Glimpses into Islamic Minds, III

It is endlessly fascinating to explore the thinking processes of the Arab-Islamic mind. All of the news is atwitter this morning with details about this tape allegedly released by al-Zarkawi and addressed to bin Laden. All the news media fixate on whether or not the tape is really Zarkawi. Let's focus on something else.

First, here is some background:

My Way News: Al-Zarqawi Message Now Says Wounds Minor, May 30, 8:17 PM (ET), By SALAH NASRAWI

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Iraq's insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi purportedly made an audio address to Osama bin Laden on Monday to assure the al-Qaida leader that he was in good health after being wounded in a fire fight with U.S. troops.

Now to the fun part alleged to have been spoken by al-Zarkawi:

"It was one of the greatest battles of Islam," the speaker said. "We would like to assure you that we are continuing on the path of jihad, we are committed to our pledge. We will either win or die trying."

Then, let's wrap up the news report with a look at the facts:

The U.S. military said it killed 125 militants during its weeklong offensive against al-Zarqawi's fighters. Nine U.S. Marines were killed and 40 injured during the operation, one of the largest American campaigns since militants were driven from Fallujah six months ago. The number of civilian casualties was not immediately known.

Whoever spoke on the tape exhibited very typical Arabic thinking, or Arab-Islamic thinking, if you will. This type of thinking has been beautifully delineated in one of the most important books about that part of the world: Raphael Patai's, The Arab Mind. (We have reviewed this book in depth on our website.)

Their kind of mind lives and dies by the notion of shame, or dishonor, or humiliation. Take your pick. Theirs is such a fragility of self-esteem that it provokes actions quite alien to our minds. Given how Islam destroys the role of reason in their own minds and formally forbids it, these people are left only with emotion to run their lives. Add to that how their existence rides from moment to moment on how others rate them, and you have not only volatility of behavior, but interesting, if not hilarious, statements.

The speaker on the tape says, "It was one of the greatest battles of Islam." Go to paragraph three above to see the facts. The incongruity is inescapable.

There is another thinking mechanism they employ which is involved here as well. An easy way to state it is that they truly believe that the thought equals the deed. Maybe this is why the Leftists in America are so cozy with these people since liberals and other lefties think the same way in this regard.

So, if someone proclaims that this was one of the greatest battles of Islam, then, by golly, it is.

Philosophically, this is called primacy of consciousness, both in metaphysics and epistemology, and it is a devastating thinking flaw. It means that will, wish, desire, etc., create reality and truth. It means that reality conforms to the actions of consciousness. No one anchored in reality can afford such a flaw, but every tyrant since history began to be recorded has thought this way, and many others besides.

Dr. Patai points out how a Muslim military leader in one of the Arab-Israeli wars reported to one of the Arab country leaders that the Arabs were winning gloriously, utterly crushing the Jews, thus bringing great honor to Islamia. As a result, that leader sent no reinforcements, and the Arabs were wiped out in hours.

Reality always wins in the end.

Memorial Day 2005

Memorial Day brings out the best and the worst among those who live in this country. Some get it, and some don't.

Consider this (1): At the laying of the wreath ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the protestant chaplain concluded by thanking Jesus for showing us via the military dead that love comes only from self-sacrifice. He didn't get it. He was just reiterating religious propaganda that he uses to make his own life meaningful. Sadly, very many Americans who "believe" the same thing also do not get it. Parroting is not a sign of smarts.

People uncritically pick up this notion of self-sacrifice as some moral ideal very early in life and never reexamine it or try to validate it. Thus, when military members die, these people prattle on about the glory of their sacrifice, and words to the equivalent.

To say that the deaths of our military members represent some moral ideal of self-sacrifice is morally repugnant at best. Self-sacrifice is what Muslims do. That is what Islam teaches them is the ideal, and that ideal keeps Islam in business. Suicide bombers apply this credo in order to get to the non-existent "paradise." Dying for the cause, however, is self-sacrifice in name only because the martyr still hopes to achieve something selfish--his entry into paradise with all its mythical rewards.

What makes sacrifice so repugnant as well as so absolutely wrong is its very nature. To sacrifice means to give up something of higher value for something of lower value. That's nuts, and no really ever does it, although billions have died in its name.

Our military members do not die or suffer terrible, life-changing injuries out of sacrifice, and it is time to stop insulting them parroting such drivel.

Consider this (2): Most people remember the story of Pat Tillman. Pat was an Arizona Cardinal player in the National Football League, and he was terribly good. After 11 September 2001, Pat checked his own values and enlisted in the U. S. Army Rangers. He gave up a stellar career, inevitable fame leading quite possibly to the Hall of Fame, and millions of dollars in contracts. The last figure we heard was at least $9 million.

Why did he do this? Isn't this just a perfect example of self-sacrifice?

No, it is a perfect example of why our men and women serve in our military and endure maiming and death. They do not seek it, as self-sacrifice requires. They, like Pat, put their own morally superior, selfish values first. They devote themselves to their deepest values: Of being American. Few can articulate all that being an American means to them, but they carry it with them always. They know the price required to sustain freedom. They see themselves as instruments of those values, and they place those values so high in their own hierarchies that they risk maiming and death to achieve those values.

This is why we honor them. They are valuers.

A clip on the Fox News Channel this morning had Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, USMC (Retired) speaking to us with a field of grave crosses as background. He said, "They gave their todays for your tomorrows." This redeems the awful name Christianity and Judaism have given to selfishness, self-concern, and anything to do with self.

For us, Americans, life is important, and living free reigns supreme. For Muslims, dying and death are their values. We live freely and live for our progeny and our values to endure. Muslims exercise self-sacrifice to die to achieve their values, values they never achieve because they are not achievable.

We honor our military dead for their values, not their sacrifice. They do not give us our freedom as some wrongly say, but they help us preserve it in ways only they can. We can thank them by preserving and protecting those values and furthering them against all our enemies, foreign and domestic.

Pat Tillman died from friendly fire, and that was tragic. The Army coverup was horribly wrong. None of these take away from the fact that Pat Tillman stands as an arch-typical soldier, a person of values.

And he is far from alone. This excerpt from Jeff Jacoby's article for Memorial Day in Jewish World Review tells of an America-valuing Marine:

Jewish World Review May 30, 2005 / 21 Iyar, 5765, Death of a Marine, By Jeff Jacoby

Sergeant Rafael Peralta of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines was killed in action on Nov. 15 during Operation Dawn, the epic battle to retake the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah.

What follows is chiefly based on an account by Marine Lance Corporal T.J. Kaemmerer, a combat correspondent who took part in the operation that cost Peralta his life. Reports also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Marine Corps Times, The San Diego Union Tribune, and on ABC News.

On the day he died, Rafael Peralta was 25 years old, a Mexican immigrant from San Diego who had enlisted in the Marines as soon as he became a legal resident. He earned his citizenship while on active duty and re-upped in 2004. He was a Marine to the core, so meticulous that when Alpha Company was training in Kuwait, he would send his camouflage uniform out to be pressed.

He was no less passionate about his adopted country: His bedroom wall was adorned with a picture of his boot camp graduation and replicas of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. ''Be proud of being an American," he wrote to his kid brother Ricardo, 14. ''Our father came to this country and became a citizen because it was the right place for our family to be." It was the first letter he ever wrote to Ricardo — and the last. It arrived in San Diego the day after he died.

The Marines of the 1/3 were on the front lines in Fallujah, purging the city of terrorists in house-to-house combat. As a platoon scout, Peralta could have stayed back in relative safety. Instead, as was often the case, he volunteered to join the assault team.

On the morning of Nov. 15, one week into the battle for Fallujah, his squad had cleared three houses without incident. They approached a fourth, kicking in two locked doors simultaneously and entering both front rooms. They found them empty. Another closed door led to an adjoining room. As the other Marines spread out, wrote Kaemmerer, ''Peralta, rifle in hand, tested the handle." It wasn't locked. He threw open the door, preparing to rush in — and three terrorists with AK-47s opened fire. He was shot multiple times in the chest and face. As he fell, severely wounded, he managed to wrench himself out of the doorway to give his fellow Marines a clear line of fire.

The gunfire was deafening. To the sound of the terrorists' AK-47s was added the din of the Marines' M16 rifles and Squad Automatic Weapon, a machine gun. The battle was raging, with Peralta down and bleeding heavily and the other Marines firing at the enemy in the back room, when, in Kaemmerer's words, ''a yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade bounced into the room, rolling to a stop close to Peralta's nearly lifeless body."

As the other Marines tried to flee, Peralta reached for the grenade and tucked it into his gut. Seconds later, it exploded with such force that when his remains were
returned to his family for burial, they were able to identify him only by the tattoo on his shoulder. His five comrades-in-arms, shielded from the worst of the blast by Peralta's last act as a Marine, survived.

''Right now, people are really nice and everything," Peralta's 12-year-old sister Karen told a reporter 10 days after her brother's death. ''But I know that when it comes to later on, they are going to forget him. They're going to forget about him."

No, Karen. The Marines, always faithful, do not forget their heroes. And neither does the grateful nation that pauses to honor them this week — the nation Rafael Peralta loved so deeply, and for which he gave his last full measure of devotion.

To the men and women of America's armed forces past, present, and future: We cannot honor you enough.

The Fair Logic of Jizyah (?!?)

Leave it to Islamic subjectivists to summon the fog with terms like "fair logic" when applied to jizyah. Islam On Line has a section where readers send in questions, and experts "answer." You just have to read some of this stuff to appreciate it.

Here's a sample, edited to remove the superfluous. Someone who is not Muslim wrote in with a question about jizyah:

IslamOnline-Ask About Islam,The Fair Logic of Jizyah

Question: I recently had a discussion with a non-Muslim friend about the jizyah (ransom) that non-Muslims have to pay in Islamic states. Is it discriminatory? Why do non-Muslims have to pay such a tax? Who has to pay it and how is it calculated? Thank you. Date 2005/3/3

Name of Consultant Jasser Auda
Content of Reply

As-salamu
`alaykum, Ahmed.

Thank you for your question.

Before addressing this question, we need to differentiate between actions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that were carried out based on some specific (in this case, political) situation, and other actions that are considered as essential part of the divine message of Islam, without which the message would be deviated.

There is a verse in the Qur'an that mentioned this tax, jizyah. The verse says what means:

*{Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizyah (tribute, tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.}* (Al-Tawbah 9:29)

However, it is important to ask two questions here: What is the wisdom behind that tax, which was the reason behind legislating it? The wisdom behind the tax/jizyah paid by non-Muslims to the Islamic state was fairness. This is for two reasons:

First, Muslims were paying zakah (the annual charity) to the Islamic state, which was used for all sorts of services and social welfare. Zakah is an Islamic act of worship, but it is only for Muslims. It was fair to make non-Muslim citizens of the same state pay a similar (in fact, smaller) amount as a tax, since zakah is not taken from them as it is taken from Muslims. Jizyah was calculated in different ways throughout different areas (a certain amount of money, certain percentage of the crops, etc), but it was consistently less than the zakah, which every Muslim had to pay anyway.

In addition to that, this tax was paid in exchange of protection of these non-Muslim communities (i.e., military protection) and exemption of their men from joining the Islamic army. It was not fair to ask these non-Muslim citizens to fight with Muslims against fellow believers of their same religion.

Then, do all the above make jizyah an eternal Islamic obligation, exactly like zakat? The answer is no! We need not to confuse between Islam as a civilization and Islam as a religion, to make a general point.

...Scholars no longer apply the rule of jizyah or exempt non-Muslims from serving their countries’ armies. The context now is different and therefore, the ruling differs and jizyah no longer applies.


Salams.

Here is truly taqiyya and kitman combined. The simplest and most complete rebuttal to this propaganda is to be found in Mr. Robert Spencer's new book, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

It's astonishing how much damage ignorance causes when a book like Mr. Spencer's simply erases the ignorance forever.

The Islam On Line explanation explains nothing. It just white-washes history and facts.

Even the Koranic verse gives the whole mess away "...until they pay the jizyah (tribute, tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." Those conquered by Muslim hoards who were not enslaved or killed outright and did not convert to Islam, became dhimmis and lived under a slavery called dhimmitude, a state of being subdued, as in conquered. As the Islamists said and say, these people are to be chronically humiliated. They ransom their lives with Jizyah, not out of fairness, but out of fear for their lives. The purpose of the jizyah is to support the lazy Muslims who eschew productive work.

"Fairness" was never an issue. What is "fair" to Muslims fits no objective definition in any language of the world, past or present. The jizyah was not to balance out the zakah. The zakah was a pillar of Islam but did not carry the pain of death; the jizyah did and does.

Furthermore, the jizyah was not to compensate for dhimmis being exempted from the Muslim army. They could not mix with Muslims and were forbidden to join their armies unless they converted. "Protection" was not the issue, since the dhimmis were objects of plunder at all times BY MUSLIMS. The jizyah was and is EXTORTION, and it worked only if Muslims did not experience some imagined insult to their pseudo-self-esteem or have some other whim strike them to justify their killing dhimmi men, women, and children, just-for-the-hell-of-it.

Lastly, "scholars" may not apply the jizyah these days, but Muslims damned sure do. They will not hesitate either to kill you or make you live in dhimmitude today, and tomorrow, just as they did yesterday and do today.

This is a good example of why it is impossible to trust what Muslims say--about anything. For example, at this time, there is much chatter in the news about whether the al-Zarkawi has or has not been wounded in Iraq, and just what significance it has. Who cares? You can't believe anything they say. We keep doing what we need to do, regardless of what they say.

Take President Reagan one more step: Do not trust, and always verify for yourself.

Hirsi Ali: "We Must Declare War on Islamist Propaganda"

This lady is one of those remarkable people who grew up Muslim, but she had the independence of mind and spirit to see the truth, and the fortitude and integrity to follow the truth. Life has been far from easy for her since, because of the lunatic Muslism.

She is a member of the Dutch parliament, and she speaks her mind. Who in our Congress has the dedication to truth and courage that she does? For that matter, who in the State Department would dare speak like this, even the Secretary of State.

This is an abstract from an interview with this remarkable and admirable woman. The interviewer represented a German magazine, and you can discover as much about his or her European mindset as that of Hirsi Ali:



SPIEGEL Interview with Hirsi Ali: "We Must Declare War on Islamist Propaganda" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News, DER SPIEGEL 20/2005 - May 14, 2005


Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the most sharp-tongued critics of political Islam -- and a target of radical fanatics. Her provocative film "Submission" led to the assassination of director Theo van Gogh in November 2004. The attackers left a death threat against Hirsi Ali stuck to his corpse with a knife. After a brief exile, the 35-year-old member of Dutch parliament from the neo-liberal VVD party has returned to parliament and is continuing her fight against Islamism. She is now introducing her new book "I Accuse" and is working on a sequel to "Submission."

Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia where she experienced the oppression of Muslim women first hand. When her father attempted to force her into an arranged marriage, she fled to Holland in 1992. Later, she renounced the Muslim religion.

SPIEGEL: Following Van Gogh's death when you knew you were targeted, were you able to think clearly about what you should do?
Hirsi Ali: No, I was constantly on the move. But I had had enough after six days. I was advised to go into hiding abroad if I wanted to sleep in one place for a longer time. The only places I would consider were Israel and the United States, because they know what the Islamic threat means in those countries. I decided to go to the United States.

SPIEGEL: So now you are once again working as a member of parliament, giving interviews and publishing. Your book "I Accuse" will appear in Germany on Wednesday. Has your life returned to normal?
Hirsi Ali: Normal? I am guarded 24 hours a day. My bodyguards are always with me, everywhere I go. There are two bedrooms in my apartment, one for me, and the other for two bodyguards who take turns sleeping. Whenever I open my door, the door to the other bedroom opens and they check to see what's going on.

SPIEGEL: You are never alone?
Hirsi Ali: Rarely. But I don't have a healthy social life either. How can you have a relationship when you must constantly be afraid of putting your partner's life at risk?

SPIEGEL: Isn't that grotesque? You fight for the liberation of the Muslim woman and now you yourself are guarded from morning to night. Your chador consists of bodyguards. Was it worth it?
Hirsi Ali: Yes. Radical Islam is too dangerous for this society, perhaps even for the entire world. It is important to fight against this threat. In the process of fighting some lives may be lost.

SPIEGEL: Now you are beginning to sound like a martyr yourself. The September 11 terrorists also died for an idea.
Hirsi Ali: I would like to draw a distinction there. If we all keep still and remain silent, there will be more than just one or two deaths. I prefer to follow the philosopher Karl Popper. He says that freedom is not to be taken for granted. It is vulnerable. One must fight for it and be willing to die for it. The Islamic scene is very aggressive. Those Muslims who wish to kill someone receive a great deal of support from their home countries. There is plenty of wealth, there are plenty of sponsors and there are plenty of desperate people who choose this path. We must defend ourselves if we wish to preserve our Western values. The price we pay is to be threatened.

SPIEGEL: You seem to be resistant against the hostility. In your book, you are unrestrained in your denunciation of Islam as backward, and you call for policies that force immigrants to become integrated. You are also in the process of preparing a second part of the film "Submission." Aren't you concerned about generating even more rage against you?
Hirsi Ali: What else can they do but issue a death threat? Now that I've already been given the maximum sentence, at least I can act freely.

SPIEGEL: But didn't the authorities [Dutch] respond to September 11?
Hirsi Ali: Yes they did. They called together the Muslim leaders, gave them money and asked them to keep their young people under control. It was laughable. Then they tried to force the many different groups under one roof. That effort produced two groups, one for liberal and one for orthodox Muslims. Their spokesmen were then expected to enforce all agreements internally. This is simply a naive expectation.

SPIEGEL: Why? After all, Islam is a highly authoritarian religion with strong leaders.
Hirsi Ali: Do you know what young Muslims who are drawn to radical Islam call these "leaders" who negotiate with the government? Charity whores. They consider them to be collaborators, traitors, idiots.

SPIEGEL: You want to see these young people be systematically introduced to Western values. But they live in closed communities, so how can they be reached?
Hirsi Ali: Start by knocking on the door! We must penetrate into their worlds.

SPIEGEL: You'll be seeing many doors slammed in your face.
Hirsi Ali: I'm not saying that it would be easy. For her book entitled "Invisible Parents," the journalist Margalith Kleijwegt did some research in the Moroccan section of Amsterdam, where Van Gogh's murderer, Bouyeri, lived. She knocked unsuccessfully on doors six times. The seventh door was opened, and then she learned a great deal about this community. For example, she learned that no parents in that neighborhood knew about the murder, that no parents even knew who Van Gogh was or had heard about the film. They only watch Arab television where they are fed with conspiracy theories about the West. They spend every vacation at home in Morocco. They can't speak or write Dutch, and they don't read newspapers. The lesson of Margalith Kleijwegt's book is that the parents are not equipped to give their children the upbringing necessary in a modern western society. They also have many children and these parallel worlds are growing. We look on without even knowing what happens in them.

SPIEGEL: Who should go in? Social workers?
Hirsi Ali: Certainly not. They are too politically correct and in most cases very young and inexperienced. No, there are other ways to get in. One is the political tool of preventing further growth of the ghettos. We need to employ a policy of integration that dictates to people where they can live and where they cannot live, thereby guaranteeing a mixing together of cultures and nations.

SPIEGEL: That sounds like a lot of trouble -- from the Dutch as well.
Hirsi Ali: So what? What is at issue is defending our values, and that can certainly lead to arguments.

SPIEGEL: Aren't you concerned that tensions would arise in these forced communities?
Hirsi Ali: The other alternative creates even greater tensions. If you allow the ghettos to grow, you'll have clashes between skinheads and Muslim extremists, for example. The second means of access should also be controlled by political means: A prohibition on all faith-based schools. Schools must be places of civilization, places that impart Western values, the purposes of democracy. We must treat the children as our children and not turn their education over to defenders of foreign dogma who indoctrinate them with anti-liberal doctrines.

SPIEGEL: Ignore the cultures of the immigrants?
Hirsi Ali: Blindly respecting their cultures is the wrong approach. Here's an example: Many children in Holland's Arab ghettos are taught the teachings of Ibn Abu-Taymiya, one of the founders of pure Islam who preaches the holy war as a way of life. Instead of studying European philosophers, the children are taught to abide by 11th century teachings!

SPIEGEL: Integration and European culture can't be imposed on people.
Hirsi Ali: But we can do something about it. This is where society comes in. Artists, kindergartens, churches, they should all penetrate into the ghettos. It's really grotesque: We have all kinds of NGOs that send people all the way to Africa to convince people to use condoms. But they don't dare touch the problems we have at home. Charity begins at home.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps this is partly because part of democracy means allowing people to think as they wish.
Hirsi Ali: Democracy also includes legitimate intolerance. The intolerable cannot be tolerated. We must declare war on Islamist propaganda. Why should we ignore that women in our midst are being suppressed, beaten, enslaved? Why should we ignore that people preach hatred and vow to destroy us?



(All emphases mine)

Opportunity Knocks: Syria Cutting Military Cooperation With U.S.

Here's the relevant information:

Syria Cuts Military Cooperation With U.S., May 24, 6:11 PM (ET), By ALBERT AJI

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syria has stopped security and military cooperation with the United States in recent months after Washington failed to respond to repeated overtures from Damascus, Syria's ambassador said Tuesday. The New York Times on Monday quoted [Syrian Ambassador to the US] Mustafa as saying Syria had "severed all links" with the U.S. military and CIA in the last 10 days because of what he called unjust American allegations.

"The United States will not be satisfied with Syria unless Syria follows a policy that suits the American political orientation and Israeli interests ," Mustafa said, echoing widely held beliefs in the Arab world that the United States is biased toward Israel. He said the United States wants to "redraw the political map of the region in a way that suits American and Israeli interests."

(All emphases mine)

Were it so that we were acting on proper desires for us and Israel, the ones the ambassador decries so clearly. We still seem to be giving Syria a pass, no matter how many Americans and Iraqis it is responsible for killing and how much destruction it is causing in Iraq. The Syrians sponsor more terrorism than we sponsor stupid federal programs--and they sponsor these against Israel and the US. "Sanctions," which we are using, are truly akin to urinating into a hurricane.

It is easy to get Syria's attention and hold it permanently. Recall the old saying that if you grab someone by the genitals, his heart and mind soon follow.

Syria's western boundary is the Mediterranean Ocean. Its eastern boundary is Iraq. It is Appalachian poor as a productive country. Were it not for Saudi Arabian and Iranian support, Syria would have nothing and could do nothing to anyone. Do these suggest policy actions?

Carrier based aircraft could reach anywhere in Syria in minutes from the Mediterranean, as could U. S. Air Force aircraft out of Iraq. No overflight permissions would be needed, except that of the Syrians. But then, we would be bombing them.

Suppose something like this. For EVERY car bomb, EVERY road embedded IED (improvised explosive device), and EVERY attack from "insurgents" in Iraq against Iraqis and the Coalition, we drop all kinds of bombs on things the Syrians value to any extent whatsoever. No plane is to return home with unexpended ordnance.

We have all of Syria's ports, rails, utilities. We have its government facilities and all of those wonderful Ba'ath houses. And, do not forget the Bekaa Valley. A truly target-rich environment, well, at least for a while.

Just think of Assad running from a MOAB (I no longer remember what the military acronym stands for, but in common parlance, it came to mean "mother of all bombs"). How many aircraft, and how many flights would it take? And if Syria is reduced to gravel, where would Hamas, Hezbollah, Ba'athists, and all the other Muslim ne'er-do-wells stay? Lebanon is as easy to get to as Syria; and, if Turkey wants them, they deserve what they get.

Once Syria has been demolished, we could ask Saudi Arabia and Iran if they "got it." The answer would come in the form of almost complete cessation of "insurgency" in Iraq.

If not, then Saudi Arabia and Iran are accessible from carriers at sea, land based aircraft...

FrontPage magazine.com :: War Blog: ORIANA FALLACI TO BE TRIED FOR THOUGHT CRIMES

This is where they want to take you and me. Who? CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), MSA (Muslim Student Association), and many more, along with the fifth columnist anti-American postmodernists.

Freedom and rights remain always just a nanosecond away from the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages have been the default position of mankind for his history. Without eternal vigilance and the willingness to fight off all who would take our best from us every single time they try, we will lose.

I am reminded of the old expression, which deserves paraphrasing: You have have my rights and freedoms when you can pry them from my cold, dead fingers!

The Italian city of Bergamo is going to put author Oriana Fallaci on trial—for defaming Islam. (Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)

(AGI) - L’Aquila, Italy, May 24

- In Oriana Fallaci’s book “The Force of Reason” there are expressions that are “unequivocally offensive to Islam and Muslims,” said the Bergamo preliminary investigative judge, Armando Grasso, who accepting the Adel Smith’s opposition to filing away the trial proposed by the prosecutor, ordered the prosecution to formulate the charge “according to article 406 of article 403 of the criminal code,” for defamation of Islam. The well known author, therefore, will be put on trial. Adel Smith, president of the Italian Muslim Union, sued the writer on April 8, 2004, after “also in other writings Oriana Fallaci had propagated hate against Islam and Muslims, distorting real historical facts and inventing others, lying, offending, and defaming Muslims around the world. For the rest, ever since ”Anger and Pride“ the writer has injured Islam and Muslims, writing expressions such as ‘f*cking sons of Allah’,” said Smith. The Bergamo Prosecution is taking on the trial, since the book was published in the city, and now has ten days to come up with a charge. The preliminary hearing judge will set the trial date. Matteo Nicoli of Verona will represent Adel Smith.

Adel Smith is a well-known Italian Muslim activist who (among other specious lawsuits) tried to have all crucifixes removed from Italian schools.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog

Keep your attention fixed to this "trial," which never should be able to occur in a civilized country, and its outcome. If Ms. Fallaci is convicted, they will be coming next for you.

Paging Dracula to the Blood Bank, STAT!

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "What fools these ignoranti be."

For CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), this was a coup. For the Americans, this was travesty. Read it and barf:

CAIR EDUCATES OHIO NATIONAL GUARD ABOUT ISLAM

Army reservists learn about Islamic beliefs, practices and
culture(CLEVELAND, OH, 5/24/05)

The Cleveland Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Ohio chapter (CAIR-Ohio) recently conducted an educational session on Islam and the Middle East for members of the Ohio National Guard.

CAIR's training session, held at the Canton National Guard Armory, was well received by the soldiers, most of whom said they knew little about Islam and Muslims before the training. The training provided detailed information about Muslim beliefs and practices, as well as background information on Middle Eastern history and culture.

One attendee said, "Understanding Islam will help us be at ease when an obvious difference is encountered." A number of soldiers said they had more respect for Islam and Muslims after the training.

Each participant was provided with an information packet, including articles information about the basic beliefs and practices of Muslims. After the training, participants got a chance to meet each other and to exchange views on a range of issues during a luncheon provided by CAIR.

"This was an excellent opportunity to share our faith with others," said CAIR-Ohio Board Member and Chair of the Cleveland office Isam Zaiem. " Such training sessions provide the opportunity to learn about each other and allow us to avoid needless conflicts and misunderstandings."

Years ago, some comedian analogized some long forgotten--something as akin to putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. This National Guard and CAIR encounter reminded me of the same.

Supposedly, the actor John Wayne once said something to the effect that, if you think education is expense, try ignorance. I hazard the guess that not one of the National Guard members who hosted CAIR had read the first word about Islam.

They extended the sanction to CAIR as though CAIR is some legitimate spokesman for truth. CAIR speaks only to its agenda, but these hay-seeds had not the slightest clue. Nor did their "leadership."

For CAIR, this was a coup. For the National Guard, this was a total travesty. CAIR gained strength of acceptance as a legitimate spokesgroup for an alleged legitimate "religion." And, since Islam is a RELIGION, it cannot be bad in any way.

Gullible National Guardsmen drank the Kool-Aid, and did not even know it was spiked with delayed action cyanide.

Man, is ignorance expensive!!!!!!

FrontPage magazine.com :: Leaving the Left by Keith Thompson

FrontPage magazine.com :: Leaving the Left by Keith Thompson, By Keith Thompson, SFGate.com, May 23, 2005


Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

Like many others who came of age politically in the 1960s, I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence. To face it directly posed the danger that I would have to describe it accurately, first to myself and then to others. That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror.

Now, I find myself in a swirling metamorphosis. Think Kafka, without the bug. Think Kuhnian paradigm shift, without the buzz. Every anomaly that didn't fit my perceptual set is suddenly back, all the more glaring for so long ignored. The insistent inner voice I learned to suppress now has my rapt attention. "Something strange -- something approaching pathological -- something entirely of its own making -- has the left in its grip," the voice whispers. "How did this happen?" The Iraqi election is my tipping point. The time has come to walk in a different direction -- just as I did many years before.

I grew up in a northwest Ohio town where conservative was a polite term for reactionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Mississippi "sweltering in the heat of oppression," he could have been describing my community, where blacks knew to keep their heads down, and animosity toward Catholics and Jews was unapologetic. Liberal and conservative, like left and right, wouldn't be part of my lexicon for a while, but when King proclaimed, "I have a dream," I instinctively cast my lot with those I later found out were liberals (then synonymous with "the left" and "progressive thought").

The people on the other side were dedicated to preserving my hometown's backward-looking status quo. This was all that my 10-year-old psyche needed to know. The knowledge carried me for a long time. Mythologies are helpful that way.

I began my activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, because both promised to end America's misadventure in Vietnam. I marched for peace and farm worker justice, lobbied for women's right to choose and environmental protections, signed up with George McGovern in 1972 and got elected as the youngest delegate ever to a Democratic convention.

Eventually I joined the staff of U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio. In short, I became a card-carrying liberal, although I never actually got a card. (Bookkeeping has never been the left's strong suit.) All my commitments centered on belief in equal opportunity, due process, respect for the dignity of the individual and solidarity with people in trouble. To my mind, Americans who had joined the resistance to Franco's fascist dystopia captured the progressive spirit at its finest.

A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan's use of the word "evil" had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.

When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find "evil'" too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like "gulag" to the dinner table.

I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings. Two decades later, I watched with astonishment as leading left intellectuals launched a telethon- like body count of civilian deaths caused by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Their premise was straightforward, almost giddily so: When the number of civilian Afghani deaths surpassed the carnage of Sept. 11, the war would be unjust, irrespective of other considerations.

Stated simply: The force wielded by democracies in self-defense was declared morally equivalent to the nihilistic aggression perpetuated by Muslim fanatics.

Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the "courage" of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to "automobile statistics." The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.

All of this came back to me as I watched the left's anemic, smirking response to Iraq's election in January. Didn't many of these same people stand up in the sixties for self-rule for oppressed people and against fascism in any guise? Yes, and to their lasting credit. But many had since made clear that they had also changed their minds about the virtues of King's call for equal of opportunity.

These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender "disparities" are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a very real sense it may be the last card held by a movement increasingly ensnared in resentful questing for group-specific rights and the subordination of citizenship to group identity. There's a word for this: pathetic.

I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.

In the name of "diversity," the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on "individual style." The University of Connecticut has banned "inappropriately directed laughter." Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment "may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment." (Yes, we're talking "subconscious harassment" here. We're watching your thoughts ...).

Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like "Why you ain't" and "Where you is," Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to "level the playing field." Why not? Because "drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that."

When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe "I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening," Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who "would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided."

I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?

He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators. Brownback speaks openly about how his horror at the genocide in the Sudan is shaped by his Christian faith, as King did when he insisted on justice for "all of God's children."

My larger point is rather simple. Just as a body needs different medicines at different times for different reasons, this also holds for the body politic.

In the sixties, America correctly focused on bringing down walls that prevented equal access and due process. It was time to walk the Founders' talk -- and we did. With barriers to opportunity no longer written into law, today the body politic is crying for different remedies.

America must now focus on creating healthy, self-actualizing individuals committed to taking responsibility for their lives, developing their talents, honing their skills and intellects, fostering emotional and moral intelligence, all in all contributing to the advancement of the human condition.

At the heart of authentic liberalism lies the recognition, in the words of John Gardner, "that the ever renewing society will be a free society (whose] capacity for renewal depends on the individuals who make it up." A continuously renewing society, Gardner believed, is one that seeks to "foster innovative, versatile, and self-renewing men and women and give them room to breathe."

One aspect of my politics hasn't changed a bit. I became a liberal in the first place to break from the repressive group orthodoxies of my reactionary hometown.

This past January, my liberalism was in full throttle when I bid the cultural left goodbye to escape a new version of that oppressiveness. I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.

True, it took a while to see what was right before my eyes. A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites.

Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.

All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.

Keith Thompson is a Petaluma writer and the author of "Angels and Aliens" and "To Be a Man." His work is at www.thompsonatlarge.com. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com

Glimpses into Islamic Minds, II

Listen to them. Read their words. They are open books.

True, they might not tell you the plans of their next bombings or assassinations, but they will tell why they do what they do.

Can you imagine how nice it would be if our "leaders" took them at their words? They would stop twisting themselves into human pretzels in order NOT TO CALL A SPADE A SPADE and NOT SEE THINGS FOR WHAT THEY REALLY ARE. Why, we might even start doing some real winning.

This speaks for itself:

MSN News and Weather Reuters � weather forecasts, latest world news, UK & sports news, 18/5/2005 4:14:27 PM ( Source: Reuters) , Iraq Qaeda leader defends slaying of Muslims -Web

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq defended the killing of "innocent Muslims" in suicide bombings against U.S. forces, saying it was legitimate under Islam for the sake of jihad (holy war), according to an audio tape attributed to him on Wednesday.

"The killing of infidels by any method including martyrdom (suicide) operations has been sanctified by many scholars even if it means killing innocent Muslims. This
legality has been agreed upon ... so as not to disrupt jihad," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on the tape posted on an Islamist Web site.

"Protecting religion is more important than protecting (Muslim) lives, honour or wealth," said the man who sounded like Zarqawi. "The shedding of Muslim blood ... is allowed in order to avoid the greater evil of disrupting ihad."

"We know that some mistakes may happen and victims may fall and this causes us grief, but what can we do in the face of this reality in which the enemy has penetrated our land." He said Muslims killed unintentionally in such attacks were "martyrs who died for Islam".

Addressing Iraq's Sunnis, the speaker added: "We are the spearhead of the Ummah (Sunni nation) and its first line of defence in the face of the crusaders' advance. If the jihad's power subsides then the Ummah will witness calamities and disasters." (All emphases mine)

Glimpses into Islamic Minds, I

If the Islamic mind is a mystery to any Westerner or is any way perplexing, then that Westerner has not taken the time to read about them or read what they themselves say.

The following article with transcript gives a glimpse of a barbarian mentality. The rapist can neither read nor write. He is solely the product of all the Islam he absorbed in Egypt.

He demonstrates typical Islamic thinking methods: Who is to blame for his raping the girl? Why, the girl is, of course. Read his rationale.

WorldNetDaily: Egyptian rapist blames his victim, Thursday, May 19, 2005

An Egyptian rapist on death row is blaming his victim for the crime, saying she wore a short dress and such women "make" their attackers rape. The interview with the rapist aired on Dubai TV April 22. A clip of the segment with English subtitles is viewable at the Middle East Media Research Institute website. The rapist, Ayman Mahmoud, is interviewed by a young woman who is fully clothed from head to toe. (emphasis mine)

Here is the transcript of the interview:

Interviewer: How old are you, Ayman?
Ayman: Twenty-six years old.

Interviewer: What were you sentenced for?
Ayman: Kidnapping and rape.

Interviewer: What was she wearing?
Ayman: She wore a short dress, which didn't have enough material for a sleeve. If I tried using it as a sleeve it would be too tight for my arm.

Interviewer: Tell us more about the clothes.
Ayman: If she wants to wear a short dress, she should wear pants underneath. But the short dress … Even if she's unmarried, or a little girl, when someone sees her short clothes, he will find the courage, and won't leave her alone. A girl like this makes a guy …

Interviewer: She seduces him?
Ayman: Yes, she makes him take her, even if it's in the middle of town. Even if he has to kill or die, he will still take her.

Interviewer: You would be ready to kill to have a girl wearing such clothes?
Ayman: Because I can't accept this. … She's not human …

Interviewer: You don't respect her. You think she deserves it.
Ayman: If she had proper upbringing, I would stand by her.

Interviewer: If you met a girl dressed modestly, could you possiblythink of raping or even getting near her?
Ayman: You mean a respectable one?

Interviewer: Yes.
Ayman: I would protect her even if it kills me. I would free her.

Interviewer: You don't say …
Ayman: Yes, but … But getting in trouble to save a girl whose clothes don't make sense … then I'd be getting into a fight because of a girl whose behavior is improper.

Interviewer: Let's assume that a woman is wearing a short, revealing dress. Does this make you think she is not a good woman? Maybe she is good and you shouldn't get near her.
Ayman: No good woman dresses like this. A good woman is God-fearing, she doesn't go out at night, and she wears long clothing.

Interviewer: One last question. Do you pray, Ayman?
Ayman: No.

Interviewer: Why?
Ayman: I tried to pray but … No, no, I don't pray.

Interviewer: Why, Ayman?
Ayman: No.

Interviewer: Why don't you want to end you life obeying God?
Ayman: I didn't do anything good when I was out. … I didn't pray. … I didn't pray when I was out, so I should pray now that I'm in trouble?! If I'd prayed when I was out I would never have gotten here.

Interviewer: You know that these are the words of Satan. Satan is telling you … He caused you to lose your life and now he wants you to lose the world to come. He says to you: "You did this and that and now it doesn't make sense to pray." Yes, you need to pray. Ayman, ask for forgiveness and pray, and don't despair of Allah's mercy.
Ayman: Well, OK.

Interviewer: Ask Allah to forgive you. I pray that Allah forgives you.
Ayman: OK.

Interviewer: Will you pray every day?
Ayman: OK, I will.

Interviewer: And you'll ask Allah for forgiveness?
Ayman: Yes.

Interviewer: I give you this Quran, Ayman. Read it every day after you purify yourself.
Ayman: I never really learned to read.

Interviewer: You can't read?
Ayman: No, I can't.

Interviewer: Try, surely you can read a little bit?
Ayman: No.

Interviewer: You can't read at all?
Ayman: No.

Interviewer: Well, I'll bring you a cassette you can listen to.

Barbarity of this kind, blaming the victim, can be found in America's prisons, jails, ghettos, and even in college fraternities. Just like this Islamic barbarian, an American perpetrator might blame his victim for driving him into an impulsive frenzy, but he is not likely to stucco it over with Islamic rationales.

This kind of impulse-dominated person is the ideal jihadist soldier. Islam primes his mentality, such as it is, and some authority figure or figures set him in motion. His emotions do the rest, such as riot over alleged Koran flushings.

What do you think the interviewer says about herself here?

'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis: Some Fundamentals Behind the News

'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis, By Susan B. Glasser, Washington Post Staff Writer,
Sunday, May 15, 2005; A01.

This Washington Post article is a good, factual article. It tells the who, what, where, when, and how quite well and avoids opinions and conclusions. In its facts, however, are some really profound principles.

Here is my distillation of the essence of the article:

Characteristics of Suicide Bombers

o Need to experience some sense of personal values, often expressed as experiencing an Islamic religious awakening

o Need for identity, expressed as joining"everybody" flocking to Iraq

o Sons, students or from wealthy families, majors including engineering and English--identical profile of the 11 September 2001 "martyrs"

o Naive and inexperienced approach to themselves, their future, and their Islamic milieu: "...[N]ovices in warfare, attracted by the relative ease of access to Iraq and the lure of quick martyrdom." Says an expert at the National Defense University: "This is not al Qaeda's first team. These are the scrubs who could never get us in the States."

o Need for special mental state: "O Brother, I love to sleep on the floor and I need no mattress," [details about one fellow foreign fighter who was to have been married in February]. "Instead, he chose to be with the virgins of paradise," the [internet recruitment site] announcement said. "He used to talk frequently about the virgins of paradise and their beauty, and he wished to drink a sip from the sustenance of paradise while a virgin beauty wiped his mouth." Also, some bombers are married, well educated, and are in their late twenties.

National Sources

o Foreigners responsible for a higher percentage of the suicide bombings

o Saudis the leading group on this list, representing 44 - 70 percent, followed by Syrians and Iraqis 15 - 25 percent.

The principles of Islam take perfectly normal children and make them Muslims. Most Muslims are beyond hope by adolescence. Looking at the fundamentals of Islam, it is not hard to see how they deform humans to the extent that they internalize Islam's teachings. Islam has perfected the method of permanently distorting the human mind over its long history. Look around at the human debris that inhabit the Middle East, Asia, and wherever Muslims form their ghettos (ummah). Some of these young men choose to be jihadist martyrs.

What is amazing is how the Islamization process transcends education, wealth, and social standing. It is easy to understand how the impoverished, ignorant, and illiterate make the bulk of most Muslims; it is also easy to see these rabble behave as a rent-a-crowd, directed by anyone who holds any position of religious authority.

But, look at these "martyrs" from Saudi Arabia trucking over to Iraq to die. They are young men, educated, and well off. They do not fit the Marxian and postmodernist claims about those damaged by capitalism. Most are pampered and useless young men.

The downside of their education is their inevitable awareness of the rest of the world, particularly the West. They are not dumb; they see the differences. They cannot help but compare their lives, their living environment, and, most importantly, their futures. Regardless of all of the reaction-formation going on in their psyches to blot out their awareness of the unavoidable conclusions, they see enough of their lives and futures to know how poorly they compare, past, present, and future.

The upside of their education provides the fodder for their distorted struggle for significance. Just look at a thumbnail glance what philosophy Islam teaches them from infancy through the rest of their lives.

o Metaphysically, Islam denounces this world, life on earth, man and particularly man's independent mind, material progress, and happiness, and it seeks a superbeing and existence beyond anything anyone or anything can find or prove.

o Epistemologically, Islam declares the mind to be man's greatest evil because of its capacity to doubt and question which are forbidden on pain of death.

o Ethically, Islam demands eternal obedience to Islam and its representatives with the Muslim purpose in life being that of getting out of life through violent martyrdom. Islam also says that their lives are worthless except as they might be of value to Islam, and implies that self-esteem is as evil as thinking.

o Politically, Islam tells Muslims that they have no future except in service to Islam and the great collective called the ummah. Islam fuses all aspects of their lives with Islam, and their consists in living by permission at a level dictated to them, one seriously inferior to Western cultures.

o Esthetically, Islam denies Muslims not just any uplifting aspects of art to fuel their psyches, but it destroys the concept of art by reducing art to painted tiles and the like. Furthermore, these young men see how Islam creates nothing, destroys and inhibits everything, and squeezes every scintilla of joy out of everything.

What are they left with? Raw emotion and raw action, under Islam direction directly or indirectly from all of the Islamic principles they have internalized since infancy.

Islam is totally against human nature, in every respect, and these young men cannot escape experiencing that. To prevent rebellion, the adults around them stand as barriers to anything that might deviate from the rigidity imposed by Islam.

The payoff comes from educated, if not also socio-economically well off, young men with their humanity cut off, needing some outlet for their pressure-cooker feelings. A big component of those feelings is the dysphoria they feel from their living against their human nature; Mother Nature imposes that, and they cannot escape it.

Think of how you would feel were you in such an upbringing and life. They cannot go in any direction except one that Islam tells them or approves. And, most of these young men will not have enough independence and fortitude to escape Islamia to preserve their integrity.

If you have read or studied some of the great resources available today about Islam, then you know that these young men conclude that the only way they can feel any significance about themselves is to take action by going down one or the other pathways for significance which Islam provides for them. To us, it seems crazy that they would conclude that martyrdom is either useful or, even crazier, desirable. However, put your mind into their mental set, and it will cease seeming nuts to you.

To make personal annihilation work, however, they need two components. The first comes from Islam, about how all of the good stuff comes after they die. They have to get themselves to believe this. Islam has screwed over their cognition growing up, so this is not such a hard job for them. The second comes from Islam also. They must utterly deny the value of their selves, just as Islamic ethics taught them. This is harder, but the Islamic milieu tapping into their impetuous youth handles them.

Asked about the significance of the facts reported in the Washington Post story, author Richard Miniter, on Fox and Friends Sunday, 15 May 2005, stated a conclusion very seldom heard these days. He said that the object of these marytrs was "self-sacrifice" as the end in itself, not jihad or other Islamic goals. And, that is EXACTLY, the point.

Islam lives the ethics of self-sacrifice, which it has in common with all other religions, but the latter know they cannot get this kind of behavior out of their flocks. Islam can.

It is impossible in fact, but it is fun to think of being present with "martyrs" at their instant of death when they discover that even the "paradise" of Islam is just another lie. They snuffed out their lives in vain. They aren't going anywhere. They are finished. They no longer exist, and that is all there is.

Kudos to Liberty and Culture Blog

As big as the internet is, and as busy as we are these days, too much of value slips under the radar. A comment to one of our blog articles stimulated our curiosity which led to our discovering a fine blog to recommend to our readers: Liberty and Culture. From an initial examination, it looks like this blog started in March of 2004, some three to four months before we did. While we have not yet explored every nook and cranny, we can say that the blogger's approach to matters is like a glass of very cold iced tea on a very hot July day, very refreshing. We will be visiting often, and we hope you will check this site as well. It looks like you will be treated to thought and not pabulum, and you will be given intellectual ammunition instead of just ranting and raving.

Twice In The Same Week for the NY Times. Hoorah, and What's Happening?

I fear that apoplexy may be setting in. Twice this week, the op-ed section of the New York Times published that old enemy The Truth. With a few quibbles we have with him, nevertheless we applaud Thomas Friedman, a journalist who tends to wear pink glasses to look at the world, knocked one out of the part. When we began reading this, we thought we would feel the usual need to swallow some antacids. Not so.

Here are some excerpts of a pretty darned good op-ed:

The Best P.R.: Straight Talk - New York Times, May 20, 2005, by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The fact that the White House spokesman Scott McClellan spent part of his briefing on Tuesday excoriating Newsweek - and telling its editors that they had a responsibility to "help repair the damage" to America's standing in the Arab-Muslim world - while not offering a single word of condemnation for those who went out and killed 16 people in Afghanistan in riots linked to a Newsweek report, pretty much explains why we're struggling to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world today. We are spending way too much time debating with ourselves, or playing defense, and way too little time actually looking Arab Muslims in the eye and telling them the truth as we see it.

Therefore, if we have an information campaign, it must all be about explaining to them who we are, and why we are not bad people, and why Newsweek made a mistake. It must never involve us asking who they are and why they are behaving in ways that don't live up to the values they profess.

Instead of sending Mr. McClellan out to flog Newsweek, President Bush should have said "... In reaction to an unsubstantiated Newsweek story, Muslims killed 16 other Muslims in Afghanistan in rioting, and no one has raised a peep - as if it were a totally logical reaction. That is wrong.

"In Iraq, where Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni Muslims are struggling to build a pluralistic new order, other Muslims, claiming to act in the name of Allah, are indiscriminately butchering people, without a word of condemnation coming from Muslim spiritual or political leaders. I don't understand a concept of the sacred that says a book is more sacred than a human life. A holy book, whether the Bible or the Koran, is only holy to the extent that it shapes human life and behavior.

And a few days ago, a group of Iraqi journalists actually went to Jordan and got right in the face of Jordanian columnists and editors, demanding to know why they were treating Muslim mass murderers in Iraq like anticolonial war heroes. It's already changed the tone. That's the war of ideas.

The greatest respect we can show to Arabs and Muslims - and the best way to help Muslim progressives win the war of ideas - is to take them seriously and stop gazing at our own navels. That means demanding that they answer for their lies, hypocrisy and profane behavior, just as much as we must answer for ours.

Somebody is Awake Out There: Why Islam is disrespected

It ain't in terms of fundamentals, but we'll take it...


Jeff Jacoby: Why Islam is disrespected , by Jeff Jacoby,May 20, 2005

It was front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed. But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions.

No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah from the flames. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremembered in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable today for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers -- ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" -- was any reader surprised?

The Muslim riots should have been met by an international upwelling of outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek.

From the White House down, the magazine was slammed -- for running an item it should have known might prove incendiary, for relying on a shaky source, for its animus toward the military and the war. Over and over, Newsweek was blamed for the riots' death toll. Conservative pundits in particular piled on. ''Newsweek lied, people died" was the headline on Michelle Malkin's popular website. At NationalReview.com, Paul Marshall of Freedom House fumed: ''What planet do these [Newsweek] people live on? . . . Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article." All of Marshall's choler was reserved for Newsweek; he had no criticism at all -- not a word -- for the marauders in the Muslim street.

Then there was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced at a Senate hearing that she had a message for ''Muslims in America and throughout the world." And what was that message? That decent people do not resort to murder just because someone has offended their religious sensibilities? That the primitive bloodlust raging in Afghanistan and Pakistan was evidence of the Muslim world's dysfunctional political culture? That the Bush administration would redouble its efforts to defeat the Islamofascist radicals who use religion as an excuse to foment violence and terror?

No: Her message was that ''disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States. We honor the sacred books of all the world's great religions."

Granted, Rice spoke while the rioting was still taking place and her goal was to reduce the anti-American fever. But what ''Muslims in America and throughout the world" most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk. What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ''insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ''martyrdom."

But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet's Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion. It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to ''converge on our nation's capital for a rally against terrorism" this month -- and having only 50 people show up.

Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day.

Don't Let This Resolution Pass: Write, Call, Email, Fax, et cetera

This is one way that your freedoms get taken away--it starts with something seeming to be so innocent. For example, who could possibly be against standing up for respecting the Koran and for a resolution which Rep. Conyers calls "...condemns bigotry and intolerance against any religious group..."? If you think this, you could not be more wrong.

The theft of one of your freedoms (following a long precedence) starts with something seemingly innocent, but which actually inserts a deadly virus-like corruptor into the law-making mechanism. It begins with a resolution and, eventually, becomes like England, with people jailed for any accusation of something "offensive" to some religions' members. Finally, it ends with state control of all speech and expression--you may say only what the state wants you to say.

Let's look at some of the details for this so-called resolution:

House Resolution Urges Respect for Koran; Condemns Religious Intolerance -- 05/19/2005: By Susan Jones, CNSNews.com Morning Editor, May 19, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - An Islamic civil rights group is urging all "people of conscience" to support a Democrat-sponsored resolution recognizing that the Koran, like the holy book of any other religion, "should be treated with dignity and respect."

The resolution, to be introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), also "condemns bigotry and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors and citizens of the Islamic faith."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the introduction of the resolution a winning move.Rep. Conyers, who appeared at Tuesday press conference when CAIR announced the Koran giveaway, applauded the effort.Congressional resolutions express the opinion of lawmakers and do not have the force of law.

CAIR is urging its supporters to contact their congressional representatives: "Tell them the allegations of Koran desecration, now withdrawn by Newsweek, hurt America's image overseas. Strong support for this resolution will demonstrate America's intolerance of bigotry and disrespect toward any religious group," the press release said.

The first clue that something is rotten here comes from CAIR's (Council for American-Islamic Relations) mobilizing its Muslim puppets to action. While it might not be 100% of the time true, it seems to be almost axiomatic that, if CAIR likes it, it can't be good.

The second clue that something might be rotten comes from the sycophancy of Rep. Conyers. This man represents Detroit, particularly its large Muslim ghetto. Worse than simply being influenced by this enclave, he himself is so far to the Left that he fully qualifies as a House of Representatives fifth columnist socialist. You can just about make book on the principle, if John Conyers likes it, it has to be bad for America. CAIR + Conyers makes a typical "Unholy Alliance."

Here is some of what CAIR sent to its puppets yesterday by email (repetitious material removed):

SUPPORT CONYERS HOUSE RES. CONDEMNING RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY - TOP

(Washington, DC, 5/18/2005) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called for people of conscience to support a resolution that "recognizes that the Qur'an as any other holy book of any religion, should be treated with dignity and respect."

To be introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the resolution also "condemns bigotry and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors and citizens of the Islamic faith."

"This resolution expresses America's respect for the holy texts of all faiths. If passed, it will also reiterate our nation's condemnation of bigoted behavior and religious intolerance," said Corey Saylor, CAIR's government affairs director. "It's a winner on every front."

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED:

Contact your Representative in the U.S. House (not your Senators) and ask him or her to sign-on to the Conyers resolution condemning bigotry and religious intolerance. (No number has been assigned to the resolution at the time of this release.)

1) Tell them the allegations of Quran desecration, now withdrawn by Newsweek, hurt America's image overseas. Strong support for this resolution will demonstrate America's intolerance of bigotry and disrespect toward any religious group.

2) Ask them to contact Ameer Gopalani in Rep. John Conyers' office at ameer.gopalani@mail.house.gov or 202-223-9307 to sign-on.

3.) SEND A MESSAGE TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE:
http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=issuesAndLegislations
(emphasis mine)

What appears so "innocent" to some, so "benign" to the undiscerning, and so "American," believe it or not, is covert jihad in action. This jihad makes small, non-violent steps, designed to change the electorate and the laws, a piece at a time, until Islam prevails. It is truly the nose of the camel in the tent, a particularly apt metaphor here.

The principle of religious tolerance cannot apply to Islam as long as its central aim is jihad, by any and all means. The aspiration to world conquest and enslavement cannot be permitted or tolerated, no matter that it is like Nazism disguised as a religion. Islam is absolutely dead set to destroy the Consitution of the United States and replace it with shari'a. I did not make that up; that is what Muslims themselves, including CAIR, say, off the record (on record, Muslims glibly lie to your face). And, CAIR has the finest legislator money can buy in its backpocket to assist it.

Another metaphor for this resolution is "trojan horse." If this resolution passes, it has no force of law, but it softens up the politically correct and the real fifth columnists in the Congress for the next step, and we have already stated what the goal is.

Is mine the voice of paranoia? Yes, if you believe that Islam is a religion of peace, one of the great religions, that it teaches love and brotherhood, and that it has no history of any kind which could belie its benign-ness. Yes, if you believe that the Koran is holy and teaches love and brotherhood for all mankind, including non-Muslims. Yes, if you have refused to read a Koran or two, Ishaq's Sira al Rasul, any Ahadith, and the loads of utterly outstanding presentations about Islam. Yes, if you either follow no current events in newspapers, broadcast media, and the internet--or if you refuse to believe the evidence of your senses. Yes, if you believe even that there might be an "Allah," that Muhammad received the Koran by divine revelation, and Muhammad was not what he was.

It is worth the time and effort to let your representatives know the truth about this resolution and some of the truth about Islam. They still might be too chicken to face up to it, but they will know you are there, that you know what's what, and that you won't forget them and how they voted.

Refreshing TRUTH from the New York Times Editorial Page

In his editorial of May 19, 2005, Bashing Newsweek, columnist David Brooks properly bashes all of the USA melodramatists in this Newsweek FUBAR, and he resets CONTEXT.

First, to the woodshed goes Mr. Brooks with the misbehaving children of the right and the left:

...Newsweek's retracted atrocity story has sent everybody into cloud-cuckoo-land. Every faction up and down the political spectrum has used the magazine's blunder as a chance to open fire on its favorite targets, turning this into a fevered hunting season for the straw men. Many of my friends on the right have decided that the Newsweek episode exposes the rotten core of the liberal media. Meanwhile, the left side of the blogosphere has erupted with fury over the possibility that American interrogators might not have flushed a Koran down the toilet. The Nation and leftish Web sites are in a frenzy to prove that the story is probably true even if Newsweek is retracting it. This, too, is unhinged.

With his strop now warmed up, he takes the administration to the woodshed:

Then ... over to the transcripts of administration statements and I can't believe what I'm seeing. We're in the middle of an ideological war against people who want to destroy us, and what have the most powerful people on earth become? Whining media bashers. They're attacking Newsweek while bending over backward to show sensitivity to the Afghans who just went on a murderous rampage. Talk about the bigotry of low expectations.

Then, he and Truth sit down for a cool long-neck:

Maybe we should all focus on what's important. Newsweek's little item was seized and exploited by America's enemies in a way that was characteristically cynical,delusional and fascistic. The people who seized upon this item, like the radical clerics in Afghanistan, are cynical in the way they manipulate episodes like this to whip up hatred and so magnify their own standing. At the same time, they believe everything that could be alleged about America - and more. They've spent so many years inhabiting a delusional mental landscape filled with conspiracy theories and paranoia that you could drill deep into their minds without ever touching reality. Finally, they are strategically ruthless. Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker, who has spent years reporting on extremists, says they use manufactured spasms of hatred to desensitize their followers. After followers spend a few years living through rabid riots and vicious sermons, killing an American or a Jew or even a fellow Muslim seems no more consequential than killing a mosquito. That's how suicide bombers are made.

The sychophantia coming from Washington is appeasing and brown-nosing the real enemy as though a sin had really been committed, when it had not, even if a billion Korans had been used for toilet paper:

The rioters are the real enemy, not Newsweek and not the American soldiers serving as prison guards. Just to restore some proper perspective, let me quote a snippet from a sermon delivered by Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, which ran last weekend on the Palestinian Authority's official TV station:

"The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world - except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquillity under our rule because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew."

Mr. Brooks properly does not absolve Newsweek of its error, but he does not turn that error into the entire issue and make more of the error per se than it merits. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. We could not agree more with your final statements:

These are the extremists, the real enemy. Let's keep our eye on the ball.

How nice it would be to be able to find this kind of editorializing in the Times routinely.

To Our Government: Listen to this Man

We have come to sit up and pay attention when Frank Gaffney speaks and to read whatever he writes.

Know thy enemyJewish World Review May 17, 2005 / 8 Iyar 5765, by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Newseek has apologized. The magazine's editor says he is sorry for printing a possibly "mistaken" article that accused U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo of throwing copies of the Koran into prisoners' toilets. Evidently, Newsweek particularly regrets the murderous anti-American rioting the erroneous report set off in various parts of the Muslim world.

Ironic though it may seem, we might just owe Newsweek a debt of gratitude for its shoddy reportage. After all, it provided a wake-up call to see how quickly and how skillfully our enemies seized upon evidence of America's purported hostility to Islam to advance their own agenda.

But who exactly is the enemy and what is their agenda? The instigators of the riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan and their counterparts elsewhere are adherents more to a political ideology — some call it Islamism, others Islamofascism — than to a faith. Using organizational and coercive tactics taken right out of the Bolsheviks' play-book, this Islamist minority seeks first to dominate the Muslim faith's non-Islamist majority, then the rest of us.

Briefly, we have to take issue with Mr. Gaffney's foregoing statement, the one in italics. Islam is Islam, no matter whether Sunni, Shiite, Sufi, or any others. Islam is a full philosophy, not just a political ideology, which is why it works so well among its adherents. It is also a "faith," and it goes by a number of synonyms such as "Islamofascism." None of that changes anything. Islam is Islam, and what you see and get is what Islam is all about. Occam's Razor applies: We need not try to parse Islam into all sorts of subdivisions. Mr. Gaffney seems to want to preserve the notion of "faith," but the facts of Islam make that untenable. With Islam, philosophy trumps faith totally.

For the Islamofascists, material like the fallacious Newsweek report is a godsend. They portray it as proof positive of undifferentiated Western hostility towards all Muslims. Armed with such evidence, the Islamists then strive to persuade their heretofore peaceable and tolerant co-religionists that there is no choice but to subscribe to the most virulently intolerant interpretations of the Koran — and to join in a divinely ordered violent struggle (jihad) intended to subjugate "infidel" nations and populations.

The implications of the Islamofascists' concerted, highly disciplined and organized and well-financed efforts are ominous. Unfortunately, this is true not only for places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Islamists have held sway forsome time. Or in Saudi Arabia, the financial and ideological well-spring of modern Islamofascism. Islamism is on the march in such disparate places as Western Europe, Bosnia, Indonesia, Latin America and Africa.

Worse yet, Islamofascists are also increasingly a force to be reckoned with in America, as well. A chilling new book by noted author and investigative reporter Paul Sperry makes clear that the Islamists are well advanced in their efforts to bring jihad to a country near you.

In Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington, [We have reviewed this book on 6th Column Against Jihad and recommend it highly]..., Sperry describes in well-documented detail the inroads being made by mostly Saudi-funded Islamist operations in the United States. Many of these operations are headquartered in what he calls the "Wahhabi corridor" — communities in Northern Virginia within a few miles of the Nation's seat of government. Evidence of their progress to date includes:

o The take-over of non-Islamist mosques throughout America. Typically, this is accomplished by way of mortgages provided on favorable terms by Saudi financial institutions. Along with the financing come Wahhabi clerics, textbooks and other materials and the transformation of religious schools into Saudi-style madrassas.

o Islamist recruitment in U.S. prisons. Sperry describes how Sister Susan VanBaalen, who administers the federal prison ministries, has naively allowed problematic organizations tied to Saudi Arabia to proselytize in unsupervised meetings with inmates.

o Muslim chaplains in the American military have been selected, trained and certified by Saudi-funded organizations founded by one of this country's most prominent and best-connected Islamists, Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi is himself now in federal prison, having pled guilty to plotting to engage in terrorist acts.

o Islamist inroads are also being made into the student populations of hundreds of colleges and universities across America by chapters of the Saudis-bankrolled Muslim Student Association.

Sperry's most alarming insights, however, concern the success Islamist organizations have had in penetrating and influencing key government agencies. He documents how the FBI has employed translators of suspect loyalties without adequate background checks. He details how political correctness has replaced common sense as federal agencies like the Pentagon, State Department, law enforcement, the intelligence services and even the White House have "reached out" to groups known to be sympathetic — if not actually tied — to Islamist terrorism.

In some cases, such outreach has served to legitimate the Islamists in question. For example, Sami al-Arian, an erstwhile professor at South Florida University, is defending himself against some 40 federal charges of involvement in terrorist financing and activities on the grounds that he was included in numerous meetings with senior government officials, including George W. Bush.

At the very least, these meetings have facilitated political influence operations aimed at obscuring the distinctions between non-Islamist Muslims and the Islamofascists. Sperry suggests that they have also made possible the placement of individuals who may be affiliated with the latter in key posts inside the U.S. government.

Paul Sperry's Infiltration comes at a time when more and more Americans are recognizing the danger to our security, society and way of life posed by Islamofascists. They see TV dramas like Fox's "24" in which the enemy lives and works among us, even as they plot our destruction. They hear that, by some estimates, as many as 70,000 people described as "other than Mexicans" — many of whom are believed to be from Middle Eastern nations — slipped illegally last year across our inadequately secured borders.

Thanks to Newsweek's explosive gaffe, we now have further reason to recognize the need to isolate and destroy our Islamofascist foes — even as we seek to reach out to and empower truly non-Islamist Muslims. The latter hold the key to defeating our mutual enemy and, thereby, to avoiding the potentially apocalyptic "clash of civilizations" sought by that enemy.

Under present leadership we can just about guarantee a future "clash of civilizations." Since the Newsweek FUBAR, from the White House and the State Department, on down, suits have rushed to console Muslims and to commiserate and apologize for even the suggestion that our great nation and its representative might appear not to take the "holy Koran" as a sacred document. The Right rushed to reassure Islamia that they fully respect the "holy Koran," this "religion of peace," and all religions. As they might say on Jihad Watch, all of these suits have been stepping in the dhimmitude. As a result, we, the USA, look incredibly weak, and that only encourages Islamists. Sycophancy is taking us right off the cliff.

Otherwise, Mr. Gaffney is far, far more correct than not, and he should be taken seriously by Washington.

CAIR and the Reporting of "Hate Crimes"

CAIR is in the news again, reporting of hate crimes and harassment that aren't.

Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha at FrontPage offer scathing report.

Of twenty “anti-Muslim hate crimes” in 2004 that CAIR describes, at least six are invalid – and further research could likely find problems with the other fourteen instances.
Nor is this the first unreliable CAIR report; earlier ones were just as bad. Speaking about the 1996 CAIR report, terrorism expert Steven Emerson noted in congressional testimony that “a large proportion of the complaints have been found to be fabricated, manufactured, distorted or outside standard definitions of hate crimes.”

CAIR is part of the Wahabbi Lobby, "a group of Middle Eastern totalitarians headed by the Saudis that is engaged in a well-financed influence campaign targeting the United States and other parts of the world."

The Saudis are outspending the former Soviet Union in their worldwide influence operations, and much of that money has been spent in the United States, intelligence officials claim. At one point in the 1990s, some $1.85 billion was funneled through a single reputed Saudi front group in Northern Virginia, the SAAR Foundation, to fund Islamist activity, according to SAAR documents reviewed by Insight. Raided by federal agents for suspected terrorist money laundering and now closed, the SAAR Foundation was part of a network of Wahhabi-sponsored political front groups, mosques, charities, educational foundations, youth and student organizations, investment firms and holding companies. Many currently are under federal investigation as part of the Treasury Department's Operation Green Quest to track down alleged terrorist money.

Crying harassment, racism and now hate crimes, knowing these are "trigger concepts" in the West, CAIR is trying to replicate what has been done to Western culture in Europe, the U.K., and Australia where "hate-crime laws" have effectively stifled discussion of Islam and Muslims by non-Muslims who rightfully are concerned about the rapid Islamization of their societies.

In the United States, CAIR has published a slick report that describes how the media, Christian groups, the internet, and society in general have turned against Muslims since 9-11 and with every atrocity committed by overseas extremists, Muslims in the U.S. are being made to feel more afraid in their communities.

Before 9-11 few Americans were interested in Islam. Religion in America is not supposed to be involved in politics. The concept of the separation of church and state is a fundamental American value. Islam does not share this value.

Islam, a complete system, doesn't recognize the separation between mosque and state, mosque and commerce, mosque and the law, and so on. Concerned and aware Americans are now prompting discussion on Islam and immigration as many Muslims in America are immigrants. The uncontrolled borders and immigrants that refuse to assimilate are of great concern to many Americans.

It is true that before 9-11 most Muslims passed through society unnoticed, knowing that ignorance of Islam and Muslim culture kept Americans blissfully unaware of the danger that is moving among us. Islamophobia is a new term coined to stigmatize those that refuse to quietly accept the changes that are being made due to the presence of Muslims in any society, particularly those in the West. Protesters are labeled as irrationally fearful when they protest or even attempt to initiate discussion.

Why does CAIR label protesters as Islamophobes, bigots and racists and and lump together the insignificant with major events, calling them all hate crimes and protesters criminals? Why does CAIR not retract allegations of hate crimes that are proven to be false? Why does CAIR inflate hate crime statistics? These strategies were successful in influencing the parliaments of the Europeans, Canadians, and Australians to pass legislation that gave special protection and privileges to Muslims. In fact the U.S. Senate has been influenced to pass 'the 2000 U.S. Senate resolution inveighing against the “discrimination and harassment” suffered by the American Muslim community.' CAIR, the Wahabbi lobby group, is exerting pressure to affect more legislation in their favor.

A significant question is: Why don't journalists of the mainstream media do sufficient research and report on these matters. Another is: Why are the Wahabbi and other Muslim lobbies allowed to operate within impunity in the U.N. and in the United States to the detriment of the United States?

If the United States is not to follow the path of Europe that is seeing significant and escalating problems caused by the Islamification of European culture, these questions and problems must be addressed and rectified.