Recently in moral equivalence Category

The aptly-named professor Hatem Bazian some years ago called for an "intifada" in the U.S. Here, he completely ignores the fact that the Tsarnaev brothers were Muslims acting, in their own words, in the defense of Islam. He offers no action on the part of Muslim communities in the U.S. to prevent other young Muslims from getting the idea that murdering Infidels is a way to defend Islam. Instead, as one would expect from a charter member of the "Islamophobia" propaganda industry, he equates the Tsarnaevs' murders, which he calls "horrific crimes," with those who spoke accurately about what motivated those murders, whom he accuses of "crimes against our collective consciousness."

It is amazing that moral cretins like Hatem Bazian occupy comfortable positions at respected universities in the United States, but such is the state of academia today. In a field populated with people like Omid Safi, Haroon Moghul, and Caner K. Dagli, Bazian actually comes off rather well.

From "Boston Bombing, Islamophobia and Sudden Ignorance Syndrome," by Dr. Hatem Bazian, Director of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender, n.d.:

Let me be absolutely clear. Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed horrific crimes, ones that took the lives of three individuals, shattered dozens, and left the City of Boston in fear. But the Islamophobic machine committed crimes against our collective consciousness by exploiting the suffering and pain of our fellow citizens. Their words became a powerful incendiary to inflame the minds of an already panicked people.

Anything but point to the real cause. "Brokaw: U.S. partly to blame for Boston terror," from WND, April 21:

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw strongly suggested Sunday that America is partly to blame for the gruesome terrorists attacks in Boston, because the young, Muslim men involved may have felt “alienated” and angry over U.S. drone strikes on “innocent civilians” in Muslim countries abroad.

Brokaw, who has been playing the role of media elder statesman since retiring, went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with host David Gregory to discuss last week’s Boston bombings, which killed three and injured 183.

“There are a couple of things to remember here, David, I think for all of us,” Brokaw intoned. “With the death of Osama bin Laden, Islamic rage did not go away. In fact, in some ways it’s more dangerous. This is a perfect example.”

He said Americans need to take a hard look at “the roots” of why so many Muslims, including Americanized terrorists like the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston, want to kill them.

Indeed. But he, like most ethnocentric Americans, thinks it's all our fault and within our power to change.

“There’s a lot that we still need to know about what motivated them, obviously,” Brokaw said, noting the Muslim faith of both bombers. “And the fact is that that Islamic rage is still out there.”

Added Brokaw: “But I think that there’s something else that goes beyond the event that we’ve all been riveted by in the last week. We have to work a lot harder (to understand) a motivation here.

“What prompts a young man to come to this country and still feel alienated from it, to go back to Russia and do whatever he did? And I don’t think we’ve examined that enough,” he added. “I mean, there was 24/7 coverage on television, a lot of newspaper print and so on, but we have got to look at the roots of all of this, because it exists across the whole subcontinent and the Islamic world around the world.”

Finally Brokaw offered an explanation: “I think we also have to examine the use of drones that the United States is involved (in), and there are a lot of civilians who are innocently killed in a drone attack in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

“And I can tell you having spent a lot of time over there, young people will come up to me on the streets and say we love America,” he continued, “(but) if you harm one hair on the head of my sister, I will fight you forever. And there is this enormous rage against what they see in that part of the world as a presumptuousness of the United States.”

The explanation resembled that of President Obama’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks: “America’s chickens are coming home to roost!”

Appearing on Tuesday’s “NBC Today” the day following the terrorist attacks on Boston, Brokaw warned his media colleagues against premature speculation regarding the motivation behind the simultaneous bombings, which had the hallmarks of an organized Islamic terrorist attack.

“I think everybody has to take a deep breath,” he cautioned, “report what we know.”...

At FrontPage this morning I discuss a bizarre new Army training brief:

Fox News reported last week that “the U.S. Army listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania….The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism.”

The list is headed “Religious Extremism”; heading it is “Evangelical Christianity (U.S./Christian),” followed by “Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt/Muslim)” and then “Ultra-Orthodox” (Israel/Judaism),” making for a politically correct trifecta of the three main monotheistic religions. Also on the list are “Al Quaeda [sic] (Transnational/Islam)’; “Hamas (Palestinian/Islamist)”; Abu Sayyah [sic] (Philippines/Islam)”; “Ku Klux Klan (U.S/Christian)”; and “Catholicism (U.S./Christian),” among others.

The list also includes “Islamophobia” as a form of “religious extremism” – apparently based on the assumption, common among Leftists, that those who oppose the global jihad and Islamic supremacism are Christian fanatics motivated only by some quest for religious one-upmanship.

The idea that there is any factor unifying these disparate groups is howlingly absurd, and this list would be laughable if it weren’t coming from the U.S. Army. Apparently this is the politically manipulative and ridiculous nonsense that has replaced truthful information about Islam and jihad. On October 19, 2011, the Executive Director of an Islamic organization called Muslim Advocates, Farhana Khera, wrote a letter to Barack Obama’s then-Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and current CIA director John Brennan. It was signed by 57 organizations, including many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA); Islamic Relief USA; the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); the Muslim American Society (MAS); and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

The letter denounced U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam.” Ignoring the factual accuracy of the material about which they were complaining, the Muslim groups signing the letter demanded that the task force “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials”; “implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training”; and more to ensure that only the message about Islam and jihad preferred by the signatories would get through to intelligence and law enforcement agents.

The very same day that Khera sent her letter, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole declared at a conference in Washington that he had “recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security.” This “reevaluation” removed all references to Islam in connection with any examination of Islamic jihad terror activity. The Obama administration placed off-limits any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists. Accordingly, in February 2012, the government purged more than 1,000 documents and presentations previously used in training programs that the Muslim groups had deemed inaccurate or offensive to Muslims.

And now we see what the Obama administration has replaced that material with. The implications of the U.S. Army’s “Religious Extremism” list are quite ominous. Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism and “Islamophobia” are forms of “Religious Extremism” on par with al-Qaeda and Hamas? Then how long will it be before the Obama administration goes to war against them, as it has repeatedly declared that it is at war with al-Qaeda?

There is more.

Tuesday night on ABN I discussed the Huffington Post's ridiculous comparison of George Washington to Muhammad, which Pamela Geller skewers here, with Pastor Joseph and...George Washington himself.

...but refused a moment of silence for Israeli ones, thereby illustrating the Leftist European elite's willingness to enable and justify the Palestinian jihad. "Jacques Rogge: Impartial to a Fault," by Yori Yanover for the Jewish Press, August 8 (thanks to Maxwell):

This picture of IOC president Jacques Rogge—who refused to permit the minute of silence in commemoration of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian thugs in Munich—was published by Forbes in November of 2011. The caption below reads:

President of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge pauses during a press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010. Rogge on Tuesday expressed concern over “obstacles” facing Palestinian athletes, and in veiled criticism of Israel said athletes should be granted free movement regardless of politics.

They also shouldn’t be murdered in their dorms at the Olympic village, if at all possible.

Yes, that would be nice.

Over at PJMedia (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I show how Mideast journalist Robert Fisk gets it wrong, yet again -- only this time he facilitates the sufferings of Christian minorities in the Middle East:

Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for the U.K.'s widely-read Independent, recently showed why it is that Islamic jihadists and terrorists, including the late Osama bin Laden, strongly recommend his propaganda to Western readers.

In a recent article, Fisk goes out of his way to demonize the abused Christian minorities of the Middle East for supporting those secularist leaders most likely to preserve their freedoms and dignity. For instance, after portraying the Middle East's "old guard" in the worst possible terms, he complains that "Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?"

In Fisk's way of thinking, Christians of Egypt and Syria are freedom-haters because they support secularists, whereas the Sharia-pushing Islamists are freedom-lovers for not.

"Not much of a line, is it?"—especially from someone who supposedly lives and travels in the Middle East and is deemed an authority on the region. Completely missing from his narrative is why Christians are supporting Shafiq and Assad: because the alternatives, the Islamists, have been making their lives a living hell...

Over at FrontPage Magazine (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I discuss Congressman Al Green's recent demands to have hearings dealing with the threat "blue-eyed, blond-haired" female Christian terrorists pose to America. A snippet follows:

[...] Fair question—"Why not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?" Before responding, we must acknowledge that the word "radicalization" simply means "to go to the root or origin of something," in this case, religion: a Muslim radical goes to the root teachings of Islam; a Christian radical goes to the root teachings of Christianity. Accordingly, there are certainly "Christian radicals" in America. The question is, do they pose the same risks to America as Muslim radicals?

Green and all moral relativists naturally do not want to pursue such a question, opting to pretend that any form of "radicalization"—regardless of the "root teachings"—is evil. They are certainly not interested in determining the fundamentals of Christianity and Islam, and whether they are equally prone to violence, terrorism, conquest, etc. While this is not the place to contrast modern Christianity's apolitical and largely passive nature with modern Islam's political and largely aggressive nature—a theme elaborated here—suffice it to say that, while thousands of modern-day Muslim leaders are on record quoting Islamic scriptures to justify violence and hate, one is hard pressed to find examples of modern Christian leaders preaching violence and hate—and justifying it through scripture.

The Saudi Grand Mufti, the highest religious official of Saudi Arabia, Islam's holiest nation, called on the destruction of all regional churches, quoting Islamic texts. Can Green find an example of an equally authoritative Christian leader calling for the destruction of mosques—and supporting it through the Bible?

Green went on to ask "Why don't we go to the next step and ask, how is that a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, white female in the United States of America can become radicalized to the point of wanting to do harm to this country? We don't have that type of hearing. That's the problem."

Thus, not only does the Congressman irrationally conflate the teachings of all religions together, he also conflates religion with race (and gender) implying that the only reason there are hearings on Muslim radicalization is because Muslims are not white, whereas those "equally-dangerous" blue-eyed, blond-haired female Christian "radicals" are apparently getting a free pass to terrorize America.

This logic is flawed on many levels. Islam is not a race; there are Muslims of all colors, just like there are Christians of all colors. Moreover, there are indeed "blue-eyed, blond-haired" terrorists in the world, including females—yet these, too, are overwhelmingly Muslim. It is dishonest for Green to try to take the focus off of Islamic radicalization and pin it on that all-purpose bogeyman, "racism."...

In PJMedia today I take up Congressman Al Green's call: investigate the radical Christians!

During last week’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing on “The Radicalization of Muslim-Americans,” Congressman Al Green (D-TX) took issue with the hearing’s focus on Islam and Muslims, asking the witnesses testifying before the Committee: “If you agree that radicalization exists within all religions to some extent, would you kindly extend a hand into the air.” Noting triumphantly that “all the hands are raised,” Green then asked: “Why not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?”

The immediate answer is obvious. On the one hand we have recent jihad plotters in the U.S., including Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Nidal Hasan, the successful Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber.

All of them and many others invoked the Qur’an and Sunnah to explain and justify their deeds.

And on the other hand, we have recent “radical Christian” acts of violence committed by people who invoked the Bible and Church teaching to explain and justify their deeds, including — no one at all. Not one. Even the much-vaunted abortion clinic bombers number only a handful, versus nearly 19,000 jihad attacks around the world since 9/11, and have been repudiated by all Christian sects and leaders — as opposed to the many Islamic authorities that teach jihad warfare against unbelievers and exhort their faithful to commit acts of violent jihad.

Rosie O’Donnell enunciated the idea memorably a few years ago: “radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam.” Since then, this has become a commonplace of mainstream media political discourse — remarkably enough, since it has absolutely no evidence to back it up.

Emblematic of how hard it is to find a “radical Christian” — that is, someone driven to violence by the teachings of Christianity, as opposed to genuinely radical Christians like Mother Teresa and the Amish — is that when Green spoke about “the radicalization of Christianity,” he was actually referring to Islamic jihadists, not to Christians at all.

This became clear when he said: “I do not, not — N-O-T — oppose hearings on radicalization. I do oppose hearings that don’t focus on the entirety of radicalization. And if you agree that we have Christians, as has been mentioned by more than one member, Christians who become radicalized, they become part of Islam and they become radicalized as is being said, why not have a hearing on the radicalization of
Christians?”

Green’s statement is fundamentally incoherent. “Christians who become radicalized” and “become part of Islam” are not Christians at all, but converts to Islam. Thus a hearing on the radicalization of Muslims, and possibly of converts to Islam, would be needed, not a hearing on the radicalization of Christians....

There is more.

Green: Furious and self-righteous myopia

Recent jihad plotters include Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Nidal Hasan, the successful Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber.

All of them and many others invoked the Qur'an and Sunnah to explain and justify their deeds.

Recent "radical Christian" acts of violence committed by people who invoked the Bible and Church teaching to explain and justify their deeds include, uh, gimme a minute...

"During anti-Muslim hearing, Dem calls for ‘hearing on the radicalization of Christians,’" by David Edwards for Raw Story, June 20:

Texas Congressman Al Green (D) says he wouldn’t mind Rep. Peter King (R-NY) repeatedly calling hearings on “radical Islam” if he would also conduct a “hearing on the radicalization of Christians.”

During a Wednesday House Homeland Security Committee hearing on “The Radicalization of Muslim-Americans,” Green wondered why the chairman had only focused on one religion.

“If you agree that radicalization exists within all religions to some extent, would you kindly extend a hand into the air,” Green, who is the grandson of a Christian minister, asked the witnesses testifying before the committee. He noted that “all the hands are raised.”

“I don’t think that most people oppose hearings on radicalization,” the congressman explained. “I do not, not — N-O-T — oppose hearings on radicalization. I do oppose hearings that don’t focus on the entirety of radicalization. And if you agree that we have Christians, as has been mentioned by more than one member, Christians who become radicalized, they become part of Islam and they become radicalized as is being said, why not have a hearing on the radicalization of Christians?”

He added: “I do think that it is a problem of perception. People who see the hearings and never hear about the hearing on the radicalization of Christianity have to ask themselves, ‘Why is this missing?’ Why don’t we go to the next step and ask, how is that a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, white female in the United States of America can become radicalized to the point of wanting to do harm to this country? We don’t have that type of hearing. That’s the problem.”

Which blue-eyed, blonde-haired white female Christian in the U.S. became radicalized to the point of wanting to do harm to this country? What on earth is he talking about?

Green pointed out that he had often been mistaken for a Muslim because of his appearance.

“I do know what it feels like to look like a Muslim in the minds of some people and to be demeaned in a public venue,” he said. “I look forward to the day that we’ll have that hearing that deals with the radicalization of Christians in America.”

An analysis (PDF) by [the Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations of King’s first four hearings on Islamic radicalization determined that the chairman had “failed to produce the promised evidence to support his stigmatization of America’s Muslims.”

“King’s record of leveling unsubstantiated allegations and biased attacks on the Muslim community and habit of naming people with records of anti-Muslim bias as potential witnesses and information sources denies him any current credibility in discussions about American Muslims and homeland security,” the [Hamas-linked] group concluded.

Santorum is out of the race now, but the moral equivalence and obfuscation regarding the real evil of the Taliban that this exemplifies are still very much with us. And yes, Santorum is the American Taliban. No doubt he wants to mow down his own people who dare to dissent from his policies, blow up girls' schools, throw acid in the faces of women who get out of line, imprison and torture rivals and those who disagree with him, amputate the hands of thieves, murder apostates, stone adulterers -- you name it. Of course, Leftists probably really do believe that Santorum wants to do those things, and are attacking him on that basis, even though it doesn't seem to bother them all that much when the mullahs or the Taliban actually do them.

Obeidallah is not original in this: the clownish boy and jihad terror apologist Reza Aslan has made a very similar comparison. Obeidallah, meanwhile, hotly denies being an Islamic supremacist himself, although he doesn't seem to know what the term means, and is energetically pushing the manipulative Muslim Brotherhood invention "Islamophobia." I don't know whether he is an active stealth jihadist or simply an exceptionally dimwitted Useful Idiot, and he refused to answer any of my questions.

"Muslim Comedian Claims Santorum Sounds Like 'the Taliban' When Talking Church and State," by Matt Hadro at Newsbusters, April 9 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

According to Muslim comedian and CNN regular Dean Obeidallah, Rick Santorum speaks the language of "the Taliban" when he talks about the intersection of church and state in America. On CNN Sunday night, liberal host Don Lemon decided to have a religious discussion for Easter Sunday, and his first question was about the separation of church and state.

Obeidallah has attacked Santorum in the past, and found a way to bring him into the discussion. He referred to Santorum "saying the Bible and our laws must comport," adding later that "He was saying the same things honestly that the Taliban would say, that religious scripture and the laws of that state must agree." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

First of all, Santorum had said he was opposed to homosexuality because of "Judeo-Christian values that are based on biblical truth," a quote which Obeidallah used as fodder for his argument that Santorum wants the Judeo-Christian equivalent of Sharia law in America. He also knocked the candidate for insisting that civil law must comport to "God's law."

However, Santorum could well have referred to "God's law" as the same concept that appears in Martin Luther King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," where he argued man-made laws must conform to the "law of God," or natural law, in order to be just. And, in fact, Santorum has made this exact point before.

However, Obeidallah remains insistent in pushing this outlandish theory that Santorum wants something like a Christian theocracy – and Don Lemon was content to let him spout it....

DEAN OBEIDALLAH, political comedian: I think – I don't think most people have a problem with faith or a candidate that's got moral and convictions. That's actually a good thing. I think the difference is when it doesn't – when it no longer maybe influences your decisions, but actually your decisions, your policy decisions, are based on Scripture. Like Rick Santorum's saying the Bible and our laws must comport.

To me, that went beyond any kind of accepted view of politics and religion. There was no longer separation of church and state. He was saying the same things honestly that the Taliban would say, that religious scripture and the laws of that state must agree. So, I think that went too far. But, of course, people – if morals and ethics are what religion's about, and (Unintelligible) to be a better person, that's a great candidate. It's a great elected official for us to have.

In "No, Hasan and Bales Are Not Equivalent" in the American Thinker, March 25, Winfield Myers explains why Islamic supremacist academic propagandist Omid Safi's moral equivalence between jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan and Army Sgt. Robert Bales is simply a smokescreen to obscure the reality of jihad.

Oh, and by the way, Omid, my man, threatening people with death is a felony. If you are going to continue to claim that I threatened you and your family, I challenge you to have me arrested. But you won't, of course, because you're lying and you know that you're lying.

Earlier this week, Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used his blog "What Would Muhammad Do" at the Religion News Service to claim a moral equivalency between Ft. Hood jihadist Major Nidal Malik Hasan and U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.  "When Americans Kill vs. When Muslims Kill" is a morally repugnant attempt to claim a double standard in the way Americans react to mass murder. In this, Safi echoes the party line of the Middle East studies establishment, which blames the West for the region's political and technological backwardness while largely ignoring its systemic social problems, from the subservient roles of women to the glorification of terrorism.

Rather than proving his claim, however, Safi highlights what he attempts to deny -- that the double standard in Americans' treatment of Muslims leads Americans to turn a blind eye toward Islamic radicals while condemning non-Muslims harshly. Willful blindness, not bigotry, is the hallmark of the contemporary West's treatment of Islamic radicalism.

He writes:

When Americans kill, it is portrayed as an aberration, an act of a tormented and troubled individual. When Muslims kill, it is covered as a signal of a communal, global genocidal tendency.

And:

In short, the assumption that [sic] when we Americans kill, it is an aberration from our good nature. Even if the act is abominable, it is said to be purely an individual act totally disconnected from any larger institutional or political context. However, when Muslims kill, it is a sign of a world-wide, evil ideology of jihad and terrorism.

Hasan, a psychiatrist who slaughtered thirteen fellow soldiers while shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), psychologically abused his patients -- weary, sometimes mentally fragile Iraq War veterans seeking medical treatment. He condemned their service to their country, attempted to convert some to Islam, and told an Army captain that she was an infidel who would be "ripped to shreds" and would "burn in hell" because she was not a Muslim. His file reveals years of unprofessional, highly aggressive behavior toward Army personnel driven by his desire to carry out jihad -- holy war -- against Americans. Private business cards found in his apartment after his arrest stated that he was an "SoA (SWT)," an acronym found on jihadist websites that stands for "soldier of Allah" and "Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala," or "Glory to God."

Yet, in spite of a mountain of evidence against Hasan, official government reactions to his murderous rampage and to other actions by radical Islamists reveal anything but bigotry against Muslims:

• The official Department of Defense report on the murder of the thirteen servicemen at Fort Hood does not mention Hasan by name, nor does it mention the words "jihad" or "Muslim," while "Islam" occurs only in a reference footnote.
• U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder refused to state that radical Islam played any role in the Fort Hood shooting or the attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City in 2009.
• Federal officials regularly resort to euphemisms, including "overseas contingency operation," "a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm," and "countering violent extremism" to describe America's wars against radical Islamists and terror-sponsoring nations.

That Hasan got away with his actions without being expelled from the Army, if not prosecuted, is testimony to the West's pusillanimity in the face of radical Islam and its apologists, not its bigotry against them....

Safi has a long history of defending radical Islamists and smearing his critics, all while posing as a progressive Muslim fighting for justice. From classroom assignments in which scholars with whom he disagrees are labeled "Islamophobes" to charging falsely that Robert Spencer threatened to kill him, Safi lashes out at those who would expose his efforts to shill for Islamists. In his latest
apologia for terrorists, he insults the professionalism of the American military, the decency of the American people, and the truth.

At Atlas Shrugs this morning I discuss Islam's moral critique of the West:

They hate us because we’re pigs. No, not the apes and pigs into which Allah transforms the Sabbath-breaking Jews in the Qur’an (2:62-66; 5:59-60; 7:166), but pigs as in…dogs. Wolves. Immoral, lecherous, lustful, fornicating creeps. Western immorality is a frequent feature of the Islamic critique of the contemporary West, as well as a target for the morality police of Sharia states. In the summer of 2009 Iranian authorities even published a list of hairstyles that were acceptably moral and Islamic, as opposed to “decadent” Western imports, among which were the ponytail and the mullet.

That same Western decadence is also a frequent preoccupation of Islamic jihadists. In December 2010, a Muslim named Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly set off explosives on a street in Stockholm that was crowded with Christmas shoppers, killing himself and injuring two others. His wife, who was herself later arrested for helping plan the attack, explained that Abdulwahab “disliked the decadent side of society here.”

Even some non-Muslim writers echo this critique. Dinesh D’Souza argued in his 2007 farrago The Enemy At Home that Islamic jihadists were largely motivated by rage at the West’s “social and moral corruption,” and asserted that “the Muslims who hate us the most are the ones who have encountered Western decadence, either in the West or in their own countries.”

The Catholic writer Peter Kreeft even calls upon Christians to learn from Muslims “the absoluteness of the moral laws and of the demand to be just and charitable.”

Yet writers like Kreeft and D’Souza never seem to examine the actual content of Islamic morality to see what exactly in Islam constitutes being “just and charitable.” And while Islamic supremacists rail against Western decadence, few realize that what they offer as an alternative is hardly the vision of moral uprightness that many assume. A few years ago President George W. Bush declared that we were fighting for “moms and dads in Iraq.” He might more accurately have said “moms and moms and moms and moms and dads in Iraq,” for his assumption that the Western model of the nuclear family would also be a universal in the Islamic world was not borne out either by Islamic law or the facts on the ground.

The moral universe of Islam is, indeed, radically different from the Judeo-Christian one. I have just completed a book, Not Peace But A Sword, which explores these differences in depth, but one telling incident recorded in a diary a century ago sums up a great deal of the key differences.

There is more.

Aslan parrots another Leftist talking point

Leftist journalists and Islamic supremacist spokesmen always march in lockstep, using the same talking points, as I've pointed out previously in connection with Islamic supremacist boy Reza Aslan's frequent recycling of tired and discredited Leftist/Islamic supremacist agitprop. Aslan is so abjectly intellectually bereft that he has apparently never had an idea of his own, but only repeats whatever his masters have determined to be the political line of the day, and can do nothing but hurl adolescent abuse at those who dare point out his unsavory allegiances and shoddy, dishonest reasoning. Aslan routinely lies about the positions of his opponents -- apparently the real points they make are beyond his meager intellectual abilities to answer, so he has to resort to setting up straw men, and does so regularly.

Aslan's latest straw man, and parroting of a Leftist talking point, comes in a piece so cutesy and self-conscious that the reader is almost embarrassed for him: "Grand Ayatollah or Grand Old Party?," in Foreign Policy. It's an exercise in moral equivalence, equating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. The piece appeared on February 29, one day after -- what a coincidence! -- the Cagle cartoon above, which equates Santorum with Taliban suicide bombers. I am not saying Aslan cribbed from Cagle; what is more likely is that they're both repeating a Leftist line that originated with neither of them.

Anyway, Aslan's whole piece is summed up in its subtitle: "Who said it: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum?" The bulk of the rest is a series of quotes, with the reader invited to guess which man said each, although only the most blinkered Leftist would fail to identify correctly the source of each one. Writes Aslan -- and one can picture him mugging furiously for the cameras -- "One is a religious fanatic railing against secularism, the role of women in the workplace, and the evils of higher education, as he seeks to impose his draconian moral values upon the state. The other is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Yes, yes, Santorum is the American Khamenei, the American Taliban. No doubt he wants to mow down his own people who dare to dissent from his policies, blow up girls' schools, throw acid in the faces of women who get out of line, make people wearing Western dress drink from latrine water, imprison and torture rivals and those who disagree with him, amputate the hands of thieves, murder apostates, stone adulterers -- you name it. Of course, Leftists probably really do believe that Santorum wants to do those things, and are attacking him on that basis, even though it doesn't seem to bother them all that much when the mullahs or the Taliban actually do them.

Behind this witless equivalence, there is a more sinister agenda. Aslan is a Board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), about which the Iranian human rights activist Manda Zand Ervin writes:

The Iranian American community widely believes NIAC...to be a Washington lobby group for the Khomeinist regime leadership. NIAC has long advocated unconditional negotiations with Tehran, and the total abandonment of all economic sanctions and military options against the Iranian regime. NIAC's advocacy appears as a deftly veiled refusal to support the Iranian democracy activists and the Iranian freedom movement. This is not only un-American but contradicts all conservative ideals. The founder of NIAC, Trita Parsi is an unpopular figure within the Iranian-American community, as can be seen from his high disapproval ratings in a July 2011 poll of over 1800 Iranian Americans taken by the Pro-Democracy Movement of Iran. Senator Jon Kyl has called for an investigation into Trita Parsi and his work. Last month, on November 5, Parsi stated that criticism of Iran should be "punishable."

So by equating Santorum with Khamenei, Aslan is not only smearing Santorum, but whitewashing the murderous mullahs, equating their bloody record with American social conservatism. In other words, Aslan is not just stupid; he's evil.

(Cartoon thanks to Maxwell.)

This tweet from Ed Husain is no doubt tongue-in-cheek, but note its import: clearly it is an attempt to exonerate the jihad terror group Hamas by equating its murderous mission to the American Revolutionary slogan that is the motto of the state of New Hampshire. Simultaneously Husain minimizes the bloodiness of Hamas and advances a sly moral equivalence argument equating American Revolutionaries with genocidal Islamic jihadists who celebrate the murders of civilians.

And this from a "normal Muslim." Ed Husain is a prominent non-violent Muslim who recently wrote a piece in the reliably dhimmi Wall Street Journal entitled "Don't Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal." In it, he claimed that "normative Islam is inherently pluralist" and "supported by 1,000 years of Muslim history in which religious freedom was cherished." He said nothing in this, not surprisingly, about dhimmitude, or about the deprivations, discrimination and harassment suffered by non-Muslims in Islamic societies for centuries.

Normal Ed is also the author of The Islamist, a book about how he entered and then left the jihadist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 2007 he wrote a piece in The Guardian, "Stop supporting Bin Laden," about how Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq and I are -- unwittingly, of course -- playing into the hands of Osama bin Laden himself.

His claim (which is by no means original with him -- this is a familiar Islamic supremacist talking point) is that because I -- and Hirsi Ali, and Ibn Warraq, and others -- point out that there is a broad and deeply rooted tradition of violence and supremacism within Islam, therefore we are marginalizing other Islamic traditions and legitimizing bin Laden. In saying this, Husain implies that jihadism is clearly an Islamic heresy, and that there is a broad tradition within Islam that rejects violence against non-Muslims and Islamic supremacism -- and that Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq and I are ignoring or downplaying it out of some base motives. Bin Laden or someone like him invented jihadism and grafted it onto a religion that has otherwise peaceful teachings.

In reality, however, while there are a few courageous reformers out there, all -- not just one, or a few, but all -- the orthodox sects and schools of Islamic jurisprudence all teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against unbelievers and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law (references can be found here). There is no sect or school recognized as orthodox that rejects this.

It is not playing into bin Laden's hands to point it out; in fact, it is playing into bin Laden's hands to deny it and denigrate those who point out that it is so, for there can be no reform of what one will not admit needs reforming. There are some disagreements between modern jihadism and traditional jihad theology: modern jihad is all defensive, as there is no caliph authorized to call offensive jihad, and some assert that only the state authority can call jihad in any case. But these disagreements do not touch on the central point: that it is legitimate to wage religious war. If Ed Husain wishes to pretend to the world that the situation of Islamic theology and jurisprudence is other than what it is, how sincere a reformer can he be? Wouldn't a genuine reformer acknowledge the existence of problematic passages and doctrines and formulate new ways to understand them, rather than pretending that they don't exist at all -- except in the minds of violent fanatics and those he would have you believe are merely hatemongers?

This latest mass murder in the name of Islam and jihad comes as Islamic supremacists in the U.S. are pushing with renewed fervor the discredited meme that "Muslims are the new Jews," and that resistance to the jihad and Islamic supremacism is equivalent to Nazism and tending toward genocide, with anti-jihadists cast as Nazi propagandists. Aside from the obvious facts, such as that anti-jihadists oppose the killing of innocents, detention camps, etc., and are standing for human rights, jihadist actions like this one show just how grotesque that comparison really is: it is equating the victims of earlier mass murders -- the Jews of Europe -- with the perpetrators of mass murders today.

An update on this story. "Officials: 67 dead in northeast Nigeria attacks," by Jon Gambrell and Njadvara Musa for the Associated Press, November 5 (thanks to Kenneth):

LAGOS, Nigeria — At least 67 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings carried out in northeast Nigeria overnight, officials said Saturday, as frightened mourners left their homes to begin burying their dead.

A newspaper says a radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks and has promised to launch new assaults.

The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record in Nigeria's Muslim north, says Boko Haram spokesman Abul-Qaqa spoke to them Saturday and claimed the attacks that have killed at least 67 people in and around Damaturu and Maiduguri.

The spokesman told the newspaper: "We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians."

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, has waged an increasingly bloody sectarian fight against Nigeria's weak central government

The latest attacks centered around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said. The attack started Friday with a car bomb exploding outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks in the city, with many uniformed security agents dying in the blast, Bulama said.

Gunmen then went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there....

The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri, about 80 miles east. One blast detonated around noon outside the El-Kanemi Theological College where parents had gathered. Police said others had entered the college grounds to attend Friday prayers at a mosque located on its campus....

A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV attempted to enter a base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said. The SUV couldn't enter the gate and the explosives were detonated outside of the base, which damaged several buildings in the military's compound, Mohammed said....

The bombings come ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. Police elsewhere in the country had warned of violence ahead of the celebration in Nigeria, a country of more than 160 million largely split between a Christian south and a Muslim north. On Wednesday, police in Maiduguri had said they broke up a plot to bomb the city over the holiday.

If claimed by Boko Haram, the attacks would be the most bold and coordinated ever carried out by the group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege." In August, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded....

The "new," post-revolutionary Egypt, fresh from the "Arab Spring," is complicit in Hamas' mistreatment of Gilad Shalit through its appalling state television interview with him while he was still in custody. Hamas gunmen were still in the room when the interviewer asked him if he would work for the release of the rest of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, among other ridiculous and abusive questions.

The full video, beginning with the "you look fine" remark, can be found in this BBC report, which also notes that the interviewer "also appeared to seek credit for Egypt, stating that Egyptian authorities had mediated the release and asking Sgt Shalit why he thought the mediation had worked." The Egyptians had to hold up Shalit's release for a moment of national preening and self-congratulation.

Regardless of Gilad Shalit's official legal status as a Hamas hostage, the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisoners remains the international standard. Hamas violated that document right and left in its treatment of Shalit, and Egypt piled on its own violation of Article 13, which calls for prisoners to be protected from "public curiosity." The director of Egyptian state TV said himself it was too good a scoop to pass up -- Shalit's well-being be damned.

Following the massacre of over 20 Christian protesters, the violation of the Geneva Convention is but another strike against the "new" Egypt's ability and willingness to abide by international standards for human rights.

Other points of contrast between the treatment of Shalit and the prisoners for whom he was exchanged follow below, and the contrasting images of their conditions upon their release prove the difference. "The prisoner comparison," from YNet News, October 19:

In the days before Gilad Shalit was returned to Israel, various Hamas spokesmen boasted that he was treated well by his captors, "in line with the tenants of Islam." Meanwhile, other Palestinians slammed the imprisonment terms in Israeli jails as exceptionally harsh and cruel.

Following the completion of the Shalit swap, Ynetnews presents a comparison between the jail terms of Palestinian security detainees held in Israel and the treatment accorded to Gilad Shalit by Hamas.

Leisure and entertainment: Based on initial statements, Shalit was able to watch Arabic-language television and listen to Arabic-language radio. Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners are given books and have access to 10 television channels.

Physical activity: Gilad Shalit's pale skin and his apparent difficulty in handling sunlight in the early moments of his release indicate that he was deprived of sunlight, a fact reinforced by statements from his father, Noam. Moreover, Gilad was held in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners are allowed to exercise and walk outside in the sun every day. In addition, inmates can attend prayer sessions and religious classes.

Visits: Nobody visited Gilad Shalit in captivity, including Red Cross representatives. In Israel, close relatives of Palestinian inmates are allowed to visit every two weeks. In addition, Palestinian detainees are allowed to hug children aged up to 8.

The interviewer asks Shalit why he only gave one interview in all these years.

Communication with the world: Gilad only sent one videotape, one audiotape, and three letters (largely dictated by his captors.) Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners are entitled to meet lawyers and Red Cross representatives and can mail up to four letters each month.

Medical treatment: Gilad, who requires eyeglasses, arrived in Israel following his captivity without his glasses. Some experts said his vision may have been hampered had he been without glasses for years. Shalit's father, Noam, added that his son is suffering from shrapnel wounds that were not treated by Hamas. Meanwhile, Palestinian inmates are entitled to regular medical treatments, including dental work and eye exams.

Food: At this time, the quantity and quality of Gilad's food in captivity is unknown. However, he returned to Israel visibly slimmer and weaker. Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners are given three full meals a day. They also receive some NIS 1,200 (roughly $350) per month from various organizations and use it to shop at the prison's canteen.

Some common sense amid the ongoing demonization campaign (with a few PC myths thrown in, not reproduced below). "Why Islamist terror dwarfs Breivik's brand: Almost nobody supports 'Christianist' violence," by James Kirchick in the New York Daily News, August 2 (thanks to Twostellas):

In the wake of the mass murder of 77 people in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, there is a new chorus of voices eager to create a simple equation between "Christianist," anti-Muslim violence and the Islamist terrorism that targets America, its allies and, indeed, Muslims around the world, including most spectacularly on 9/11. [...]

Breivik's ideology does not represent the same sort of threat that Islamism does because it is not shared by nearly as many people, governments or institutions. Aside from a handful of anonymous Internet postings, there have been no avowals of support for Breivik's mass murder. No influential Christian preachers have praised what he did. There were no celebrations in the streets, nor has any government applauded his attempt to "save" Europe from "Islamization." The only organizational backing for Breivik's massacre appears to have come from a 12th century crusader outfit called the "Knights Templar," which, as far as we know, exists nowhere but in his own deranged head. [...]

And by contrast:

A poll published this year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 68% of Palestinians support suicide bombing, and that, while support for terrorism among Muslim populations has declined over the past decade, 15% of Jordanians, 22% of Indonesians and 21% of Egyptians have a positive opinion of Al Qaeda. [...]

Violent extremism of all religious hues must be combatted. But to pretend that "Christianist" ideology represents anywhere near the same menace as Islamism does is a dangerous illusion.

Ah, but a useful one in many quarters.

Particularly in an attack of such magnitude, the suspicion of involvement by al-Qaeda or a similar group was eminently reasonable: the majority of the terrorist attacks and counter-terror arrests in Europe in recent years have involved jihadist operations. The bomb was comparable not only to the Oklahoma City bomb, but also to those used in embassy bombings in Tanzania and Nairobi. The use of multiple attacks and a focus on symbolic targets are an al-Qaeda trademark, and deceit through the impersonation of military personnel or law enforcement has been a standard operating procedure particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Finally, a jihadist group did briefly claim credit, and that was newsworthy to report. When that fell through, it was also promptly reported.

But there is one other noteworthy angle to the period in which the attack was plausibly speculated to be the work of jihadists: When people thought it was Muslims, the rationalization mill went into overdrive. Comments sections on news reports were riddled with pleas and demands to consider "underlying causes," such as Norway's involvement in campaigns in Afghanistan and Libya that have resulted in the loss of Muslim lives. The implication was that Norway had done it to itself for its treatment of Muslims, and for allying itself with America.

By contrast, no one on whose behalf the bastard Breivik claimed to act has engaged in a comparable defense of or deflection of the blame for his crimes. There was no victim-hood narrative to act as an obstacle to condemning him and his actions properly and unequivocally. "Arab world outraged by Norway attack allegations," by Roee Nahmias for YNet News, July 24:

Less than two days after the fact, everybody knows who carried out the shocking massacre that took place in Norway onFriday: Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian driven by extremist right-wing ideology. But before Breivik's apprehension, the local and international media alluded to an extremist Islamists link for the double attack on Oslo and Utoya island – triggering the rage of many Arabs and Muslims worldwide.

The London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat claimed Norway feared Islamist operatives much more than rightist extremists despite a significant growth of such groups in 2010. Another London-based international Arabic publication, Al-Hayat, added that the attacks were perpetrated by a Christian extremist who deplored Islam and Europe's cultural pluralism.

Meanwhile, a short time after news of the attack spread, many Arab and Muslim web surfers claimed that it was Israel who was responsible: "A criminal operation of this magnitude is not carried out without the support and planning of a terrorist state, which stakes out opportunities to shuffle the deck. It is the Zionist state, in collaboration with the extremist Zionist Christians, that wants to hurt Islam in its allie, Norway," a surfer named Omar Ali commented on Al Jazeera's website. "It's not al-Qaeda. The Zionists carried out the attack to punish Norway for supporting Gaza."

Mossad behind operation'

Another web user accused the Israeli secret service for the attack, and explained why: "Before Europe and the US rush to blame us for terrorism, know that the body behind this operation is none other than the Mossad. And why the Mossad? Because Norway recognized the Palestinian state two days ago, and what does it mean when a gas- and oil-rich nation like Norway supports the Palestinians? Israel would never allow it."

A third commentator said that it was clear to him that an intelligence agency, like the Mossad or the CIA – was behind the attack. Yet another surfer, from Jordan, accused the US, adding that "as usual, the American intelligence is pressing Norway to declare that Muslims carried out the bombing."

Another theory attributed the act of terror to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in light of his threats to retaliate against the NATO strikes. Others yet blamed the Syrian regime for trying to divert attention from what is going on in their country.

Shortly after the extent of the tragedy became known, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which counts 58 nations among its members, released a statement condemning the event, calling it a "terrorist attack."

The OIC and other Muslim groups were probably just as likely gearing up for damage control on the same suspicion of jihadist involvement before word emerged of a non-Muslim attacker, just as Muslims were strategizing online for a so-called "sh*t-storm" they anticipated in the media in the event that the Virginia Tech shooter had turned out to be Muslim.

From the Witless Moral Equivalence Department this morning comes this from Islamic supremacist pseudo-moderate Reza Aslan, who despite (or perhaps because of) his increasingly ridiculous statements is still a favored analyst in the circles of the hard Left.

This one is particularly clownish even for Aslan: he is equating the Republican Party with "Sharia & all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control," and yet he is anti-Republican Party and pro-Sharia -- or at very least, he has never met a Sharia state or Sharia advocate he doesn't like: he's a Board member of the National Iranian American Council, a group that genuine Iranian pro-democracy forces regard as an apologetic vehicle for the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has tried to pass off Iran's genocidally-minded President Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer. He has praised Hizballah and the Muslim Brotherhood. He has spoken at events sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, a Brotherhood group.

So if he likes all those groups, and the GOP is like them, what's his beef with the GOP?

And as for the equivalence itself, let's see. Sharia calls for the devaluing of a woman's testimony, mandates the beating of disobedient women and the stoning of adulteresses, commands women to cover all but their face and hands when in public, doesn't allow them to go out of the house without permission from the male who has charge of them, allows for polygamy, and oppresses women in numerous other ways. It denies the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. It denies basic rights to nonbelievers.

Is the Republican Party on board with all of that? Any of it? Uh, no, Reza.

But don't expect intellectual coherence from Reza Aslan. Back when Campbell's Soup partnered with Hamas-linked ISNA to certify its halal line, I wrote that "I couldn't care less if Campbell's Soup introduces a halal line....Nor is it a sign of Sharia coming to America...." Aslan represented that as "Spencer also believes that the decision by Campbell Soup to create a line of halal soups to accompany its kosher line is another sign of the Muslim takeover of America."

So this is a man who is simply not intellectually honest. I can only imagine the desperate insecurity of a man who knows -- he must know -- that he cannot defeat his opponents in a fair fight, and so he has to lie about the positions they take in order to score cheap points with the ignorant kneejerk Leftists who make up his audience. What a terrible feeling it must be, to know that the only way he can win is to cheat. And it is revealing of the intellectual vacuity and dishonesty of the Left and the mainstream media that this pathetic little Islamic supremacist is taken seriously by anyone at all.

Witless moral equivalence. But wait! There was Tim McVeigh! And -- and-- uh...

"Democrat: We Need 'Analysis of How Christian Militants … Might Bring Down The Country,’" by Michael W. Chapman for CNS News, June 16 (thanks to Ken):

(CNSNews.com) – At a congressional hearing on Muslim radicalization in U.S. prisons, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they too might try to “bring down the country.”

In an exchange with witness Patrick Dunleavy, the former deputy inspector of the criminal intelligence unit, New York Department of Correctional Services, Rep. Jackson Lee mentioned the case of a man who blew up an abortion clinic and proposed that this perhaps was an attempt to undermine U.S. law that allows a woman to procure an abortion.

Rep. Lee then said, “As we look to be informational, we should include an analysis of how Christian militants or others might bring down the country. We have to look broadly, do we not?”

Dunleavy answered: “I don’t know that Christian militants have foreign country backing or foreign country financing.”

Lee then said, “I don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is whether or not their intent is to undermine the laws of this nation. And I think it is clear that that is the case. So it’s not -- your distinction is not answering the question.”...