on Human Rights by fourteen centuries was first in declaring equality among humans in all rights and responsibilities, and in defining rights and freedoms both for individuals and groups." [E/CN.4/1999/SR.13 § 95]

However, in 1981, and on December 7, 1984, the Iranian representative to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, Rajaie Khorassani did not beat about the bush:

Certain concepts in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights needed to be revised (…) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which represented a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition, could not be implemented by Muslims and did not accord with the system of values recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran; his country would therefore not hesitate to violate its traditions, since it had to choose between violating the divine law of the country [sharia] and violating secular conventions. [A/C.3/39/SR. 65, paras. 91-95;