Are we at war with Islam? [Archive] - Page 5

BMT (RIP)

04-11-2008, 08:33

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam

Contemporary Threat..Subject: Islam - A SHORT SYNOPSIS OF HOW IT WORKS

Islam is not a religion nor is it a cult. It is a complete system.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic and military components. The religious component is a beard for all the other components.

Islamization occurs when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their so-called 'religious rights.'

When politically correct and culturally diverse societies agree to 'the reasonable' Muslim demands for their 'religious rights,' they also get the other components under the table. Here's how it works(percentages source CIA: The World Fact Book (2007)).

As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:

United States -- Muslim 1.0% Australia -- Muslim 1.5% Canada -- Muslim 1.9% China -- Muslim 1%-2% Italy -- Muslim 1.5% Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:

Denmark -- Muslim 2% Germany -- Muslim 3.7% United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7% Spain -- Muslim 4% Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. (United States).

France -- Muslim 8% Philippines -- Muslim 5% Sweden -- Muslim 5% Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3% The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5% Trinidad &Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions (Paris -- car-burnings). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats (Amsterdam -- Mohammed cartoons).

Guyana -- Muslim 10% India -- Muslim 13.4% Israel -- Muslim 16% Kenya -- Muslim 10% Russia -- Muslim 10-15%

After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40% Chad -- Muslim 53.1% Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:

Albania -- Muslim 70% Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4% Qatar -- Muslim 77.5% Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83% Egypt -- Muslim 90% Gaza -- Muslim 98.7% Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1% Iran -- Muslim 98% Iraq -- Muslim 97% Jordan -- Muslim 92% Morocco -- Muslim 98.7% Pakistan -- Muslim 97% Palestine -- Muslim 99% Syria -- Muslim 90% Tajikistan -- Muslim 90% Turkey -- Muslim 99.8% United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace -- there's supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100% Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100% Somalia -- Muslim 100% Yemen -- Muslim 99.9%

Of course, that's not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.

'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'

It is good to remember that in many, many countries, such as France, the Muslim populations are centered around ghettos based on their ethnicity. Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. Therefore, they exercise more power than their national average would indicate.

And we continue to cater and negotiate in a politically correct way so as not to "offend" our Muslim "brothers."

Dad

04-11-2008, 09:39

3SoldierDad

04-11-2008, 10:28

I have a friend who was telling about her brother's in laws who are Egyptian. Being Christians they were threatened and out of fear for their lives they immigrated to the US. The mother in law told my friend "America better wake up. You don't understand Muslims. You better quit letting them in because they will do the same thing here they did to us there in time," For thousands of years Egypt was their country too. No longer. How much longer will England be England or Netherlands be Dutch?

My answer to the question of this thread...

Yes, we are at war with Islam...That includes the peaceful Muslims - Islam has no civilians.

At the appropriate time, I would be for the outlawing of Islam and mass deportations of all practicing Muslims. I don't care how impractical this may seem today.

There comes a time wihen we must cease playing footsie with this cancer.

The state needs to leave our businesses, education, healthcare, families and environment alone - The state needs to concentrate its efforts on protecting us from the nation's enemies - including, and especially, the global darkness of Islam.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

Guy

04-11-2008, 10:47

BMT:

Good info!

Stay safe.

Razor

04-11-2008, 11:13

At the appropriate time, I would be for the outlawing of Islam and mass deportations of all practicing Muslims. I don't care how impractical this may seem today.

That's too close to the idea behind zero-tolerance/zero-leadership/zero-thinking policies I despise for me to agree, I'm afraid.

3SoldierDad

04-11-2008, 12:22

That's too close to the idea behind zero-tolerance/zero-leadership/zero-thinking policies I despise for me to agree, I'm afraid.

Yeah, I agree, it's fairly harsh...I believe, however, it is the right thing to do, but not necessarily the comfortable, easy, or even realistic thing to do. I wanted to put it out there understanding the inevitable blow-back.

Opposing Hitler with force early - in the mid 30s - was not really doable, either. A little resolve in 1936 may have saved 50 million lives. Generally, when something is REALLY difficult, people only do the right thing when it is absolutely necessary. This was true of the U.S. and the UK in World War II. It is true today. It's the early 30s and I'm saying contain Hitler and Germany's aspirations for global domination with force, if necessary (and, yes force would have been necessary to stop the Nazis in advance of their global quest).

I agree with Mark Steyn - I'm afraid we are at the beginning of an inevitable global political-religious demographic disaster. I'm not sure it can be reversed - slowed YES, but not reversed. The world lacks the fortitude necessary. We can buy some time, but global Islamification seems inevitable to me.

This is all my opinion. It may be zero or little tolerance for a growing global fascist system, but I think being resolved for specific actions when it is appropriate is not an abandonment of leadership - It is the ultimate form of leadership; albeit, lonely leadership - In the West, though, leadership can never be lonely since it is democratic - democratic leadership can only be applied via consensus (a weakness of democracy since it fails to confront threats early). The problem is the West has become weak and indolent - It has lost its stomach for confronting evil - Yes, in this observer's view Islam is evil. I would agree I may be over-the-top extreme, but I don't think so. Extreme threats demand extreme responses. We're heading into a violent age of seeming chaos and extreme is not necessarily extreme anymore.

Zero thinking - Hmmm...Well, I am thinking, I can assure you. Many folks are thinking deeply about these things all the time - My argument is with the quality of the thinking. My family thinks I think too much. For those of us young enough to see how the next two or three decades unfold, history will show us just how relevant this thinking is. I believe the West as we know it doesn't have much more than 30 years unless we respond strongly in the next five to ten years against the dark tides moving against us.

It may take something horrible to wake us up. God help us.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

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smp52

04-11-2008, 20:07

My answer to the question of this thread...

Yes, we are at war with Islam...That includes the peaceful Muslims - Islam has no civilians.

At the appropriate time, I would be for the outlawing of Islam and mass deportations of all practicing Muslims. I don't care how impractical this may seem today.

There comes a time wihen we must cease playing footsie with this cancer.

The state needs to leave our businesses, education, healthcare, families and environment alone - The state needs to concentrate its efforts on protecting us from the nation's enemies - including, and especially, the global darkness of Islam.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

I vehemently disagree with this position. One can't fight fascism with fascism. Edit: You just get different sides of the coin like Nazis and Soviets. They fought each other, but over the last century we've had to fight both of them and beat them in different ways.

First off, to say one billion people who follow the different sects of Islam don't have normal civilians is trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. It doesn't matter if you believe they are true muslims or not. Islam has civilians, but depending on the place and location, war means civilians die depending on the choices they make as well. The modern definition that civilians cannot be harmed in war comes only from a western viewpoint, which arose from the ashes of the great World Wars. Historically, civilians have been burned, raped, pillaged as waring nations came head to head. I don't want to go back to those days, really, which is why fighting these wars smartly is more important than shotgun solutions.

Secondly, from a libertarian viewpoint, I want reduced influence of the large central/federal governments, on local governance. Doesn't mean the state (federal, state, or county) is out of the business, one just needs to take a look at where effective value and contributions can be made. Where consensus doesn't exist, it is a poor choice for a large organization to invent one solution for all. Let locals who can agree make their choices as they should.

I think the federal government actually does a decent job, when you stack it up against rest of the world, to protect us. But it will never, ever be a fail proof system and people need to understand this. The TSA was an exercise in stupidity. There will never be a fort secure enough, a mountain high enough, or a land isolated enough to keep us safe and sound. All great fortifications in history were merely circumvented by a smarter foe. Beyond the legality and ethics of it, removing all muslims from America will never work. Removing anyone that looks like a muslim will never work, removing anyone that has agreed to jihadi ideology will never work, because where there is a will, there is a way. The fight among men has always existed and will continue, only names, faces, religions, and ways have changed.

Muslims should be deported, but to where? At what cost to the United States? A significant chunk of our muslim population are domestic converts from the African American community, beyond that, all it takes for someone to become a "muslim" is converting to in their mind and they don't have to tell anyone about it. You're also assuming that all muslims here have already become jihadi and are evil. The idea of 'getting rid' of the cancer by deportation is akin to, in quality assurance terms, sorting out 'defect' once it has appeared. Bottom line - it never works. Well, it does, but is doomed to continue repeating itself.

Only way to reduce a defect is to eliminate the root of it. Which means continue to kill off the bad guys where they come from along with a healthy dosage of mind altering propaganda via economic, political, and social means locally and internationally. In essence, letting folks like QPs direct the fight and do their jobs unconstrained.

Practically speaking, one will never be able to get rid of "Islam". The idea, just like nuclear technology, is out there in the open. One has to roll with the punches and continue fighting the dynamic till community after community decides its in their best interest to get educated, civilized, and reform their little backward fragment of the world.

The Islamic world hasn't had its reformation, yet. People are fighting back and will continue to (and believe me, others are fighting, though many places unproductively as they either take the kumbaya multicultural (Europe) approach or the opposite extremely fascist method (ethnic cleansing)).

mdb23

04-11-2008, 21:00

At the appropriate time, I would be for the outlawing of Islam and mass deportations of all practicing Muslims. I don't care how impractical this may seem today.

So you don't want the state meddling in business, education, the environment, etc., but you want them to decide which religions are acceptable for practice by US citizens?

I'll pass on that idea.

Also, what about Muslims who have (or are) honorably serving int he GWOT? Are they subject to deportation?

I think youa re going a wee bit too far on this one...

3SoldierDad

04-11-2008, 21:28

The Islamic world hasn't had its reformation, yet. People are fighting back and will continue to (and believe me, others are fighting, though many places unproductively as they either take the kumbaya multicultural (Europe) approach or the opposite extremely fascist method (ethnic cleansing)).

I hope you're right. I really do.

However, I am quite pessimistic on the subject. Forbidding Sharia law is a form of outlawing the practice of Islam - I'm for outlawing Islam's more sociopathic practices. Moslems who practice or condone Jihad, which is basic to Moslem practice, should be deported.

Again, I would be delighted to see Islam reform itself. I'm sorry to say on this subject I'm incredulous. The most despicable Moslems on the planet are the 950 million Moslems who cower before the 50 million Moslem fundamentalists. I see too little courage for widespread change. In addition to inspiring revolting deeds of violence, the Koran seems to procreate a sea of cowardice and emasculated men.

If it is any consolation, I don't like my views either. It cheers me to get a decent argument.

For this I thank you...

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

3SoldierDad

04-11-2008, 21:47

So you don't want the state meddling in business, education, the environment, etc.,

There is a place for laws and supervision - Yes. However, where the state can exercise a real benefit to the people is in its ability to protect its citizens. Killing bad guys and detouring bad guys is what the state is for. Everything else as far as I'm concerned is a garnish.

but you want them to decide which religions are acceptable for practice by US citizens?

I don't want to decide. I want the state to protect me and you from anyone or anything that would seek to destroy us or enslave us. I think Islam seeks to accomplish one or the other.

I'll pass on that idea.

Ain't America great...:)

Also, what about Muslims who have (or are) honorably serving int he GWOT? Are they subject to deportation?

If we wanted to get philosophical I would say they are not true Muslims. When they honor our military and participate in the GWOT they dishonor Islam and therefore - No, they shouldn't be deported. I think the time will come when we will have to put the Muslims in our midst to a loyalty test. I'm am not suggesting we "kill" those who fail the test (like the Nazis would), but rather we deport them.

I think you're going a wee bit too far on this one...

Yeah, maybe.

Perhaps, it served to get your attention.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

mdb23

04-11-2008, 22:13

If we wanted to get philosophical I would say they are not true Muslims. When they honor our military and participate in the GWOT they dishonor Islam and therefore - No, they shouldn't be deported. I think the time will come when we will have to put the Muslims in our midst to a loyalty test. I'm am not suggesting we "kill" those who fail the test (like the Nazis would), but rather we deport them.

Ok, who decides who is or isn't a "true" Muslim, and what "test" could possibly "prove" one way or another.

I'm sorry, but your ideas are too outlandish to be pragmatic.

3SoldierDad

04-11-2008, 22:30

Ok, who decides who is or isn't a "true" Muslim, and what "test" could possibly "prove" one way or another.

Let's take your example - join the military or not; support the GWOT or not. Not too tough, really. Will they actively oppose Islamic terrorism or not - words and deeds...words and deeds...words and deeds.

I'm sorry, but your ideas are too outlandish to be pragmatic.

No need to apologize. Ideas are often outlandish at first blush. When things get crazy, though, it's amazing what things don't seem so far fetched anymore. I'll submit for your consideration, that someday you may remember what I have written and you may call it to mind. You might even be surprised in that time at how practical my suggestions from this time will at that time seem. You might even find yourself being surprised that you ever perceived such suggestions could be thought of as so outlandish.

Some day, I'm afraid, we will probably get there. Relatively speaking we are currently enjoying peaceful times. In the Civil War 23,000 men fell in a couple days at the second Battle of Bull Run - More than five times the deaths suffered in this war. In World War II there were battles where more American soldiers died in six weeks than all the brave soldiers we've thus far lost in six years fighting the GWOT. Indeed, as one surveys history's "hot wars," it is not uncommon to discover 1/3 of the men in a nation ages 16 to 50 being wiped out by "a war." Therefore, when a society is truly threatened, we must not underestimate what a society won't or can't do in order to survive.

When and if the U.S. ever really gets hurt by the Islamic Fascists...All bets are off. It will get really messy for the Arab world. They haven't yet seen the West go red in the face. That will be a terrible day. It won't be a pragmatic day - It will be a terrible day.

So, no need to apologize. Some ideas can definitely appear outlandish at first.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

mdb23

04-11-2008, 22:35

3SoldierDad

04-11-2008, 23:13

I'm not willing to empower the govt to take away the freedom of religion, one of our founding principles for which we fought a revolution, and to issue "loyalty tests" to determine what citizens are allowed to stay.

Islam is a political system. Get this and all the rest is quibbling.

As a religion it is a ruse. People are free to do anything they want - including following a ruse - until the exercise of their freedom threatens me, my family, my community, and my country.

Islam has declared war on me and my people. The world's only Islamic Republic, Iran, conducts its daily business regularly chanting DEATH TO AMERICA - I for one am enjoining the war. I wish I had 3 X 3,000 more sons to give to the GWOT. I can't get in uniform and join-up. But, I can do other things.

A rather illogical and dangerous precedent to set.

I'm not endeavoring to be logical; at times reality defies neatness...And, yeah, it could be dangerous, but the alternative to doing too little is worse. Danger sooner is better than greater danger later.

Those who would sacrifice their liberty for security deserve neither.

The gov't that won't protect me and the liberty of those I love is an ally with those that would seek to destroy me and/or enslave me. Those who refuse to secure the nation and protect its liberties should be the first ones to be delivered over to the enemy as slaves.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

smp52

04-12-2008, 00:26

Moslems who practice or condone Jihad, which is basic to Moslem practice, should be deported.

Sir, you keep talking about deporting muslims. To where, I submit the question again. If the jihadi in question is a foreign national, sure, the country of origin may comply in taking the person back. But Americans, who have adopted Islam or been born here for two generations, will be deported to.......?

We have Nazis, Black Panthers, and anarchist idiots, and many more who follow ideologies that aren't acceptable to main stream America. Over the years, we've beat back the Germans, Soviets and other extreme groups that have threatened our existence. Sure, they aren't direct threats to society today, but on a small scale they threaten the freedoms of individuals due to the hatred within them. I don't see any deportations. If they break a law, maybe some jail time. Using that logic, a bunch of white males would have been deported from the South for involvement in the KKK.

Your assumptions are based upon the idea that we're losing right now and will continue to lose ground on all fronts and be eventually inundated to where the choice to made will be that drastic. I don't think we'll get there simply because the country has been fighting back.

I've lived in a country with over 100 million muslims, who are a minority there. Yet, despite the violence, society of the majority hasn't fallen apart nor are they in any danger of "losing out" anytime soon and for the most part, the vast population peacefully co-exists with the majority other than a few hotspots or political games designed to incite ignorant masses on both sides to violent means. People don't budge so easily, however, the key to maintaining civil society is in education and the democratic process backed up by rule of law.

JMI

04-12-2008, 00:44

I empathize with what you're saying 3SoldierDad, and the worst of me agrees. But I know some pretty great guys and gals who are Muslim, and they are not in agreement with anything coming out of the ME.

We live in a tough world with dangerous people. But the ME is a choking point for thought, and I dare not apply the ME to America. Freedom is not free, but it is not half assed either.

Jack Moroney (RIP)

04-12-2008, 05:23

I'm not willing to empower the govt to take away the freedom of religion, one of our founding principles for which we fought a revolution, and to issue "loyalty tests" to determine what citizens are allowed to stay. A rather illogical and dangerous precedent to set.

Those who would sacrifice their liberty for security deserve neither.

The key to all this as I see it is that this country's strength came from the fact that no one specified that any religion be followed but rather that all who came here were welcome as long as they became assimilated into the culture, values upon which this country was founded-which happened to be judeo-christain (neither capitalized on purpose so as not to offend anyone or to offend all equally:D) and English Law to mention two. What has happened with all the happy little groups-be they religious oriented or hypenated AmeriKans- is that they fail to accept the basic tenets and values that defines who we once were, and who all true Americans are today.
They instead see their values/culture/beliefs/mores/tenets as overridding those for which this nation stands and are willing to get in my face to have me bend to their will. It is time to get out a large cuisinart and dump what has become a stew and run this nation through on high, breaking up the chunks and returning it back to the melting pot it once was. In the process, those little irritants and husks that rise to the top like the froth on a head of Wiezenbier and refuse to disolve into the mix should be scraped away and discarded.

3SoldierDad

04-12-2008, 06:07

Originally Posted by smp52 - Sir, you keep talking about deporting muslims. To where, I submit the question again.

Some place - Not here. I do have some ideas. This is something for the gov't to determine since they are responsible for protecting its citizens.

But I know some pretty great guys and gals who are Muslim, and they are not in agreement with anything coming out of the ME.

These people should have little to worry about from folks like me.

and they are not in agreement with anything coming out of the ME

Super...

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

3SoldierDad

04-12-2008, 06:13

I empathize with what you're saying 3SoldierDad, and the worst of me agrees. But I know some pretty great guys and gals who are Muslim, and they are not in agreement with anything coming out of the ME.

These people should have little to worry about from folks like me - They should be worried however what their Islamic peers are thinking about them.

and they are not in agreement with anything coming out of the ME

I don't doubt that you have these friends, but I find it interesting that it is so difficult to find these people. Where are these Muslims who are so against what is happening in the Middle East? They don't seem to lift their voices very high - If they lift them at all. I haven't seen them demostrating nor have I seen these folks writing into their local newspapers or being interviewed by the local media, I don't see them joining the military in droves. I see a cowering, mealy-mouthed, beaten people....Dare I say it? Enablers one and all. (At least all that I can see)

I know a prominent local Muslim businessman in my city (I could call him a friend, but I won't - he isn't), and we've done breakfast several times discussing global politics when we were supposed to be discussing various business matters (as men are wont to do). This man is constantly defending why the Arabs are so frustrated and how certain behavior can be understood, and why the USA is getting its comeuppance for its years of hegemony in the region. I saw no outrage at the suicide bombings, or for the the lopping off of heads, or for the hateful temperment that the Muslims have for one another. Yes, he talks about how terrible everything is, but only after an hour of quasi-defense of what's going on - He backs-up to cover his tracks. It's so disgusting that even now I'm becoming sick just thinking about it. Seriously, after one of our discussions I wasn't sure if I wanted to shower first or call the FBI. This guy is one of the most prominent Muslim leaders in a large Midwestern city.

I would warn you not to be a dupe. We Americans love to believe the best. As far as I'm concerned, Islam in America has outlived this wonderful courtesy.

I for one am paid-up.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

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3SoldierDad

04-12-2008, 07:57

In the process, those little irritants and husks that rise to the top like the froth on a head of Wiezenbier and refuse to disolve into the mix should be scraped away and discarded.

Wow, some folks simply have a way with words. That's probably a better way of saying it rather than "to deport..." :)

should be scraped away and discarded.

Yes, thank you...Excellent image....be scraped away and discarded.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

mdb23

04-12-2008, 08:00

The key to all this as I see it is that this country's strength came from the fact that no one specified that any religion be followed but rather that all who came here were welcome as long as they became assimilated into the culture, values upon which this country was founded-which happened to be judeo-christain (neither capitalized on purpose so as not to offend anyone or to offend all equally:D) and English Law to mention two. What has happened with all the happy little groups-be they religious oriented or hypenated AmeriKans- is that they fail to accept the basic tenets and values that defines who we once were, and who all true Americans are today.
They instead see their values/culture/beliefs/mores/tenets as overridding those for which this nation stands and are willing to get in my face to have me bend to their will. It is time to get out a large cuisinart and dump what has become a stew and run this nation through on high, breaking up the chunks and returning it back to the melting pot it once was. In the process, those little irritants and husks that rise to the top like the froth on a head of Wiezenbier and refuse to disolve into the mix should be scraped away and discarded.

I never asserted that any group should have the right to ignore our laws in favor of their religion of choice. They shouldn't.

But the answer to that is to equally enforce our laws upon everyone, religion be damned. Not to outlaw a religion, deport people based upon their religion, or give the govt the power to start administering "loyalty tests" to citizens.

Jack Moroney (RIP)

04-12-2008, 09:00

But the answer to that is to equally enforce our laws upon everyone, religion be damned. Not to outlaw a religion, deport people based upon their religion, or give the govt the power to start administering "loyalty tests" to citizens.

How about these for loyalty tests: Obey the law, stand for our colors, stand for our National Anthem, speak our language. None of these are too difficult and it is a good start. I do not advocate deporting anyone for the practice of a recognized religion, but then as that womanizing, prevaricating, draft dodging, dope smoking husband of one of our presidential candidates might say, "It all depends on what the definition of the word religion is".

3SoldierDad

04-12-2008, 10:10

Let me go a bit beyond merely "Standing for the pledge of allegiance or national anthem." Although, yes, that would be a good start

Where are the Arab American volunteers for our military? Doesn't America have over 2 million Arab Americans? And, aren't most of them 1st or 2nd generation Americans? My Irish American son is currently at Fort Bragg studying Arabic - which is fine. But, why should Uncle Sam pay tens of thousands of $$$ to teach this Kansas kid Arabic when we have hundreds of thousands of Arabic speaking young men and women?

Question: Even with large $$$ bonuses why aren't we getting the young Arabic volunteers? Perhaps, one of the steps or "tests" of loyalty is that military service become quasi-compulsory for the Arab community.

Well, my sense is that they are on the sidelines for a reason. The Arab mind is a survivor mind - Islam has contributed to this psychological orientation. They are prone to backing the winner and what they do when parties are "going at it" in a struggle is to keep their head down...As a people, Arabs have an uncommonly strong attraction to naked power and strength. In the end, the biggest thug will be their their thug, or "LEADER." As I've indicated Islam is uniquely equipped to impose a frame-of-mind that is both cowardly and submissive. In fact, the word Islam itself means submission. Islam is a political system at its heart; yet, it uses religious threats (torture in the next life) and corporal threats (pain in this life) to cower its adherents.

As a political system Islam is viciously effective and quintessentially primal since it skips all the value esoterics of - rights, liberties, patriotism, freedoms, et. al. - and places itself squarely over the most efficient driver for human compliance and/or submission - Fear.

What am suggesting? Well, I am suggesting that simply "keeping their heads down" is not tolerable; not for the brave new world in which we find ourselves. We're done - Homey don't play that, anymore.

Yep, I'm for making folks take sides.

If they won't, okay, I get it...Yeah, I get it, I really do. Fear is real...The fear is pallatable, I can appreciate that. But, life is a bitch. No-ticky-no-washy...

If they are not with us other Americans, they need a one way ticket somewhere else.

Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

GratefulCitizen

04-12-2008, 14:58

If followers of Islam feel that they are required to violate the laws of this nation, then they should celebrate their journey as martyrs when they are fined, incarcerated, scorned, or whatever.

They can be a living demonstration of their faith.
(as opposed to dying demonstration which they seem to prefer)

In this nation, those of us who do not follow Islam are not obliged to eliminate the consequences which they might bear adhering to their faith.

abc_123

04-14-2008, 13:56

This idiot definiately thinks there is a war going on...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351242,00.html

Pete

04-14-2008, 14:46

abc_123

04-14-2008, 16:50

I see the Religion of Peace is back on the Apes and Pigs things.

Somebody should tell those Muslims that the nice smell of Bar-B-Que drifting over the Southeastern USA contains pork molecules.

Sniff a pig and go where:D

That's a lot better then the smells that are commonly drifting over Afghanistan or any other country in that part of the world. Doc giving us a detailed briefing on what type of molecules (and the percentage of each) thatmade up those smells the first time we went over definately fell into the category of "Too Much Information".

Pete

04-14-2008, 17:06

... on what type of molecules (and the percentage of each) thatmade up those smells the first time we went over definately fell into the category of "Too Much Information".

Smells - we could start a new thread just on smells. 1) 3rd world poor - limited/very few animals 2) 3rd world poor - animal based 3) 3rd world poor animal (maybe not based) but rich enough to produce limited garbage 4) 3rd world poor but going middle class and producing lots of garbage.

I've cruised past some neighborhoods around here and caught a wiff that flashed me back to some odd 3rd world country here or there.

OK, highjack over.

Pete

abc_123

04-14-2008, 19:50

Smells - we could start a new thread just on smells. 1) 3rd world poor - limited/very few animals 2) 3rd world poor - animal based 3) 3rd world poor animal (maybe not based) but rich enough to produce limited garbage 4) 3rd world poor but going middle class and producing lots of garbage.

I've cruised past some neighborhoods around here and caught a wiff that flashed me back to some odd 3rd world country here or there.

OK, highjack over.

Pete

Not quite over... I guess there would have to be a subcategory that addressed the non-smelly but very fecal matter rich air in places such as ..um, I don't know... Afghanistan.:confused: Nothing like walking around an seeing piles of human excrement marked by little pieces of pink TP (in the more affluent areas)...(not to mention the goat, and sheep excrement) dessecating in the dry air and sun..slowly crumbling and blowing away and becoming part of the air that you breathe...

x-factor

04-14-2008, 22:21

Third world urban poor is without a doubt the worst.

High population density + lack of working utilities = bad joo-joo

The Reaper

04-28-2008, 12:36

Well written and compelling article.

We may want to confront this sooner, rather than later.

TR

Bruce Bawer

An Anatomy of Surrender

Motivated by fear and multiculturalism, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping sharia.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_cultural_jihadists.html

Dad

04-28-2008, 13:46

Interesting article. Interesting he is not allowed to speak in Egypt. I would imagine he would be in serious danger from the peace loving Jihadists.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/5725957.html

Team Sergeant

05-06-2008, 09:36

Excellent article!!!!!!

Sam Harris
Posted May 5, 2008
The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world's most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam. Wilders, who lives under perpetual armed guard due to death threats, recently released a 15 minute film entitled Fitna ("strife" in Arabic) over the internet. The film has been deemed offensive because it juxtaposes images of Muslim violence with passages from the Qur'an. Given that the perpetrators of such violence regularly cite these same passages as justification for their actions, merely depicting this connection in a film would seem uncontroversial. Controversial or not, one surely would expect politicians and journalists in every free society to strenuously defend Wilders' right to make such a film. But then one would be living on another planet, a planet where people do not happily repudiate their most basic freedoms in the name of "religious sensitivity."

Witness the free world's response to Fitna: The Dutch government sought to ban the film outright, and European Union foreign ministers publicly condemned it, as did UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Dutch television refused to air Fitna unedited. When Wilders declared his intention to release the film over the internet, his U.S. web-host, Network Solutions, took his website offline.

Into the breach stepped Liveleak, a British video-sharing website, which finally aired the film on March 27th. It received over 3 million views in the first 24 hours. The next day, however, Liveleak removed Fitna from its servers, having been terrorized into self-censorship by threats to its staff. But the film had spread too far on the internet to be suppressed (and Liveleak, after taking further security measures, has since reinstated it on its site as well).

Of course, there were immediate calls for a boycott of Dutch products throughout the Muslim world. In response, Dutch corporations placed ads in countries like Indonesia, denouncing the film in self-defense. Several Muslim countries blocked YouTube and other video-sharing sites in an effort to keep Wilders' blasphemy from penetrating the minds of their citizens. There have also been isolated protests and attacks on embassies, and ubiquitous demands for Wilders' murder. In Afghanistan, women in burqas could be seen burning the Dutch flag; the Taliban carried out at least two revenge attacks on Dutch troops, resulting in five Dutch casualties; and security concerns have caused the Netherlands to close its embassy in Kabul. It must be said, however, that nothing has yet occurred to rival the ferocious response to the Danish cartoons.

Meanwhile Kurt Westergaard, one of the Danish cartoonists, threatened to sue Wilders for copyright infringement, as Wilders used his drawing of a bomb-laden Muhammad without permission. Westergaard has lived in hiding since 2006 due to death threats of his own, so the Danish Union of Journalists volunteered to file this lawsuit on his behalf. Admittedly, there is something amusing about one hunted man, unable to venture out in public for fear of being killed by religious lunatics, threatening to sue another man in the same predicament over a copyright violation. But it is understandable that Westergaard wouldn't want to be repeatedly hurled at the enemy without his consent. Westergaard is an extraordinarily courageous man whose life has been ruined both by religious fanaticism and the free world's submission to it. In February, the Danish government arrested three Muslims who seemed poised to murder him. Other Danes unfortunate enough to have been born with the name "Kurt Westergaard" have had to take steps to escape being murdered in his place. (Wilder's has since removed the cartoon from the official version of Fitna.)

Wilders, like Westergaard and the other Danish cartoonists, has been widely vilified for "seeking to inflame" the Muslim community. Even if this had been his intention, this criticism represents an almost supernatural coincidence of moral blindness and political imprudence. The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for "racism" and "Islamophobia."

Our capitulations in the face of these threats have had what is often called "a chilling effect" on our exercise of free speech. I have, in my own small way, experienced this chill first hand. First, and most important, my friend and colleague Ayaan Hirsi Ali happens to be among the hunted. Because of the failure of Western governments to make it safe for people to speak openly about the problem of Islam, I and others must raise a mountain of private funds to help pay for her round-the-clock protection. The problem is not, as is often alleged, that governments cannot afford to protect every person who speaks out against Muslim intolerance. The problem is that so few people do speak out. If there were ten thousand Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, the risk to each would be radically reduced.

As for infringements of my own speech, my first book, The End of Faith, almost did not get published for fear of offending the sensibilities of (probably non-reading) religious fanatics. W.W. Norton, which did publish the book, was widely seen as taking a risk--one probably attenuated by the fact that I am an equal-opportunity offender critical of all religious faith. However, when it came time to make final edits to the galleys of The End of Faith, many of the people I had thanked by name in my acknowledgments (including my agent at the time and my editor at Norton) independently asked to have their names removed from the book. Their concerns were explicitly for their personal safety. Given our shamefully ineffectual response to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, their concerns were perfectly understandable.

Nature, arguably the most influential scientific journal on the planet, recently published a lengthy whitewash of Islam (Z. Sardar "Beyond the troubled relationship." Nature 448, 131-133; 2007). The author began, as though atop a minaret, by simply declaring the religion of Islam to be "intrinsically rational." He then went on to argue, amid a highly idiosyncratic reading of history and theology, that this rational religion's current wallowing in the violent depths of unreason can be fully ascribed to the legacy of colonialism. After some negotiation, Nature also agreed to publish a brief response from me. What readers of my letter to the editor could not know, however, was that it was only published after perfectly factual sentences deemed offensive to Islam were expunged. I understood the editors' concerns at the time: not only did they have Britain's suffocating libel laws to worry about, but Muslim physicians and engineers in the UK had just revealed a penchant for suicide bombing. I was grateful that Nature published my letter at all.

In a thrillingly ironic turn of events, a shorter version of the very essay you are now reading was originally commissioned by the opinion page of Washington Post and then rejected because it was deemed too critical of Islam. Please note, this essay was destined for the opinion page of the paper, which had solicited my response to the controversy over Wilders' film. The irony of its rejection seemed entirely lost on the Post, which responded to my subsequent expression of amazement by offering to pay me a "kill fee." I declined.

Team Sergeant

05-06-2008, 09:37

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

I could list other examples of encounters with editors and publishers, as can many writers, all illustrating a single fact: While it remains taboo to criticize religious faith in general, it is considered especially unwise to criticize Islam. Only Muslims hound and hunt and murder their apostates, infidels, and critics in the 21st century. There are, to be sure, reasons why this is so. Some of these reasons have to do with accidents of history and geopolitics, but others can be directly traced to doctrines sanctifying violence which are unique to Islam.

A point of comparison: The controversy of over Fitna was immediately followed by ubiquitous media coverage of a scandal involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). In Texas, police raided an FLDS compound and took hundreds of women and underage girls into custody to spare them the continued, sacramental predations of their menfolk. While mainstream Mormonism is now granted the deference accorded to all major religions in the United States, its fundamentalist branch, with its commitment to polygamy, spousal abuse, forced marriage, child brides (and, therefore, child rape) is often portrayed in the press as a depraved cult. But one could easily argue that Islam, considered both in the aggregate and in terms of its most negative instances, is far more despicable than fundamentalist Mormonism. The Muslim world can match the FLDS sin for sin--Muslims commonly practice polygamy, forced-marriage (often between underage girls and older men), and wife-beating--but add to these indiscretions the surpassing evils of honor killing, female "circumcision," widespread support for terrorism, a pornographic fascination with videos showing the butchery of infidels and apostates, a vibrant form of anti-semitism that is explicitly genocidal in its aspirations, and an aptitude for producing children's books and television programs which exalt suicide-bombing and depict Jews as "apes and pigs."

Any honest comparison between these two faiths reveals a bizarre double standard in our treatment of religion. We can openly celebrate the marginalization of FLDS men and the rescue of their women and children. But, leaving aside the practical and political impossibility of doing so, could we even allow ourselves to contemplate liberating the women and children of traditional Islam?

What about all the civil, freedom-loving, moderate Muslims who are just as appalled by Muslim intolerance as I am? No doubt millions of men and women fit this description, but vocal moderates are very difficult to find. Wherever "moderate Islam" does announce itself, one often discovers frank Islamism lurking just a euphemism or two beneath the surface. The subterfuge is rendered all but invisible to the general public by political correctness, wishful thinking, and "white guilt." This is where we find sinister people successfully posing as "moderates"--people like Tariq Ramadan who, while lionized by liberal Europeans as the epitome of cosmopolitan Islam, cannot bring himself to actually condemn honor killing in round terms (he recommends that the practice be suspended, pending further study). Moderation is also attributed to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist public relations firm posing as a civil-rights lobby.

Even when one finds a true voice of Muslim moderation, it often seems distinguished by a lack of candor above all things. Take someone like Reza Aslan, author of No God But God: I debated Aslan for Book TV on the general subject of religion and modernity. During the course of our debate, I had a few unkind words to say about the Muslim Brotherhood. While admitting that there is a difference between the Brotherhood and a full-blown jihadist organization like al Qaeda, I said that their ideology was "close enough" to be of concern. Aslan responded with a grandiose, ad hominem attack saying, "that indicates the profound unsophistication that you have about this region. You could not be more wrong" and claiming that I'd taken my view of Islam from "Fox News." Such maneuvers, coming from a polished, Iranian-born scholar of Islam carry the weight of authority, especially in front of an audience of people who are desperate to believe the threat of Islam has been grossly exaggerated. The problem, however, is that the credo of the Muslim Brotherhood actually happens to be "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

Team Sergeant

05-06-2008, 09:37

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

The connection between the doctrine of Islam and Islamist violence is simply not open to dispute. It's not that critics of religion like myself speculate that such a connection might exist: the point is that Islamists themselves acknowledge and demonstrate this connection at every opportunity and to deny it is to retreat within a fantasy world of political correctness and religious apology. Many western scholars, like the much admired Karen Armstrong, appear to live in just such a place. All of their talk about how benign Islam "really" is, and about how the problem of fundamentalism exists in all religions, only obfuscates what may be the most pressing issue of our time: Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world's Muslims, is antithetical to civil society. A recent poll showed that thirty-six percent of British Muslims (ages 16-24) believe that a person should be killed for leaving the faith. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should have been brought to justice. And these are British Muslims.

Occasionally, however, a lone voice can be heard acknowledging the obvious. Hassan Butt wrote in the Guardian:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

It is astounding how infrequently one hears such candor among the public voices of "moderate" Islam. This is what we owe the true moderates of the Muslim world: we must hold their co-religionists to the same standards of civility and reasonableness that we take for granted in all other people. Only our willingness to openly criticize Islam for its all-too-obvious failings can make it safe for Muslim moderates, secularists, apostates--and, indeed, women--to rise up and reform their faith.

And if anyone in this debate can be credibly accused of racism, it is the western apologists and "multiculturalists" who deem Arabs and Muslims too immature to shoulder the responsibilities of civil discourse. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali has pointed out, there is a calamitous form of "affirmative action" at work, especially in western Europe, where Muslim immigrants are systematically exempted from western standards of moral order in the name of paying "respect" to the glaring pathologies in their culture. Hirsi Ali has also observed that there is a quasi-racist double-think on display whenever western powers trumpet that "Islam is peace," all the while taking heroic measures to guard against the next occasion when the barbarians run amok in response to a film, cartoon, opera, novel, beauty pageant--or the mere naming of a teddy bear.

Have you seen the Danish cartoons that so roiled the Muslim world? Probably not, as their publication was suppressed by almost every newspaper, magazine, and television station in the United States. Given their volcanic reception--hundreds of thousands of Muslims rioted, hundreds of people were killed--their sheer banality should have rendered these drawings extraordinarily newsworthy. One magazine which did print them, Free Inquiry (for which I am proud to have written), had its stock banned from every Borders and Waldenbooks in the country. These are precisely the sorts of capitulations that we must avoid in the future.

The lesson we should draw from the Fitna controversy is that we need more criticism of Islam, not less. Let it come down in such torrents that not even the most deluded Islamist could conceive of containing it. As Ibn Warraq, author of the revelatory Why I Am Not a Muslim, said in response to recent events:

It is perverse for the western media to lament the lack of an Islamic reformation and willfully ignore works such as Wilders' film, Fitna. How do they think reformation will come about if not with criticism? There is no such right as 'the right not to be offended; indeed, I am deeply offended by the contents of the Koran, with its overt hatred of Christians, Jews, apostates, non-believers, homosexuals but cannot demand its suppression.

It is time we recognized that those who claim the "right not to be offended" have also announced their hatred of civil society.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

hoot72

05-07-2008, 00:33

Yep, Indonesians mostly (at least one Saudi). Picking them up indicates fighting terrorism, not being involved in it. A bunch have been picked up in Thailand as well.

It is so easy for them (Indonesians) to change their identities and passports in Kalimantan (Tarakan, Balikpapan) across the border from Tawau in Sabah so its really hard to track anyone. They can also get indonesian passports for the guys coming down from Davao and Zambonga who aren't Malaysian or Indonesian.

A large number of JI members have been arrested under the ISA (Internal Security Act) which is essentially, 2 years behind bars without trail. It has been proven to work. I don't know what goes on behind closed doors in Kemunting (the ISA Center) but most come out changed...

The problem is its also very easy to hide in Sabah and to use it as a transit point to operate in and out of South Philippines and then to make their away down south into Indonesia...bribery and corruption is also a big problem.

JI is active and well over on this side of the world..not necc. in West Malaysia where the police seem to have a better control and intelligence on whats going on in their backyard.

frostfire

05-14-2008, 20:28

Right in our own backyard. Tolerance for the intolerant. How far can this go?CAIR is quick to the "rescue" btw :rolleyes:

WorldNetDaily, May 12, 2008

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS

Muslim threats force out disabled teacher with dog
Islamic students reportedly taunted 'unclean' animal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Muslim high school high school student's intolerance for a service dog needed by a student teacher with a disability has reportedly prompted the student teacher to abandon the last 10 hours of his scheduled assignment at Technical High School in St. Cloud, Minn.

The St. Cloud Times online said the situation developed with student teacher Tyler Hurd, 23, of Mahtomedi, who hopes to teach special education.

He's a student at St. Cloud State University, and was assigned to Technical High School in the St. Cloud district for his 50 hours of student teaching, and took with him his service dog, Emmitt.

The newspaper said Hurd needs a service dog because of a childhood injury that leaves him with seizures, sometimes happening as often as weekly. The black lab is trained to protect Hurd when he has a seizure.

The school district told the newspaper it wasn't really a threat.

"I think it was a misunderstanding where we didn't really prepare either side for possible implications," Julia Espe, curriculum director for the public schools, said.

Hurd, however, reported a student threatened to kill his dog. He said the threat came from a Somali student who is Muslim. Minnesota has a large Somali population, mostly Muslim, and they have been involved in issues over their religion in the past.

At the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, many taxi drivers are Somali Muslims and they have raised objections to carrying passengers with liquor. Airport officials finally threatened to remove from the cab drivers' line waiting for fares anyone who refused a passenger over the issue.

WND also has reported on the dispute over a taxpayer-funded school in a Minneapolis suburb serving mostly Somali Muslim students and accusations that Islam is being taught at the public facility.

Islam forbids its adherents from touching dogs.

Hurd earlier spent some time student teaching at Talahi Community School, where he said his experience was good. He told the newspaper Somali students there even petted his dog, although they used paper to keep their hands from actually making physical contact.

But at Tech, Hurd reported, students taunted his dog, and he left when he was told a student threatened the animal.

University officials said they waived the remaining 10 hours of work that Hurd was supposed to have finished.

"We came up with a solution because I felt threatened by it," Hurd told the newspaper.

A meeting was set up involving Kate Steffens, the dean of education at St. Cloud State, and assistant principal Lori Lockhart of Tech, in order to avoid future problems.

"We certainly welcome (Hurd) in our district, and we hope we can get this all resolved so he feels welcome and his dog is welcome," Espe said.

The college places about 1,000 students in 240 regional schools to help them get ready for careers in teaching.

Original link: http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS01/105120058

Pete

05-16-2008, 15:49

Kafir dreams.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=76B12F33-3165-47D1-80ED-C3F1ACD07D8A

Interesting read.

Future_Frog

05-17-2008, 10:54

I'm pretty well read up on Islam, and my dad is as well and we've had a few good discussions over the subject and come up with a pretty good saying.
"Not all Muslims are terrorist, but most terrorist are Muslim." Hope you guys can play around with this idea.:munchin

The Reaper

05-17-2008, 11:12

Future_Frog

05-17-2008, 11:18

No, the purpose of this post was in response to Pete's article, not the thread topic.

Pete

05-17-2008, 13:15

No, the purpose of this post was in response to Pete's article, not the thread topic.

Take care and get a feel for the place before you do much more posting.

You just may find your rucksack out in the hallway.

Edited to add: Too late, I think I just heard the door slam.

frostfire

05-28-2008, 20:41

RPicart

05-29-2008, 04:54

I sincerely hope/pray/wish this will never happen in the US of A.
Is there an end of this? What has happened in Holland?!??!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Netherlands: Man moved on flight after Muslim woman request

Amsterdam CDA municipal council member Lex van Drooge was recently asked to move to a different seat on a KLM flight from Istanbul to Amsterdam, since the Muslim woman sitting next to him had objections about sitting next to a man.

The council member had been a work-trip to Istanbul together with a group of Amsterdam politicians. He says that at beginning of the trip back he was asked by a stewardess to move elsewhere in the plane. Later it turned out this request was from his original headscarf wearing neighbor.

Van Drooge says that apparently we don't know how to deal with these type of situations, which happily only happen occasionally.

The unusual request by the Muslim woman, who was traveling on her own and who did not say a word to Van Drooge, was not noticed by other passengers. The Amsterdam resident is surprised at how things developed, and has a "slight unpleasant feeling".

He says he naturally called around, and found that Turkish airplane companies haven't heard about different classes for men and women.

A spokesperson for KLM could not confirm the story, and said there is no specific policy regarding such cultural or religious inspired requests. But she says that the crew takes into account special requests of passengers. "If it's possible, than we do that, and if it's not possible, than not."

It's unclear why the woman was not moved to a different place. The KLM spokesperson says that that was also possible.

http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/4071462/_KLM_zwicht_voor_sekse-eis_moslima__.html

Stuff like that is occurring all over the United Kingdom as well. The following article comes from the METRO publication here in the UK, a free newspaper that is circulated via the public transit system. It is from the Friday, May 23, 2008 edition.

"Mother of two, 36, is denied Pill

A couple were refused the morning-after pill by a Muslim pharmacist because of his religious belief. Kaye Walsh and Chris Mellett wanted the emergency contraceptive after their usual method failed. Ms Walsh, who works in recruitment and has a son, 17, and a daughter, five, said of the incident at Sainsbury's in Denton, Manchester: 'I was absolutely flabbergasted. I'm a 36-year-old woman, not a child. Surely the pharmacist has a duty of care?' But a Sainsbury's spokesman said the chemist was within his rights to refuse to give out the pill on religious grounds."

mdb23

05-29-2008, 05:08

Stuff like that is occurring all over the United Kingdom as well. The following article comes from the METRO publication here in the UK, a free newspaper that is circulated via the public transit system. It is from the Friday, May 23, 2008 edition.

"Mother of two, 36, is denied Pill

A couple were refused the morning-after pill by a Muslim pharmacist because of his religious belief. Kaye Walsh and Chris Mellett wanted the emergency contraceptive after their usual method failed. Ms Walsh, who works in recruitment and has a son, 17, and a daughter, five, said of the incident at Sainsbury's in Denton, Manchester: 'I was absolutely flabbergasted. I'm a 36-year-old woman, not a child. Surely the pharmacist has a duty of care?' But a Sainsbury's spokesman said the chemist was within his rights to refuse to give out the pill on religious grounds."

This has happened multiple times in the US, only with the pharmacist being an evangelical Christian instead of Muslim. It is such a common occurrence in the US, and is so well supported by many Christians, that many states have adopted "defense of faith" laws that actually prohibit employers (CVS, Target, Wal Mart, Walgreens, you name it) from taking any action against pharmacists who refuse to dispense prescriptions for the birth control pill, plan B, etc.
Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Dakota are three such states, and the last time I checked at least 10 other states had such legislation pending.

In addition, many pharmacists are not only refusing to fill the script, but are refusing to release the script back to the individual to be filled at another location.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently cited a case where a Texas pharmacist refused to give the morning after pill to a rape victim.

So we don't have to worry about the Muslim boogeyman on this one..... we are already dealing with the born again kind.

Before I get jumped on this one, I fully support the right of people to believe whatever they choose. However, I also believe that an employer should have the right to terminate or relieve an emplyee who chooses not to perform their full duties based upon religious grounds. If you don't want to dispense the birth control pill, that's fine, but open your own pharmacy.... don't go to work for a chain pharmacy and then cry religious persecution.

I am waiting for the day when a scientologist refuses to fill psychiatric meds and seeks protection under the defense of faith laws.... the precedent has already been set.

RPicart

05-29-2008, 05:33

"defense of faith" laws that actually prohibit employers (CVS, Target, Wal Mart, Walgreens, you name it) from taking any action against pharmacists who refuse to dispense prescriptions for the birth control pill, plan B, etc.
Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Dakota are three such states, and the last time I checked at least 10 other states had such legislation pending.

That's interesting, in regards to the defense of faith issue & pending legislation back in certain States.

I did a bit of quick research just now and found out that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, which as fas as I can tell Governs pharmacists, etc. has a snippet in its code of ethics that states that if supplying the morning-after pill is contrary to a pharmacist's personal, religious or moral beliefs they are within their rights not to supply it. :rolleyes:

I just feel like this type of stuff has no place in the workplace - beliefs like that are obviously hindering the successful functioning of the job role.

frostfire

05-29-2008, 22:22

Stuff like that is occurring all over the United Kingdom as well.

Speaking of UK...

Jail dog named 'Allah' spells curtains for UK prison officer
Mon, May 26 03:05 PM

London, May 26 (ANI): Naming his sniffer dog "Allah" has resulted in in prison officer Chris Langridge, 28, being shifted out of Britain's top Belmarsh high-security jail.

Though Langridge insisted that his labrador was called Ali, and not Allah, a Muslim inmate filed an official complaint against the the dog handler, and he was promptly shifted.

One Belmarsh officer said: "This is political correctness gone mad."

elmarsh houses some of Britain's most notorious extremist Muslims, including hook-handed Abu Hamza. It also has the highest proportion of Muslim prisoners of any jail in Britain.

"Muslims don't like dogs and it would have been an insult to their religion if the dog had been called Allah, which is sacred to them. It is disgraceful the way the management kow-towed to them despite Chris's denial," The Sun quoted a source, as saying.

Langridge and his dog are now working at the Swaleside jail on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/ani/20080526/r_t_ani_wl_europe/twl-jail-dog-named-allah-spells-curtains-d2443e4.html

RPicart

05-30-2008, 01:16

Speaking of UK...

Jail dog named 'Allah' spells curtains for UK prison officer
Mon, May 26 03:05 PM

London, May 26 (ANI): Naming his sniffer dog "Allah" has resulted in in prison officer Chris Langridge, 28, being shifted out of Britain's top Belmarsh high-security jail.

Though Langridge insisted that his labrador was called Ali, and not Allah, a Muslim inmate filed an official complaint against the the dog handler, and he was promptly shifted.

One Belmarsh officer said: "This is political correctness gone mad."

elmarsh houses some of Britain's most notorious extremist Muslims, including hook-handed Abu Hamza. It also has the highest proportion of Muslim prisoners of any jail in Britain.

"Muslims don't like dogs and it would have been an insult to their religion if the dog had been called Allah, which is sacred to them. It is disgraceful the way the management kow-towed to them despite Chris's denial," The Sun quoted a source, as saying.

Langridge and his dog are now working at the Swaleside jail on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/ani/20080526/r_t_ani_wl_europe/twl-jail-dog-named-allah-spells-curtains-d2443e4.html

I hadn't heard of this, but I'm not surprised. I think the officer at Belmarsh got it right when he said, "This is political correctness gone mad."

There is a campaign going on in the UK AGAINST political correctness because it has become such a big thing recently: http://www.capc.co.uk/. It includes other examples of UK political correctness; everything from the "Three Little Pigs" offending Muslims to "Baa Baa Black Sheep" possibly being renamed "Baa Baa Multicolored Sheep/Rainbow Sheep." :rolleyes:

In the area that I live in, in Birmingham, which has a high population of Southeast Asian ethnicities there had been talk by the Birmingham City Council of renaming Christmas WINTERVAL as to not offend anyone of a non-Christian denomination. :eek:

Defender968

05-30-2008, 11:20

In addition, many pharmacists are not only refusing to fill the script, but are refusing to release the script back to the individual to be filled at another location.

You know I'm ok with them refusing to fill it themselves on religious beliefs, (though I do think they should be fired or at least disciplined for failing to do their job) but that's their right to live how they wish and accept the consequences, but when they refuse to return the script now they're forcing their beliefs on others (in reality they're just forcing that person to go back and get another script) but I have a big problem with that. People are free in this country to believe and act as they wish as long as it is legal and doesn't infringe upon the rights of others, but when some "insert negative comment on any religious zealot, be they Christian, Muslim or whatever" tries to force me to behave/live according to their belief structure that's then I'm going to start raising hell. I'd call, write, and email, and then raise hell in person with that pharmacist’s direct boss, store manager, and company president, all of us in the military have sacrificed way to much to have our freedoms taken away by someone using their religion as an excuse.

shr7

05-30-2008, 17:44

In addition, many pharmacists are not only refusing to fill the script, but are refusing to release the script back to the individual to be filled at another location.

Don't want to hijack the thread. Only post on this topic, I swear. This is the agreement that I entered into. I'm pretty sure most/all pharmacists swear by this oath before graduating. It seems not all of them bother themselves with it afterwards... :rolleyes:

Code of Ethics for Pharmacists

Pharmacists are health professionals who assist individuals in making the best use of medications. This Code, prepared and supported by pharmacists, is intended to state publicly the principles that form the fundamental basis of the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists. These principles, based on moral obligations and virtues, are established to guide pharmacists in relationships with patients, health professionals, and society.

I. A pharmacist respects the covenantal relationship between the patient and pharmacist.

II. A pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate, and confidential manner.

III. A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient.

IV. A pharmacist acts with honesty and integrity in professional relationships.

VI. A pharmacist respects the values and abilities of colleagues and other health professionals.

VII. A pharmacist serves individual, community, and societal needs.

VIII. A pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources.

Ret10Echo

06-09-2008, 09:03

Good grief :confused:

Council: Mongtomery schools cave to pressue with Islam book
Leah Fabel, The Examiner
2008-06-07 12:21:05.0

Washington, D.C. -
A new report issued by the American Textbook Council says books approved for use in local school districts for teaching middle and high school students about Islam caved in to political correctness and dumbed down the topic at a critical moment in its history.

"Textbook editors try to avoid any subject that could turn into a political grenade," wrote Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, who railed against five popular history texts for "adjust[ing] the definition of jihad or sharia or remov[ing] these words from lessons to avoid inconvenient truths."

Sewall complains the word jihad has gone through an "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation of violence. He cites Houghton Mifflin's popular middle school text, "Across the Centuries," which has been approved for use in Montgomery County Schools. It defines "jihad" as a struggle "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil."

"But that is, literally, the translation of jihad," said Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and acclaimed author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam." Aslan explained that the definition does not preclude a militant interpretation.

"How you interpret [jihad] is based on whatever your particular ideology, or world viewpoint, or even prejudice is," Aslan said. "But how you define jihad is set in stone."

A statement from Montgomery County Public Schools said that all text used by teachers had been properly vetted and were appropriate for classroom uses.

Aslan said groups like Sewall's are often more concerned about advancing their own interpretation of Islam than they are about defining its parts and then allowing interpretation to happen at the classroom level.

Sewall's report blames publishing companies for allowing the influence of groups like the California-based Council on Islamic Education to serve throughout the editorial process as "screeners" for textbooks, softening or deleting potentially unflattering topics within the faith.

"Fundamentally I'm worried about dumbing down textbooks," he said, "by groups that come to state education officials saying we want this and that - and publishers need to find a happy medium."

Maryland state delegate Saqib Ali refrained from joining the fray. "The job of assigning curriculum is best left to educators and the school board, and I trust their judgment," he said.

3SoldierDad

06-18-2008, 22:41

The enemy has a name

By DANIEL PIPES
Jerusalem Post
Jun 18, 2008

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1213794270385&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

If you cannot name your enemy, how can you defeat it? Just as a physician must identify a disease before curing a patient, so a strategist must identify the foe before winning a war. Yet Westerners have proven reluctant to identify the opponent in the conflict the US government variously (and euphemistically) calls the "global war on terror," the "long war," the "global struggle against violent extremism," or even the "global struggle for security and progress."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN FACT, that enemy has a precise and concise name: Islamism, a radical utopian version of Islam. Islamists, adherents of this well funded, widespread, totalitarian ideology, are attempting to create a global Islamic order that fully applies the Islamic law (Shari'a).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

This timidity translates into an inability to define war goals. Two high-level US statements from late 2001 typify the vague and ineffective declarations issued by Western governments. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld defined victory as establishing "an environment where we can in fact fulfill and live [our] freedoms." In contrast, George W. Bush announced a narrower goal, "the defeat of the global terror network" - whatever that undefined network might be.

"Defeating terrorism" has, indeed, remained the basic war goal. By implication, terrorists are the enemy and counterterrorism is the main response.
BUT OBSERVERS have increasingly concluded that terrorism is just a tactic, not an enemy. Bush effectively admitted this much in mid-2004, acknowledging that "We actually misnamed the war on terror." Instead, he called the war a "struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies and who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

two main challenges to Westerners: To speak frankly and to aim for victory. Neither comes naturally to the modern person

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A year later, in the aftermath of the 7/7 London transport bombings, British prime minister Tony Blair advanced the discussion by speaking of the enemy as "a religious ideology, a strain within the world-wide religion of Islam." Soon after, Bush himself used the terms "Islamic radicalism," "militant Jihadism," and "Islamo-fascism." But these words prompted much criticism and he backtracked.

By mid-2007, Bush had reverted to speaking about "the great struggle against extremism that is now playing out across the broader Middle East." That is where things now stand, with US government agencies being advised to refer to the enemy with such nebulous terms as "death cult," "cult-like," "sectarian cult," and "violent cultists."

IN FACT, that enemy has a precise and concise name: Islamism, a radical utopian version of Islam. Islamists, adherents of this well funded, widespread, totalitarian ideology, are attempting to create a global Islamic order that fully applies the Islamic law (Shari'a).

Thus defined, the needed response becomes clear. It is two-fold: vanquish Islamism and help Muslims develop an alternative form of Islam. Not coincidentally, this approach roughly parallels what the allied powers accomplished vis-à-vis the two prior radical utopian movements, fascism and communism.

First comes the burden of defeating an ideological enemy. As in 1945 and 1991, the goal must be to marginalize and weaken a coherent and aggressive ideological movement, so that it no longer attracts followers nor poses a world-shaking threat. World War II, won through blood, steel, and atomic bombs, offers one model for victory; the Cold War, with its deterrence, complexity, and nearly-peaceful collapse, offers quite another.

Victory against Islamism, presumably, will draw on both these legacies and mix them into a novel brew of conventional war, counterterrorism, counterpropaganda, and many other strategies. At one end, the war effort led to the overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan; at the other, it requires repelling the lawful Islamists who work legitimately within the educational, religious, media, legal, and political arenas.

THE SECOND goal involves helping Muslims who oppose Islamist goals and wish to offer an alternative to Islamism's depravities by reconciling Islam with the best of modern ways. But such Muslims are weak, being but fractured individuals who have only just begun the hard work of researching, communicating, organizing, funding, and mobilizing.

To do all this more quickly and effectively, these moderates need non-Muslim encouragement and sponsorship. However unimpressive they may be at present, moderates, with Western support, alone hold the potential to modernize Islam, and thereby to terminate the threat of Islamism.

In the final analysis, Islamism presents two main challenges to Westerners: To speak frankly and to aim for victory. Neither comes naturally to the modern person, who tends to prefer political correctness and conflict resolution, or even appeasement. But once these hurdles are overcome, the Islamist enemy's objective weakness in terms of arsenal, economy, and resources means it can readily be defeated.

The writer, director of the Middle East Forum, is Taube/Diller distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Posted By: Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

Ret10Echo

06-24-2008, 07:31

From the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The original is available on the HSGA website....attached is a less sexy version.

http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/IslamistReport.pdf

bailaviborita

07-02-2008, 21:16

Paslode

07-05-2008, 21:26

bailaviborita

07-06-2008, 08:18

I have yet to get a straight answer from any Muslim what they think about terrorism, though they generally state a religion of peace the fact is they avoid the subject or try to divert the conversation elsewhere.

Do I think all Muslims are bad people, no. But I do feel they are Muslims first and foremost, if they happen to be US Citizens they are Americans 2nd or 3rd and The Koran and its Islamic Laws take precedence over US Laws, personal rights and values.

A great many Muslims come to our country and wish not acclimate but rather ask our country to accommodate them and their culture. Europe and the especially the UK is a glaring example of this.

So Yes I would say we are at war with the Islamic culture.

Thank goodness the majority of Christians in our country don't also put the Bible in front of the Constitution. Although we do have our abortion clinic bombers, they are a very small minority.

I'm not so sure we are at war with Islamic culture as much as we are attempting to export the idea of the sanctity of secular, Constitutional law over other forms of control. Islamic culture as it appears to most of us in reality (as opposed to the abstract) would seem to overwhelmingly favor scripture over anything- to the extent that scripture should form the basis for law, as opposed to a legal code that is founded in certain liberal assumptions and able to be modified by popular consent within certain liberal boundaries (Bill of Rights, for example). Interestingly, the UN and other groups are supposed to be advocating certain fundamental rights, but rarely will they espouse changing cultures/religions to do so. It is not PC.

Thank god Jesus said "Render unto Caesar", etc. We have been able to separate our government and our religion, even if many of our fundamental liberal beliefs came out of religion. We have been able to use those concepts to move forward to a secular, more open and transparent and functional society. Not sure how Islam will reform or change since they don't have that same "Render unto Caesar" doctrine. Chrisitianity seemed to be focused on the Afterlife and making due as much as possible in the here and now, working hard to show thanks for those gifts bestowed upon us by a higher being. Islam seems to be focused mainly on how to try to change this world into what the prophet thinks it should be like- how to live your life and survive against the infidel- and to accept almost everything as God's will. Hard to merge that into a secular, globalized world, IMO.

Team Sergeant

07-20-2008, 10:48

Where's my friend Astraeus? In iran you are muslim and follow islamic law or you die a horrible death.

Apostasy and blasphemy are capital crimes? Only in muslim/islamic countries.

apostasy:

1 : renunciation of a religious faith

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apostasy

The catholic, baptist, mormon et al should take note of islamic law, this is how you KEEP the rank and file in line!

Team Sergeant

Activists: 9 Iranians Convicted of Adultery Set to Be Stoned to Death
Sunday, July 20, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran — Eight women and one man convicted of adultery are set to be stoned to death in Iran, activists said Sunday.

Lawyer and women's rights activist, Shadi Sadr, said the nine were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.

"Their verdicts are approved, and they may be executed at any time," she told reporters.

Sadr, who has been leading a campaign in Iran against stoning deaths since 2006, said trial protocol was not applied properly in the cases. Six of the nine were convicted based solely on judges' decisions with no witnesses or the presence of their lawyers during their confessions, she said.

Most of the nine come from areas of Iran that have low rates of literacy and some did not understand the cases against them, she said.

One of Sadr's colleagues, Mohammad Mostafai, said his client, Malak Qorbani, had plead guilty to adultery even though she did not know the meaning of the charge.

The nine are between 27 and 50 years old, among them a male music teacher who was convicted of adultery for having an affair with one of his students, the activists said.

"We are trying to stop the implementation of their verdicts. And secondly, we want to amend the country's penal law, in which death by stoning is prescribed," Sadr said.

Calls to judiciary officials were not immediately returned on Sunday.

Under Iran's Islamic laws, adultery in the only capital offense punishable by stoning. Other capital offenses in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, drug trafficking, prostitution, treason and espionage.

The punishment is also applied in some other countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Nigeria.

A man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her neck. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies.

Stoning was widely imposed in the early years after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power. But in recent years, it has seldom been applied, though the government rarely confirms when it carries out stoning sentences. The last stoning death confirmed by the government was in July 2007.

In the recent years, reformist legislators demanded an end to death by stoning as a punishment for adultery, but opposition from hard-line clerics sidelined their efforts.

Along with adultery, other capital offenses in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, drug trafficking, prostitution, treason and espionage.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,386789,00.html

JumpinJoe1010

07-20-2008, 11:23

Thought this was on point to the discussion. This would be the direction we are headed for.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,386161,00.html

The Afghan journalist who filmed and photographed the July 12 execution of two women by the Taliban says he was detained and held for two days by authorities in Afghanistan for suspected ties to terrorists.

The footage and photographs of the executions were distributed by the Associated Press and widely circulated on the Internet, giving rise to suspicions that the photographer, Rahmatullah Naikzad, was connected with the Taliban.

In an exclusive telephone interview, Naikzad told FOXNews.com that he turned himself in to Afghan authorities early this week and was held in custody and investigated for 48 hours. He said officials "asked me why I went to the Taliban at night — how come they didn't harm me."

Naikzad said he has no ties with the Taliban, and he gave the following account of why and how he became witness to the executions.
He said the Taliban issued a press statement calling all media outlets in the province of Ghazni, which has a large Taliban presence, to cover them “carrying out the Shariah” on a few burglars in their custody. Naikzad said he believed the Taliban would be cutting off the limbs of their prisoners, according to strict Islamic law.

He said he and other journalists were reluctant to go because of security concerns, but that an unknown person who identified himself as a member of the Taliban contacted him directly on his cell phone and assured him of his safety.

“We talked for about five minutes on the phone, and he said my safety was absolutely guaranteed,” Naikzad explained.

He said he checked with the Kabul office of the Associated Press, for which he works as a stringer, and then set off around sunset on his motorbike to a village on the outskirts of Ghazni City, only to find that no other journalist was there.

That, he said, was when he learned it was two women — and not burglars — whom the Taliban had arrested, and that they had been charged with running a prostitution ring for coalition soldiers and local men.

Naikzad interviewed and filmed the Taliban, who said on tape that the two women “took the pure girls and women” and “indulged them in immoral acts.”

After the interview, he said, the Taliban picked up the two burqa-clad women from a house, put them in a white Toyota Corolla and drove off to a different location.

Naikzad said he followed the Corolla on his bike, with a Taliban car following him.

About a half-hour later, he said, they stopped near Arzo village, close to the Ghazni-Paktika highway, on the outskirts of the province.

The women — one of whom appeared to be carrying a shopping bag — were then taken out of the car and told they would be executed.

Naikzad said he tried to persuade the Taliban not to carry out the executions.

“I told one of the Taliban, ‘These are women, they are harmless. Why would you want to kill them?’ But they didn’t listen to me.”

When his pleas went unheeded, he said, he asked the Taliban if he could film the execution.

“I wanted to show how the women were killed and have a proof of their death,” he said.

He said the Taliban turned him down, but his camera was already rolling and he kept it on when he placed it on the seat of his bike.

Two Taliban cocked their guns. Soon, five bullets were sprayed into the back of one woman, and six or seven pierced the head of the other. The women shouted and cried for a short moment, then went silent.

Naikzad said the Taliban did not notice that his camera was still rolling.

But the camera did not remain stationary. The videotape shows that it moved from left to right, apparently to capture the two executioners.

“I was standing near the bike, so my body may have touched the camera,” Naikzad said, explaining the movement of the camera. He stumbled slightly and added, “I myself nudged the camera a little bit.”

Naikzad said the Taliban offered him the opportunity to come with them for the night, since the road back home was dangerous. He said he declined the offer, and rode home.

The next morning, he said, he consulted with the AP, because he wanted to return to the village and photograph the women’s bodies. He said the AP agreed and he rode back to the scene of the executions.

Villagers stood nearby as he filmed and photographed the corpses. A stream of dried blood trailed from one body. The other woman’s shopping bag remained near her, its contents scattered.

“There was a beige handbag and a comb … a mirror and some cosmetics in it,” Naikzad said.

Naikzad said he was detained for two days after his video appeared on the Internet, but that he was released for three days following the death of a relative. He said he was treated well in custody, and that he is cooperating with the National Directorate of Security, the agency that interrogated him.

“Around 60 pages of investigative material were produced from my interrogation,” he said.

“I am willingly going back into custody once the [three-day] period ends,” he said, adding, “I have nothing to fear.”

Some bloggers who have seen the video of the executions have expressed concerns that Naikzad may be connected with the Taliban, and that the Associated Press was used as a propaganda tool.

But Naikzad denied any ties with the terrorists and said he has given equal coverage to the different sides in conflict in the province.

“If I have photographed Taliban casualties, I have also photographed American casualties. I have been balanced in my journalism,” he said.

Paul Colford, director of media relations for the Associated Press, said in response to an inquiry: "The Associated Press has been following this case closely with some concern."

Dad

07-20-2008, 12:03

Is there any chance the Iranian people themselves get sick of the radical Islamists and throw the bastards out themselves? Is there enough support to do so among the educated urban classes and the non Persian minorities? Or, does the Revolutionary Guard have such a gestapo like hold on the public to make any such action impossible?

Team Sergeant

07-20-2008, 14:06

Or, does the Revolutionary Guard have such a gestapo like hold on the public to make any such action impossible?

That would be correct.

Freedom of speech and freedom to assemble is one our "our" rights, not an islamic or middle eastern right. Neither of these "rights" have ever been known to "most" islamic tribes.

Make no mistake most middle eastern countries are pure dictatorships.

TS

GratefulCitizen

07-21-2008, 22:15

(post #947, 3/10/2008)
Interesting rant germane to the thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9dXGJ2rYdA

More from the same guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F5aCUNE4Z8

Pete

07-26-2008, 14:19

GratefulCitizen

07-26-2008, 16:33

This from the UK.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2461830/Killing-for-religion-is-justified,-say-third-of-Muslim-students.html

1/3 is a lot of Muslims.

People need to wake up before it is too late.

1/3 of Muslims believe killing for religion is OK...

Maybe this 1/3 could identify themselves and line up in a nice neat row...

...after all, they did say that they it's OK to be killed for religion.

Team Sergeant

07-27-2008, 10:15

Such shocking and disturbing news! islamic cowards murdering in the name of allah, again........

Islamic Group Claims Responsibility for India Bombings That Killed 45; 30 Detained
Sunday, July 27, 2008

AHMADABAD, India — Authorities scoured a western Indian city Sunday for those responsible for a series of bombings that killed at least 45 people, detaining 30 people as a little-known group claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the second series of blasts in India in two days.

"In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahedeen strike again! Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!" said an e-mail from the group sent to several Indian television stations minutes before the blasts began.

The e-mail's subject line said "Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat," an apparent reference to 2002 riots in the western state which left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. The historic city of Ahmadabad is one of the largest cities in Gujarat and was the scene of much of the 2002 violence.

State government spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas said 45 people were killed and 161 wounded when at least 16 bombs went off Saturday evening in several crowded neighborhoods. The attack came a day after seven smaller blasts killed two people in the southern technology hub of Bangalore.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,391747,00.html

Team Sergeant

08-07-2008, 18:10

WOW what a huge surprize!!!!!! a bunch of islamic idiots threaten the Beijing Olympics.....

How could anyone with an IQ above 35 not believe islam is at war with the entire world.:munchin

The funny thing about this threat is the islamic idiots have no idea whom they are threating, the Chinese don't play nice.;)

TS

Chinese Islamic Group Threatens Attack at Beijing Olympics

BEIJING, China — An Islamic group that has threatened to attack the Summer Games released a new video claiming the communist regime's alleged mistreatment of Muslims justifies holy war, a U.S. group that monitors militant communications said Thursday.

In the video, a representative of the Turkistan Islamic Party accuses China of forcing Muslims into atheism and destroying Islamic schools, according to the SITE Institute. SITE says the group issued the video on Wednesday.

The representative says China's birth control program has forced abortions upon Muslim women. He also reiterated threats against the Olympics made in a previous video last month and urged Muslims to stay away from the games.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,399422,00.html

CoLawman

08-07-2008, 21:03

[QUOTE=Team Sergeant;219941]WOW what a huge surprize!!!!!! a bunch of islamic idiots threaten the Beijing Olympics.....

How could anyone with an IQ above 35 not believe islam is at war with the entire world.:munchin

The funny thing about this threat is the islamic idiots have no idea whom they are threating, the Chinese don't play nice.;)

TS

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/world/asia/05china.html?ref=sports

If the details as reported by Xinhua are accurate, the attack would be the worst eruption of ethnic violence on Chinese soil since the early 1990s, when China blamed Muslim separatists for a spate of violent attacks.

The two attackers ,which killed 16 Chinese Policeman , reportedly were Muslim!

abc_123

08-12-2008, 20:11

Sure sounds like this guy doesn't hold out much hope of the muslim world spontaneously living peacefully besides other religions...

not sure if this belongs here or wherever... mods pls move if misplaced

Son of Hamas Leader Turns Back on Islam and Embraces Christianity
Tuesday, August 12, 2008

By Jonathan Hunt

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html

Mosab Hassan Yousef is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary story. He was born the son of one of the most influential leaders of the militant Hamas organization in the West Bank and grew up in a strict Islamic family.

Now, at 30 years old, he attends an evangelical Christian church, Barabbas Road in San Diego, Calif. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and is seeking asylum in the United States.

The story of how his life unfolded is truly amazing, whether you agree or disagree with his views. Below is a transcript on an exclusive FOX News interview with Hassan as he tells firsthand how a West Bank Muslim became a West Coast Christian.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JONATHAN HUNT: Why, after 25 years, did you change?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I believe that all those walls that Islam built for the last 1,400 years are not existing (sic) anymore. They don't recognize this. They built those walls and made people ignorant because they're afraid. They didn't want people to discuss anything about the reality of Islam, about the big questions of Islam and they asked their followers, the Muslims, 'Don't ask about those certain questions.'

RelatedVideo
Renouncing Islam Son of Hamas Leader Speaks Out But now, people have media. If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she's going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it's very, very available for everybody to study about Islam, about other religions. Not from the Islam point of view, but from other points of view.

So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Muslim and the Arab world.

JONATHAN HUNT: You speak from a unique perspective, a man who grew up not just in an Islamic family but as part of an organization seen by many people around the world as an extreme force in Islam: Hamas. What is the reality of Islam? You say people don't see the reality; What is the reality of Islam?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There are two facts that Muslims don't understand ... I'd say about more than 95 percent of Muslims don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion.

Second, they don't understand anything about other religions. Christian communities live between Muslims and they're minority and they (would) rather not to go speak out and tell people about Jesus because it's dangerous for them.

So, all their ideas about other religions on earth are from Islamic perspectives. So those two realities, most people don't understand.

If people, if Muslims, start to understand their religion — first of all, their religion — and see how awful stuff is in there, they'll start to figure out, this can't (be) ... because most religious people focus on certain points of Islam. They have many points that they are very embarrassed to talk about.

JONATHAN HUNT: Such as?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Such as Muhammad's wives. You will never go to a mosque and hear about anyone talking about Muhammad's wives, which is like more than 50 wives — and nobody knows (this), by the way. If you ask the majority of Muslims, they will not know this fact.

So they're embarrassed to talk about this, but they talk about the glory of Islam, they talk about the victory, the victories that Muhammad made. So, when people just like look at themselves and see they're defeated, they have ignorance, they're not educated, they're not leading the world as they're expected to do. They’re think they want to get back to that victory by doing the same, what Muhammad did, but disregarding (sic) the timing. They forget that this happened 1,400 years ago and it's not going to happen again.

JONATHAN HUNT: Do they want to destroy Christianity?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Islam destroyed Christianity from the beginning and Muslims don't recognize that they stabbed Christianity (in) its heart when they said that Jesus wasn't killed on the cross. They think that they honor him in this way.

Basically, any Christians understand that this way, (but Muslims) tell Jesus, okay, we don't care, you didn't die for us. Someone sacrificed his life for you, (but) you tell him, okay, you didn't do it!

This is what Muslims are doing basically. But they don't understand that this is the most important part of Christianity: the cross!

So, they are ignorant, they don't know what they are doing and it explains what an evil idea it is behind this Islam.

JONATHAN HUNT: What specific event or events began to change your mind about Islam?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Since I was a child I started to ask very difficult questions, even my family was telling me all the time, 'You're a very difficult person and we were having trouble answering your questions. Why are you asking so many questions?' This was from the beginning, to be honest with you.

But I felt that everybody — and my father was a good example for me because he was a very honest, humble person, very nice to my mother, to us, and raised us on the principle of forgiveness, okay? I thought that everybody in Islam was like this.

When I was 18 years old, and I was arrested by the Israelis and was in an Israeli jail under the Israeli administration, Hamas had control of its members inside the jail and I saw their torture; (they were) torturing people in a very, very bad way.

JONATHAN HUNT: Hamas members torturing other Hamas members?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Hamas leaders! Hamas leaders that we see on TV now, and big leaders, responsible for torturing their own members. They didn't torture me, but that was a shock for me, to see them torturing people: putting needles under their nails, burning their bodies. And they killed lots of them.

JONATHAN HUNT: Why were they torturing people?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Because they suspected that they had relations with the Israelis and (were) co-operating with the Israeli occupation against Hamas ... So hundreds of people were victims for this, and I was a witness for about a year for this torture. So that was a huge change in my life. I started to open my (eyes), but, the point (is) that I got that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. Good Muslims, such as my father, and bad Muslims, like those Hamas members in the jail torturing people.

So that was the beginning of opening my eyes wide.

JONATHAN HUNT: You talk about the good Muslims, like your father, yet you still now renounce the faith of your father. Could you have not been a good Muslim?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Now, here's the reality: after I studied Christianity — which I had a big misunderstanding about, because I studied about Christianity from Islam, which is, there is nothing true about Christianity when you study it from Islam, and that was the only source.

When I studied the Bible carefully verse by verse, I made sure that that was the book of God, the word of God for sure, so I started to see things in a different way, which was difficult for me, to say Islam is wrong.

Islam is my father. I grew up for (one) father — 22 years for that father — and another father came to me and told me, 'I'm sorry, I'm your father.' And I was like, 'What are you talking about? Like, I have my own father, and it's Islam!' And the father of Christianity told me, 'No, I'm your father. I was in jail, and this (Islam) is not your father.'

So basically this is what happened. It's not easy to believe this (Islam) is not your father anymore. So I had to study Islam again from a different point of view to figure out all the mistakes, the huge mistakes and its effects, not only on Muslims — (of) which I hated the values ... I didn't like all those traditions that make people's lives more difficult — but its effects also on humanity. On humanity! People killing each other (in) the name of God.

So definitely I started to figure out the problem is Islam, not the Muslims and those people — I can't hate them because God loved them from the beginning. And God doesn't create junk. God created good people that he loved, but they're sick, they have the wrong idea. I don't hate those people anymore but I feel very sorry for them and the only way for them to be changed (is) by knowing the word of God and the real way to him.

JONATHAN HUNT: Does it worry you that in saying these things — and given your background and your words carrying extra weight — there is a danger that you will increase the difficulties, the hatred between Christians and Muslims in the world right now?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: This could happen if a Christian person will go talk to them about the reality of Islam. They put Christians on the enemy list anyway, before you talk to them about Islam. So if you go to them and tell them, as a Christian, they will be offended immediately and they will hate you and this will definitely increase the vacuum between both religions — but what made someone like me change?

Years ago, years ago, when I was there, God opened my eyes, my mind also, and I became a completely different person. So now, I can do this duty, while you as Christians can help me do it, but maybe you wouldn't be able to. (Muslims) have no excuse now.

(part 1)

abc_123

08-12-2008, 20:13

(part 2)

JONATHAN HUNT: How difficult a process has this been for you to effectively walk away from your family, leave your home behind? How difficult is that?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Taking your skin off your bones, that's what happened. I love my family, they love me. And my little brothers, they’re like my sons. I raised them. Basically, it was the biggest decision in my life.

I left everything behind me, not only family. When you decide to convert to Christianity or any other religion from Islam, it's not (enough) to just say goodbye and leave, you know? It's not like that. You're saying goodbye to culture, civilization, traditions, society, family, religion, God — what you thought was God for so many years! So it's not easy. It's very complicated. People think it's that easy, like it doesn't matter. Now I'm here in the U.S. and I got my freedom and it's great, but at the same time, nothing is like family, you know. To lose your family —

JONATHAN HUNT: Have you lost your family?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My family is educated and it was very difficult for them. They asked me many times, especially for the first two days, to keep my faith to myself and not go to the media and announce it.

But for me it was a duty from God to announce his name and praise him (around) the world because my reward is going to be that he's going to do the same for me. So I did it, basically, as a duty. I (wonder) how many people can do what I can do today? I didn't find any.

So, I had to be strong about that. That was very challenging. That was the most difficult decision in my life and I didn't do it for fun. I didn't do it for anything from this world. I did it only for one reason: I believed in it. People are suffering every day because of wrong ideas. I can help them get out of this endless circle ... the track the devil (laid) for them.

JONATHAN HUNT: Have you spoken to your father recently?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance to communicate with my father because he's in jail now and there is (sic) no phones in the jail to communicate with him.

JONATHAN HUNT: Have other members of your family told you how he's reacted?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They've visited him from time to time. Till this moment, I don't know his reaction exactly but I'm sure he's very sad (over) a decision like this. But at the same time, he's going to understand, because he knows me and he knows that I don't make any decisions without (believing strongly in them).

JONATHAN HUNT: Is it making his life more difficult among fellow Hamas members?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. My family, including my father, had to carry this cross with me. It wasn't their choice. It was my choice, but they had to carry this cross with me and I ask God — I pray for (my father), all my brothers and my sisters here in this church, praying all the time for them — 'God, open their eyes, their minds, to come to Christ. And bless them because they had to carry this cross with me.'

JONATHAN HUNT: Tell me about Hamas and the way it works. Is Hamas a purely Islamic religious organization as you see it, and that's where, in your eyes, its faults lie, or are there other parts of it which are a problem for you? Or is Hamas a good organization? What is Hamas to you?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: If we talk about people, there are good people everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, good people that God created.

Do they do their own things? Yes, they do their own things. I know people who support Hamas but they never got involved in terrorist attacks, for example ... They follow Hamas because they love God and they think that Hamas represents God. They don’t have knowledge, they don't know the real God and they never studied Christianity. But Hamas, as representative for Islam, it's a big problem.

The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea, as an idea. And about Hamas as an organization, of course, the Hamas leadership, including my father, they're responsible; they're responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization. I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against Israel, (for) which there was the killing of many civilians.

JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe Israel blameless in the conflict?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Occupation is bad. I can't say Israel — I'm not against any nation. We can't say Israelis, we can't say Palestinians, we're talking about ideas. Israel has the right to defend itself, nobody can (argue) against this. But sometimes they use (too much) aggression against civilians. Sometimes many civilians were killed because those soldiers weren't responsible enough, how they treat people at the checkpoints.

My message even to the Israeli soldiers: at least treat people in a good way at the checkpoints. You don't have to look really bad and it's not about nations, it's about just wrong ideas on both sides and the only way for two nations really to get out of the endless circle is to know the principles that Jesus brought to this earth: grace, love, forgiveness. Without this, they will never be able to move on, or break this endless circle.

JONATHAN HUNT: You've seen your father jailed, you've been in prison yourself. You've seen Hamas carry out acts of terror against Israelis, and yet you say everybody needs to rise above that?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. This is the only choice. Nobody has magic power to do something for the Middle East. No one. You can ask any politician here in the U.S., you can ask any Palestinian politician or Arab politician, Israeli leaders; no one, no one can do anything. Even if they believe in peace now: they're part of the game.

They're part of the trick. They can't, even if you find a brave person, like Rabin, who was called by an Israeli to make peace with the Palestinians and give them a state, no one, even if you find a strong leader, they can't do this. You can't force an independent country to give another country independence. (Especially when) the other country wants to destroy it.

Everybody is hurt. Israeli soldiers, they lost their friends. Palestinians, they lost their children, their fathers. (There are) many people in prison still, and many people were killed. Thousands. So everybody will never forget this. If they want to keep looking to the past, they will never get out of this circle. The only way to start (is just by) moving on. They were born under the occupation as Palestinians.

The last two generations, it's not their choice. The new generations from Israel — if we say disregarding the existence of Israel is right or wrong, what's the guilt of those people who were born in Israel and they have no other country to go to? It's their country now, that's how they see it. And they are going to keep their resistance and defense against whomever. (They will) say, 'Get out of this land!' So the only way is for both nations to start to understand the grace, love and forgiveness of God, to be able to get out of this.

JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe that Israel can ever strike a peace deal with Hamas?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance. Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water? There is no chance. Hamas can play politics for 10 years, 15 years; but ask any one of Hamas' leaders, 'Okay, what's going to happen after that? Are you just going to live and co-exist with Israel forever?' The answer is going to be no ... unless they want to do something against the Koran. But it's their ideology and they can't just say 'We're not going to do it.' So there is no chance. It's not about Israel, it's not about Hamas: it's about both ideologies. There is no chance.

JONATHAN HUNT: Aren't you terrified that somebody is going to try to kill you for saying these things — which would be approved of according to parts of the Koran?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They got to kill my ideas first, (and) that's it, they're already out. So how are they going to kill my idea? How are they going to kill the opinions that I have? ... They can kill my body, but they can't kill my soul.

JONATHAN HUNT: You're not afraid?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: As a human, you know, I can be very brave now, I'm not thinking about it at this moment and I feel that God is on my side. But if this will be the challenge, I ask God to give me enough strength.

JONATHAN HUNT: Have you been threatened?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: No, not really. Honestly, most Muslims and Muslim leaders here in the U.S. community, European communities, they are trying to get ahold of me. They are calling my famiily, my mother, and asking for my contacts. They are telling her, 'We want to help him.'

JONATHAN HUNT: They think you need help?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Yeah, they think that Christians took advantage of me, and this is completely wrong. I've been a Christian for a long time before they knew, or anyone knew. I love Jesus, I followed him for many years now. It wasn't a secret for most of the time, and this time I just did it to glorify the name of God and praise him.

They're not dealing with a regular Muslim. They know that I'm educated, they know that I studied, they know that I studied Islam and Christianity. When I made my decision, I didn't make it because someone did magic on me or convinced me. It was completely my decision.

abc_123

08-12-2008, 20:14

(part 3)

JONATHAN HUNT: Do you miss Ramallah?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. You've been there and you know how a wonderful country (it is). Very, very beautiful. It's a very small spot and it has everything — this is why people are fighting for that piece of land. I definitely miss Ramallah. Jereusalem. The Old City.

JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe you will ever be able to go back?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I think I belong to that land, and sooner or later I'm going to go back, no matter what. If they want to kill me, they (will) do whatever they want to do. I have a family there, they love me, they completely support me now with my decisions. Maybe they don't want me to talk to the media but they believe that I made a decision that I completely believe in. So they support me, so I love my family. I'm going to go back there again one day. I love my town.

JONATHAN HUNT: Do you think you'll ever go back to a Middle East living in peace?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There will be a 100-person peace when Jesus comes back, when he judges everybody. His kingdom's going to be 1,000 years and it's going to be completely peaceful and it's going to be the kingdom of God.

JONATHAN HUNT: What is your basic message to any Muslim listening to this right now?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My message to them is, first of all, to open their minds. They were born to Muslim families — this is how they got Islam and this is just like ... any other religion, like growing up (in) a Christian family, or growing up (in) a Jewish family.

So my point is that I want those people to open their eyes, their minds, to start to understand and imagine that they weren't born for a Muslim famiily. And use their minds.

Why did God give them minds? Open their hearts. Read the Bible. Study their religion. I want to open the gate for them, I want them to be free. They will find a good life on earth just by following God — and they're also going to guarantee the other life.

abc_123

08-23-2008, 18:04

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,408644,00.html (/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,408644,00.html)

Christian Theology Students Forced off Campus by Mob of Islamic Hard-liners
Friday, August 22, 2008

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JAKARTA, Indonesia — Hundreds of Christian theology students have been living in tents since a mob of angry Muslim neighbors stormed their campus last month wielding bamboo spears and hurling Molotov cocktails.

The incident comes amid growing concern that Indonesia's tradition of religious tolerance is under threat from Islamic hard-liners.

In talks since the attack, the Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology has reluctantly agreed to shut its 20-year-old campus in east Jakarta, accepting an offer this week to move to a small office building on the other side of the Indonesian capital.

"Why should we be forced from our house while our attackers can walk freely?" asked the Rev. Matheus Mangentang, chairman of the 1,400-student school.

The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which relies on the support of Islamic parties in Parliament, is struggling to balance deep Islamic traditions and a secular constitution. With elections coming next April, the government seems unwilling to defend religious minorities, lest it be portrayed as anti-Islamic in what is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

The July 25 attack, which injured 18 students, was the culmination of years of simmering tensions between the school and residents of the Kampung Pulo neighborhood.

Senny Manave, a spokesman for the Christian school, said complaints were received from neighbors about prayers and the singing of hymns, which they considered disturbing evangelical activity.

Several neighbors refused to comment, saying they feared that could further strain relations. A prominent banner, signed by scores of people, has been hung over an entrance to the neighborhood.

"We the community of Kampung Pulo demand the campus be closed and dissolved," it says.

The assault began around midnight, when students woke to the crash of stones falling on their dormitory roof as a voice over a loudspeaker at a nearby mosque cried "Allah Akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic.

The unidentified speaker urged residents to rise up against their "unwanted neighbors," said Sairin, the head of campus security, who goes by a single name.

The attack followed a claim that a student had broken into a resident's house, but police dismissed the charge.

Uneasy relations date to 2003, when neighbors began to protest the school's presence. Last year, residents set fire to shelters for construction workers to try to stop the campus from expanding deeper into the neighborhood. Some also questioned the legality of the school's permit.

Christian lawmaker Karol Daniel Kadang accused property speculators of provoking last month's incident to clear the land for more profitable use, after the school refused to sell out.

He also blamed the government for failing to build interfaith relations, which he and others believe are beginning to fray.

"People are still tolerant, but there is a growing suspicion among Muslims of others," said Prof. Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Jesuit priest who has lived in Indonesia for half a century.

He added that the police have failed to prevent both attacks on minorities and the forced closure of Christian churches and nontraditional mosques by mobs incited by radical Muslims.

"The state has some responsibility for this growing intolerance, namely by not upholding the law," he said.

A mob stormed a church service last Sunday in another east Jakarta neighborhood, forcing dozens of Christian worshippers to flee, said Jakarta Police Chief Col. Carlo Tewu. No arrests have been made.

Since being driven from campus, nearly 600 female students have been sleeping under suspended tarps at a nearby scout camp, where they had to dig trenches to keep water out during downpours. Classes are held with megaphones in the sweltering summer heat, under trees or the tarps. A similar number of male students live in a guesthouse. The remainder have returned to their families.

Food, water and school supplies are donated by church groups and community charities.

"We feel like refugees in our own country," said Dessy Nope, 19, a second-year student majoring in education. "How can you study here? I only followed 20 percent of my last lesson. It's difficult to concentrate."

Christians have not been the only targets for Muslim hard-liners, who this year set fire to mosques of a Muslim sect, Ahmadiyah, that they consider heretical.

In June, the government ordered members of the sect to return to mainstream Islam, sparking concern among activists who fear the state is interfering in matters of faith and caving in to the demands of radicals.

"We're living in a country where there are many religions, but the government cannot prevent the actions of fundamentalist groups," said Manave, the school spokesman. "The government cannot protect minorities."

charlietwo

08-23-2008, 19:40

Great interview with the former Muslim / Christian convert. His comments implicating Islam as the problem resonate strongly in my heart and soul. Anyone who has taken an objective glance at Islam from an outside perspective could see it's innate problems.

Along that topic, prior to my OIF trip I had a crash course in Arabic. During this class, our teacher showed us a documentary about the history of Islam. It was made by PBS and extremely positive and overt in bias. During this documentary however, a Islamic studies professor told the story about Mohammed's first 'vision' or 'divine inspiration' and described it as a horrible, terrible feeling of dread washed over Mohammed and urged him to "recite" the verses of the Koran. I've tried to see the direct story behind all of this but I've been unable to find it. If anyone else has some knowledge of this topic I would definitely like to hear from you. When I think of God, the terms "horrible" and "dread" are far removed from my thoughts.

You will know the true roots of a religion by the fruit it bears.

C2

GratefulCitizen

09-02-2008, 23:11

More sane rantings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIq7tsVvEoY

See post #1062 for previous rants.

Near the end of the clip (about 5:10), he brings up the most important point.

Team Sergeant

11-27-2008, 11:46

When I saw the news I was surprised, islamic, muslim cowards attack and kill hundreds of unarmed people in India!!!

Wow unbelievable! Let me make a prediction, after this situation is over we will hear reports that the islamic/muslim cowards were heard uttering:

Allāhu Akbar Allāhu Akbar Allāhu Akbar Allāhu Akbar

just before they started shooting......

Please keep tolerating the religion of islam as I'm sure in another 3000 years it will do the same.

Team Sergeant

bailaviborita

11-28-2008, 10:53

Robert Baer, ex-CIA official had some interesting observations on C-Span last night (http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=567868237). One position he offered was that he thought Shia were much more pragmatic and could be negotiated with more easily than Sunni extremists- who he labeled as totally irrational. He posited that most Shia terrorists targeted military targets and took guidance from religious leaders, as opposed to Sunni terrorists who would just strap on a suicide vest whenever they felt like it and blow themselves up in a crowded cafe. He recommended pulling out of Iraq and A-stan and if a radical Sunni government took over a country we just bomb them back to the stone age...

Team Sergeant

11-29-2008, 09:34

My irrefutable proof:

U.S. Troops Kill Taliban Commander, Clad in Woman's Clothes

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S.-led coalition troops killed a Taliban commander dressed as a women during a raid in southern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.

Soldiers killed four Taliban fighters in Friday's operation, including the Taliban commander named Haji Yakub who was dressed as a woman to evade capture, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Yakub directed roadside bomb and suicide attacks against Afghanistan's government and coalition forces in Ghazni province, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, Afghan and coalition forces killed 33 militants when their patrol came under attack in southern Helmand province, a military said. The troops responded to the attack with small-arms fire and air support, it said.

In the Ghazni raid, the U.S. said coalition forces discovered Yakub as they questioned a group of women and children inside a compound. The Taliban commander was dressed in a burqa, a traditional robe that covers the entire body. He was killed when he "attempted to engage the force," the statement said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,459025,00.html

SF_BHT

11-29-2008, 09:43

So much for the Brave warriors of the Taliban.... Hidding as a woman because they are not man enough to go toe to toe with us. Glad he was taken out and no one else was killed.

Ambush Master

11-29-2008, 10:09

Richard

11-29-2008, 10:27

My irrefutable proof:

U.S. Troops Kill Taliban Commander, Clad in Woman's Clothes

Hey, it coulda been a British MP--historically speaking, they like to do that, too, ya know--or the ghost of J Edgar Hoover come back to haunt us all because we now have a black, terrorist befriending president-elect. :rolleyes: :p :D

Seriously, I'm glad there's one less 'peace loving' IT our there in the world to do harm.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Ret10Echo

12-09-2008, 06:01

Mark Steyn: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable
By MARK STEYN
Syndicated columnist

Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, The Sydney Daily Telegraph's columnist wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a typical newspaper headline:

"British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow's Train Bombing."
Indeed. And so it goes. This time round – Mumbai – it was the Associated Press that filed a story about how Muslims "found themselves on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion".

Oh, I don't know about that. In fact, you'd be hard pressed from most news reports to figure out the bloodshed was "linked" to any religion, least of all one beginning with "I-" and ending in "-slam." In the three years since those British bombings, the media have more or less entirely abandoned the offending formulations – "Islamic terrorists," "Muslim extremists" – and by the time of the assault on Mumbai found it easier just to call the alleged perpetrators "militants" or "gunmen" or "teenage gunmen," as in the opening line of this report in The Australian: "An Adelaide woman in India for her wedding is lucky to be alive after teenage gunmen ran amok."

Kids today, eh? Always running amok in an aimless fashion.

The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow, on the other hand, opted for the more cryptic locution "practitioners." "Practitioners" of what, exactly?

Hard to say. And getting harder. For the Wall Street Journal, Tom Gross produced a jaw-dropping round-up of Mumbai media coverage: The discovery that, for the first time in an Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured and killed produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."

Hmm. Greater Mumbai forms one of the world's five biggest cities. It has a population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An "accidental hostage scene" that one of the "practitioners" just happened to stumble upon? "I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?"
Meanwhile, the New Age guru Deepak Chopra laid all the blame on American foreign policy for "going after the wrong people" and inflaming moderates, and "that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster" in Mumbai.
Really? The inflammation just "appears"? Like a bad pimple? The "fairer" we get to the, ah, inflamed militant practitioners, the unfairer we get to everyone else. At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as "ultra-Orthodox," "ultra-" in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for "strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn't have been over there in the first place."

Are they stranger or weirder than their killers? Two "inflamed moderates" entered the Chabad House, shouted "Allahu Akbar!," tortured the Jews and murdered them, including the young rabbi's pregnant wife. Their 2-year-old child escaped because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then, risking being mowed down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.

The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an "accidental" hostage opportunity – and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it's not a hostage situation, it's a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving "militant" revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his brave nanny is Sandra Samuels. Remember their names, not because they're any more important than the Indians, Britons and Americans targeted in the attack, but because they are an especially revealing glimpse into the pathologies of the perpetrators.

In a well-planned attack on iconic Mumbai landmarks symbolizing great power and wealth, the "militants" nevertheless found time to divert 20 percent of their manpower to torturing and killing a handful of obscure Jews helping the city's poor in a nondescript building. If they were just "teenage gunmen" or "militants" in the cause of Kashmir, engaged in a more or less conventional territorial dispute with India, why kill the only rabbi in Mumbai? Dennis Prager got to the absurdity of it when he invited his readers to imagine Basque separatists attacking Madrid: "Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous."

And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani "militants" in a long-running border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying "Islamic" or "Muslim" or "terrorist," we have somehow managed to internalize the pathologies of these men.

We are enjoined to be "understanding," and we're doing our best. A Minnesotan suicide bomber (now there's a phrase) originally from Somalia returned to the old country and blew up himself and 29 other people last October. His family prevailed upon your government to have his parts (or as many of them as could be sifted from the debris) returned to the United States at taxpayer expense and buried in Burnsville Cemetery. Well, hey, in the current climate, what's the big deal about a federal bailout of jihad operational expenses? If that's not "too big to fail," what is?
Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel "vulnerable." Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They're the world's fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he's feeling "vulnerable," he's doing a terrific job of covering it up.
We are told that the "vast majority" of the 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion Muslims (in Deepak Chopra's estimate) are "moderate." Maybe so, but they're also quiet. And, as the AIDS activists used to say, "Silence=Acceptance." It equals acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush's foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam – "Allahu Akbar."

I wrote in my book, "America Alone," that "reforming" Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Quran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there'll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there'll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Mumbai in the name of Allah, and that's just business as usual. And, if it is somehow "understandable" that for the first time in history it's no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, "worry about image." Not enough.

©MARK STEYN

Richard

12-09-2008, 07:18

Victor Davis Hanson again makes some valid points.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Back to the Old 9/11 World
Victor Davis Hanson
8 Dec 2008

For three days, Islamist gunmen nearly shut down Mumbai, the financial center of India. The terrorists — Pakistani militants, according to Indian authorities — murdered almost 200 innocents and left hundreds of others wounded, giving reprieve only to hostages they thought were Muslims.

The timing of their assault seemed aimed for maximum shock value here in the U.S. — during the transference of American presidential power and amid a long U.S. holiday in which millions of Americans were glued to televised news.

The macabre killing spree was apparently part of a larger, though failed, effort to shoot or blow up a planned 5,000 civilians — especially Americans, Brits and Jews. The jihadists may have hoped that India would heed Islamist warnings to loosen its connections to Western finance and commerce, and pay better attention to Muslim grievances.

There are a number of things to take away from the Mumbai atrocities.

First was the welcome re-emergence of concerned discussion of the dangers of global Islamist violence. George Bush apparently was not fabricating a global terrorist bogeyman — as was sometimes alleged over the last years of calm — when he sought support for his war in Iraq and domestic security measures.

In fact, caricatured efforts like the Patriot Act, the FISA accords, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the fostering of Middle East constitutional government, and the killing of violent insurgents abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq might seem once again understandable in the context of preventing another major violent terrorist attack of the sort we just saw at Mumbai.

Second, in the fashion of the old post-9/11 apologists, we were lectured once again that global terrorism is not necessarily an Islamic phenomenon. Supposedly the poverty and mistreatment of India's Muslim minority, not jihadist ideology and hatred, better explain India's incessant sectarian violence. That theory of victimhood is no more convincing now than it was in 2001.

Transnational terrorism still remains mostly Islamist in nature. Very few impoverished Hindu, Christian or Sikh terrorists go abroad to murder civilians. Nor are the wretched poor of Brazil or Haiti organizing mass-murdering assaults against foreigners and Western iconic targets in their cities.

Third, the serial excuses of Pakistan are also beginning to wear thin. Hundreds of Indians have been killed by Pakistani terrorists, who have routinely attacked both foreigners and Christians in their own country. It is now over seven years since more than 3,000 innocent Americans were murdered on orders from terrorists now all but certainly in sanctuary in Pakistan — and whom we are still told cannot be extradited.

So despite billions of dollars in American military and financial assistance given to Pakistan, nothing really changes. When pressed to explain the apparent role of the Pakistani military or intelligence services in turning a blind eye to jihadists, the government — whether a Pervez Musharraf in uniform or now civilian President Asif Ali Zardari (formerly known as "Mr. Ten Percent" for allegations of graft) — still politely offers a variety of clichés.

The Pakistani borderlands are beyond the government's control. Pressuring the existing government for either more order or more democracy will lead only to worse alternatives — such as a takeover by fundamentalist clerics, authoritarian generals, or weak democrats whose plebiscites will ensure rule by popular fanatics. No Pakistani leader of any stripe ever quite takes responsibility of the government for the mayhem committed by its own citizens or foreigners on its soil.

Instead, there always seems an implied threat that it would be unwise to push too far a volatile Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons, or whose fanaticism makes it immune from classical laws of nuclear deterrence, or whose poverty and mismanagement ensure that it simply cannot be expected to meet international norms of behavior.

Fourth, the problem of Pakistan and the Islamist terrorism that so frequently emanates from its soil will now be President-elect Obama's to deal with. He will have to decide whether George Bush's anti-terrorism architecture shredded the Constitution and should be repealed, or helped to keep us safe from attack for seven years, and thus should be maintained, if not strengthened.

Obama once advocated open intrusions into Pakistan in hot pursuit of terrorists, and will have to adjudicate whether such actions will more likely enrage nuclear Pakistan or finally eliminate the followers of Osama bin Laden. At the same time, Obama also must ponder whether he should continue our subsidized "alliance" with Pakistan.

Just as I didn't envy George Bush's lose/lose dilemma in dealing with Pakistan and global Islamic terrorism, so too I can only sympathize with President-elect Obama, who faces the same dismal choices.

Richard

12-09-2008, 07:43

Thomas Sowell reminds us of the consequences for a failure to heed the recent past...but will we? :confused:

Richard's $.02 :munchin

The Meaning of Mumbai
Thomas Sowell
9 Dec 2008

Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?

Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong.

Contrary to some of the more mawkish notions of what a government is supposed to be, its top job is the protection of the people. Nobody on 9/11 would have thought that we would see nothing comparable again in this country for seven long years.

Many people seem to have forgotten how, in the wake of 9/11, every great national event-- the World Series, Christmas, New Year's, the Super Bowl-- was under the shadow of a fear that this was when the terrorists would strike again.

They didn't strike again here, even though they have struck in Spain, Indonesia, England and India, among other places. Does anyone imagine that this was because they didn't want to hit America again?

Could this have had anything to do with all the security precautions that liberals have been complaining about so bitterly, from the interception of international phone calls to forcing information out of captured terrorists?

Too many people refuse to acknowledge that benefits have costs, even if that cost means only having no more secrecy when making international phone calls than you have when sending e-mails, in a world where computer hackers abound. There are people who refuse to give up anything, even to save their own lives.

A very shrewd observer of the deterioration of Western societies, British writer Theodore Dalrymple, said: "This mental flabbiness is decadence, and at the same time a manifestation of the arrogant assumption that nothing can destroy us."

There are growing numbers of things that can destroy us. The Roman Empire lasted a lot longer than the United States has lasted, and yet it too was destroyed.

Millions of lives were blighted for centuries thereafter, because the barbarians who destroyed Rome were incapable of replacing it with anything at all comparable. Neither are those who threaten to destroy the United States today.

The destruction of the United States will not require enough nuclear bombs to annihilate cities and towns across America. After all, the nuclear destruction of just two cities was enough to force Japan to surrender-- and the Japanese had far more willingness to fight and die than most Americans have today.

How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?

Neither Barack Obama nor those with whom he will be surrounded in Washington show any signs of being serious about forestalling such a terrible choice by taking any action with any realistic chance of preventing a nuclear Iran.

Once suicidal fanatics have nuclear bombs, that is the point of no return. We, our children and our grandchildren will live at the mercy of the merciless, who have a track record of sadism.

There are no concessions we can make that will buy off hate-filled terrorists. What they want-- what they must have for their own self-respect, in a world where they suffer the humiliation of being visibly centuries behind the West in so many ways-- is our being brought down in humiliation, including self-humiliation.

Even killing us will not be enough, just as killing Jews was not enough for the Nazis, who first had to subject them to soul-scarring humiliations and dehumanization in their death camps.

This kind of hatred may not be familiar to most Americans but what happened on 9/11 should give us a clue-- and a warning.

The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.

They want our soul-- and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.

SF-TX

12-09-2008, 23:25

I hope Mr. Pipes is wrong in his conclusion, but the evidence does seem to suggest he is correct:

"What finally will rouse Westerners from their stupor, to name the enemy and fight the war to victory? Only one thing seems likely: massive deaths, say 100,000 casualties in a single WMD attack. Short of that, it appears, much of the West, contently deploying defensive measures against fancifully-described "activists," will gently slumber on."

Still Asleep After Mumbai

By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | 12/9/2008
Victims caught in terrorist atrocities perpetrated for Islam typically experience fear, torture, horror, and murder, with sirens screaming, snipers positioning, and carnage in the streets. That was the case recently in Bombay (now called Mumbai), where some 195 people were murdered and 300 injured. But for the real target of Islamist terror, the world at large, the experience has become numbed, with apologetics and justification muting repulsion and shock.

The one Mumbai terrorist still alive, Ajmal Amir Kasab, in action.
If terrorism ranks among the cruelest and most inhumane forms of warfare, excruciating in its small-bore viciousness and intentional pain, Islamist terrorism has also become well-rehearsed political theater. Actors fulfill their scripted roles, then shuffle, soon forgotten, off the stage.

Indeed, as one reflects on the most publicized episodes of Islamist terror against Westerners since 9/11 – the attack on Australians in Bali, on Spaniards in Madrid, on Russians in Beslan, on Britons in London – a twofold pattern emerges: Muslim exultation and Western denial. The same tragedy replays itself, with only names changed.

Muslim exaltation: The Mumbai assault inspired occasional condemnations, hushed official regrets, and cornucopias of unofficial enthusiasm. As the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center notes, the Iranian and Syrian governments exploited the event "to assail the United States, Israel and the Zionist movement, and to represent them as responsible for terrorism in India and the world in general." Al-Jazeera's website overflowed with comments such as "Allah, grant victory to Muslims. Allah, grant victory to jihad" and "The killing of a Jewish rabbi and his wife in the Jewish center in Mumbai is heartwarming news."

Such supremacism and bigotry can no longer surprise, given the well-documented, world-wide acceptance of terror among many Muslims. For example, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted an attitudinal survey in spring 2006, "The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other." Its polls of about one thousand persons in each of ten Muslim populations found a perilously high proportion of Muslims who, on occasion, justify suicide bombing: 13 percent in Germany, 22 percent in Pakistan, 26 percent in Turkey, and 69 percent in Nigeria.

A frightening portion also declared some degree of confidence in Osama bin Laden: 8 percent in Turkey, 48 percent in Pakistan, 68 percent in Egypt, and 72 percent in Nigeria. As I concluded in a 2006 review of the Pew survey, "These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come." Obvious conclusion, no?

Western denial: No. The fact that terrorist fish are swimming in a hospitable Muslim sea nearly disappears amidst Western political, journalistic, and academic bleatings. Call it political correctness, multiculturalism, or self-loathing; whatever the name, this mentality produces delusion and dithering.

Nomenclature lays bare this denial. When a sole jihadist strikes, politicians, law enforcement, and media join forces to deny even the fact of terrorism; and when all must concede the terrorist nature of an attack, as in Mumbai, a pedantic establishment twists itself into knots to avoid blaming terrorists.

I documented this avoidance by listing the twenty (!) euphemisms the press unearthed to describe Islamists who attacked a school in Beslan in 2004: activists, assailants, attackers, bombers, captors, commandos, criminals, extremists, fighters, group, guerrillas, gunmen, hostage-takers, insurgents, kidnappers, militants, perpetrators, radicals, rebels, and separatists – anything but terrorists.

And if terrorist is impolite, adjectives such as Islamist, Islamic, and Muslim become unmentionable. My blog titled "Not Calling Islamism the Enemy" provides copious examples of this avoidance, along with its motives. In short, those who would replace War on Terror with A Global Struggle for Security and Progress imagine this linguistic gambit will win over Muslim hearts and minds.

Post-Mumbai, Steven Emerson, Don Feder, Lela Gilbert, Caroline Glick, Tom Gross, William Kristol, Dorothy Rabinowitz, and Mark Steyn again noted various aspects of this futile linguistic behavior, with Emerson bitterly concluding that "After more than 7 years since 9/11, we can now issue a verdict: Islamic terrorists have won our hearts and minds."

What finally will rouse Westerners from their stupor, to name the enemy and fight the war to victory? Only one thing seems likely: massive deaths, say 100,000 casualties in a single WMD attack. Short of that, it appears, much of the West, contently deploying defensive measures against fancifully-described "activists," will gently slumber on.

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=00B0A27A-DECE-4C7F-B6F1-01412720DCA7

Richard

12-10-2008, 06:37

Perhaps this is this how the ITs view the West in general? :rolleyes:

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Richard

12-10-2008, 07:32

Blitzzz (RIP)

12-11-2008, 17:18

We are not at war with Islam, It is at war with US. Certainly a war that needs to be redefined. Blitz

Richard

04-06-2009, 07:33

Guess we aren't...anymore.

Obama declares US not at war with Islam
Tom Raum, AP, 6 Apr 2009

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

The U.S. president is trying to mend fences with a Muslim world that felt it had been blamed by America for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090406/ap_on_go_pr_wh/eu_obama

Richard's $.02 :munchin

bailaviborita

04-10-2009, 13:09

Recently sat in on a briefing where this issue was the topic. The speaker was Stephen Coughlin (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jan/04/inside-the-ring-83234302/). I got these points out of his brief:

- Moslem Brotherhood and other groups specifically state how to fight war and how they intend to win
- They will make temporary accomodation, lie, kill, and use our culture against us, so that we are destroyed from within
- That they intend to use Sharia Law to spread their message and their own law system through madrassas and mosques the world over
- That the US and Western world are too politically correct to admit any of these things and that already Sharia Law is starting to get into our systems of laws (really bad in Europe already)
- That we have to understand their playbook (written by a Pakistani General Officer)- since it is basically their order of battle
- That PC'ness prevents us from understanding the enemy

There was a heated debate as international officers and some with long periods of time living in the Middle East took issue with some of his assertions. My personal opinion was that he seemed to be an advocate- and an especially emotional one at that- instead of an objective observer. He reminded me of a Fundamentalist preacher trying to convert everyone.

But, it didn't, for me, discount all that he said. But, the debate is still on: to what extent are our foreign policy problems within the Middle East connected to the Moslem faith? If they are greater than our politicians will admit, what can we do about it? What is the overall conclusion- if this is true (that Islam has de facto declared war on the Western world)?

There are Moslem officers from several countries in U.S. Army schools all over the U.S. Are they all in a period of "temporary accomodation"? If they are, they wouldn't admit it. Does this all sound too "conspiratorial"? To me it many times does. We might be attributing more coordination and focus than these groups really have.

I once likened the fight "over there" to one of having a Southern U.S. town occupied by Moslem troops. I am sure the Southern Baptists would take pride- if they weren't outright supporting- in "Red Dawn"-type insurgent operations against the occupiers. I have to figure it is the same over there. At the end of the day- they are prideful of their tribe, religion, town, family, etc.- just as we would be here with occupiers in our midst. I'm not sure that translates into a worldwide conspiracy to force everyone to become Muslim. But I'm not sure if anyone has the true % of the Moslem faithful who DO believe what the Moslem Brotherhood believes...

olhamada

04-10-2009, 15:42

Does a gorilla have hair on it?

Said another way, Does a cat have climbing gear?

I can't remember where I ran across these videos, but they are both definitely worth watching. The first is from Hannity's show about Al Queda training facilities right here in the US - one not 2 hours from where I live in Nashville. http://tinyurl.com/bzcbm2

The second is a bit longer, but made by a moderate Muslim about the Islamic plan for taking over a given society. It's entitled, "The Third Jihad". You can see it at http://blip.tv/file/1382254/

JMI

04-10-2009, 15:48

Guess we aren't...anymore.

Obama declares US not at war with Islam
Tom Raum, AP, 6 Apr 2009

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?
:munchin

The Reaper

04-10-2009, 18:16

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?
:munchin

You mean before we couldn't call them terrorists, didn't think about releasing Gitmo detainees in the US, figured that anyone who took up arms against us was our enemy, adopted a policy of reducing our ballistic missile defense in response to a ballistic threat from the Iranians and NKs, treated our allies poorly and our enemies with respect, bowed to foreign potentates, sat around with our thumbs us our collective asses while a bunch of savages playing pirates held a US merchant marine skipper hostage, that sort of bad old days?:rolleyes:

TR

Richard

04-10-2009, 18:23

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?
:munchin

President Bush repeatedly said we were at 'war with radical Islam.'

O-bee, on the other hand, has slyly hinted that although his predecessor had engaged in a war with Islam, he -- Barack Hussein Obama, as he was introduced to Muslim audiences everywhere during his recent trip, using his middle name in a way that brings instant attacks on those who dare do so here in our 'open' melting pot of a society -- would never let such a travesty happen again.

Now what are we to make of that?

And as VDH explains:*

...according to all four recognized schools of Sunni jurisprudence, war against the infidel goes on in perpetuity — until "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to Allah" (Koran 8:39). In its entry on jihad, the definitive Encyclopaedia of Islam simply states:

The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily. Furthermore there can be no question of genuine peace treaties with these nations; only truces, whose duration ought not, in principle, to exceed ten years, are authorized. But even such truces are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before they expire, be repudiated unilaterally should it appear more profitable for Islam to resume the conflict.

Moreover, going back to the doctrine of abrogation, the vast majority of the ulema agree that Koran 9:5, famously known as ayat al-saif — the "sword verse" — has abrogated some 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses.

The obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam's dichotomized worldview that pits Dar al-Islam (the "realm of submission," i.e., the Islamic world), against Dar al-Harb (the "realm of war," i.e., the non-Islamic world) until the former subsumes the latter. Internationally renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) articulates this division thusly: "In the Muslim community, holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups [specifically Christianity and Judaism] did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. … But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."

This concept is highlighted by the fact that, based on the ten-year treaty of Hudaibiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraish opponents in Mecca, ten years is, theoretically, the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels. Based on Muhammad's example of breaking the treaty after two years (by citing a Quraish infraction), the sole function of the "peace treaty" (or hudna) is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before going on the offensive once more. Incidentally, according to a canonical hadith, Muhammad said, "If I take an oath and later find something else better, I do what is better and break my oath." The prophet further encouraged Muslims to do the same: "If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better."

After negotiating a peace treaty criticized by Muslims as conceding too much to Israel, former PLO leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat, speaking to Muslims in a mosque and off the record, justified his actions by saying, "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish in Mecca." In other words, like his prophet, the "moderate" Arafat was giving his word only to annul it once "something else better" came along — that is, once Palestinians became strong enough to renew the offensive.

Most recently, a new Islamic group associated with Hamas called Jaysh al-Umma (Islam's army) stated clearly, "Muslims all over the world are obliged to fight the Israelis and the infidels until only Islam rules the earth." Realizing their slip, they quickly clarified: "We say that the world will not live in peace as long as the blood of Muslims continues to be shed." Which is it — until Muslim blood stops being shed in Israel or "until only Islam rules the earth"?

These are all clear instances of Muslims feigning openness to the idea of peace simply in order to buy more time to build up their strength.

Here, then, is the problem: If Islam must be in a constant state of war with the non-Muslim world, which need not be physical, as the ulema have classified several non-violent forms of jihad, such as "jihad-of-the-pen" (propaganda) and "money-jihad" (economic); and if Muslims are permitted to lie and feign loyalty, amiability, even affection to the infidel, simply to further their war efforts — what does one make of any Muslim overtures of peace, tolerance, or dialogue?

This is more obvious when one considers that, every single time Muslims "reach out" for "peace," it is always when they are in a weakened condition vis-à-vis infidels — that is, when they, not their non-Muslim competitors, benefit from the peace. This is the lesson of the last two centuries of Muslim-Western interaction, wherein the former have been militarily inferior and thus beholden to the latter.

I guess a more correct term would be that Islam - and radical Islam in particular, is at war with us - whether we want to be at war with them or not. But what's the difference? :confused:

Richard's $.02 :munchin

* War and Peace — and Deceit — in Islam
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/ibrahim022709.html

Team Sergeant

04-10-2009, 19:34

You gentlemen crack me up sometimes. Pres Bush said the exact same thing on many occassions. Anymore? When we were under Pres Bush?
:munchin

JMI,

Quote me a line from Pres Bush stating this exact same thing in main stream media or go away. This isn't a request. You post a link to a blog and I'll ban you and your IP address.

I'm not laughing.

You have 24 hours.

Team Sergeant

Sigaba

04-11-2009, 00:48

Are they all in a period of "temporary accomodation"? If they are, they wouldn't admit it. Does this all sound too "conspiratorial"? To me it many times does. We might be attributing more coordination and focus than these groups really have.

...the core question of the Cold War.

What is wrong with an approach that is informed by the following sensibility?
Soviet calculations of possible war outcomes under any contingency must always result in outcomes so unfavorable to the USSR that there would be no incentive for Soviet leaders to initiate an attack.*

________________________
* Ronald W. Reagan, National Security Decision Directive Number 75, U.S. Relations with the USSR, 17 January 1983, p. 2 as printed in Christopher Simpson, ed., National Security Directives of the Reagan and Bush Administrations: The Declassified History of U.S. Political and Military Policy, 1981-1991 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), p. 256.

tom kelly

04-11-2009, 04:29

Team Sgt. You gave JMI too Long to respond....Regard's, tom kelly

bailaviborita

04-11-2009, 12:40

...the core question of the Cold War.

What is wrong with an approach that is informed by the following sensibility?

If I'm following you- we'd publicly announce a strategy to counter terrorist attacks that would lead to terrorist calculations of possible war outcomes under any contingency always resulting in outcomes so unfavorable to them that there would be no incentive for their leaders to initiate an attack. Is that right?

The thoughts I have on that are:

- would have to have strong home support for that kind of response (I'm assuming the response would be so great as to work- sort of like nuking or totally destroying the capital of whatever country the attacks came out of?)
- we'd probably have to display the response at some point (I'd argue Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave powerful examples to the USSR as to what we were willing to do)
- we'd have to assume no autonomous sleeper cells would do things on their own and that the terrorist leaders are rational

Although I think the thought is good- I'm not sure the other factors hold that would make it feasible/valid. Maybe if we lost hundreds of thousands to a WMD attack. Anything short of that and I'd argue that the political will at home isn't sufficient to pursue such a strong deterrent strategy. Although, it would be much cheaper, faster, appealing (to human nature), sensical, strategic, etc.

Some have argued that we can't do COIN in Moslem countries anyway- so this would free us up from an impossible mission and allow us to focus on conventional warfare. Too bad we didn't think of this right after 9/11. We could have just knocked Taliban strongholds back into the homo habilis era and warned more would follow if they so much as showed their faces again. Would that have worked?

Sigaba

04-11-2009, 14:37

If I'm following you- we'd publicly announce a strategy to counter terrorist attacks that would lead to terrorist calculations of possible war outcomes under any contingency always resulting in outcomes so unfavorable to them that there would be no incentive for their leaders to initiate an attack. Is that right?

The thoughts I have on that are:

- would have to have strong home support for that kind of response (I'm assuming the response would be so great as to work- sort of like nuking or totally destroying the capital of whatever country the attacks came out of?)
- we'd probably have to display the response at some point (I'd argue Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave powerful examples to the USSR as to what we were willing to do)
- we'd have to assume no autonomous sleeper cells would do things on their own and that the terrorist leaders are rational

Although I think the thought is good- I'm not sure the other factors hold that would make it feasible/valid. Maybe if we lost hundreds of thousands to a WMD attack. Anything short of that and I'd argue that the political will at home isn't sufficient to pursue such a strong deterrent strategy. Although, it would be much cheaper, faster, appealing (to human nature), sensical, strategic, etc.

Some have argued that we can't do COIN in Moslem countries anyway- so this would free us up from an impossible mission and allow us to focus on conventional warfare. Too bad we didn't think of this right after 9/11. We could have just knocked Taliban strongholds back into the homo habilis era and warned more would follow if they so much as showed their faces again. Would that have worked?
Bailaviborita-

My thoughts are much in line with yours. I think garnering enough popular support for such a strategy would be the greatest obstacle. I think the discussions over the efficacy of such an approach would be energetic, even bitter. But why not have that discussion? This line of conversation may prove untenable or it might lead to an approach that would make America more secure.

My thinking is that this approach would motivate nations to do more to control the conduct of their own citizens. These nations would need to understand that they might be held accountable for terrorist attacks. They would need to understand that terrorist attacks would be construed as acts of war.

The citizens of these nations, rather than dancing in the streets and handing out candy to celebrate bin Laden's 'victory' on 9/11 would have good reason to think that their champion had placed not only their lives in peril, but their very way of life at risk of prompt and utter destruction. This realization could lead to massive demonstrations that led to conversations in which people realize "Hey, these guys, who claim to speak in our name, what have they done for us other than gotten us killed?" (Do not ordinary German citizens pour into the streets by the thousands when their idiot countrymen praise the ghastly specter of Nazism?)

It is said that Muslims have a remarkable sense of their history. Maybe if they had a better sense of our history they'd consider the advantages of leaving us the hell alone. Or, better yet, finding ways to make peace and to form lasting bonds of genuine friendship. The history of the American people is a story of folks from different pasts of finding ways to get along as citizens, neighbors, and friends.

The U.S. has been shouldered with the onus of the burden of proof since this war began. America has conducted itself with a level of restraint that is a testament to its national character (for better and for worse) and to the leadership of Bush the Younger. He has, for reasons I believe history will vindicate;), allowed America to be seen as the heavy. Our angst has clouded our vision. In this ongoing myopic moment, we do not see all the tools at our disposal.

Yes, the implications of this line of reasoning are horrible and the potential outcome is horrific. And that's exactly the point.

Team Sergeant

04-11-2009, 18:29

Team Sgt. You gave JMI too Long to respond....Regard's, tom kelly

You are correct and I've fixed the problem.

I guess JMI could not back up his made-up "facts" and now he's gone.

Team Sergeant

bailaviborita

04-11-2009, 19:22

My thinking is that this approach would motivate nations to do more to control the conduct of their own citizens. These nations would need to understand that they might be held accountable for terrorist attacks. They would need to understand that terrorist attacks would be construed as acts of war.

I just thought- would we have tolerated some Soviet proxies getting on planes and flying them into U.S. buildings back in the Cold War and killing thousands? And the Soviet Union wouldn't have tolerated any of their proxies doing it either, I would assume. So- that might have been a good strategy and might have motivated other nations to keep more control on their citizens and clamp down on wacko ideologies and religious leaders.

Although we had a pretty strong consensus on who the enemy back then was. Not sure if we have that anymore. Seems like at least 1/3 of our population today wants to blame the other 2/3 for all our problems.

Richard

04-12-2009, 06:09

I just thought- would we have tolerated some Soviet proxies getting on planes and flying them into U.S. buildings back in the Cold War and killing thousands? And the Soviet Union wouldn't have tolerated any of their proxies doing it either, I would assume. So- that might have been a good strategy and might have motivated other nations to keep more control on their citizens and clamp down on wacko ideologies and religious leaders.

MOO - institutional memory should have answered those thoughts - but dealing with a government like the former Soviet Union on some of the spectrum of war's levels (e.g., Cold War nuclear/conventional) was much different from dealing with them on some of the other levels [e.g., proxy wars (Angola, Afghanistan, Sinai, etc) and trans-national terrorism (e.g., Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhoff, PFLP, etc] - and were never wholly resolved nor often times effectively dealt with by us or the free world during decades of conflict - even when we knew their source of support.

[Note: I certainly do not want to get into a deep discussion on this aspect of our actions, but I personally think a pervasive acceptance of moral relativism among the last couple of generations of the more modern first-world societies have had a significant impact on this issue.]

For those of us who do remember the aircraft hijackings and dealings with the terrorist (nationalist) groups of the 60s, 70s and 80s, the 9-11 scenario of the relatively recent and growing trend of nihilistic terrorist actions has added a new dimension to this complicated process as it has evolved.

My question is - what next? :confused:

For me, some worst case answers to that question are (1) a prolonged, concerted, and insidious attack on our and the world's economic systems, developing a deep-seated and irreversable mistrust in and anger toward's the major government's and monetary systems, or (2) a blinding flash of light from an unidentifiable source over a - e.g. - San Antonio ("Remember the Alamo!") or any major city at 0845 in the morning during the daily rush to school and work. A pandemic could also be ugly, but I personally worry less about that - naively, perhaps - because such fears have seldom panned out as predicted for a myriad of reasons.

No answers - just thoughts here.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Blitzzz (RIP)

04-12-2009, 17:40

We are not at war with Islam, It is at war with US. Certainly a war that needs to be redefined. Blitz

Oh, did I say this. We are in defense of our selves against Islam. Islam has declared war on all who are not muslim. it's their book, they believe it, and act acordingly as much as possible. Blitzzz

armymom1228

04-12-2009, 18:47

Oh, did I say this. We are in defense of our selves against Islam. Islam has declared war on all who are not muslim. it's their book, they believe it, and act acordingly as much as possible. Blitzzz

I am confused. I remember reading that Mohamed called Christians and Jews 'peoples of the book' and therefore brothers to muslims. What about that part... or has modern islam as a whole forgotten the words of thier prophet?

Mohamed also said a woman should "dress modestly"..he never said squat about a burka.. :rolleyes:

It seems to me, that Islam and other religions are not the problem. It is how mortal man interprets that scripture to his own ends, either bad or good.

nmap

04-12-2009, 18:58

For me, some worst case answers to that question are (1) a prolonged, concerted, and insidious attack on our and the world's economic systems, developing a deep-seated and irreversible mistrust in and anger toward's the major government's and monetary systems, or (2) a blinding flash of light from an unidentifiable source over a - e.g. - San Antonio ("Remember the Alamo!") or any major city at 0845 in the morning during the daily rush to school and work. A pandemic could also be ugly, but I personally worry less about that - naively, perhaps - because such fears have seldom panned out as predicted for a myriad of reasons.

San Antonio? What did we ever do to deserve that? ;)

Back in 1980 or so, I met a gentleman who knew quite a lot about biochemistry and related matters; in fact, his dissertation adviser had missed out on a Nobel by a narrow margin. We would sit and eat chips with salsa while discussing get rich quick schemes. (Legal get rich schemes, I might add). Some of the things we discussed cause me to believe that a bio-weapons attack should be an area to be considered.

But I really don't think the problem will be something organized by a foreign state, or even a group such as Al Qaeda. Instead, it may be a result of a combination of resource depletion and population overshoot. Whether we look at Italy, facing migration from Africa, or the U.S. with migrations from Mexico and points south, the potential problem remains the same.

If - admittedly, quite a big if - oil proves to be the central linchpin of the global economy I believe it is - then depletion may cause sharp declines in the availability of food, and hence the twin problems of a breakdown of government and large numbers of desperate people who will do whatever is needed to survive.

How one fights that situation is problematic. What one does with wave after wave of desperate humans who will take any risk may present the defining problem of the upcoming decades. And it may extend in time for the remainder of this century.

Now all of this connects with Islam - because many Islamic states have large populations, rapid growth, and resources that have been strained to the limit and beyond. Not only could this represent a ripe ground for recruiting terrorists in the accepted sense, but it also represents (IMO) a possibility for the mass migrations mentioned earlier. I think we must ask ourselves what happens if such states as Pakistan or Indonesia falter - what will their populations do? And how do we fight it?

At least Al Qaeda has a discernible leadership. But what if the opposing force no longer has a leadership?

Perhaps Somalia is a model of the future. The situation in that small area is disrupting much. What happens of the Somalian condition spreads - and spreads a lot? (rhetorical questions, BTW).

Warrior-Mentor

04-12-2009, 19:00

I am confused. I remember reading that Mohamed called Christians and Jews 'peoples of the book' and therefore brothers to muslims. What about that part... or has modern islam as a whole forgotten the words of thier prophet?

Mohamed also said a woman should "dress modestly"..he never said squat about a burka.. :rolleyes:

It seems to me, that Islam and other religions are not the problem. It is how mortal man interprets that scripture to his own ends, either bad or good.

Get a copy of the book "Reliance of the Traveller." Full title is:

Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik

You can find it on Amazon. Skip the sections on how to wash yourself.

Read the sections about "Abrogation" - which tells you later sections of the Quran overrule the earlier ones...

Then read about Jihad.

SF_BHT

04-12-2009, 19:24

Blitzzz (RIP)

04-12-2009, 19:46

Not My book, and it's not what you believe it's what they believe. our bible has many versions also but the koran is "sacred". and supposedly unchanged.
When they attack us ,I'm not going to ask which book they are reading. Blitzzz

armymom1228

04-12-2009, 19:52

Get a copy of the book "Reliance of the Traveller." Full title is:

Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik

You can find it on Amazon. Skip the sections on how to wash yourself.

Read the sections about "Abrogation" - which tells you later sections of the Quran overrule the earlier ones...

Then read about Jihad.

Great thank you Sir. I have done the internet research thing, and all I find is stuff like the above. ( my comment)

It is truly sad that man takes religion and turns it into an evil thing to harm others.

Ordered, will be here tuesday.. thank you..
AM

Richard

04-13-2009, 05:12

Get a copy of the book "Reliance of the Traveller." Read the sections about "Abrogation" - which tells you later sections of the Quran overrule the earlier ones...Then read about Jihad.

Don't have time or the desire to read the full text of that or any other book on the topic, Raymond Ibrahim - who has testified before Congress on this issue - has an excellent essay on this concept at:

War and Peace — and Deceit — in Islam
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/ibrahim022709.html

Richard's $.02 :munchin

redleg99

04-15-2009, 19:08

Get a copy of the book "Reliance of the Traveller." Full title is:

Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik

You can find it on Amazon. Skip the sections on how to wash yourself.

Read the sections about "Abrogation" - which tells you later sections of the Quran overrule the earlier ones...

Then read about Jihad.

Something to consider is that Reliance of the Traveller is a manual of Shafi'i school jurisprudence.
Since Shafi'i comprise less than 30% of all Muslims* it might be a mistake to assume all Muslims, or even all Shafi'i for that matter, truly believe what it says.

* Wikipedia says 28%. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafi%27i

SF_BHT

04-15-2009, 19:32

Something to consider is that Reliance of the Traveller is a manual of Shafi'i school jurisprudence.
Since Shafi'i comprise less than 30% of all Muslims* it might be a mistake to assume all Muslims, or even all Shafi'i for that matter, truly believe what it says.

* Wikipedia says 28%. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafi%27i

OK I will agree that it is Shafi'i but it gives you a good base for 1/3 +/- of the nut jobs. There are so many sects it is hard to get one Good Ref that covers all.

We here on this board do not use Wikipedia as a ref. Please refrain from doing so as anyone can change the data and they have a lot of erroneous info on it.:(:mad:

sg1987

07-17-2009, 06:48

so...I'm wondering....what kind of Nazi recruiting took place in CONUS during WWII?:rolleyes:

Islamic Supremacist Group Holds First U.S. Conference

A group committed to establishing an international Islamic empire and reportedly linked to Al Qaeda is stepping up its Western recruitment efforts by holding its first official conference in the U.S.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533525,00.html

Pete

07-17-2009, 07:17

so...I'm wondering....what kind of Nazi recruiting took place in CONUS during WWII?:rolleyes:.....

I done have it at my fingertips but I believe it/they were called Bunds(sp?). Chapters were quite active in northern US cities, and other countries prior to the US going into the war on the side of the Allies. They recruited people of Germanic origin to go back and fight for the fatherland.

There were a number of SS Divisions with a western origin or flavor.

Richard

07-17-2009, 07:29

so...I'm wondering....what kind of Nazi recruiting took place in CONUS during WWII?

Yep - many Americans - including Charles Lindbergh - were enamored with and openly supportive of the ideas of National Socialism...and Eugenics.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Americans for Hitler: On the eve of World War II, the German American Bund insisted the Nazi salute was as American as apple pie.
Mark D. Van Ells, WWll Magazine, Aug 2007

Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. Only a Nazi would have dared to compare. “Hitler is the friend of Germans everywhere,” one girl in a Nazi youth camp remembered being told, “and just as Christ wanted little children to come to him, Hitler wants German children to revere him.” The comment may hardly sound shocking, considering the Nazi mindset, but the girl who heard it wasn’t in Düsseldorf or Stuttgart or Berlin. She was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the heartland of America, American children were being indoctrinated into Nazism as the Nazis prepared to take over Europe.

The youth camps were run by an organization of German immigrants in the United States to cultivate a loyal Nazi following in their adopted homeland. All but forgotten today, the group known as the German American Bund (bund is German for “alliance”) was one of the most controversial political groups of the politically uncertain 1930s. Nazi ideology taught that all Germans were united by blood and that the descendants of German emigrants around the world needed to be awakened to their racial duties in support of Hitler. The United States, 25 percent of whose population traced ancestry back to Germany, was a tempting target for Nazi recruiters. Forty-three percent of the population of Wisconsin, a state noted for its beer and bratwurst, was either German-born or first-generation German American in 1939. Nazis believed those German Americans could be awakened to their cause.

(cont'd) http://www.americainwwii.com/stories/americansforhitler.html

Mark D. Van Ells is a professor of history at the City University of New York. This article originally appeared in the August 2007 issue of America in WWII.

Here's an interesting CalState-Northridge exhibition on the GABund in Southern California:

http://digital-library.csun.edu/backyard/german-american-bund1.html

mojaveman

07-17-2009, 09:48

I done have it at my fingertips but I believe it/they were called Bunds(sp?). Chapters were quite active in northern US cities, and other countries prior to the US going into the war on the side of the Allies. They recruited people of Germanic origin to go back and fight for the fatherland.

There were a number of SS Divisions with a western origin or flavor.

You've stirred my interest just a little so I'll have to do some research on the subject. I have read before that a number of American citizens returned to the Fatherland before or during WW II and fought on their side. One story in particular that I remember reading was about a couple of Americans who died during the battle of Stalingrad. That titanic struggle along with the battle of Kursk are of great historical interest to me.

7624U

07-17-2009, 09:59

Here is the link to the terrorist conference at the Hilton hotel on the 19th

http://www.investigativeproject.org/1088/pro-terror-group-to-meet-in-chicago-suburb

swpa19

07-17-2009, 10:10

Yep - many Americans - including Charles Lindbergh - were enamored with and openly supportive of the ideas of National Socialism...and Eugenics.

Richard's $.02

Up until the U.S. became actively involved in WWII, there were many National Socialist programs being considered for adoption by our government. Hell, the PA Turnpike is modeled after the Autobahn, but Federal and State politics screwed that up so bad, its in no way comparable to the Autobahn today.

Ive also seen the term Radical Islamic Nazi or the combination being used on this thread. That is in no way a far fetched idea. Here is a good primer for your enlightenment:

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/ This features Amin Al Husseini, the reputed "Nazi Father of Jihad". If this has been posted previousely I apologize, I did try to find reference to this article using the ever friendly search option.

swpa19

07-17-2009, 10:14

There were a number of SS Divisions with a western origin or flavor.

And many of these troops used captured American uniforms and materiel and infiltrated the American lines:

THE ENEMY BEHIND OUR LINES
1. First US Army Traffic Control Section reports that
German soldiers in US uniforms are operating in the Army area
in a 1/4 ton Jeep, number 20504455, bumper marking MP
ASCZ C-5.
2. All AGO cards found on Germans in US uniforms
have, on the left hand fold, the inscription:
“W.D. A.G.O. Form No. 65.4.”
The cards also differ slightly from the one normally
carried by officers which is: W.D. A.G.O. Form No. 65-1, in
that in addition to the bearers signature, it is also countersigned
just below the signature of Officer. The AGO cards are brand
new, filled out by the German himself, signed by him, and then
dirtied up a bit – but the creases in the card can usually be
spotted as new.
3. Germans in the “Jeep parties” of Einheit STIELAU
have been instructed that the proper way to identify themselves
behind the American lines is to show their Soldier’s Paybook –
not a word about dog-tags. So far, of the men captured, only
two carried dog-tags with them, and they picked them up on
their own initiatives.. The Paybooks given them are taken from
our own P/Ws.
4. There are four grades of English speakers among
the STIELAU personnel – Group I is the best. The German
Officer is usually Group II which explains why he acts as a GI
and not as an American Officer. The best speaker acts as an
officer and sits beside the driver. The German officer sits
(normally) on the left rear and whispers instructions in the ear of
the German soldier posing as one of our officers. The worst
English speaker (usually Group III or Group IV) i s always the
driver. Therefore, the best way to trap these “Jeep Parties” is to
ask the driver for his trip ticket, and then ask the driver some
questions which he will have to answer.
5. None of the captured Germans in GI uniforms have
known their so-called serial number.
6. Jeep markings already identified on vehicles
carrying enemy personnel include VIII Corps, 8th Armored Div
– but in most cases 5th Armored Div. For some obscure reason,
the number of the Jeep (on the right hand side) is considered a
weak point by the Germans and is usually half obliterated with
mud.
7. All staff cars used by Germans captured so far
have been French Citroens – painted OD, complete with star.
However, reports have been received of Germans in civilian
sedans. Staff cars definitely should be stopped and our MP’s
must forget all rank when they ask for dog tags, ASN, etc.
Some of these GI-clad Germans are posing as high-ranking
officers. Rumor has it that von BEHR, one of the leaders of the
group, will be posing as a Brigadier General.
8 It must not be forgotten that these “Jeep parties” are
heavily armed and that the men realize that they are on a
desperate mission. Keep all suspicious Jeeps and their
occupants well covered while inspecting credentials.
9. It is reported that some members of the “Jeep
parties” have now exchanged their 1/4 tons for 3/4 ton trucks.
10. Most recent method of long-distance identification,
reported by captured” Jeep Parties,” is the holding of a rifle in
both hands, raising 2 ??? Above head and moving rifle up and
down.. Lights of various colors may now be used – or
combinations of colors – as permitted by the German Army
issue flashlight.
11. Greater scrutiny of all vehicles obtaining gas from
units and supply installations is required. These Jeeps are now
operating on gasoline they are obtaining from US Army sources.
One “Jeep Party” was captured recently at an Ordnance
Maintenance unit where they took the vehicle for repair.
Source: First US Army G-2 Periodic Report No. 199, 26 Dec 1944,
as reported in Third US Army G-2 periodic Report No. 203 dated 31 Dec 44,

sg1987

07-17-2009, 10:16

For example, Section 1182 of the United States Code allows consular officers or the attorney general to bar from the United States "any alien who endorses or espouses terrorist activity or support of a terrorist organization." That section also provides that "Any alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible."

Maybe we need to do a better job of enforcing code.:munchin

Richard

07-17-2009, 10:37

There were a number of SS Divisions with a western origin or flavor.

The SS recruited from throughout the west (and amongst others) for their Freiwilligen (foreign volunteers) legions in their proclaimed "fight against bolshevism."

These volunteers wore a national shield on their left sleeve below the SS eagle and came from the UK (a battalion which wore a Union Jack sleeve shield), Croatia (including Bosnian Muslims - 13th SS Mountain Div which wore a dark red fez for dress uniform and a field gray one in the mountains of the Balkans), Galicia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Hungary, Belgium, Russia, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Holland, India, and amongst the Cossacks of Eastern Europe.

I have never run across any information on any American SS participation. :confused:

The Bender/Taylor books (I have most of them) and a series put out by the Imperial War Museum are some of the most authoritative (if you can find them) as is the book put out by the former members of the Waffen SS themselves - Wenn alle Bruder schweigen - which I picked up when stationed in Bad Tolz.

An interesting subject for study.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Saoirse

07-17-2009, 10:38

Here is the link to the terrorist conference at the Hilton hotel on the 19th

http://www.investigativeproject.org/1088/pro-terror-group-to-meet-in-chicago-suburb

But in the past the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (the federal agency chiefly responsible for stopping foreign supporters of extremist groups from entering the United States) has been asleep at the switch when it comes to HT. In 2007, Hizb ut-Tahrir had a booth right next to the Department of Homeland Security at a conference sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America – a Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization that was an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal government's successful prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

Section 1182 of the United States Code allows consular officers or the attorney general to bar from the United States "any alien who endorses or espouses terrorist activity or support of a terrorist organization." That section also provides that "Any alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible."

I realize CITIZENS are protected with the 1st Amendment....are any of the people that lead, speak, and participate in this conference (and past ones) American Citizens? If they are NOT citizens, they are NOT protected! If they are advocating the overthrow of our goverment and terrorism, THROW THEM OUT! When are we going to finally say "enough is enough". I am tired of hearing, "we should try to understand their culture and religion". Well, what about OUR culture and OUR religion? When did our worth as American citizens, our culture and our beliefs get thrown under the bus??!! Why is this sort of thing allowed? Why is DHS a sleep at the wheel? :mad:
Sorry...rant over!!

Marina

03-07-2010, 16:40

T-Rock

03-13-2010, 14:42

Originally Posted by redleg99
Something to consider is that Reliance of the Traveller is a manual of Shafi'i school jurisprudence.
Since Shafi'i comprise less than 30% of all Muslims* it might be a mistake to assume all Muslims, or even all Shafi'i for that matter, truly believe what it says.

Sunni make up roughly 80-90% of all Moslems.
Another point to consider is that old literature from Al-Azhar University pre-dates Saudi oil money (wahhabi influence), and Al-Azhar University is the oldest of all universities in the Moslem world. It was established in 971 A.D. by the Fatimid (Shiite) dynasty. The Reliance of the Traveller was written in the 14th century, was [is] praised by Sunni & Shia alike, and it carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam - just a thought…

Warrior-Mentor

03-13-2010, 19:28

Sunni make up roughly 80-90% of all Moslems.
Another point to consider is that old literature from Al-Azhar University pre-dates Saudi oil money (wahhabi influence), and Al-Azhar University is the oldest of all universities in the Moslem world. It was established in 971 A.D. by the Fatimid (Shiite) dynasty. The Reliance of the Traveller was written in the 14th century, was [is] praised by Sunni & Shia alike, and it carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam - just a thought…

And IIRC it notes in the introduction that 75-80% of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence is identical... T-Rock can find the exact quote... my copy is packed up with the move right now...

Richard

03-13-2010, 20:54

T-Rock

03-14-2010, 01:40

Speaking after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Al-Azhar University head Sheikh Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi Tantawy said, "It's not courage in any way to kill an innocent person, or to kill thousands of people, including men and women and children." He also said that Osama bin Laden's call for a Jihad against the west was "invalid and not binding on Muslims", adding "Killing innocent civilians is a horrific, hideous act that no religion can approve". He said the Qur'an "specifically forbids the kinds of things the Taliban and al-Qaida are guilty of".

"...whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (5:32)

"The only reward for those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom..." (5:33)

The first part (5:32) sounds like a prohibition against murdering any innocent human being, but the second part (5:33) permits the killing of non-Muslims under many circumstances (corruption/kufr) according to the Qur'an.

Too bad Sheikh Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi didn't elaborate on his comments regarding "innocent people", did he mean the innocent Muslim, since the Qur'an considers non-Muslims guilty (Harbi) ? Or did he mean non-Muslims as well?

And IIRC it notes in the introduction that 75-80% of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence is identical... T-Rock can find the exact quote... my copy is packed up with the move right now...

I'll find the exact page when I get home but this probably applies - in regard to "The Reliance of the Traveller"

“We certify that the above-mentioned translation corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of orthodox Sunni Islam (Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jam’ah)” Al-Azhar.

“There is no doubt that this translation is a valuable and important work, whether as a textbook for teaching Islamic jurisprudence to English-speakers, or as a legal reference for use by scholars, educated laymen, and students in this language.” Dr Taha Jabir al-‘Alwani, President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

FWIW, Taha Jabir Alalwani is the co-founder, together with Dr. Yusuf al Qaradawi (the reformer?), of fiqh al-aqalliyyat (Muslim minority jurisprudence) which stands for making fiqh easy in order to enable Islam to spread in the West.

Edited to add, pg. vii, the introduction of “The Reliance of the Traveller” basically states: “The four Sunni schools of Islamic Law, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and HanbalI, are identical in approximately 75% of their legal conclusions..” and that “the field of Hadith, for example, who were Shafi’is are such scholars as Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Nasa’I, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud, Ibn Kathir, Dhahabi, and Nawawi..”

Richard

03-14-2010, 04:17

Ah - tried and true - nothing like a little ol' fire and brimstone to keep those errant flocks from wandering away from the fold.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02 :munchin

dr. mabuse

03-14-2010, 18:57

Richard

03-14-2010, 19:02

Morality was certainly not an invention of any organized form of religious belief - it surely existed long before man felt the need to create a god.

However - YMMV - and so it goes...

Richard

dr. mabuse

03-14-2010, 19:21

GratefulCitizen

04-24-2010, 22:01

Couldn't find this anywhere else on the site.
Islam is eager to censor images of their prophet.
They also seem eager to censor their own doctrine.

Curious to know what Ruth Nasrullah would think.

WARNING: disturbing images
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/videos/108/the-violent-oppression-of-women-in-islam/

incarcerated

05-26-2010, 23:59

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P62320100526

Obama doctrine to make clear no war on Islam: aide

Matt Spetalnick and Adam Entous
WASHINGTON
Wed May 26, 2010 3:59pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's new national security strategy will make clear the United States is not at war with Islam, a top adviser said on Wednesday as the administration prepared for a formal break with Bush-era doctrine.
The White House on Thursday plans to roll out Obama's first formal declaration of national security goals, which are expected to deviate sharply from the go-it-alone approach of his predecessor that included justification for pre-emptive war.

Previewing parts of the document, John Brennan, Obama's leading counterterrorism adviser, said: "We have never been and will never be at war with Islam."

"The president's strategy is unequivocal with regard to our posture -- the United States of America is at war. We are at war against al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates," he said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Brennan's words dovetailed with Obama's outreach to the Muslim world, where former President George W. Bush alienated many with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and his use of phrases like "war on terror" and "Islamo-fascism."

At West Point on Saturday, Obama laid out the broad principles of his coming National Security Strategy, a document required by law of every administration, stressing international engagement over Bush's "cowboy diplomacy."

Grappling with a fragile U.S. economy and mounting deficits, Obama also signaled he would place new emphasis on the link between U.S. economic strength and discipline at home and restoring America's standing in the world.

Obama has been widely credited with improving the tone of U.S. foreign policy but is still struggling with unfinished wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea, and sluggish Middle East peace efforts.

Critics say some of his efforts at diplomatic outreach show U.S. weakness.

HOMEGROWN TERRORISM THREAT

Brennan said curbing the growing threat of "homegrown" terrorism would be a top priority, along with boosting defenses against lone al Qaeda recruits who hold foreign passports that allow them to enter the United States with little to no screening.

This comes in the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner and the botched Times Square carbomb attempt earlier this month -- incidents Brennan called part of a "new phase" of the counterterrorism fight.

Obama's revised strategy is expected to implicitly repudiate the 2002 "Bush Doctrine" asserting the right to wage pre-emptive war against countries and terrorist groups deemed a threat to the United States, part of a policy Bush called a "distinctly American internationalism."

What followed was the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq despite the lack of formal U.N. authorization.

But Brennan made clear there would be no let-up in the counterterrorism fight, saying the United States would need a broad campaign that "harnesses every tool of American power, military and civilian, kinetic and diplomatic."

"We will take the fight to al Qaeda and its extremist affiliates wherever they plot and train -- in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond," he said.

"We will not simply degrade al Qaeda's capabilities or simply prevent terrorist attacks against our country or citizens, we will not merely respond after the fact, after an attack that has been attempted," Brennan said.

"Instead the United States will disrupt, dismantle and ensure a lasting defeat of al Qaeda and violent extremist affiliates," he said.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

T-Rock

05-27-2010, 06:23

President Barack Obama's new national security strategy will make clear the United States is not at war with Islam, a top adviser said on Wednesday as the administration prepared for a formal break with Bush-era doctrine

We’re not at war with Islam, but Islam certainly has declared war on us - Islam has been at war with the free world since the 7th century.

Too bad neither Obama nor Brennan have read any of Adams essays…

“…he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.”
~John Quincy Adams~

Bordercop

05-27-2010, 11:30

The link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/27/counterterror-adviser-defends-jihad-legitimate-tenet-islam/

The president's top counterterrorism adviser on Wednesday called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies.

During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."

He repeated the administration argument that the enemy is not "terrorism," because terrorism is a "tactic," and not terror, because terror is a "state of mind" -- though Brennan's title, deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, includes the word "terrorism" in it. But then Brennan said that the word "jihad" should not be applied either.

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said.

The technical, broadest definition of jihad is a "struggle" in the name of Islam and the term does not connote "holy war" for all Muslims. However, jihad frequently connotes images of military combat or warfare, and some of the world's most wanted terrorists including Usama bin Laden commonly use the word to call for war against the West.

Brennan defined the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and "its terrorist affiliates."

But Brennan argued that it would be "counterproductive" for the United States to use the term, as it would "play into the false perception" that the "murderers" leading war against the West are doing so in the name of a "holy cause."

"Moreover, describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie propagated by Al Qaeda and its affiliates to justify terrorism -- that the United States is somehow at war against Islam," he said.

The comment comes after Brennan, in a February speech in which he described his respect for the tolerance and devotion of Middle Eastern nations, referred to Jerusalem on first reference by its Arabic name, Al-Quds.

"In all my travels the city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great faiths come together," Brennan said at an event co-sponsored by the White House Office of Public Engagement and the Islamic Center at New York University and the Islamic Law Students Association at NYU.

T-Rock

05-28-2010, 09:59

Ignoring al Qaeda’s ideology is a threat to US national security

By Walid Phares

May 28, 2010

In preparation for the publicizing for the new National Security Strategy by the Obama Administration, Mr John Brennan, White House Advisor on Counter Terrorism said the President’s strategy "is absolutely clear about the threat we face." From such an announcement one would project that the new narrative would be as precise as it should be. That is to define the ideology and the goals of the forces we're facing, namely the Jihadists, either Salafists or Khomeinists. Unfortunately, it was just the opposite. M. Brennan said the Obama Administration doesn’t "describe our enemy as 'Jihadists' or Islamists," because (as he argued) Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenant of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community." He added that "the use of these religious terms would "play into the false perception" that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are "religious leaders and defending a holy cause, when in fact, they are nothing more than murderers." In reality, abandoning the use of terms such as “Jihadists” or even “Islamists” in defining the threat is a strategic set back in the war of ideas fought against al Qaeda, the Taliban, Shabab al Jihad, Hezbollah, the Pasdaran and all other adherents to Global Jihadism. It is the equivalent in a classical war, of banning the use of radars, AWACs and broadcast. In short, this is a shortcut to utter self defeat.

The premise of the new national security doctrine regarding the identification of the threat and the appropriate names to use is flawed in its root. Linguistically Jihad doesn’t translate into “Holy Struggle,” for the latter in Arabic is “al Nidal al muqaddass.” In its substance Jihad doesn’t mean a purification of oneself in abstract, like Yoga. Theologically it is a call for efforts on behalf of Allah (Jihad fi sabeel Allah) which could take different forms, some of which could be in the battlefield. It is originally a theological notion that US Government officials have no business in defining or redefining as M. Brennan and the national security doctrine of President Obama are attempting to. The United States secular Government shouldn’t enter the fray of stating that Jihad is legitimate or illegitimate from a theological standpoint. Instead they should identify if a particular ideology self described as "Jihadist" is or isn't a source of threat and radicalization.

الجهاد Jihad is a Theological Notion
الجهادية Jihadism is an ideology

However, and that’s the Administration’s second intellectual mistake, “Jihadism” is not the same thing as Jihad: the first is an ideological notion while the latter is originally a theological notion. The Administration’s experts have tried to link Jihadism, and thus the “Jihadists” to the controversially debated concept of Jihad. This is academically flawed: For Jihadism is a movement in contemporary times and their ideology has been established for almost a century. There are geopolitical in nature and involved in conflicts, wars and radicalization. More importantly they’ve declared a war against the US and have waged it for decades. Whatever is the debate about Jihad as a notion, the Jihadists exist in reality and they are the foes of democracies.

An AP story posted on April 7 reported that President Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror. It added that “the change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century." This means that the Obama Administration is saying there is no such thing as “Militant Islamic Radicalism” thus the US narrative should not talk about ideology as a threat to national security. But banning all terms that identifies the threat other than describing it as “extremist” or “violent” not only is scholarly wrong but would in turn constitute a threat to America’s national security. Extremism and Violence are abstract terms used to describe an ideologies, movements and organizations. But “description” is not “identification.” One can say the Nazis or the Bolsheviks are extremists but one must identify the threat before describing it.

For while it is positive to refine and improve the quality of US rhetoric, and thus select the best words to identify the enemy’s identity and doctrines, cleansing the official narrative from all words allegedly “Islam-related” would simultaneously eliminate the very words and terms that determine and specifies the particular network and world vision which are at war with the entire international community including the United States but also the moderate Arabs and Muslims. Arguing that abandoning terms such as “Muslim Terrorists” may be helpful in narrowing the identification process to the very movement and ideologies involved in the threat.

Rejecting generalizations against communities is the right thing to do, but eliminating the naming of the actual enemy would be a disaster on many levels. Indeed, the Administration’s experts have accordingly advised for deleting terms such as Jihadists, Jihadism, Salafism, Khomeinism, Takfirism and even Islamists. But these are the vital identification codes for the entire web engaged in war, indoctrination, incitement and Terrorism first against Muslim societies and also against Western and American democracies. These are ideological and political identifications of the threat without which US national security would be as blind as if during WWII word such as Nazism and fascism or during the Cold war, words such as Soviets and Communists, would have been dropped from the rhetoric. The terms Jihadists and Islamists are not descriptive of Islam or Muslims but of the forces which claim to do so. If we drop these very words we would be doing exactly what the Jihadists want us to do: linking them to the entire community instead of separating them from the majority of Muslims. If we accept the premise advanced by some advisors that Jihadism is Islam and mentioning it negatively would offend the Muslim world, al Qaeda wins.

The AP says these revisions “are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change (…) how the United States talks to Muslim nations.” This is a worse argument as the public debate and narrative in the Muslim majority countries precisely uses this terminology 24/7. How is it arguable that terms such as al Jihadiyya, al Salafiyya, al Islamiyun, al Khomeiniyun, al Takfiriyun are used in on Arab airwaves, in print and in the blogosphere to depict the radicals, extremists and Terrorists from Morocco to Pakistan, and White House advisors claim such words would offend if used in that sense in English? There is something very odd here. If these terms define the enemy within the Arab and Muslim world, who are we trying to confuse here? The only possible answer is that these words would be banned, so that the American public doesn’t use them not that the Muslim world is offended. This looks like a war of ideas to disable American citizens' understanding by making them believe that the very words that Arabs and Muslims use to isolate the Terrorists also offend them.

==============
Dr Walid Phares is the author of Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America, and of The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy

Source > http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010/05/ignoring_al_qaedas_ideology_is.php

Ismail K.

06-28-2010, 15:08

...there is so much here that I would love to respond to but push ups beckon. Besides, I should probably play my opinions fairly close to the chest, there is interesting and engaging debate, and there is getting on a soapbox and shooting your mouth off and tainting people's impression of you before you even get to basic. The later is a bad idea I feel.

So I would just like to highlight some assumptions which have frequently gone unreferenced and occasionally unchallenged:

1) Islam intrinsically promotes a polarized ideology of us vs them, dividing the world between the unconquered non-Muslim peoples (dar al harb, the house of war) and the Muslims (dar al islam, the house of submission/peace)

2) Attacks against civilians are generally condoned among the populace of the middle east and/or larger Islamic world.

3) Muslims as a whole have a noticeably higher contribution toward violence as a whole.

4) Jews, Christians and others are capable of reforming their religion and moving away for some the archaic and primitive practices, where as Muslims are not.

5) The groups that we are at war with in Iraq and Afghanistan are global organizations, with global, ideological concerns prioritized over local, political ones.

6) Muslims in the US have been slow to condemn terrorism, and Muslims abroad have not made any significant effort to fight it.

7) Islam's role in history has been solely to limit individual freedom, retard scientific advancement, degrade women, and heap violence and persecution on religious minorities.

This is an issue that is near and dear to me, and so I have done some independent research, and I have no good empirical reason to think that any of these are true, and several reasons to think that a few of them are not. This is coupled with some fairly sloppy thinking, and occasional blatant dishonesty from some people on both sides of the debate, and so I have discovered that I have to really dig deep and verify everything independently. And on top of that, there are a lot of very nebulous terms that are thrown around recklessly ("western civilization" comes immediately to mind). All in all it is a great exercise in skepticism and critical thinking!

I'm gonna shut my yap now.

Pete

06-28-2010, 15:48

......, and I have no good empirical reason to think that any of these are true, and several reasons to think that a few of them are not. ..... ....

So you "feel" all are not true?

Ismail K.

06-28-2010, 16:42

So you "feel" all are not true?

Well, as the late great Carl Sagan said: "I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble."

So, no I try not to "feel" anything about them, although for the sake of honesty, I'll alway cop to my biases, and lord knows I have them. Rather what I am saying is that I have some evidence which causes problems for those statements, and no evidence (outside of the very anecdotal and emotionally charged field of the mass media) to support them.

Actually it is just this sort of "thinking with your gut" or "feeling" that I was trying to highlight and question. More then once I have heard people say this or that about Islam, Muslims, or the terrorists, and then provide no substantiation, like it is an obvious self evident axiom. Well, it is not to me, especially with so many preconceived notions and entrenched ideologies at work in this sort of discussion. I am just hoping that folks will take the time to self examine their beliefs. Hope I clarified my post.

Edit: it occurs to me that you may have been trying to goad me out of my shell a bit and really make an argument to support my opinions. I'm happy to do so, as long as it is a solicited opinion and not the wannabe SF guy expressing obnoxious opinions to his elders.

The Reaper

06-28-2010, 16:53

Well, as the late great Carl Sagan said: "I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble."

So, no I try not to "feel" anything about them, although for the sake of honesty, I'll alway cop to my biases, and lord knows I have them. Rather what I am saying is that I have some evidence which causes problems for those statements, and no evidence (outside of the very anecdotal and emotionally charged field of the mass media) to support them.

Actually it is just this sort of "thinking with your gut" or "feeling" that I was trying to highlight and question. More then once I have heard people say this or that about Islam, Muslims, or the terrorists, and then provide no substantiation, like it is an obvious self evident axiom. Well, it is not to me, especially with so many preconceived notions and entrenched ideologies at work in this sort of discussion. I am just hoping that folks will take the time to self examine their beliefs. Hope I clarified my post.

Edit: it occurs to me that you may have been trying to goad me out of my shell a bit and really make an argument to support my opinions. I'm happy to do so, as long as it is a solicited opinion and not the wannabe SF guy expressing obnoxious opinions to his elders.

You might want to review the earlier posts in this thread, including the ones that cite Muslim works (and some of the other threads that lay out the rationale for these positions) before going down this road.

Could save you some pain, unless you are really sure of yourself.

TR

Ismail K.

06-28-2010, 17:11

You might want to review the earlier posts in this thread, including the ones that cite Muslim works (and some of the other threads that lay out the rationale for these positions) before going down this road.

Could save you some pain, unless you are really sure of yourself.

TR

I will do so before I continue with this thread. I am confident though, because like I said I am not a stranger to this discussion, and have read many polemics on Islam, with a number of perspectives, and several arguments made here are not foreign to me. However it would be disrespectful of me not to read throughly, at very least, this thread.

Pain? what pain? I love learning, and If my opinions are undermined by someone who knows a good deal more than me, good deal, I am better for it. :lifter

Sigaba

06-28-2010, 17:35

So I would just like to highlight some assumptions which have frequently gone unreferenced and occasionally unchallenged.This statement is inaccurate.

If you were to take the time to explore the many discussions of Islam on this BB going back several years, across a number of forums, and in scores of threads, you would find that all the points you have mentioned have been debated from many perspectives.

While, at times, the debate has been heated, even rancorous, the participants have striven, time and again, to support their arguments with references. And those references, in turn, have received many a challenge.

Ismail K.

06-28-2010, 17:54

This statement is inaccurate.

If you were to take the time to explore the many discussions of Islam on this BB going back several years, across a number of forums, and in scores of threads, you would find that all the points you have mentioned have been debated from many perspectives.

While, at times, the debate has been heated, even rancorous, the participants have striven, time and again, to support their arguments with references. And those references, in turn, have received many a challenge.

Perhaps I have spoken too broadly. I apologize, I did not mean to belittle anyone's intellectual courage, I am new to these forums, and my experience in this debate is outside of them.

But all the same, I do think that when it comes to these statements many people are too trusting of their sources. I will continue to explore this thread and others.

The Reaper

06-28-2010, 18:09

Perhaps I have spoken too broadly. I apologize, I did not mean to belittle anyone's intellectual courage, I am new to these forums, and my experience in this debate is outside of them.

But all the same, I do think that when it comes to these statements many people are too trusting of their sources. All the same I will continue to explore this thread and others.

Are you familiar with "Reliance of the Traveller"?

TR

Ismail K.

06-28-2010, 18:37

Are you familiar with "Reliance of the Traveller"?

TR

yes! I had a copy around somewhere, but I moved recently, I think it may have gotten lost in the clutter...

The Reaper

06-28-2010, 18:54

yes! I had a copy around somewhere, but I moved recently, I think it may have gotten lost in the clutter...

Good.

Do a search for it here.

Read the threads before making your own assumptions or generalizations about people here.

TR

Stras

06-28-2010, 20:01

yes! I had a copy around somewhere, but I moved recently, I think it may have gotten lost in the clutter...

you have an oppurtunity to either be the "bug" or the "windshield". Choose wisely your battles.

Most of us have been dealing with Islam for many years, and have proven ourselves under fire, while they tried to kill us. I hope that you have some good facts to bring to this discussion.

Ismail K.

06-28-2010, 20:33

you have an oppurtunity to either be the "bug" or the "windshield". Choose wisely your battles.

Most of us have been dealing with Islam for many years, and have proven ourselves under fire, while they tried to kill us. I hope that you have some good facts to bring to this discussion.

I think I do. But perhaps this is not the time or place for me to have this argument, not while I still have much to prove. As always I will defer to your experience, I have no reason to doubt you.

Good.

Do a search for it here.

Read the threads before making your own assumptions or generalizations about people here.

TR

Of course, I will. I did not intend to make any generalizations about people here, just an observation about the large world. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Pete

06-29-2010, 04:16

I think I do. But perhaps this is not the time or place for me to have this argument, not while I still have much to prove.......

You jumped into a thread that had been running for 4 years and in a sense said we were all full of crap.

And when called on it you have been crawfishing around.

You seem like a person with lots of "opinions" on things.

The next time you post one of your "opinions" have multiple sources with facts to back it up - or your time here will be short.

If coming up with facts to back your case is too hard, well then.............

Ismail K.

06-29-2010, 12:58

You jumped into a thread that had been running for 4 years and in a sense said we were all full of crap.

And when called on it you have been crawfishing around.

You seem like a person with lots of "opinions" on things.

The next time you post one of your "opinions" have multiple sources with facts to back it up - or your time here will be short.

If coming up with facts to back your case is too hard, well then.............

I wonder if coming up with supporting evidence and arguing my case would save my ass here or just shorten my stay further? Or should I say "roger, out" and get on with life?

It is a sincere question, I am not trying to be difficult at all. I have just gotten myself in a situation in which I am not sure if the best thing to do is just drop the argument and accept that totally convincing evidence is posted elsewhere on this board, or stand my ground and fight.

I should also say that I did not and do not think you are full of crap. If that is the impression I gave the onus is on me for the miscommunication.

The Reaper

06-29-2010, 13:54

I wonder if coming up with supporting evidence and arguing my case would save my ass here or just shorten my stay further? Or should I say "roger, out" and get on with life?

That would depend on the quality of your work.

TR

Ismail K.

06-29-2010, 16:58

That would depend on the quality of your work.

TR

Roger, TR! That helps my position a good deal. I'll be back in a few days after I have studied previous arguments more closely.

Thanks for the guidance.

T-Rock

06-30-2010, 06:57

So I would just like to highlight some assumptions which have frequently gone unreferenced and occasionally unchallenged:

1) Islam intrinsically promotes a polarized ideology of us vs them, dividing the world between the unconquered non-Muslim peoples (dar al harb, the house of war) and the Muslims (dar al islam, the house of submission/peace)

#1 is all I have time for right now…below are “some” references…

Islamic Theology as well as Sharia divides the world in two spheres. The Theology and Legal system of Islam (theo-political / Jihad, etc.) are the tools of Islam's control mechanism, it is a political system, culture, and a religion. The political system of Islam determines the treatment of Kafirs and the governance of muslims.

Islam does promote a polarized ideology of us vs them - because, the Qur'an, Hadith, and Islam as a whole, refer to unbelievers as "Kafir" - and never identifies humanity as a unified whole - humankind is divided into whether a person believes mohammed is the prophet of allah or not, and those who don't are labeled Kafir... - "Kafir" - "Disbeliever" -“Infidel” - “Non-muslim” - “Pagan” - “Oppressors” - “The Immoral” - “Mischief makers” all interchangeable...with “Kafir”

What’s below seems quite polarizing to me, and divisive.....not my words, theirs…

* Kafir - Non-Muslim / Non-Believer
* Kufr - Unbelief/infidelity
* Apostate - One who denies the ultimate truth of Islam.
* Apostacy - The act of any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief, and leaves the faith.
(Reliance of the Traveller - index for above - see pages 1132,1170,1172,1207).

Kafir are arrogant and divided:

Nay, but those who disbelieve are in false pride and schism. (Sura 38:2)

Kafir are close-minded:

As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not. (Sura 2:6)

They desire to deceive Allah and those who believe, and they deceive only themselves and they do not perceive. In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increaseth their disease. A painful doom is theirs because they lie. (Sura 2:9-10)

Kafir are deaf, dumb and blind:

The likeness of those who disbelieve is as the likeness of one who shouts to that which hears nothing, save a call and a cry; deaf, dumb, blind -- they do not understand. (Sura 2:171)

Such are they whom Allah curseth so that He deafeneth them and maketh blind their eyes. Will they then not meditate on the Qur'an, or are there locks on the hearts? (Sura 47:23-24)

T-Rock

06-30-2010, 06:58

Kafir are evil:

O ye who believe! spend of that wherewith We have provided you ere a day come when there will be no trafficking, nor friendship, nor intercession. The disbelievers, they are the wrong-doers. (Sura 2: 254)

And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation for him. Whoso judgeth not by that which Allah hath revealed: such are wrong-doers. (Sura 5:45)

The similitude of those who were charged with the (obligations of the) Mosaic Law, but who subsequently failed in those (obligations), is that of a donkey which carries huge tomes (but understands them not). Evil is the similitude of people who falsify the Signs of God: and God guides not people who do wrong. (Sura 62:5)

Allah has promised, to those among you who believe and work righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the land, inheritance (of power), as He granted it to those before them; that He will establish in authority their religion - the one which He has chosen for them; and that He will change (their state), after the fear in which they (lived), to one of security and peace: 'They will worship Me (alone) and not associate aught with Me. 'If any do reject Faith after this, they are rebellious and wicked. (Sura 24:55)

No plea had they, when Our terror came unto them, save that they said: Lo! We were wrong-doers.(Sura 7:5)

O Children of Adam! Let not Satan seduce you as he caused your (first) parents to go forth from the Garden and tore off from them their robe (of innocence) that he might manifest their shame to them. Lo! he seeth you, he and his tribe, from whence ye see him not. Lo! We have made the devils protecting friends for those who believe not. (Sura 7:27)

Kafir are greedy:

And you will most certainly find them the greediest of men for life (greedier) than even those who are polytheists; every one of them loves that he should be granted a life of a thousand years, and his being granted a long life will in no way remove him further off from the chastisement, and Allah sees what they do. (Sura 2:96)

Kafir are like animals:

If it had been Our will, We should have elevated him with Our signs; but he inclined to the earth, and followed his own vain desires. His similitude is that of a dog: if you attack him, he lolls out his tongue, or if you leave him alone, he (still) lolls out his tongue. That is the similitude of those who reject Our signs; So relate the story; perchance they may reflect. (Sura 7:176)

Shall I tell thee of a worse (case) than theirs for retribution with Allah? (Worse is the case of him) whom Allah hath cursed, him on whom His wrath hath fallen and of whose sort Allah hath turned some to apes and swine, and who serveth idols. Such are in worse plight and further astray from the plain road. (Sura 5:60)

When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected." (Sura 7:166)

Or thinkest thou that most of them listen or understand? They are only like cattle; - nay, they are worse astray in Path. (Sura 25: 44)

T-Rock

06-30-2010, 07:00

Kafir are perverse:

And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they! (Sura 9:30)

When thou lookest at them, their exteriors please thee; and when they speak, thou listenest to their words. They are as (worthless as hollow) pieces of timber propped up, (unable to stand on their own). They think that every cry is against them. They are the enemies; so beware of them. The curse of Allah be on them! How are they deluded (away from the Truth)! (Sura 62:4)

Kafir are Unclean:

O ye who believe! Truly the Pagans are unclean; so let them not, after this year of theirs, approach the Sacred Mosque. And if ye fear poverty, soon will Allah enrich you, if He wills, out of His bounty, for Allah is All-knowing, All-wise. (Sura 9:28)

Kafir are unintelligent:

O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty steadfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred (steadfast) they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are a folk without intelligence. (Sura 8:65)

Kafir are the worst of creatures:

For the vilest beasts in God's sight, are the deaf, the dumb, who understand not. (Sura 8:22)

For the worst of beasts in the sight of God are those who reject Him: They will not believe. (Sura 8: 55)

Verily those who believe not, among those who have received the scriptures, and among the idolaters, [shall be cast] into the fire of hell, to remain therein [for ever]. These are the worst of creatures. (Sura 98:6)

Therefore, the Kafir can be Hated:

They who dispute the signs of Allah [kafirs] without authority having reached them are greatly hated by Allah and the believers. So Allah seals up every arrogant, disdainful heart. and despised by Allah. (Sura 40:35)

The Kafir can be mocked:

On that day the faithful will mock the kafirs, while they sit on bridal couches and watch them. Should not the kafirs be paid back for what they did? (Sura 83:34)

The Kafir can be punished:

Say to the kafirs: My Lord does not care for you or your prayers. You have rejected the truth, so sooner or later, a punishment will come. (Sura 25:77)

The Kafir can be beheaded:

When you encounter the kafirs on the battlefield, cut off their heads until you have thor-oughly defeated them and then take the prisoners and tie them up firmly. (Sura 47:4)

The Kafir can be confused:

Some among them listen to you [Mohammed], but We have cast veils over their [kafirs] hearts and a heaviness to their ears so that they cannot understand our signs [the Koran]. (Sura 6:25)

The Kafir can be plotted against:

They plot and scheme against you [Mohammed], and I plot and scheme against them. Therefore, deal calmly with the kafirs and leave them alone for a while. (Sura 86:15)

The Kafir can be terrorized:

Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, "I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the kafirs' hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fin-gers!" (Sura 8:12)

The Kafir can be annihilated:

So the kafirs were annihilated. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. (Sura 6:45)

The Kafir can be killed:

If they do not keep away from you or offer you peace or withdraw their hostilities, then seize them and kill them wherever they are. We give you complete authority over them. (Sura 4:91)

The Kafir can be crucified:

The only reward for those who war against Allah and His messengers and strive to com-mitt mischief on the earth is that they will be slain or crucified, have their alternate hands and feet cut off, or be banished from the land. This will be their disgrace in this world, and a great torment shall be theirs in the next except those who repent before you overpower them. Know that Allah is forgiving and merciful. (Sura 5:33)

War should be made on the Kafir:

Make war on those who have received the Scriptures [Jews and Christians] but do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day. They do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden. The Christians and Jews do not follow the religion of truth until they submit and pay the poll tax [jizya], and they are humiliated. (Sura 9:29)

A Muslim should not be friends with the Kafir:

Believers should not take kafirs as friends in preference to other believers. Those who do this will have none of Allah's protection and will only have themselves as guards. Allah warns you to fear Him for all will return to Him. (Sura 3:28)

A Kafir can be cursed:

They [kafirs] will be cursed, and wherever they are found, they will be seized and mur-dered. It was Allah's same practice with those who came before them, and you will find no change in Allah's ways. (Sura 33:60-61)

Source > http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/
> http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/

Sharia Law

Many things cannot be done without the Caliph’s permission (A: though if there is no Caliph (def: o25), no permission is required.

o4:17 There is no indemnity for killing a non-Muslim...
(588-595)

f 12.26 ...keeping the company of oppressors or immoral...
(182-183)

f 21.2 (prayer)....Non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state who attend are not hindered from doing so, but may not mix with us. (Kafir)
(216-217)

m 4.2 (marriage) ..(1)..."Allah has chosen the Arabs above others"

Unbelief (Kufr):

The Prophet Muhammad said, "No babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist." (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426)

a 1.5 ...a person is not morally obligated by Allah to do or refrain from anything unless the invitation of a prophet and what Allah has legislated have reached him (n:w4) ....
...."We do not punish until we send a messenger" (Koran 17:15)
(2-3)

Invitations from messengers to “Embrace Islam”
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/osama.bin.laden.2.247097.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2006/iran-061129-irna01.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2006/iran-060510-irna01.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/02/zawahiri.tape/index.html

c2.5 The unlawful (haram) is what the Law giver strictly forbids. Someone who commits an unlawful act deserves punishment...

(3) and unbelief (kufr), sins which put one beyond the pale of Islam (as discussed at o8.7) and neccessitate stating the Testification of faith (Shahada)...
(pgs 30-31)

o4:17 There is no indemnity for killing a non-Muslim...
(pgs 588-595)

o8.2 In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (A: or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed

o8.7 (2) to intend to commit unbelief, even if in the future. And like this intention is hesitating whether to do so or not: one therby immediately commits unbelief:

(15) to hold that any of Allah's messengers or prophets are liars, or to deny their being sent:

(Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Pages 30-45, 588-595, 595-610).

o9.0
(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.

o9.1 Jihad is a communal obligation (def: c3.2). When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others.

o9.8 The caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians [kafirs] (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 regions) (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.

(A: though if there is no caliph (def: o25), no permission is required).

Edited to add - Source > http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Traveller-Classic-Islamic-Al-Salik/dp/0915957728

Thomas Paine

06-30-2010, 20:25

Adding Daniel Pipes input to this discussion:

Title of the story sums it up neatly here:
Lion's Den: Jihadi undercuts president
By DANIEL PIPES
06/29/2010 22:28

The Times Square bomber flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy.

The jaw-dropping court testimony by Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, singlehandedly undermines Obama administration efforts to ignore the dangers of Islamism.

Shahzad’s statements stand out because jihadis, when facing legal charges, typically save their skin by pleading not guilty or plea bargaining.

Consider a few examples:
• Naveed Haq, who assaulted the Jewish federation building in Seattle, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

• Lee Malvo, one of the Beltway Snipers, explained that “one reason for the shootings was that white people had tried to harm Louis Farrakhan.” His partner John Allen Muhammad claimed his innocence to the death chamber.

• Hasan Akbar killed two fellow American soldiers as they slept in a military compound, then told the court: “I want to apologize for the attack that occurred. I felt that my life was in jeopardy, and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for forgiveness.”

• Mohammed Taheri-azar, who tried to kill students on the University of North Carolina by running over them in a car, and issued a series of jihadi rants against the US, later experienced a change of heart, announced he was “very sorry” for the crimes and asked for release so he could “reestablish myself as a good, caring and productive member of society” in California.

THESE EFFORTS fit a broader pattern of Islamist mendacity; rarely does a jihadi stand on principle.

Zacarias Moussaoui, 9/11’s would-be 20th hijacker, came close: His court proceedings began with his refusing to enter a plea (which the presiding judge translated into “not guilty”) and then pleading guilty to all charges.

Shahzad, 30, acted in an exceptional manner during his appearance in a New York City federal court on June 21. His answers to Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum’s many questions (“And where was the bomb?” “What did you do with the gun?”) offered a dizzying mix of deference and contempt.

On the one hand, he politely, calmly, patiently, fully and informatively described his actions. On the other, he in the same voice justified his attempt at cold-blooded mass murder.

The judge asked Shahzad after he announced an intent to plead guilty to all 10 counts of his indictment: “Why do you want to plead guilty?” A reasonable question given the near certainty that guilty pleas will keep him in jail for long years. He replied forthrightly: I want to plead guilty and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times forward because – until the hour the US pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government – we will be attacking [the] US, and I plead guilty to that.”

Shahzad insisted on portraying himself as replying to American actions: “I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing [of] the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attacks,” adding that “we Muslims are one community.”

Nor was that all; he flatly asserted that his goal had been to damage buildings and “injure people or kill people” because “one has to understand where I’m coming from, because... I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier.”

WHEN CEDARBAUM pointed out that pedestrians in Times Square during the early evening of May 1 were not attacking Muslims, Shahzad replied: “Well, the [American] people select the government. We consider them all the same.”

His comment reflects not just that American citizens are responsible for their democratically elected government, but also the Islamist view that, by definition, infidels cannot be innocent.

However abhorrent, this tirade does have the virtue of truthfulness. Shahzad’s willingness to express his Islamic purposes and spend long years in jail for them flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy, preferring such lame formulations as “overseas contingency operations” and “man-caused disasters.”

Americans – as well as Westerners generally, all non- Muslims and anti-Islamist Muslims – should listen to the bald declaration by Faisal Shahzad and accept the painful fact that Islamist anger and aspirations truly do motivate their terrorist enemies.

The writer (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

FULL STORY:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=179923

akv

07-01-2010, 01:25

The Times Square bomber flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy. The jaw-dropping court testimony by Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, singlehandedly undermines Obama administration efforts to ignore the dangers of Islamism. Shahzad’s statements stand out because jihadis, when facing legal charges, typically save their skin by pleading not guilty or plea bargaining.

Interesting, though perhaps there is a more practical explanation. If I am interpreting Mr. Pipes correctly, in contrast to the examples of the individuals who facing punishment reverted to the universal criminal excuses of, insanity, self defense, and remorse (for being caught), Shahzad's cold responses are ample evidence of the dangers of Islamism. None of these people mentioned have the "moral stamina" Kaplan refers to in soldiers who fight other armed men, can you expect cowards who prey on unarmed civilians to accept the punishment for their crimes with dedicated resolve?

If you need an example of dedicated "moral stamina" for a cause, think of the late Admiral James Stockdale who underwent years of torture in the Hanoi Hilton and actually bashed his own face in with a stool so the North Vietnamese didn't dare put him in front of a camera for propaganda purposes against the USA. That is a man, that is a warrior, that is a dedicated dangerous combatant who walked the walk.

In contrast Shahzad was either poorly trained or lost his nerve, the Obama administration should be taken to task, but for fostering a climate of incompetence in which this "Kramer-esque bomber" almost flew away unscathed. IMHO, Mr. Pipes is giving Shahzad far too much credit, when a far simpler excuse will suffice. Shahzad knows you don't get caught trying to blow up Times Square without a lifetime in prison. So he is trying to cover his @ss, literally, his testimony described as "jaw dropping" is actually pre-emptively "soap dropping", since a "stone cold killer" in the pen is less likely to get a rude surprise when he drops the soap in the shower than a bumbling Jihadi bomber...

Al Qaeda is now crooning about their failed attempts, we need to keep the pressure on them so they can't recover.

Roguish Lawyer

04-19-2013, 12:50

Bump

:munchin

:D

Sdiver

04-19-2013, 13:06

Bump

:munchin

:D

Nice.

:lifter

PRB

04-19-2013, 13:13

No, they did it cause they were 'losers' like their Uncle said....now that IS dangerous.
If all the losers I know start setting off pressure cookers we are in for a real cook out.

glebo

04-19-2013, 14:53

Well, I don't think WE are at war with Islam...I think THEY are at war with us...

They started it...I hope we finish it...:confused:

Trapper John

04-19-2013, 17:12

Well, I don't think WE are at war with Islam...I think THEY are at war with us...

They started it...I hope we finish it...:confused:

Amen, Bro :lifter

Dusty

04-19-2013, 17:20

Well, we need a POTUS who doesn't kiss muslim ass every chance he gets.

SF_BHT

04-19-2013, 17:33

Well, we need a POTUS who doesn't kiss muslim ass every chance he gets.

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!

cbtengr

04-19-2013, 17:52

Well, we need a POTUS who doesn't kiss muslim ass every chance he gets.

You are so right but we all know that is regretfully and to the detriment of our nation a few years off.

Sigaba

04-19-2013, 18:05

Well, we need a POTUS who doesn't kiss muslim ass every chance he gets.
Does the use of armed drones over the protests of governments and civilians in Islamic countries constitute ass kissing?

"In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for al-Qaed," news story of 29 May 2012. (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-29/world/35456187_1_aqap-drone-strikes-qaeda)

"In Swat Valley, U.S. drone strikes radicalizing a new generation," news story of 15 April 2013. (http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/world/asia/pakistan-swat-valley-school/index.html)

2012 Pew polling data that includes findings on impact of use of drones on how Muslim countries view the 44th president. (http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/06/13/global-opinion-of-obama-slips-international-policies-faulted/)

Dusty

04-19-2013, 18:13

Does the use of armed drones over the protests of governments and civilians in Islamic countries constitute ass kissing?

Does apologizing for and rationalizing Obama's actions make you a lib?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cazkUx0AVHU

Sigaba

04-19-2013, 18:57

Does apologizing for and rationalizing [the president's] actions make you a lib?Dusty, attempting to paint those who don't agree with every point of view you have in monolithic and dispariging terms ("lib" "RINO") is not going to change the fact that some Muslims find the man's policies, if not also the man, odious.

PRB

04-19-2013, 18:58

This administration has done everything it can to help us NOT DEFINE THE ENEMY.
The enemy is Islam and those that practice it as it is written.....many Muslims cherry pick and do not practice real Islam, they are not the enemy....those that study Islam and understand its concepts are the real enemy.....radical Islam is simply a redundancy.
We have fired military personel that gave fact based classes on Islam because it was not PC.
The attack at Ft. Hood was 'work place violence'.
Obama was born and raised Muslim and it goes against his grain, he may be Christian now, but he will not believe, or allow his admin. to identify Islamists as the real threat.
I applaud the drone program, but that does not give this admin a pass on playing stupid as to the real threat.
Take the time to study the 'Sira'...life of Mohammed...and the 'Hadith' the sunna of Mohammed and finally then the Quran (the Quran alone is only about 30% of Islamic doctrine)....then you will understand how a 19 year old kid raised here can be so easily turned into a mass murderer.
It is all in black/white.
Islam.

Dusty

04-19-2013, 19:07

Dusty, attempting to paint those who don't agree with every point of view you have in monolithic and dispariging terms ("lib" "RINO") is not going to change the fact that some Muslims find the man's policies, if not also the man, odious.

You evidently didn't watch the vid in the link.

Sigaba

04-19-2013, 19:16

You evidently didn't watch the vid in the link.A guy on YouTube agrees with a POV so the POV must be sustainable because...?

Sdiver

04-19-2013, 19:17

This administration has done everything it can to help us NOT DEFINE THE ENEMY.
The enemy is Islam and those that practice it as it is written.....many Muslims cherry pick and do not practice real Islam, they are not the enemy....those that study Islam and understand its concepts are the real enemy.....radical Islam is simply a redundancy.
We have fired military personel that gave fact based classes on Islam because it was not PC.
The attack at Ft. Hood was 'work place violence'.
Obama was born and raised Muslim and it goes against his grain, he may pretend to be a Christian now, but he will not believe, or allow his admin. to identify Islamists as the real threat.
I applaud the drone program, but that does not give this admin a pass on playing stupid as to the real threat.
Take the time to study the 'Sira'...life of Mohammed...and the 'Hadith' the sunna of Mohammed and finally then the Quran (the Quran alone is only about 30% of Islamic doctrine)....then you will understand how a 19 year old kid raised here can be so easily turned into a mass murderer.
It is all in black/white.
Islam.

Fixed it for ya, Sir.

Trapper John

04-20-2013, 06:15

Dusty

04-20-2013, 06:50

A guy on YouTube agrees with a POV so the POV must be sustainable because...?

He's not the only one, Sig. That youtube vid was for a little comic relief, but there's nothing funny about the reality of the misdirection and ingratiation that has led to this. I doubt very seriously that I'm the only one with this view.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10007190/Boston-bombs-Obama-lulled-America-into-false-confidence-over-terror-threat.html

Trapper John

04-20-2013, 07:59

Does apologizing for and rationalizing Obama's actions make you a lib?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cazkUx0AVHU

Was that guy wearing a star sapphire ring? Rolex? I'd bet he is or was a Brother? Loved his rant, especially when he said "I don't give a damn what he says. What does he do? I could say that i'm a damn cat, meow, meow. Does that make me a damn cat?" :lifter

But, on a more serious note. I am doing my homework as I said in my reply to PRB. I am coming to some interesting conclusions and will post some opinions on that later.

Back to my homework before the good SGM jumps my ass :D

Richard

04-20-2013, 08:56

PRB

04-20-2013, 10:29

Religions are the tectonic plates of the formation of human society operating at the speed of mankind.

Ecce homo.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

Either you identify a root cause or you don't as it relates to an enemy. What was the one link between all of our recent bombings and attempted bombings etc, etc.....even Pontius Pilate would recognize that.

Team Sergeant

04-20-2013, 13:14

:pReligions are the tectonic plates of the formation of human society operating at the speed of mankind.

Ecce homo.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

There's only one "religion" as you call it (and I call it a violent ideology bent on the destruction of everyone that disagrees with them) that, to this day continues to murder little children in the name of allah.

Let's not discuss other religions, let's keep this on track and point the finger at the sub-human culture that call themselves muslims.

Tell me did you hear one islamic imam decry the recent muslin bombing? There's half a billion muslims and I've year heard one leader of an islamic country call the bombings an act against the islamic beliefs.

glebo

04-20-2013, 13:40

Well, what get's me also is...look at the Muslims human rights record....not good. Look how they treat women, and gays (even though most of them like boys, how hypocritical), where's the Lib "womens rights, Gay rights folks in this country denouncing Islam??? I guess it's all about denouncing us guess...:confused:

Points to make ya ponder....hhmmm

DJ Urbanovsky

04-20-2013, 14:03

That's because they're too busy sitting in their ivory towers, poisoning young minds, right? That old guy with the power, money, and influence isn't so anxious to go and meet Allah, is he? Gee, I wonder why? Seems like it's always the young guys that do the dirty work...

Tell me did you hear one islamic imam decry the recent muslin bombing? There's half a billion muslims and I've year heard one leader of an islamic country call the bombings an act against the islamic beliefs.

T-Rock

04-20-2013, 23:13

Tell me did you hear one islamic imam decry the recent muslin bombing? There's half a billion muslims and I've year heard one leader of an islamic country call the bombings an act against the islamic beliefs.

But hey…., the unindicted co-conspirators of the Holy Land Foundation trial, CAIR, are all about lecturing America that the Boston Jihadis weren’t influenced by Islam…

They sure are efficient when it comes to condemning alleged backlashes to Jihad terrorism, but not Jihadi terrorism itself..

“The Council on American Islamic Relations again offered sympathy to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing on Friday, but added a plea for Americans not to generalize and conclude that Muslim teachings influenced the suspect in any way”
> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-muslims-guard-against-backlash-20130419,0,1117524.story

I would beg to differ…

The Objectives of Jihad

o9.0
(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.

o9.1 Jihad is a communal obligation (def: c3.2). When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others.

o9.6 It is offensive to conduct a military expedition against hostile non-Muslims without the Caliph’s permission (A: though if there is no Caliph (def: o25), no permission is required.
(The Reliance of the Traveler. Pgs 599-609)

Team Sergeant

04-21-2013, 09:22

"The Council on American Islamic Relations again offered sympathy to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing on Friday, but added a plea for Americans not to generalize and conclude that Muslim teachings influenced the suspect in any way."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-muslims-guard-against-backlash-20130419,0,1117524.story

That made me laugh out loud........ typical response from CAIR, islam and it's teachings had nothing to do with those two cowards murdering women & little kids.

And I'm really enjoying the gov response that they will increase "security", that also makes me laugh.

Dusty

04-21-2013, 09:26

Guys like the bombers have two goals; conversion/murder of every infidel in the world and 72 virgins.

Trapper John

04-21-2013, 09:48

PRB-I have been doing my homework and although far from complete I think I can draw some tentative conclusions. First, let me explain my methodology. I have come at this from the POV of a secular humanist so please do not take offense at any apparent sacrilege – none is intended. Second, I have chosen to read, first, from the Muslim biographies of Muhammad (Al-sira) because this body of work appears to be the more reliable than the Hadith. I have chosen to begin here because I thought it would be more insightful to understand what Muhammad did rather than what he said (the Qur’an). Also, the question posed by this thread “Are we at war with Islam?” begs a comparison to the life of Jesus of Nazareth to arrive at a tentative answer to the question.

The short answer to that question is YES IMO. My reasoning follows. Muhammad seems to have co-opted the monotheist view first brought forth by Abraham and later espoused by Jesus. So he does not offer anything new in that regard. This view was first espoused by him in Mecca and for some reason, I have not read the Al-sira for his life in Mecca yet, he was exiled. I got the impression, however, that he was from a wealthy merchant class there. He received an appointment as an arbitrator in Medina and it appears that this was perhaps his most formative period.

Muhammad fashioned a political-theology that served his own interests- accretion of power and influence in Medina. Muhammad was also a military leader of sorts. His principle objective in Medina was to cobble together alliances with the Jews and the Christians. All of his actions seemed to be towards that end. Once his ends were met, he would then find a reason to quash the alliance and centralize his control. This was particularly evident in his treatment of the Jews and his marginalizing them by promoting the notion that they were not the children of Abraham and they were not the chosen people and accusing them of treachery and treason against him. Muhammad came to view only himself as the true messenger of God (Allah) thus going one step beyond the collective view of the Jews as the chosen ones. It seems to me that Muhammad was an egoist extraordinaire and a true tyrant.

IMO his views on slavery and women are very telling. He condemned unjustified cruelty towards slaves and women. Thus, I presume there is such a thing as justified cruelty to slaves and women in his mind! It would seem from the Al-sira that is the case as Muhammad was a life-long slave and concubine master.

On the other hand Jesus of Nazarreth never commanded an Army, all of his actions were consistent with his mission – De Oppresso Liber! Unlike Muhammad, Jesus did not espouse the egotistical notion that only he was the true messenger of God, but rather that we all are children of God. Nothing in the life of Jesus or his teachings suggests that he was attempting to accrete power and influence to himself or any single group, sect, or tribe. Had I lived in his time, I like to think that I would have volunteered to be a medical sergeant on his A-team.

Interestingly, I learned that Muhammad was vilified in the Middle Ages as the anti-Christ. Dante’s Inferno graphically depicted a disemboweled Muhammad in the 8th circle of Hell and even in modern day Salvador Dali depicted a disemboweled Muhammad in his Inferno series of lithographs. I actually have a print of this and never realized it was Dali’s depiction of Muhammad. Surprised there was not a Fatwa issued against these two guys.

Although I have not gotten into the subject of Modern Islam, it appears to me that Islam has not evolved since Muhammad. Given that, I can see no room for coexistence or compromise between Islam and Christianity. IMO, any attempt to negotiate, compromise, or appease will meet with abject failure and most probably will hasten the outcome that such efforts were attempting to avoid (eg. Neville Chamberlain’s negotiated agreement with Adolf Hitler)

References:
Aydin, Elif Eryarsoy. "Prophet Muhammad's Attitude Towards Slavery from the Perspective of Human Rights"
Watt in Encyclopedia of Islam, Banu Qurayza Article
Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, p. 116
Watt, Muslim-Christian Encounters, p.1

PRB

04-21-2013, 10:02

It is interesting reading and yup, very laborious at times.
You can spend days just looking at modern fatwah's that will make you laugh, cry and stare in disbelief.
The difference between Mohameds Meccan and Madinan period are crucial to us kafaars.
Islamists always trot out the early conciliatory verses (when Mo had no power and feared for his life) even tho those verses have been abrogated by his later works and verses when he was a powerful warlord.
When verses contradict in the Koran (often)...then 'that which came last is first'...and all of the later verses were warlike as they refered to the kafir.
It is an addicting study.

Trapper John

04-21-2013, 10:14

It is an addicting study.

Yes it is, kinda like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I found myself initially thinking that I am misreading or misunderstanding and go on to the next piece trying to make some rationale sense to all of it. But, from the POV of a warlord (that description is very accurate IMO) it all makes perverse sense. The big question in my mind is how did this ever become a dominant "religion"? I use quotes because I mean "religion" in the loosest possible definition of the word. I am just totally befuddled at that.:confused:

Dusty

04-21-2013, 10:40

Yes it is, kinda like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

That's exactly what it is.

PRB

04-21-2013, 12:34

Let's not sidetrack....Islam is at war with any other political construct. Islam, in its pure form as dictated by Mohammed cannot co exist within another political entity.
There will be friction at multiple points if the religion is actually followed.
That is an important point....Muslims that 'cherry pick' Islam and subscribe to basically the Meccan period can live peacefully within a Dem. society....they are not following Islam but have created a subsect and are called 'House Muslims or field Muslims' by the Jihadi Ismalists that follow letter and verse. This term is used often on Jihadi sites when refering to American Muslims.
Other Muslims know the Koran but chose to not be 'active' out of fear or loss of property so they support with money and attitude...quietly and under the radar....CAIR comes to mind...using our own laws to further whittle away at our society.
The actual practicing Muslims and Imams call for Jihad, as prescribed, and are erringly called Radical Muslims.....nothing radical about following the written word in their eyes.

Dusty

04-21-2013, 18:40

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/21/illinois-man-tried-to-join-al-qaeda-linked-group-fbi-says/?test=latestnews

Wonder what name this kid was born with. :munchin

A suburban Chicago teenager has been arrested on terrorism-related charges and accused of seeking to join an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in war-torn Syria, the FBI announced Saturday.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi was arrested Friday night as he attempted to board a flight from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to Turkey, which borders Syria, the FBI said. He hoped to join Jabhat al-Nusrah, a group fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime in a bloody civil war.

There are no links between Tounisi and the Boston Marathon bombings earlier in the week, the head of the FBI office in Chicago, Cory B. Nelson, said in a statement announcing the arrest.

Tounisi, a U.S. citizen, was snared in an Internet sting after contacting a sham website set up by the FBI that purported to hook up would-be fighters with terrorists, the federal complaint says.

The 18-year-old Aurora man was surprisingly frank about his lack of fighting experience.

"Concerning my fighting skills, to be honest, I do not have any," he allegedly wrote in one email written this year, according to the complaint. "I'm very small ... physically but I pray to Allah that he makes me successful."

At the top of the website were the words, "A Call for Jihad in Syria," and the site invited interested parties to "come and join your lion brothers ... who are fighting under the true banner of Islam." Elsewhere, the site advised users on how to conceal their Internet tracks, the complaint says.

Snip

Paslode

05-01-2013, 17:52

It has got to be a typo or administration error of some sort.

Interesting that with all of the obfuscation about domestic terrorism and Christian terrorism and Jewish and Lutheran and Episcopalian and Amish terrorism, 30 of 31 on the list are Muslim.

It's easy to stand in front of a malleable press corps and claim that terrorism is not the exclusive domain of Islam, but when it comes to actual facts, they haven't arrived at manufacturing charges....yet.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/339576.php

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/@@wanted-group-listing

Trapper John

05-01-2013, 18:44

It has got to be a typo or administration error of some sort.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/339576.php

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/@@wanted-group-listing

I am confused as to your point. :confused: Are you implying by this juxtaposition of two quotes that the FBI is manufacturing charges? Please explain. It may the lateness of the hour or the just this old guys faulty brain. :D

PRB

05-01-2013, 18:55

Is Islam at war with other religions/concepts

Christians throughout the Islamic world are under attack. Unlike Muslim attacks on Christians, which are regularly confused with a myriad of social factors, the ongoing attacks on Christian churches in the Muslim world are perhaps the most visible expression of Christian persecution under Islam. In churches, Christians throughout the Islamic world are simply being Christians—peacefully and apolitically worshipping their God. And yet modern day Muslim governments try to prevent them, Muslim mobs attack them, and Muslim jihadis massacre them.

To understand the nature of this perennial hostility, one must first examine Muslim doctrines concerning Christian churches; then look at how these teachings have manifested themselves in reality over the course of centuries; and finally look at how modern day attacks on Christian churches mirror the attacks of history, often in identical patterns. The continuity is undeniable.

Because tracing and documenting the treatment of churches across the thousands of miles of formerly Christian lands conquered by Islam is well beyond the purview of this study, a paradigm is needed. Accordingly, an examination of the treatment of Christian churches in Egypt suffices as a model for understanding the fate churches under Islamic dominion. Indeed, as one of the oldest and largest Muslim nations, with one of the oldest and largest Christian populations, Egypt is the ultimate paragon for understanding all aspects of Christianity under Islam, both past and present. [For a complete survey of the fate of Christians and their churches throughout the entire Muslim world, both past and present, see author's new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians.]

Muslim Doctrine Concerning Churches

Sharia law is draconian if not hostile to Christian worship. Consider the words of some of Islam's most authoritative and classic jurists, the same ones revered today by Egypt's Salafis. According to Ibn Qayyim author of the multivolume Rules for the Dhimmis, it is "obligatory" to destroy or convert into a mosque "every church" both old and new that exists on lands that were taken by Muslims through force, for they "breed corruption." Even if Muslims are not sure whether one of "these things [churches] is old [pre-conquest] or new, it is better to err on the side of caution, treat it as new, and demolition it."

Likewise, Ibn Taymiyya confirms that "the ulema of the Muslims from all four schools of law—Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanbali, and others, including al-Thawri, al-Layth, all the way back to the companions and the followers—are all agreed that if the imam destroys every church in lands taken by force, such as Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Syria … this would not be deemed unjust of him," adding that, if Christians resist, "they forfeit their covenant, their lives, and their possessions." Elsewhere he writes, "Wherever Muslims live and have mosques, it is impermissible for any sign of infidelity to be present, churches or otherwise."

Echoing the words of the jurists that the church is "worse than bars and brothels" and "houses of torment and fire," in August 2009, Dar al-Ifta, an Al Azhar affiliate, issued a fatwa likening the building of a church to "a nightclub, a gambling casino, or building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs." In July 2012, Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, a prominent figure in Egypt's Salafi movement, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi-drivers and bus-drivers from transporting Coptic Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as "more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar."

Regardless, one need only examine the Conditions of Omar—an influential document Muslims attribute to 7th century Caliph Omar, purportedly ratified with a conquered Christian community—to appreciate the plight of the church under Islam. Among other things, conquered Christians had to agree:

Not to build a church in our city… and not to repair those that fall in ruins or are in Muslim quarters;…. Not to clang our cymbals except lightly and from the innermost recesses of our churches; Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims; Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims;…. [I]f we change or contradict these conditions imposed upon ourselves . . . we forfeit our dhimma [covenant], and we become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and cause sedition.

History

When it comes to churches, Islamic history is a testimony to Islamic doctrine: under Muslim rule, from the 7th century to the present, tens of thousands of churches that were once spread across thousands of miles of formerly Christian lands, were attacked, plundered, ransacked, destroyed and/or converted into mosques. Such a large number is consistent with the fact that, at the time of the Muslim conquests, half of the world's entire Christian population lived in those lands invaded and subjugated by Islam.

According to one medieval Muslim historian, over the two-year-course of a particularly ruthless Christian persecution campaign, some 30,000 churches were burned or pillaged in Egypt and Syria alone. Major church attacks during Abbasid rule include when "the Muslims in Jerusalem made a rising [in 936] and burnt down the Church of the Resurrection [believed to be built atop the tomb of Christ] which they plundered, and destroyed all they could of it." Nearly a century later, Caliph Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996-1021) ordered that the already ravaged Church of the Resurrection be torn down "to its very foundations, apart from what could not be destroyed or pulled up, and they also destroyed the Golgotha and the Church of Saint Constantine and all that they contained, as well as all the sacred gravestones. They even tried to dig up the graves and wipe out all traces of their existence."

A Coptic Paradigm

The history, or plight, of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church is well preserved. The History of the Patriarchate of the Egyptian Church, for instance, a multivolume chronicle begun under Coptic Bishop Severus ibn al-Muqaffa in the 10th century, records innumerable massacres and persecutions over the centuries, from destroyed churches, to crucified Christians, to raped and murdered nuns.

However, to bypass the objection that Christian writers may have been biased against their persecutors, let us content ourselves with the famous history of Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (1364 – 1442), the most authoritative Muslim scholar of Egyptian history in the Middle Ages. His account appears especially objective when one considers that the pious Muslim Maqriz was no friend to the Christians. For example, after recounting centuries of persecution and church destruction at the hands of Muslims, Maqrizi concludes by sounding like a modern-day Salafi, blaming Christians for their own persecution: "For from the traces they left, will then be seen how shamefully they intrigued against Islamism and the followers of it, as any one may know who looks into the lowness of their origin, and the old hated of their ancestors towards our religion and the doings thereof."

In Maqrizi's account, things appear relatively quiet during the first century of Islam's occupation of Egypt (circa 641-741), no doubt due to the fact that Christians still numerically overwhelmed their Muslim conquerors. By 767, however, after decades of Coptic uprisings in face of abuses, "heavier hardships than ever fell upon the Christians, who were obliged to eat the[ir] dead; while their new churches in Egypt were destroyed. The church of Mary anent [alongside] that of Abu Senuda in Egypt was also pulled down, as well as that in the ward of Constantine, which the Christians entreated Suliman bin Ali, Emir of Egypt, to spare for fifty thousand dinars; but he would not." By 845, al-Mutawakal ordered Christian churches to be pulled down. In 912, "the great church in Alexandria, known as that of the Resurrection, was burnt down." In 939, "the Muslims made another rising in the city of Askalon, where they demolished the Greek Church of Mary, and plundered what was in it."

Then comes the era of the aforementioned Caliph Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who decimated the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. In the words of al-Maqrizi:

ZonieDiver

05-01-2013, 18:56

:DI am confused as to your point. :confused: Are you implying by this juxtaposition of two quotes that the FBI is manufacturing charges? Please explain. It may the lateness of the hour or the just this old guys faulty brain. :D

I'm at a loss, too... and it is still early in CA!

PRB

05-01-2013, 18:56

cont.

And in his [al-Hakim's] time, hardships such as one never saw befell the Christians…. He then laid his hands on all endowments of the churches and of the monasteries, which he confiscated to the public treasury, and wrote to that effect to all his provinces. He then burnt the wood of a great many crosses, and forbade the Christians to buy men or maid servants [which were often set free]; he pulled down the churches that were in the street Rashida, outside the city of Misr [Old Cairo]. He then laid in ruins the churches of al-Maqs outside Cairo, and made over their contents to the people, who plundered them of more goods than can be told. He threw down the convent of al-Qosseir, and gave it to the people to sack….He then set about demolishing all churches, and made over to the people, as prey and forfeit, all that was in them, and all that was settled on them. They were then all demolished, all their furniture and chattels were plundered, their endowments were forfeited to others, and mosques were built in their place. He allowed the call to prayer from the church of Senuda in Misr; and built a wall around the church of Mo'allaqa [the Hanging Church], in Qasr esh-Sema. Then many people [Muslims] sent up letters to request to be allowed to search the churches and monasteries in provinces of Egypt. But their request was hardly delivered [at headquarters], when a favourable answer was returned to the request; so they took the vessels and chattel of the churches and of the monasteries, and sold them in the market places of Egypt, together with what they found in those churches of gold and silver vessels, and things of the kind; and bartered their endowments. The emir also wrote to the intendants of the provinces to support the Muslims in their destruction of the churches and of monasteries. And the work of demolition in Egypt was so general in the year 1012, that according to statements on which one can rely, as to what was demolished at the end of the year 1014, both in Egypt and in Syria and the provinces thereof, of temples built by the Greeks—it amounted to more than 3,000 churches [the original Arabic says 30,000]. All the gold and silver vessels in them were plundered, their endowments were forfeited; and those endowments were splendid and bestowed on wonderful edifices.

Finally, after describing different forms of persecutions against Christians during Hakim's reign, Maqrizi, the Muslim historian, makes an interesting observation: "Under these circumstances a great many Christians became Muslims." In another place, after recounting how "the greater number of the churches of the Sa'id [Upper Egypt] had been pulled down, and mosques built in their stead," the historian notes again the typical consequence: "more than four hundred and fifty Christians became Muslims in one day."

It bears repeating that the Muslim Maqrizi had no great love for Egypt's Christians, and made disparaging observations concerning them in his volumes—thereby making his account of persecution all the more trustworthy.

Because Hakim's persecution was so terrible and far-reaching, most modern Western historians acknowledge it, even as they portray it as an aberration of a madman, implying that Christians suffered only under his rule. Yet there is no dearth of Muslim leaders throughout the whole of Islamic history that did not at one time or another persecute Christians and their churches.

If Hakim is remembered as a terrible and insane tyrant, consider Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who in the West is depicted as a colorful and fun-loving prankster in the Arabian Nights. Though renowned for his secular pursuits—including riotous living, strong drink and harems of concubines, to the point that a modern day female Kuwaiti activist referred to him as a model to justify the institution of sex-slavery—Harun al-Rashid was still pious enough "to force Christians to distinguish themselves by dress, to expel them from their positions, and to destroy their churches through the use of fatwas by the imams." Similarly, Saladin (Salah ad-Din)—another Muslim ruler who is habitually portrayed in the West as magnanimous and tolerant—commanded that all crucifixes on Coptic church domes be destroyed, and that "whoever saw that the outside of a church was white, to cover it with black dirt," as a sign of degradation.

Indeed, in 1354, well after the "mad caliph" Hakim was gone, churches were still under attack, including by Muslim mobs, who, according to Maqrizi, "demolished a church anent the Bridge of Lions, and a church in the street el-Asra in Misr, and the Church of Fahhadin within the precincts of Cairo; also the Convent of Nehya in Djizah, and a church in the neighborhood of Bataq al-Tokruni; they plundered the wealth of the churches they demolished, which was great; and carried away even the woodwork and slabs of alabaster. They rushed upon the churches of Misr and Cairo…"

Such was the state of affairs of churches under Islam, explaining how, over the course of nearly 14 centuries, former centers of Christianity like Egypt, were reduced to sporadic enclaves that came to resemble dilapidated strongholds of Christianity surrounded by a sea of Muslim hostility.

And such is the state of affairs of Christian churches throughout much of the Muslim world at this very moment as the past returns to the present.

PRB

05-01-2013, 18:57

The Modern Era

The sort of Muslim attacks on Christian churches described by the historian Maqrizi and conforming to the Conditions of Omar are reoccurring with increased frequency. Again, while the patterns described above are occurring all around the Muslim world—sometimes even in the West—modern day Egypt alone, with its significant Christian population, offers an abundance of recent examples.

After some 14 centuries of persecution and church attacks, Egypt's Copts ushered in the 2011 new year by having one of their largest churches attacked: during midnight mass in the early hours of January 1, 2011, the Two Saints Coptic Church in Alexandria, crowded with hundreds of Christian worshippers praying for the new year, was bombed, leaving at least 23 dead and approximately 100 injured. According to eyewitnesses, "body parts were strewn all over the street outside the church. The body parts were covered with newspapers until they were brought inside the church after some Muslims started stepping on them and chanting jihadi chants," including "Allahu Akbar!" Islam's victory cry since the days of Muhammad. Eyewitnesses further attest that "security forces withdrew one hour before the church blast." One year earlier, "drive-by Muslims shot to death six Christians as they were leaving church after celebrating Christmas mass in 2010" in Nag Hammadi.

No Church Bells, Crosses, or Renovations

The story of St. George Coptic Church in Edfu is especially instructive of the plight of churches in Egypt. Built nearly a century ago, during the Christian "Golden Age," St. George was so dilapidated that the local council and governor approved its renovation and signed off on the design. Soon local Muslims began complaining, making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—as stipulated by the Conditions of Omar—because they were "irritating Muslims and their children." Leaders later insisted that the very dome of the church be removed. Arguing that removal of the dome would likely collapse the church, the bishop refused. The foreboding cries of "Allahu Akbar!" began; Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were "forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church"; many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on September 30, 2011, some 3,000 Muslims rampaged the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Christian homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims. Security, which was present, just "stood there watching," according to Christian eyewitnesses. Edfu's Intelligence Unit chief was seen directing the mob destroying the church. Even the governor of Aswan appeared on State TV and "denied any church being torched," calling it a "guest home." He even justified the incident by arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters higher than he had permitted: "Copts made a mistake and had to be punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story," he proclaimed on TV.

It was this incident which caused Egypt's Christians to protest in October 2011, leading to the Maspero Massacre, when the Egyptian military intentionally targeted and killed dozens of Christian protesters, including by running them over with armored vehicles—even as state media lied by portraying the Christians as the aggressors and the military as the victim, a narrative which the Western mainstream media gullibly disseminated.

In July 2011, a Muslim mob went on a violent spree, attacking, among others a 5-month pregnant Christian woman and other Christians who were "beaten with iron rods and pipes." According to Fr. Estephanos of the region, "The real reason behind this assault was the church bell, which has greatly angered the Muslims in the village. This is the first time such an incident has taken place in this village which is 60-75% Christian, and the reason is definitely the presence of the church bell." As seen in the Conditions of Omar, church bells are forbidden in Islam.

Similarly, in October 2011, in the Upper Egyptian village of Elmadmar which only has two churches to serve 15,000 Christians, Muslim mobs surrounded one of these two churches, St. Mary's Church, hurling bricks at it and trying to demolish it, while chanting "No to the church." Although it has had state security approval to operate, its license was still pending. According to the priest, "Muslims claim that we hold a mass every day at 4 PM, and we ring the church bell, which the church does not have, besides singing hymns, which they claim disturbs them."

PRB

05-01-2013, 18:58

Collective Punishment

Many attacks on Coptic churches occur in the context of "collective punishment," which also has echoes tracing back to the Conditions of Omar. After naming any number of other conditions—including not displaying crosses, not ringing bells, not singing loudly—the Conditions of Omar concludes by having Christians agree that "if we change or contradict these conditions imposed upon ourselves . . . we forfeit our dhimma [covenant], and we become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and cause sedition."

Accordingly, throughout Islamic history to the present moment, anytime any Christian anywhere has been accused of breaking Sharia's dhimmi laws, churches—at once the most obvious and vulnerable representation of Christianity—are first to be attacked in retribution by the Muslim mob, often in the context of collective punishment.

This has centuries of historical precedents. While discussing the status of churches in the Middle East after the Islamic invasions, Bat Ye'or writes "they were often burned or demolished in the course of reprisals against infidels found guilty of overstepping their rights." Collective punishment is even doctrinally approved: the Yemeni jurist al-Murtada wrote, "The agreement will be canceled if all or some of them break it." At the other end of the Arab world, the Moroccan jurist al-Maghili taught that "the fact that one individual (or one group) among them has broken the statute is enough to invalidate it for all of them."

Thus, for some 14 centuries churches have been treated as hostages to guarantee good (that is, submissive) Christian behavior. For example, in March 2011, a Muslim mob attacked the local Church of the Two Martyrs in Sool, south of Cairo, burning it down, even as a Muslim prayer leader called on Muslims to "kill all the Christians." Adding insult to injury, the attackers played "soccer" with the ancient relic-remains of the church's saints and martyrs. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building where they spent some 20 hours pounding its walls down with sledgehammers to cries of "Allahu Akbar."

Even minor details like desecrating the relics of Coptic saints have immense continuity. Discussing the Muslim attack on the Church of Shubra, Maqriz writes: "after it had been demolished, the fingers of a [Christian] martyr which were kept in a casket…. Were then burnt in presence of the Sultan…"

Neither the military nor state security appeared—and this was happening near Cairo, Egypt's capital, not some inaccessible village. After demolishing it, a group of Muslims held prayers at the site and began making plans to build a mosque atop the destroyed church—a live example of history, almost identical to the examples recorded a millennium earlier by the Egyptian historian Maqrizi and others. Because of the attack, Copts in Sool fled to adjacent villages. Women who remained in the village were sexually assaulted.

Less violently, in January, 2012, before a bishop was going to celebrate Epiphany Mass in the Abu Makka church, several Muslims, mostly Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members, entered the building, saying that the church had no permit and no Christian can pray in it. One Muslim was heard to remark that the building would be suitable for a Muslim mosque.

In May 2011, throngs of Muslims, estimated at 3,000, fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, homes, and businesses in the Imbaba region near Cairo: twelve Christians were killed—some shot by snipers atop rooftops—232 injured; three churches were set aflame to cries of "Allahu Akbar," while Coptic homes were looted and torched. As usual, Egyptian leadership did little to stop this rampage, showing up nearly five hours after it began, providing ample time to terrorize the Copts. One priest said "I called everyone, but no one bothered to come. I mourn all those young people who died." The pretext for this particular attack was that a Christian girl had converted to Islam and the Coptic Church had supposedly responded by abducting and torturing her into renouncing Islam. Muslims found this argument persuasive, of course, because that is precisely what Islam requires Muslims to do to female apostates who convert to Christianity.

In February 2012, thousands of Muslims attacked a Coptic church, demanding the death of its pastor, who, along with "nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building." They did this because a Christian girl who, according to Islamic law, automatically became a Muslim when her father converted to Islam, fled her father and was rumored to be hiding in the church. Again, one is reminded that the Conditions of Omar stipulate that Christians shall not prevent any of their family members from converting to Islam—or in this case, aid a hapless Christian who, because of Sharia law, found herself Muslim one day.

PRB

05-01-2013, 18:58

No to Churches, Period

In June 2011, hundreds of Muslims surrounded another St. George Church, south of Minya, vowing to kill its priest—who was locked inside serving morning mass to several parishioners. The Muslims cried "We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us," adding that they would "cut him to pieces." As usual, police and security forces gave the terrorists ample time to terrorize—appearing a full five hours after the incident began; and when they escorted the priest out, it "looked as if he was the criminal, leaving his church in a police car." Several reasons were given for this attack, from claims that the priest had earlier tried to make renovations to the 100-year old church, to claims that the priest refused demands from local Muslims that the Christians in the region must pay jizya.

In May 2011, hundreds of Muslims, angered by the prospect of a government-closed church re-opening in their neighborhood, protested and rioted in front of the church, causing the provisional military authority to back away from its promise to reopen it. Before its scheduled reopening, the Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Abraam in Ain Shams, a poor section of northeastern Cairo, was surrounded by Muslims preventing anyone from getting in and trapping the priests who were inside. Fights ensued between Copts and Muslims, leading to the injury and arrest of the former. Muslims besieged the church and threatened to kill the head priest of the congregation, trapping those inside.

Other times, the mere rumor of a church being built or renovated prompts Muslim violence and chaos. On January 16, 2013, hundreds of Muslims in the village of Fanous destroyed a social services building belonging to a Coptic Church while chanting Islamic slogans. Security forces arrived only after the building was completely destroyed. "The social services building had all the necessary government permits; it had a reception hall on the first floor and a kindergarten on the second. But the Muslims insisted that it would become a church." Even so, surrounding mosques began called on Muslims through their megaphones to go and help their Muslim brethren in Fanous, because Christians were "building a church."

Earlier, in March 2012, some 1,500 Muslims—several armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt, in response to calls from local mosques which falsely claimed that the private school was building a church: "Two nuns were besieged in the school's guesthouse for some eight hours by a murderous mob threatening to burn them alive"; one nun suffered a "major nervous breakdown requiring hospitalization… The entire property was ransacked and looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the children. Consequently, school attendance has dropped by at least one third."

In fact, attacks on convents in Egypt—often followed by mass rapes—have a long history. Maqrizi recounts several, including one at the hands of a caliph, Marwan II (r.744–50). During one of his raids ordered on churches and monasteries, Marwan "made captive a number of women from among the nuns of several convents. And he tried to seduce one of them." The account describes how the enslaved nun deceived him into killing him, by telling him she had a magic oil that make skin impenetrable: "She then took some oil and anointed herself with it; then stretched out her neck, which he smote with the sword, and made her head fly. He then understood that she preferred death to defilement."

Islamic Supremacism

Other attacks are simple byproducts of the culture of Islamic supremacism, and the hate and contempt it engenders for Christians and their "houses of infidelity." On Friday, February 15, Muslims in the village of Sarsena attacked and set fire to the church of St. George and hurled stones at it. This latest assault was prompted by Salafi Muslims instigating the villagers to attack the church because it is "an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved." According to the report, "The mob climbed to the church dome and started demolishing it and setting it on fire. The dome collapsed into the burning church and caused great damage. Muslims used bricks from the dome and the holy cross and hurled it at the altar inside the church, causing part of it to be demolished; all the icons of saints were destroyed." Security was present throughout this entire attack but did nothing.

In October 2012, another group of Muslims, led by Mostafa Kamel, a prosecutor at the Alexandria Criminal Court, broke into the Church of St. Mary in Rashid near Alexandria and proceeded to destroy its altar, under claims that he bought the 9th century church, which, in fact, was earlier sold to the Copts by the Greeks due to the latter's dwindling numbers in Egypt. Two priests, Fr. Maximos and Fr. Luke, rushed to the police station for aid. Kamel and his two sons also came to the police station where they openly threatened to kill the two priests and their lawyer. Said Fr. Maximos: "We stayed at the police station for over six hours with the police begging prosecutor Kamel and his two sons not to demolish the church"; Fr. Luke said that the prosecutor had earlier lost all the cases he brought against the church, "So when this route failed, he tried taking the matter into his own hands."

In June 2012, because many visiting Christians came to attend service, Muslims surrounded St. Lyons Coptic Church during Divine Liturgy "demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demand was not met." The priest contacted police asking for aid only to be told to comply with Muslim demands, "and do not let buses with visitors to come to the church anymore." Christian worshippers exited halfway through Mass to jeers outside. As they drove away, Muslims hurled stones at the buses.

The same story repeated itself in October 2012, when a Muslim mob consisting mostly of Salafis surrounded the St. George Church in the Beni Suef Governorate. Armed with batons, they assaulted Christians as they exited the church after Sunday mass, leaving five hospitalized with broken limbs. The Salafi grievance was that Christians from neighboring villages—who have no churches to serve them—were traveling and attending St. George. The priest could not go out of church for hours after mass, even though he contacted police, who only came after a prominent Coptic lawyer complained to the Ministry of Interior concerning the lack of response from police, saying "I want the whole world to know that a priest and his congregation are presently held captives in their church, afraid of the Salafi Muslims surrounding the church."

This desire to make things complicated for Christians by not allowing them to enter churches out of their jurisdiction is echoed by Muslim prophet Muhammad's command to Muslims: "Do not initiate the Salam [peace greeting] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley," which has always been interpreted to mean that Muslims should make things hard on dhimmis.

PRB

05-01-2013, 19:00

Outside Egypt

Amazingly, even when Copts quit their homeland in hopes to practice their Christian faith in peace, Muslim persecution follows them. Most recently, in New Jersey, two Coptic Christian youth were found buried, decapitated and with their hands cut off. Police say they have not been able to unearth the motive of their murderer, a Muslim. Yet one cannot but remember the haunting words of the Koran: "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, so strike [them] upon the necks [decapitate them] and strike from them every fingertip." [Koran 8:12]

Coptic churches are under attack outside Egypt. In Libya, for example, where, thanks to U.S. support, "freedom fighters" took over the nation, on Sunday, December 30, 2012, an explosion rocked a Coptic Christian church near the western city of Misrata, where a group of U.S. backed rebels hold a major checkpoint, killing two. Two months later, on February 28, another Coptic Christian church located in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by armed Muslim militants, resulting in serious injuries for the priest and an assistant. This is to say nothing of the approximately 100 Coptic Christians who were arrested and tortured—including with acid and by having their heads shaven, concentration camp style—on the accusation that they were trying to "proselytize" to Libyans. One Christian man, Ezzat Atallah, died under torture.

The attacks on Christian churches have now even reached North America. In Canada in late October 2012, just as happens regularly in Egypt, a Molotov cocktail was hurled through the window of a newly opened Coptic church near Toronto. Unlike in Egypt, however, firefighters came quickly, even as "Police have no suspects or motive in the incident." Needless to say, for centuries, Copts have only been all too familiar with the suspects and motives. Thus as Egypt's Christians flee their indigenous homeland searching to worship in peace, the jihad of hate follows.

Conclusion

While the above anecdotes, both past and present, have almost exclusively dealt with Egypt, the fact is that churches throughout the entire Islamic world have experienced, and continue to experience, a similar pattern of abuse at the hands of Muslims. The key to understanding why Egypt is especially paradigmatic has to do with numbers. How many Christians and Muslims there are in any given country—especially their ratio to one another—is the primary factor behind which countries see the most and least attacks on Christian churches. For example, Saudi Arabia, which is vehemently more anti-Christian than Egypt, also sees much less accounts of persecution of Christians. The reason for this conundrum is simple: Saudi Arabia has nipped the problem in the bud by banning Christianity altogether; there are no churches to bomb or burn. Similarly, the ravages of the historic jihad have seen the decimation of Christianity in Muslim lands not traditionally deemed "radical." For instance, the whole of north Africa—which, prior to the Islamic conquests, was Christian, giving the world giants like St. Augustine who played a major role in articulating Western Christianity—sees much less Christian persecution than Egypt, simply because there are virtually no Christians left to persecute (less than 1% of the entire population, from Morocco to Libya).

On the other hand, the very large numbers of Christians in Egypt—according to the baptismal records of the Coptic Orthodox Church, there are some 16 million Christian Copts in Egypt—prompt regular attacks on Christian churches. Thus, due to the large number of Christians in modern day Egypt, that nation offers a live glimpse of history—a live glimpse of the fate of Christians and their churches under centuries of Islam, and the true reason millions of Christians ended up converting to Islam: to evade oppression as Christians

I apologize for the length

Trapper John

05-01-2013, 19:12

:D

I'm at a loss, too... and it is still early in CA!

Thanks Zonie. I was hoping that I wasn't losing it. :D

Now, as to PRBs Post/Essay, I know it's going to be real good, so SGM, I will save it for tomorrow morning's coffee when I'm alert. Looking forward to it. :D

ZonieDiver

05-01-2013, 19:14

Thanks Zonie. I was hoping that I wasn't losing it. :D

Now, as to PRBs Post/Essay, I know it's going to be real good, so SGM, I will save it for tomorrow morning's coffee when I'm alert. Looking forward to it. :D

Ditto! Thanks, PRB, for the time and effort that took. It is much appreciated.

Box

05-02-2013, 17:35

The "are we or aren't we" discussion about war with islam is a tricky one. Maybe if we could just get mikey weinstein, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to work on getting radical islamists to stop proselytizing then 'war with islam' wouldn't be an issue and we could all relax.

Trapper John

05-02-2013, 17:55

The "are we or aren't we" discussion about war with islam is a tricky one. Maybe if we could just mikey weinstein, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to work on getting radical islamists to stop proselytizing then 'war with islam' wouldn't be an issue and we could all relax.

You funny Petasan! :D

Paslode

05-02-2013, 18:27

I am confused as to your point. :confused: Are you implying by this juxtaposition of two quotes that the FBI is manufacturing charges? Please explain. It may the lateness of the hour or the just this old guys faulty brain. :D

All the talk of crazy, dangerous, white, right wing, christian, conservative, potential domestic terrorist that Jan Napolitano warns about......I don't see many on the list.

Maybe WE aren't at war with Islam, but from the looks of the FBI list Islam is at war with us.

The Reaper

05-02-2013, 18:28

Trapper John

05-02-2013, 18:45

All the talk of crazy, dangerous, white, right wing, christian, conservative, potential domestic terrorist that Jan Napolitano warns about......I don't see many on the list.

Maybe WE aren't at war with Islam, but from the looks of the FBI list Islam is at war with us.

Thanks for clarifying that ;)

Paslode

05-02-2013, 19:26

Thanks for clarifying that ;)

In all honesty I was quite surprised to see so many members of the Religion of Peace......I was under the impression (based on the MSM & Admin) that the threat had subsided.

FrankCator

05-03-2013, 03:12

Disclaimer: I believe in freedom of religion and I don't think any one group, race, creed, religion are all bad. I also realize that Christianity has had its share of issues.

Are we at war with Islam? I've heard numerous people say no, including the POTUS. However, can anyone name one Islamic country that has no ties, either collectively or individually, to terrorist attacks? Islam is called by its adherents the religion of peace and they claim Islam has been hijacked by the few. And there are dozens of Islamic countries. Surely there must be one in which the religion has not been hijacked and used to attack the west?

Disclaimer: I too believe in freedom of religion. Those are acceptable when kept personal.

Your post encouraged me to speak up. Specifically you highlighting Christianity, since this is cross-cultural. Terrorists are fanatics that adhere to any ism that threatens the liberty or quality of life of others. Usually via personal validation or groupthink. Interpret it how you like.

There wasn't a thread created for "are we at war with religious fanaticism?"
As a minority that dislikes religious literalism that inspires cultural exclusivity I would say yes. Not to say that I am a tree hugger. Those Buddhists need to stop wasting petrol.

The East is holding no reservations, and is going further into biotech and other engineering. While the West is hanging on to Jihad, metzitzah b'peh, and an inability to advance with stem cells.

We can sacrifice the best of our QP's, but not an embryo. Wake up America. We clone mammals now. Who is we? Mark 5:9 "…Legion, for we are many.” This is not the time to lose our edge. Let me know when the mormons clone the prophet. I hear they are on the cutting edge of genetic research.

They even have an official 5013c: Mormon Transhumanist Association. Not kidding. To discuss "posthuman" special forces, that would be a great thread. To imagine a transhumanist Mormon, would be an act of terror. Especially if it was wearing magic underwear and consulting FM-2030.

Thank you for your post. God bless Amerigo where I can blaspheme while watching primitive mythology in its death throes.

Box

05-03-2013, 03:54

I heard he wrote a book and it was very critical of Islam and the Prophet.

Insulting even.

TR

Thats terrible. How could anyone write an insulting book about the prophet.

mark46th

05-03-2013, 07:52

If I were to really become a devout believer of any religion, it would probably be Buddhism. As far as I know, nobody has ever killed anyone in the name of Buddha...

PedOncoDoc

05-03-2013, 07:57

If I were to really become a devout believer of any religion, it would probably be Buddhism. As far as I know, nobody has ever killed anyone in the name of Buddha...

You should try Jainism if you want to be sure... ;)

Dusty

05-03-2013, 08:38

If I were to really become a devout believer of any religion, it would probably be Buddhism. As far as I know, nobody has ever killed anyone in the name of Buddha...

You're forgetting Tong Po.

Pete

05-04-2013, 07:47

Top Muslims: 'terrorism not a topic for talks'

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130504-49525.html#.UYUQYoKpaUc

"Muslim leaders criticized on Saturday the agenda of the German Islamic Conference taking place next week. They do not want terrorism as a key subject, nor should Islam critics to attend, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.........."

Hmmm, terrorism from the Muslim community and Islam critics not wanted at an Islamic Conference.

The "We are the Religion of Peace" just keeps rolling along.

Trapper John

05-04-2013, 08:15

If I were to really become a devout believer of any religion, it would probably be Buddhism. As far as I know, nobody has ever killed anyone in the name of Buddha...

I am with you on that one, Bro.:lifter

Pete

05-07-2013, 15:05

The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/05/07/mass-exodus-christians-from-muslim-world/#ixzz2SdvPwX2i

".............In October 2012 the last Christian in the city of Homs—which had a Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis came—was murdered. One teenage Syrian girl said: “We left because they were trying to kill us… because we were Christians…. Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house.”................"

For the most part the folks doing this are not terrorists - just everyday "Religion of Peace" Muslims.

Ambush Master

05-07-2013, 15:55

I still contend that the Truly Radical Muslims are the ones that really want to get along with us!!!

MR2

05-07-2013, 16:20

I still contend that the Truly Radical Muslims are the ones that really want to get along with us!!!

I'm there now too.

PRB

05-07-2013, 17:33

I'm there now too.

exactly correct....true Islam is rad by nature....the reg everyday kind of peaceful Muslim , if he/she understands the religion, has made a decision to ignore great elements of the screed.

Trapper John

05-07-2013, 17:44

I still contend that the Truly Radical Muslims are the ones that really want to get along with us!!!

Bingo!! BTW, PRB, maybe the Islamists are the macro-evolutionary evidence your looking for :D Just sayin' ;)

Pete

05-15-2013, 04:20

FBI says Fayetteville teen planned local jihad

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2013/05/15/1256876?sac=fo.local

"Members of the FBI thwarted a Fayetteville teenager's plan to rob and kill people who did not share his Islamic beliefs, according to documents.

Erwin Antonio Rios, 19, of the 1200 block of Oak Knolls Drive, allegedly planned to obtain a gun illegally and take part in a local religious jihad against non-believers, or kuffar, and members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Rios met with an FBI informant over several months and detailed his attacks. They included robbing armored vehicles, killing guards protecting them, and luring police to a home and setting off bombs, documents say.

Rios adhered to the ideology of radical Islamic extremism groups, according to court documents. Those groups believe violence is religiously justified..........."

While 19 is technically a teenager I think using "teenager" in this story is out of place. He's older than many soldiers at Ft Bragg, his target.

"..........Rios told an FBI informant he wanted to be a soldier for Allah, according to an affidavit signed Feb. 7 by Special Agent Frank Brostrom.

Rios started talking to the informant June 27, after meeting at an Islamic house of worship in Raeford..................."

glebo

05-15-2013, 05:59

why are these people getting sucked into those beliefs???...and so dillusional..???

nousdefions

05-15-2013, 07:15

why are these people getting sucked into those beliefs???...and so dillusional..???

Hate to break it to you Bro, but If you read the koran, understand it, and believe it. Viola, you're radicalized.

nousdefions

05-17-2013, 16:34

US Naval Academy Instructor teaching on behalf of US Muslim Brotherhood

Every day brings new confirmation of how compromised the U.S. government, military, and intelligence apparatus really is. After the Obama Administration purged counterterror training materials of all truth about Islam and jihad, this is what they replaced it with.

"FEATURED STORY: US Naval Academy Instructor Teaching On Behalf Of US Muslim Brotherhood," from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch, May 14 (thanks to Jeff):

According to promotional material, a United States Naval Academy professor is teaching on behalf of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi reportedly serves as a trustee. IIIT recently announced its Summer Students Program for 2013 to be held from May 26 – July 3. According to the IIIT announcement, one of the instructors for the program will be Professor Ermin Sinanovic, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland who will be teaching the following course titled “Muslim World Affairs”:

This course is meant to provide students who had little or no background on the Muslim world with a basic understanding of its contemporary history, its geopolitics, its diverse cultures, languages and ethnic groups. Also, the course introduces the key issues and developments that framed the relationship between the world of Islam and the West, such as the colonial encounter, the capitalist expansion of the West, the emergence of the nation-state and its institutions, the discovery of oil in the Middle East and its implications, the communication revolution and contemporary globalization and their impact on cultures, values and life styles; and finally the US foreign policy towards the Muslim world and its implications. This course will be covered in twelve hours. Instructor: Professor Ermin Sinanovic, US Naval Academy, Maryland.

Read the rest of the article at:
Jihad Watch (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/us-naval-academy-instructor-teaching-on-behalf-of-us-muslim-brotherhood.html)

Paslode

05-27-2013, 08:11

I heard Muslims where rioting in Sweden the other day and finally read an article on it this morning.

But amid the soulsearching last week, perhaps the most telling comment was the one from Kjell Lindgren, the spokesman for Stockholm Police. "We don't know why they are doing this," he said, when asked for a cause for the riots. "There is no answer to it."

A couple things caught my eye.

This weekend, after six consecutive nights of rioting, Mr Mohammed was not the only one questioning the Swedish social model's preference for the carrot over the stick. Many Swedes were left asking why a country that prides itself on a generous welfare state, liberal social attitudes and a welcoming attitude towards immigrants should ever have race riots in the first place.

"We have tried harder than any other European country to integrate, spending billions on a welfare system that is designed to help jobless immigrants and guarantee them a good quality of life,"

It seems to me that many if not most of the countries experiencing troubles with the Muslims have a social model that offers a generous welfare program.

By offering such generous government stipends and benefits the recipients have no need to acclimate themselves with there hosts or incentive become productive citizens.

Internationally these same generous countries give Muslim countries and areas like Palestine huge sums of money to further the peace process :rolleyes: Last week John Kerry unveiled a plan to boost Palestines economy with 4 billion in aid.......

"Also, in Sweden you cannot hit your children to discipline them, and this is a problem for foreign parents. The kids can feel they can cause whatever trouble they want, and the police don't even arrest any of them most of the time."

Ambush Master

05-27-2013, 09:07

Hate to break it to you Bro, but If you read the koran, understand it, and believe it. Viola, you're radicalized.

I still continue to say that the True "RADICALS" are the ones that want to live peacefully with us!! The ones that are carrying out the jihad are nothing but "true to their faith muslims"!!! Unfortunately, the "true islamists" are in the majority!!

Later
Martin

frostfire

05-28-2013, 07:12

There are some points on immigration that I disagree with, but he does make a solid point.....:cool:

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-land-without-muslims/2013/05/19/0/

Friday, May 17, 2013
Mordechai Kedar: A Country Without Muslims

There are countries in the world, mainly in Europe, that are presently undergoing significant cultural transformations as a result of Muslim immigration. France, Germany, Belgium and Holland are interesting examples of cases where immigration from Muslim countries, together with the Muslims' high fertility rate, effects every area of life.

It is interesting to know that there is a country in the world whose official and public approach to the Muslim matter is totally different. This country is Japan. This country keeps a very low profile on all levels regarding the Muslim matter: On the diplomatic level, senior political figures from Islamic countries almost never visit Japan, and Japanese leaders rarely visit Muslim countries. The relations with Muslim countries are based on concerns such as oil and gas, which Japan imports from some Muslim countries. The official policy of Japan is not to give citizenship to Muslims who come to Japan, and even permits for permanent residency are given sparingly to Muslims.

Japan forbids exhorting people to adopt the religion of Islam (Dawah), and any Muslim who actively encourages conversion to Islam is seen as proselytizing to a foreign and undesirable culture. Few academic institutions teach the Arabic language. It is very difficult to import books of the Qur'an to Japan, and Muslims who come to Japan, are usually employees of foreign companies. In Japan there are very few mosques. The official policy of the Japanese authorities is to make every effort not to allow entry to Muslims, even if they are physicians, engineers and managers sent by foreign companies that are active in the region. Japanese society expects Muslim men to pray at home.

Japanese companies seeking foreign workers specifically note that they are not interested in Muslim workers. And any Muslim who does manage to enter Japan will find it very difficult to rent an apartment. Anywhere a Muslim lives, the neighbors become uneasy. Japan forbids the establishment of Islamic organizations, so setting up Islamic institutions such as mosques and schools is almost impossible. In Tokyo there is only one imam.

In contrast with what is happening in Europe, very few Japanese are drawn to Islam. If a Japanese woman marries a Muslim, she will be considered an outcast by her social and familial environment. There is no application of Shari'a law in Japan. There is some food in Japan that is halal, kosher according to Islamic law, but it is not easy to find it in the supermarket.

The Japanese approach to Muslims is also evidenced by the numbers: in Japan there are 127 million residents, but only ten thousand Muslims, less than one hundredth of a percent. The number of Japanese who have converted is thought to be few. In Japan there are a few tens of thousands of foreign workers who are Muslim, mainly from Pakistan, who have managed to enter Japan as workers with construction companies. However, because of the negative attitude towards Islam they keep a low profile.

There are several reasons for this situation:

1. The Japanese tend to lump all Muslims together as fundamentalists who are unwilling to give up their traditional point of view and adopt modern ways of thinking and behavior. In Japan, Islam is perceived as a strange religion, that any intelligent person should avoid.

2. Most Japanese have no religion, but behaviors connected with the Shinto religion along with elements of Buddhism are integrated into national customs . In Japan, religion is connected to the nationalist concept, and prejudices exist towards foreigners whether they are Chinese, Korean, Malaysian or Indonesian, and Westerners don't escape this phenomenon either. There are those who call this a "developed sense of nationalism" and there are those who call this "racism". It seems that neither of these is wrong.

3. The Japanese dismiss the concept of monotheism and faith in an abstract G-d, because their world concept is apparently connected to the material, not to faith and emotions. It seems that they group Judaism together with Islam. Christianity exists in Japan and is not regarded negatively, apparently because the image of Jesus perceived in Japan is like the images of Buddha and Shinto.

The most interesting thing in Japan's approach to Islam is the fact that the Japanese do not feel the need to apologize to Muslims for the negative way in which they relate to Islam. They make a clear distinction between their economic interest in resources of oil and gas from Muslim countries, which behooves Japan to maintain good relations with these countries on the one hand, and on the other hand, the Japanese nationalist viewpoints, which see Islam as something that is suitable for others, not for Japan, and therefore the Muslims must remain outside.

Because the Japanese have a gentle temperament, and project serenity and tranquility toward foreigners, foreigners tend to relate to the Japanese with politeness and respect. A Japanese diplomat would never raise his voice or speak rudely in the presence of foreigners, therefore foreigners relate to the Japanese with respect, despite their racism and discrimination against Muslims in the matter of immigration. A Japanese official who is presented with an embarrassing question regarding the way the Japanese relate to Muslims, will usually refrain from answering, because he knows that a truthful answer would arouse anger, and he is both unable and unwilling to give an answer that is not true. He will smile but not answer, and if pressed, he will ask for time so that his superiors can answer, while he knows that this answer will never come.

Japan manages to remain a country almost without a Muslim presence because Japan's negative attitude toward Islam and Muslims pervades every level of the population, from the man in the street to organizations and companies to senior officialdom. In Japan, contrary to the situation in other countries, there are no "human rights" organizations to offer support to Muslims' claims against the government's position. In Japan no one illegally smuggles Muslims into the country to earn a few yen, and almost no one gives them the legal support they would need in order to get permits for temporary or permanent residency or citizenship.

Another thing that helps the Japanese keep Muslim immigration to their shores to a minimum is the Japanese attitude toward the employee and employment. Migrant workers are perceived negatively in Japan, because they take the place of Japanese workers. A Japanese employer feels obligated to employ Japanese workers even if it costs much more than it would to employ foreign workers. The traditional connection between an employee and employer in Japan is much stronger than in the West, and the employer and employee feel a mutual commitment to each other: an employer feels obligated to give his employee a livelihood, and the employee feels obligated to give the employer the fruit of his labor. This situation does not encourage the acceptance of foreign workers, whose commitment to the employers is low.

The fact that the public and the officials are united in their attitude against Muslim immigration has created a sort of iron wall around Japan that Muslims lack both the permission and the capability to overcome. This iron wall silences the world's criticism of Japan in this matter, because the world understands that there is no point in criticizing the Japanese, since criticism will not convince them to open the gates of Japan to Muslim immigration.

Japan is teaching the whole world an interesting lesson: there is a direct correlation between national heritage and permission to immigrate: a people that has a solid and clear national heritage and identity will not allow the unemployed of the world to enter its country; and a people whose cultural heritage and national identity is weak and fragile, has no defense mechanisms to prevent a foreign culture from penetrating into its country and its land.

Paslode

06-19-2013, 16:37

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/belgium-vote-implementation-sharia-law

tonyz

06-21-2013, 22:59

A professor teaching classes on terrorism has drawn the ire of CAIR.

UCF stands up to bullies at CAIR
Bizpac Review
June 21, 2013

The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations wants a state university to give one of its award-winning professors the boot — or at least muzzle him from reciting facts and rendering opinion.

CAIR’s problem is with University of Central Florida communications professor, Dr. Jonathan Matusitz and several of his courses, Terrorism and Communication and another on intercultural communication. He also wrote a book on the subject, published last year and titled, “Terrorism & Communication: A Critical Introduction,” according to the Orlando Sentinel.

CAIR claims Matusitz’s “Islamophobia” is demonstrated in a YouTube video, which appears to be a classroom lecture but which UCF notes was actually a January “outside-of-the-classroom presentation.”

The professor begins by noting that according to a Rand Corporation study, 96 percent of global terrorism is rooted in radical Islam.

“Why do so many Muslims, relative to other religions, want to kill us?” he asks in the video. “The answer is easy, very easy. It is seven letters: culture.” As an example, he notes that “The Qur’an uses the term ‘jihad’ 41 times,” a word meaning “holy war” according to the professor.

Neither Matusitz’s students nor his colleagues have lodged any complaints because of his work, and he was actually honored last year for his outstanding performance, according to UCF spokesman Grant Heston.

As for the video, Heston noted, “Dr. Matusitz expressed his opinion, which is his right.”

Matusitz indicated on a South Florida radio station Thursday that he refuses to be “politically correct just to please everybody.”

“I think that in academia, I’m sure a lot of people don’t share my views,” he noted. “But I also think that a lot of people share my views, but they’re not as open as I am.”

<Snip>

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/06/21/ucf-stands-up-to-bullies-at-cair-78379

A copy of the the letter to the university from CAIR is located at link below.

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/06/19/Pages_from_Complaint_Letter_to_UCF_6_14_13.pdf

The professor in question:

Dr. Jonathan Matusitz (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, 2006) is currently a tenured associate professor in the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He studies globalization, culture, terrorism and health communication. On top of having 95 academic publications and over 100 conference presentations, he taught at a NATO-affiliated military base in Belgium in 2010. Originally from Belgium himself, he moved to the United States in 2000. In 2012, he was honored with a prestigious teaching award by the College of Sciences at UCF.

In 2011, Dr. Matusitz’s research was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. His most recent book, Terrorism & Communication: A Critical Introduction, was published in 2012 by SAGE. His research methodologies include qualitative interviewing, content analysis, semiotics and theoretical analysis.

Dr. Matusitz has taught the following courses at UCF: Terrorism and Communication (COM 4416), Intercultural Communication (COM 4461), Conflict Management (COM 4462), Group Dynamics (SPC 4426), Nonverbal Communication (SPC 4331), Organizational Communication (COM 3120), Communication and Human Relations (COM 3011), Communication Research Methods (COM 3311), Health Communication (COM 6025), and Honors Fundamentals of Oral Communication (SPC 1600).

http://communication.cos.ucf.edu/person/jonathan-matusitz/