Recently in "Islamophobia" Category

Last Tuesday, while I was speaking at NYU, Leftist students created a diversion and threw pies at me and the other speaker, Elan Journo (they missed me, but got Journo on the shoulder).

In brief:

1. This is assault.
2. This shows the utter intellectual bankruptcy of the Left. They can't answer arguments, so they try to shut down the speakers instead.
3. This shows the Left's thuggery and lack of commitment to free speech and free inquiry.
4. The choice of pies as weapons is intended to ridicule the victims, even if the pies were filled with noxious and/or poisonous substances, thus accomplishing not only the disruption of the event but the portrayal of the victim as a clown, not worth taking seriously (which of course is one of the Alinsky rules).

Here are two accounts of the event (thanks to James):

"NYC: Racist Warmonger Gets Pied," from Infoshop News, November 21:

NYU students disrupted a university event this evening featuring Robert Spencer from "Jihad Watch" and Elan Journo from the "Ayn Rand Institute for Individual Freedom." Students called out the panelists for their Islamophobic, warmongering hate-rhetoric, shouting and launching pies at the speakers. One student was detained, and several were escorted out of the building.

Ironically enough, the "Islamophobic, warmongering hate-rhetoric" that prompted the little Stalinist to stand up and start shouting was my quoting Maulana Maududi, the internationally influential Pakistani jihad theorist.

The event, entitled "The Jihad Still Threatens America," encouraged viscous Islamophobia and promoted aggressive military intervention in majority Muslim nations.

"Viscous" Islamophobia, as opposed to the usual clear and thin Islamophobia.

Speaker Elan Journo actively promotes devastating attacks on Iran, claiming that "victory in World War II required flattening cities, firebombing factories, shops and homes, devastating vast tracts of Germany and Japan.... Victory today requires the same: smashing Iran's totalitarian regime and thus demoralizing the Islamist movement and its many supporters, so that they, too, abandon their cause as futile." Fear-mongering comments such as these promote the expansion of US imperialism, and contribute to the wave of anti-Muslim hate that is sweeping our nation....

Where? What anti-Muslim hate? And note that Muslim hate and terror appears to be just fine with these guys.

While it is disturbing to see hate being expressed on such institutional levels on our campuses, the students' refusal to be silent is an inspiration to us all.

Yes, violence in the name of suppressing free speech sure is an inspiration.

Here is the other, apparently mocking the self-contradictory stance of the "tolerancemongers":

"NYU Tolerancemongers Attack Intolerance With Pie," by Hamilton Nolan for Gawker, November 19:

Last week, Forbes columnist and NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan won our Outrage-off for his column about crazy Muslim murderers lurking amongst us. NYU radicals have struck back with a revolutionary pie-ing of Varadarajan's Islamaphobic allies!

A member of the NYU revolutionary vanguard alerted us to the pie-ing, and her note is reprinted in full below. The victims were Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, and Robert Spencer from "Jihad Watch," both of whom were there to talk about how there is apparently a Jihad, threatening America? Did you know about this?

Anyhow the kids were not about to let this intolerance of opposing viewpoints stand, so they interrupted the guys with a pie assault. Spencer himself writes about his close brush with whipped cream here. One eyewitness account says the two speakers "ended up largely unscathed." Our tipster tells us that the revolutionary cameraperson assigned to film the pie-ing for propaganda purposes "was tackled by security at the very beginning and didn't get any footage."

How are we supposed to repel the Jihadists if our military-age youth can't even stage a proper pie attack? Very troubling indeed....

It's not the whole truth. It's not "Fort Hood massacre was jihad," although even that word comes up. It's not an acknowledgment that the attack was motivated by the same murderous ideology that took down the Twin Towers and that threatens Israel and other free nations around the world every day, but it's a step.

"Senators say Fort Hood shooting was terrorism: Several lawmakers and terror experts at Senate hearings on the Fort Hood shooting Thursday called the incident a terrorist attack, and warned of the danger of homegrown jihad," by Patrik Jonsson for The Christian Science Monitor, November 19:

The Senate Homeland Security Committee Thursday began its probe into the Nov. 5 Fort Hood shooting with few details about what everyone really wants to know: the true motives of alleged shooter Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

Nevertheless, several lawmakers at the hearing called the rampage a terrorist attack.

That label was supported by most of the terror experts who testified at the Senate hearing. Addressing questions about how red flags were missed in the lead-up to the rampage, experts pinpointed a rise in homegrown terrorism and expressed the need for the government to establish, in the words of retired Army Gen. John Keane, "clear specific guidelines as to what is jihadist extremist behavior, how do you identify this behavior, and how does it manifest itself?"

Uh, yeah. One would think that such a thing would have been in place for years now -- long enough for clear-eyed and clear-minded people, i.e., those more interested in truth than in political correctness, to realize that there was nothing "extremist" about Hasan's actions from the standpoint of the Koran and Sunnah. But of course nothing like this is in place at all. CAIR and its allies, with their campaign of intimidation and obfuscation, have made sure of that.

The Fort Hood shooting, like no other incident, has "fueled discussion about the spectre of violent extremist ideology in our midst," said Juan Zarate, the former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism.

"There is no smoking gun that reveals Hasan's true motivations and signaled intent, so the patchwork of data points and behavioral clues in light of the incident ... appear to point to a path of violence," he added. "The question then is whether the data points were seen and evaluated properly."...

No smoking gun. He passed out Korans on the day of the shooting and shouted "Allahu akbar" as he shot, but really, it all could have been about the poor quality of the food available at Fort Hood.

News reports have detailed the failure of the military to report up the chain of command the disturbing and delusionary behavior Hasan exhibited. Some have suggested this was partly because of the fear of appearing to be targeting a Muslim.

"Political correctness played a role," according to Keane. "It shouldn't have to be an act of moral courage on behalf of a soldier to report behavior that we should not be tolerating within the military; it should be an obligation."

Yep.

Secretary Gates, I can save you a lot of time and trouble: no one reported Nidal Hasan because they were afraid of the repercussions that would come to them in this politically correct age. They were afraid of being accused of being racists, bigots, hatemongers, etc. They were afraid of showing up in the next Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Alert.

But it will be interesting to see what creative fiction your investigators come up with in lieu of admitting that.

"Gates orders Army inquiry after Fort Hood killings," from the BBC, November 19 (thanks to Hildegard):

A review of US Army and Pentagon policies has been ordered by the defence secretary in the wake of a shooting at a military base.

The review will include Pentagon medical and personnel programmes, and US military base security.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates appointed a former Army secretary and an ex-Navy chief to report in 45 days.

The review is in addition to others into the Fort Hood shooting in which 13 people were killed.

Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was shot by police during the incident on 5 November, and remains in hospital. He has been charged with 13 counts of murder.

"The shootings at Fort Hood raise a number of troubling questions that demand complete but prompt answers," Mr Gates said at the Pentagon....

Former US Army secretary Togo West and former chief of naval operations, Admiral Vernon Clark will oversee the review.

US President Barack Obama has already ordered a review of the way intelligence agencies handled information about the major.

US intelligence authorities revealed they knew Maj Hasan had been in contact with a cleric sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

An FBI-led task force monitoring the e-mail of Yemen-based US cleric Anwar al-Awlaki said he had communicated with Maj Hasan - a US-born Muslim and army psychiatrist - on 10 to 20 occasions.

However, it was decided that further investigation was not needed, as the content of the messages did not advocate or threaten violence.

They're doing it, of course, under the cover of criminalizing "blasphemy," but the real agenda here is to compel the West to adopt Sharia norms forbidding criticism of Islam, including analysis of the jihad terrorists' motives and goals. This, of course, would leave us mute and defenseless before them.

AP thinks that the free nations of the West will oppose this. But with Barack Obama in the White House, that isn't actually certain. After all, he made sure that the U.S. not only supported, but cosponsored (with Egypt) a similar initiative at the United Nations not too long ago.

Free Speech Death Watch Alert from Pamela at Atlas Shrugs:

Apostate Nonie Darwish, author of "Cruel And Usual Punishment; The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law". and executive director, Former Muslims United, was scheduled to speak at Columbia University today and Princeton University tomorrow, and both events were canceled.

Columbia, where Ahmadinejad was welcomed like a returning king.

Just hours before she was scheduled to speak, the groups (the Debate Society and Tigers of Israel) succumbed to student Muslim groups and canceled her speaking event. Nonie called me from her NY taxi, shocked that just weeks after an Islamic attack on a military base on US soil, the largest in US history, that activists who speak the truth about Islam are being shut down and marginalized.

There is much more. Read it all.

Not that any Muslims are responsible for that linkage. Oh, no. "Iran: Extremists aid West's plots against Islam," from Press TV, November 14:

Larijani, who was speaking to a group of Sunni clerics on Friday, said that the US was seeking to 'propagate' a distorted image of Islam in the Middle East.

"Over the past few years, the US and a number of its allies in the Middle East have been seeking to propagate a fake [interpretation] of Islam and to tarnish its image by linking it with terrorist moves."

"All Islamic sects should make every effort not to fall into US-Zionist trap," Larijani said, adding that any division among different Islamic sects has been brought to the region by the intelligence services of foreign forces who seek to gain a foothold in the region.

Larijani's plea for unity among Muslims comes as on Wednesday the al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia urged Sunnis to confront Shias.

In an audio recording posted on the internet, Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Rashid, accused Shias and Iran of trying 'to take over Muslim countries' and 'to annihilate Sunnis'.

The al-Qaeda leader said "their(Shias) threat to Islam and its people is much bigger than that from Jews and Christians....

And they add that both Muslims and non-Muslims can misunderstand Islam, usually by taking verses of the Koran that mandate violence against unbelievers "out of context." This excuse is very, very tired at this point, but the obvious rejoinder from reporter Baylie Evans should have been this: Then what are you doing in your mosque here to make sure that all the local Muslims understand the Koran in context and hence do not misunderstand it in the same way that Nidal Hasan (and so many others worldwide) did?

If Baylie Evans had asked that question, the honest answer would have been, Why, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And that in itself is revealing.

"Local Muslims condemn acts of violence in name of their religion," by Baylie Evans for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 14:

CHEYENNE - One local Muslim, Mohamed Salih, is clear in his feelings toward the Muslim man who allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last week. He deserves to be at the "bottom of the biggest hell," Salih said.

There is a misconception among many non-Muslims that Islam, the religion that Muslims follow, encourages hate and violence. Really, it teaches the opposite, he said.

How could anyone have ever gotten such a crazy idea?

"(Violence) has no place in this religion," he said. "There is no god out there that would accept killing innocent people."

Yes, but who is an innocent person? Jihadists consider no non-Muslim to be innocent. Consequently, it would have been refreshing if Salih had defined his terms, but as usual, no such luck.

And while non-Muslims can misunderstand Islam, so too can Muslims themselves.

Indeed, as we see here every day, Muslim Misunderstanders of Islam abound. And the funny thing is that they all seem to misunderstand it in the same way.

Any person who commits an act of violence in name of Islam gravely misunderstands the religion, Salih said. Terrorists have misunderstood the Islamic duty of jihad, which means struggle.

The "greater jihad" is within one's self, Salih said, against egos and evil within. The "lesser jihad" means actions to defend one's self and family.

Let's get that from an authoritative source. 'Umdat al-Salik is endorsed by the most prestigious authority in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy. It says this:

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad.

``We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.''

The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic verses as:

-1- ``Fighting is prescribed for you'' (Koran 2:216);

-2- ``Slay them wherever you find them'' (Koran 4:89);

-3- ``Fight the idolators utterly'' (Koran 9:36);

and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

``I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah'';

and the hadith reported by Muslim,

``To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.''Details concerning jihad are found in the accounts of the military expeditions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including his own martial forays and those on which he dispatched others. The former consist of the ones he personally attended, some twenty-seven (others say twenty-nine) of them. He fought in eight of them, and killed only one person with his noble hand, Ubayy ibn Khalaf, at the battle of Uhud. On the latter expeditions he sent others to fight, himself remaining at Medina, and these were forty-seven in number.) [...]

The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4) -which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself-while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High,

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled" (Koran 9.29)

Do the Muslims in Wyoming know these doctrines? Probably. But they go on in the same vein anyway:

Even nations can blur the line between religion and politics, Arshi Nisley, another local Muslim, added.

In some Islamic countries, women are not allowed to own property, divorce or have the same rights as men. But the religion allows women equal treatment and rights.

"I don't think that's religion at all," Nisley said. "I think that's politics."

Uh huh. Rather than regarding women as human beings equal to men, the Koran likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: "Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will" (2:223).

The Koran also declares that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man: "Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her" (2:282).

It allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: "If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice" (4:3).

It rules that a son's inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females" (4:11).

Worst of all, the Koran tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them" (4:34).

It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures "shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated" (65:4).

People who have cited passages from the Quran, the religious text of Islam, that seem to encourage violence have taken them out of context, she added.

Even some Bible passages can seem to incite violence when taken out of context.

Uh huh. Actually, while the Bible contains descriptions of violent acts committed in the name of God, nowhere does it teach believers to imitate that violence. Where people are commanded to commit acts of violence, these are commands directed to specific individuals or groups in particular situations; they are not universal commands. The Koran, on the other hand, quite clearly does teach believers to commit acts of violence against unbelievers -- see 2:190-193, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, etc. There are no equivalents to such open-ended and universal commands, addressed to all believers to fight unbelievers, in the Bible.

And how are those teachings interpreted? In fact there is not a single traditional school of Islamic jurisprudence that does not teach, as the obligation of the Muslim community, warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. See here for details.

Both Salih and Nisley said they haven't encountered hostility from the local community. In fact, they've felt welcomed. Salih has worked hard to try to educate people about Islam. Violent acts by Muslims set his efforts back, he said.

The religion is already misunderstood by many, and every time a Muslim kills in the name of Islam, it undoes the work that many have done to dispel myths and misinformation. The Fort Hood shooter hurt Muslims twice, Salih said: their country and their religion.

"He is lucky he doesn't have to face Muslims for justice," Salih said.

Interesting statement on many levels.

In The American Thinker today, Pamela Geller says of the rush to exonerate Islam and jihad after the Fort Hood massacre: "Shariah law forbids criticism of Islam. And here we are....This is well beyond political correctness. We are enforcing Shariah law."

Sharia does indeed forbid criticism of Islam, but this is nevertheless hyperbole, no? Well, no. There is an avalanche of articles appearing like this unsigned editorial from the Seattle Times: "Do not slander Islam after Fort Hood," November 10. Would the Seattle Times have published such an editorial after any conceivable atrocity committed by a Christian believer? What do you think?

Do not compound the atrocity at Fort Hood with loose, slanderous talk about religion, conspiracy and political motives.

ALL of the horror and heartache of the Fort Hood shootings should not be compounded by labels and assumptions seeking motives to explain a heinous, irrational act.

The same restraint is also appropriate with a suspect in custody for the murderous assault that claimed the life of one Seattle police officer and wounded another.

The Fort Hood attack took 13 lives and wounded 41. There is a rush to link Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, with Islamic extremists and generally defame his faith by association.

Of course, Hasan himself made the link. He is the one who passed out Korans and then started shooting people. But the Times, of course, sweeps that under the rug.

Religious and political affiliations make for easy, slanderous links that can be pointedly selective. Little time was spent exploring Timothy McVeigh's Catholic and Republican connections after he slaughtered 168 men, women and children and wounded hundreds more with a truck bomb.

Never mind that he was an avowed atheist at the time of the attack and only became a Catholic later. Never mind that even if he had been a Catholic, there is nothing in Catholic teaching that exhorts believers to warfare against unbelievers, while there is plenty in Islam that does so exhort believers. Why should the Seattle Times worry about all that? Anything is good for a smear.

There is no more justification for Hasan's crimes in Islam than there was in the religious teachings of McVeigh's Christian faith....

Unsupported assertion. Here is some evidence to the contrary. There is plenty more, also. Here is some of it.

Care with words is essential because they have enormous power. If Hasan was an observant Muslim, then he violated his faith. The Seattle police are investigating what amounts to a murky personal grudge.

He violated his faith in what way? Again, an unexplained, unsupported assertion.

The three men in this clip fall over themselves to make sure that nobody thinks the Fort Hood massacre has anything to Islam. So Nidal Hasan passed out Korans on the morning of his mass murders! So what? Tim McVeigh!

Here is a good summary of how this attack had nothing to do with Islam.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also says: "Let's don't accuse people of basically giving him a pass cause he's a Muslim, cause I don't think there's any evidence of that."

"But Finnell said no one filed a formal, written complaint about Hasan's comments out of fear of appearing discriminatory."

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI): Muslims have served selflessly in the U.S. Military, and therefore, "this is not about theology, this is about doing your duty as a soldier."

Yet theology keeps coming up. The problem, of course, is that so many Muslims point to Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism. But that, of course, is never mentioned here.

In March 2009, five Muslims accused of helping plot the September 11 attacks, including the notorious Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, wrote an "Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations." In it they quote the Koran to justify their jihad war against the American Infidels. "In God's book," asserts the letter, "he ordered us to fight you everywhere we find you, even if you were inside the holiest of all holy cities, The Mosque in Mecca, and the holy city of Mecca, and even during sacred months. In God's book, verse 9 [actually verse 5], Al-Tawbah [the Koran's 9th chapter]: Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush."

Osama bin Laden's communiqués have also quoted the Koran copiously. In his 1996 "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," he quotes seven Koran verses: 3:145; 47:4-6; 2:154; 9:14; 47:19; 8:72; and the notorious "Verse of the Sword," 9:5. Bin Laden began his October 6, 2002, letter to the American people with two Koran quotations, both of a martial bent: "Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory" (22:39) and "Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan" (4:76)."

In a sermon broadcast in 2003, bin Laden rejoiced in a Koranic exhortation to violence as being a means to establish the truth: "Praise be to Allah who revealed the verse of the Sword to his servant and messenger [the Islamic Prophet Muhammad], in order to establish truth and abolish falsehood." The "Verse of the Sword" is Koran 9:5: "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. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."

The idea that the Koran commands them to do violence to unbelievers runs from the very top of the international jihadist movement - Osama bin Laden - down to the rank and file. Overall, it is extremely rare - if not impossible - to find a jihadist who does not cite the Koran to justify his actions. Britain-based jihadist preacher, Abu Yahya, asserts simply, "It says in the Koran that we must try as much as we can to terrorise the enemy." And Pakistani jihad leader Beitullah Mehsud claims that "Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfill God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world." He specified that his jihad - struggle in Arabic - was an offensive military operation: "We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia." The "jazia," or jizya, is a tax that the Koran (9:29) specifies must be levied on Jews, Christians, and some other non-Muslim faiths as a sign of their subjugation under the Islamic social order.

One pro-Osama website put it this way: "The truth is that a Muslim who reads the Koran with devotion is determined to reach the battlefield in order to attain the reality of Jihad. It is solely for this reason that the Kufaar [unbelievers] conspire to keep the Muslims far away from understanding the Koran, knowing that Muslims who understand the Koran will not distance themselves from Jihad."

(Video thanks to Christopher.)

More denial and obfuscation. "Our enemy is not Islam -- it's extremists: The U.S. response should be zero tolerance for political cultists who try to achieve their goals through violence, regardless of their religion," by Judith Miller and David Samuels for the Los Angeles Times, November 11:

[...] Underlying both the left- and right-wing narratives of the shootings is the belief -- or fear, on the part of many liberals -- that what happened at Ft. Hood is, in fact, rooted in Islam, rather than in a perverted political ideology that is rejected by an overwhelming majority of Muslims everywhere. The threat posed to America by the jihadist cult recalls the hysteria surrounding the late 19th century mass migrations that brought thousands of anarchists, syndicalists and communists from eastern Europe to America. Preaching their secular gospel of violently overthrowing the U.S government and returning to a mythical agrarian past, the new immigrants, many of whom were Jewish, engaged in bombings, industrial violence and assassinations that killed hundreds of people, including President McKinley.

There was no shortage of voices that blamed these attacks on immigrants, particularly "the Jews," and suggested that immigration from eastern Europe be stopped and that Jews be banned from sensitive government jobs and institutions of higher learning -- efforts that were enshrined in law and unofficial practice by 1924. In retrospect, we see these responses as products of ignorance and rank prejudice.

Question for Judith Miller and David Samuels: When and where did the leaders of these "immigrants" or "Jews" ever teach their followers that they "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"? The rest of that passage, of course, is: "...and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God'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," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

Did any of these "immigrants" or "Jews" ever teach that their belief-system wasn't "in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant," and that their guiding manifesto "should be the highest authority in America"? CAIR co-founder and longtime Board Chairman Omar Ahmad said that about Islam and the Koran. (He denies saying it, but the original reporter stands by her story)

Did the fundamental law of any of those "immigrants" or "Jews" ever teach anything analogous to this, from a Shafi'i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo? It says that the leader of the Muslims "makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians...until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax," and cites Koran 9:29 in support of this idea: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled." ('Umdat al-Salik o9.8)

I could go on, but you get the idea. In Islam there is a clear and consistent strain, historical and contemporary, of supremacism and violence, and calls to conquer and subjugate those outside the fold. The "immigrants" and "Jews" who may have been scapegoated in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th century had no such teachings, and none of them were preaching such things. Thus the analogy adduced by Miller is not only wrong, but dangerously misleading and offensive: it implies that those who are sounding the alarm about the jihad in the U.S. and worldwide are simply bigots with some irrational hatred of Muslims, rather than people who simply listen to what Muslims say and take it seriously. So those who believe Miller will be more likely to dismiss talk of the jihad threat as bigotry, as an invention of "Islamophobes" -- and of course they will never hear about the supremacist statements I've quoted above and others like them, because Miller won't tell them.

So now we must be clear: The United States is not at war with Muslims or Islam.

Indeed not. But many Muslims believe that they, and Islam, are at war with the United States. Our refusal to engage them on that level does not mean that this fact ceases to exist.

We are at war, whether we like it or not, with Islamic heretics who argue that their own beliefs supersede traditional Islamic law, and that traitors to Islam as they define it should be killed. Our enemies are members of a violent cult that uses the language of religion to achieve political aims. Believers in such heresies have more in common with other violent political extremists -- anarchists, Stalinists, Nazis, Klansmen, Weathermen bombers and terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh -- than they do with mainstream Muslims.

But of course she does not elucidate just how their beliefs render them heretics, and how their understanding of Islam differs from traditional Islamic law. No one ever does. We are constantly told that they're heretics, but explanations of exactly how they're heretics are scarce.

Jihadists are the latest bearers of an ideological virus -- the idea that one can accomplish millenarian political aims by murdering innocents -- that has done terrible damage to human societies. Our response should be zero tolerance for political cultists who try to achieve their goals through violence, be they Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Tamil Tigers, animal-rights activists or self-professed followers of Thoreau. No one should hesitate to call such people what they are -- terrorists.

Perhaps she means that they're heretics because they're murdering innocents, and Islam forbids that. And that's all very well, but the jihadists maintain that no non-Muslim is innocent, and putatively moderate organizations like CAIR, when they condemn terrorism, have been slow to explain just who exactly they do think is innocent.

And so here again we have a typical example of deflection, falsehood, and half-truth, all served up in defense of a totalitarian, expansionist ideology that is going to keep coming at us. Judith Miller should know better, and should know who and what for which she is running interference. What is needed now is a call to the American Muslim community to acknowledge that there is a supremacist, expansionist doctrine within Islam, and a challenge to them to formulate ways to teach against it and promote American Constitutionalism among Muslims here. Instead, we get this.

"Taliban" means, of course, "students." I.e., students of Islam. But somehow they have missed the peaceful teachings of Islam that are so plain and patent to everyone else that only "Islamophobes" have trouble seeing them. How is it that these students of Islam don't know, as Obama put it yesterday, that "no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor"?

"Taliban promises repeat of Fort Hood massacre: report," by Nick Allen in the Telegraph, November 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Taliban claimed there would be more attacks like the Fort Hood shootings unless Washington ends it policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a report. It also described the US army psychiatrist who carried out the massacre in Texas as a "hero".

The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites, said it had picked up a Taliban message praising the attack.

The message said: "The recent attack on the military base in Texas warns that if the occupation policy of the American rulers continues in this way, without them folding the carpets of occupation and transgression in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is natural then that incidents and attacks similar to Texas will spread to the Pentagon and other American military centres.

"According to media reports, the hero of the attack is a Muslim psychiatrist and major in the American army, of Palestinian origin."...

Yesterday I was asked to participate in a Symposium at National Review about the Fort Hood massacre and the role political correctness played in it. Here is my entry:

The Fort Hood massacre wouldn't have happened were it not for political correctness. Nidal Hasan lectured on the Koran's punishments for unbelievers when he should have been discussing medicine; justified suicide bombing; and spouted hatred for America even as he wore its uniform. Yet no one filed a complaint -- for fear of seeming bigoted.

This is the fruit of long-term efforts by groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others to demonize everyone who speaks honestly about the threat of jihad and Islamic supremacism. People are afraid to speak up about Muslims who behave suspiciously. And if Nidal Hasan had been disciplined or removed from his post because of his pro-jihad, anti-American statements, CAIR and others would likely have been up in arms, calling for an investigation of "Islamophobia" in the military.

Mission accomplished: "Islamophobia" was duly avoided at Fort Hood. All it cost was 13 dead and 38 wounded. Now General Casey says that if the Army loses its "diversity" because of Hasan's jihad, that would be worse than his murders; the political correctness that led to these murders is still very much in place.

In Human Events this morning I discuss the uppermost concern of the law enforcement, government, and media elites in the wake of the jihad attack at Fort Hood: the fear of an anti-Muslim backlash.

Backlash fever is sweeping the nation: thirteen Americans are dead and thirty-eight wounded in a jihad attack at Fort Hood, and our government's primary concern -- from the Chief of Staff of the Army to the Islamic pressure groups such as CAIR -- are focused entirely on ensuring that Muslims in the United States are not being victimized by a "backlash."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared: "We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this. This was an individual who does not represent the Muslim faith." She said that DHS was taking steps to "prevent everybody being painted with a broad brush." Not "taking steps to prevent another jihad terror attack." And she promised: "One of the things we'll do is make sure that we're reaching out to the state and local authorities within the US, because they often have better outreach to members of the Muslim community than we do."

The U.S. Army Chief of Staff, George Casey, likewise seemed primarily concerned about the safety of Muslims, not about the safety of the potential victims of the next jihad attack: "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that." Not "I'm concerned that there could be another jihadist among our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that."

Casey added: "Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."
So not having enough Muslims in the military would be worse than mass murder. And this man is the U.S. Army Chief of Staff.

The media was mining the same territory. AP reported Friday that there had been "immediate" anti-Muslim "backlash." What happened? Did armed bands of furious Islamophobes throw molotov cocktails at mosques? Did ferocious white supremacists maul fragile little girls in hijabs on their way to school? Did angry bigots spit at pious imams quietly going about their business?

No.

Had there been any report -- any report at all -- of any innocent, random Muslim being attacked in a "backlash" after the Fort Hood jihad?

Nope. Not one. Americans are decent people. Americans believe people are innocent until proven guilty. But Ibrahim Hooper and his fellow thugs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) need to be able to claim that hate crimes are being committed so that they can claim victim status for Muslims and deflect attention away from such small matters as the jihad at Fort Hood. And, naturally, the clueless and/or complicit mainstream media in their hip pocket.

And so we witness the strange phenomenon of stories of Muslims fearing a backlash soaring and the numbering of actual incidents of backlash remaining at zero. In the AP story, all that followed the announcement of an "immediate" anti-Muslim backlash were various stories about mosques and Muslims asking for special police protection, and the like. So in reality, the story should have been headlined, "Muslims claim victim status in wake of Fort Hood jihad attack."

The only actual incidents of "backlash" that AP could come up with were incidents of people calling the Fort Hood massacre a jihad attack -- as if it is "Islamophobic" and hateful to note that a man was shouting "Allahu akbar" as he gunned people down, and that he gave out Korans hours before he started shooting people, and that he expressed sympathy for suicide attackers.

Is it unfair -- even racist -- to say then that he may have been motivated by the Islamic jihad doctrine of warfare against unbelievers? To CAIR and the media, yes.

The liberal media is one thing, but the government of our nation is quite another, or at least used to be. Napolitano and Casey should know better. If they do not confront the ideology that leads to such attacks, there will be a steadily-increasing spate of them. But apparently preserving "diversity" is a higher priority than national security.

Details here.

So this is what it has come to -- this is the fruit of the long-term efforts by groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others, to stigmatize and demonize everyone who speaks honestly about the threat of jihad and Islamic supremacism. People are afraid to speak up about what they see, when they know it is wrong.

And all it cost this week was 13 dead and 38 wounded.

"Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords." Imagine the national media frenzy if that sentence were about a Catholic priest or an evangelical pastor. But this story will get media notice only because Abdullah was killed -- and much of it will probably center on questions of whether the shooting constitutes "Islamophobia."

Detroit Jihad Update. "Son of Radical Islam Leader Killed in FBI Shootout Caught in Canada," from FoxNews, October 29 (thanks to Mackie):

One of three people sought by the FBI was captured in Canada Thursday and two were still on the loose after a federal raid and deadly shooting of a radical Islam leader whose goal authorities say was to take down the U.S. government.

Federal authorities in Detroit said the son of 53-year-old Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was killed in Wednesday night's shootout with FBI agents, was arrested across the border in Windsor, Ontario.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took 30-year-old Mujahid Carswell, who was considered armed and dangerous, into custody Thursday. No other details were released.

Carswell was among 11 people charged Wednesday in a criminal complaint in federal court in Detroit.

Andrew Arena, the head of the FBI office in Detroit, says the men follow "a very hybrid radical ideology" that mainstream Muslims "would not recognize."

It would be interesting to see him explain the differences. But probably this statement arises either from ignorance or from a desire to provide some politically correct cover.

Two were still at large: 30-year-old Yassir Ali Khan of Warren and Ontario, and 33-year-old Mohammad Philistine of Ontario.

Abdullah was killed in a gunbattle in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn as federal agents tried to arrest him on a number of charges including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and the illegal possession and sale of firearms.

Abdullah repeatedly told followers that the U.S. government was their enemy and they should be willing to fight the FBI, even if it meant death, according to the criminal complaint against him.

"You cannot have a nonviolent revolution," Luqman Ameen Abdullah said, according to a 2008 conversation secretly recorded by a confidential FBI source.

Abdullah was killed Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn, where agents were attempting to arrest him. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents.

He was one of 11 people named in a criminal complaint after a two-year investigation.

Among the others charged with Abdullah and in custody were a state prison inmate, the U.S. attorney's office said....

Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords.

Neither Abdullah nor his co-defendants were charged with terrorism. But he was "advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States," FBI agent Gary Leone wrote in an affidavit filed with the complaint.

The FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the U.S.

Abdullah told followers that it was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die" and to "simply shoot a cop in the head" if they wanted the officer's bulletproof vest, Leon wrote.

The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah's regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were "willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence," the FBI agent wrote.

He and his followers were American born, mostly African-American converts to Islam....

The photo above is from a protest in Istanbul. Note the flag following the coffin, featuring the swastika and the Star of David. What does demonizing Israel have to do with this case? Why, nothing -- but it is all part of the larger jihad against the West.

The selectivity of the outrage here is stunning. Alexander Wiens has apparently committed a heinous crime, and he should be punished to the full extent of the law. But to pretend that his crime is a manifestation of some pandemic "Islamophobia" is simply political manipulation. Muslim groups in America and Europe need "hate crimes," because "hate crimes" confer victim status, and victim status confers privilege. Victimhood is big business: insofar as Muslim groups can claim protected victim status for Muslims in the U.S. abd Europe, they can deflect unwanted scrutiny and any critical examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

But note: while Barack Obama spoke in Cairo about his determination to protect the right of Muslim women in America to wear the hijab, no one is speaking up for the Muslim and non-Muslim women in Islamic countries and in Muslim families in the West who have been threatened or murdered for not wearing the hijab. No one demonstrated for Aqsa Parvez, murdered by her father in Canada for not wearing the headscarf. No one demonstrated for the women killed in Iraq and elsewhere for not wearing it.

The outrage here is selective, and nakedly manipulative.

"German Murder Trial Is Focus Of Anger in Islamic World," from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 28 (thanks to James):

It is a story that has gripped both the Muslim and Western worlds.

It began in 2008, in the German city of Dresden, when an Egyptian-born woman, Marwa al-Shirbiny, asked a man to make room for her 3-year-old son on a children's playground swing.

The man, Alexander Wiens, responded by calling al-Shirbiny -- who was wearing an Islamic headscarf at the time -- a "terrorist" and a "slut."

Al-Shirbiny summoned the police, and Wiens was subsequently fined the equivalent of $480 on charges of verbal abuse.

When Wiens attempted to appeal the conviction this July, al-Shirbiny, then pregnant, attended the hearing. As she was leaving the courtroom, the court records charge, Wiens leapt at her and stabbed her 18 times with a kitchen knife.

Her husband, Elwi Ali Okaz, tried to protect her, and also suffered multiple stab wounds.

To make matters worse, in the melee a policeman shot Okaz in the leg, apparently assuming that the Egyptian man was the attacker, rather than the German defendant.

The murder trial of Wiens, a 29-year-old ethnic German born in Russia, began in Dresden October 26 in the same courtroom where the murder took place. The dead woman's husband, Okaz, attended on a pair of crutches.

Ayyub Axel Koehler, the head of Germany's Central Muslim Council, told Reuters before the trial started that Muslims everywhere are intensely interested in this case.

"This trial is getting huge attention in the Muslim world," Koehler said. "There were riots in some Islamic countries because of this murder. So it's up to us Germans to defend our reputation."

Koehler, a convert to Islam, was referring to demonstrations in Egypt and Iran, and Tehran's request for the United Nations to become involved.

He also said that Germany's Muslim community -- the biggest in Europe after France -- has been badly shaken by the affair.

"We're looking at this trial with great anticipation, because our women and girls are obviously scared," he said. "They are already being discriminated against in public and looked down on."

Koehler said Germany's reputation has suffered badly, and that politicians have ignored Islamophobia and its consequences in society....