Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

ANDREW C. McCARTHY - POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND DOMESTIC TERROR

As I've stated before, I regard Andrew C. McCarthy as the sharpest and most reliable mind around when it comes to Islam and terrorism.  Here, in his recent address at Hillsdale College, he summarizes the facts as they exist and as they are ignored by the politically correct Obama administration.

 

Update 3/19/16 - Hillsdale College has published a slightly edited version of Andrew McCarthy's speech in its February 2016 Imprimus issue.  It is titled "Islam -- Facts or Dreams?" and begins by offering McCarthy's biography:

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. A graduate of Columbia College, he received his J.D. at New York Law School. For 18 years, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and from 1993-95 he led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Following the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the Justice Department’s command post near Ground Zero. He has also served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and an adjunct professor at Fordham University’s School of Law and New York Law School. He writes widely for newspapers and journals including National Review, PJ Media, and The New Criterion, and is the author of several books, including Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotages America.

McCarthy begins his speech thusly:

In 1993 I was a seasoned federal prosecutor, but I only knew as much about Islam as the average American with a reasonably good education—which is to say, not much. Consequently, when I was assigned to lead the prosecution of a terrorist cell that had bombed the World Trade Center and was plotting an even more devastating strike—simultaneous attacks on the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations complex on the East River, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters—I had no trouble believing what our government was saying: that we should read nothing into the fact that all the men in this terrorist cell were Muslims; that their actions were not representative of any religion or belief system; and that to the extent they were explaining their atrocities by citing Islamic scripture, they were twisting and perverting one of the world’s great religions, a religion that encourages peace.

Unlike commentators and government press secretaries, I had to examine these claims. Prosecutors don’t get to base their cases on assertions. They have to prove things to commonsense Americans who must be satisfied about not only what happened but why it happened before they will convict people of serious crimes. And in examining the claims, I found them false. 

QUICK TAKES

    ** On Iraq - Historian Victor Davis Hanson on the Iraq war    The sort of serious analysis and reporting never seen found in mainstream writing (which incidentally throws Trump down from his pedestal)  UPDATE 3/15/16 -  Jay Nordinger's audio interview with Victor Davis Hanson

 

    ** Evangelical leaders on picking a Presidential nominee - Interesting "inside" stuff 

 

    ** Andrew C. McCarthy (the sharpest and most reliable mind around when it comes to Islam and terrorism) writes:  "Why Closing Gitmo is still a terrible idea."

 

    ** Charles Cooke - electing Trump would be "an unmitigated, unalloyed, potentially unsalvageable disaster"  Cooke says Trump must be stopped:  

 

The anti-Trump forces that still make up the majority of the Republican coalition must begin an expedited Manhattan Project, the sole aim of which is to bring down the front-runner piece by unpleasant piece. “If not us, who?” Ronald Reagan asked in the heat of the 1981 budget battle. “If not now, when?” Time to go nuclear, chaps.

WHAT DID OBAMA REALLY SAY AT THE MOSQUE?

Dennis Prager has provided us an invaluable service in reporting what Obama actually said at the Baltimore mosque.  The media gets an "F" for not reporting even 5% of what Prager comments on below.  Prager's article is MUST READING.  He writes:

If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches. But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media's summary of them. When you do, you realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.

The most recent example was his speech last week at a mosque in Baltimore. In addition to reassuring Muslim Americans that they are as American as Americans of every other faith -- – a point that any president, Republican or Democrat, would and should make – President Obama spoke a lot of nonsense, some of it dangerous.

President Obama: "So let's start with this fact: For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam's message of peace. And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam -- peace."

Why did Obama say this? Even Muslim websites acknowledge that "Islam" means "submission" [to Allah], that it comes from the Arabic root "aslama" meaning submission, and that "Islam" is in the command form of that verb.

That's why "Muslim" means "One who submits," not "One who is peaceful."

Obama: "Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Quran."

The reason Jefferson had a copy of the Quran was to try to understand it in light of what the Muslim ambassador from Tripoli had told him and John Adams. When asked why Tripoli pirates were attacking American ships and enslaving Americans, the Muslim ambassador explained that Muslims are commanded to do so by the Quran: "It was written in their Quran that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman [Muslim] who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to Paradise."

That's why Jefferson and Adams had Qurans.

Obama: "And how do we move forward together? ... It can't be just a burden on the Muslim community -- although the Muslim community has to play a role."

Most Americans would say that the American Muslim community has to play "the" role, not "a" role in preventing violent Islam from capturing the minds of American Muslims, and in helping authorities identify extremist Muslims.

BEN CARSON EXPOSES ISLAMIC TAQIYYA

Egyptian born-Raymond Ibrahim writes:

Of all the points presidential candidate Ben Carson made in defense of his position that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” most poignant is his reference to taqiyya, one of Islam’s doctrines of deception. 

According to Carson, whoever becomes president should be “sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Koran”:

“I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country,” Carson said, referencing the Islamic law derived from the Koran and traditions of Islam. “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”

Carson said that the only exception he’d make would be if the Muslim running for office “publicly rejected all the tenants of Sharia and lived a life consistent with that.”

“Then I wouldn’t have any problem,” he said.

However, on several occasions Carson mentioned “Taqiyya,” a practice in the Shia Islam denomination in which a Muslim can mislead nonbelievers about the nature of their faith to avoid religious persecution.

“Taqiyya is a component of Shia that allows, and even encourages you to lie to achieve your goals,” Carson said.

There’s much to be said here.  First, considering that the current U.S. president has expunged all reference to Islam in security documents and would have Americans believe that Islamic doctrine is more or less like Christianity, it is certainly refreshing to see a presidential candidate referencing a little known but critically important Muslim doctrine.  

As for the widely cited notion that taqiyya is a Shia doctrine, this needs to be corrected, as it lets the world’s vast majority of Muslims, the Sunnis, off the hook.  According to Sami Mukaram, one of the world’s foremost authorities on taqiyya, 

ISLAM'S BALD-FACED LIES GOING UP ON BILLBOARDS IN ATLANTA AND AROUND THE COUNTRY

Upset by these signs, Pamela Geller requested Clear Channel to provide her organization (AFDI -"American Freedom Defense Initiative") an opportunity to pay for signs telling the truth.  She writes:

. . .  ICNA’s billboards in Atlanta claim that “Muhammad — peace be upon him — believed in peace, social justice, women’s rights,” along with a phone number to find out more about Islam. They’re planning on having 100 of these billboards around the country by the end of the year, while hosting conferences in various cities around the country about Sharia and Muhammad.  [Ed: ICNA stands for "Islamic Circle of NOrth America}

We countered ICNA’s lies with the truth about Muhammad. Our ad reads, “Muhammad believed in war, denial of rights to women, denial of rights to non-Muslims, deceit of unbelievers,” and directs people to an AFDI website, TruthAboutMuhammad.org. At that site, we laid out abundant evidence for what we said about Muhammad – evidence taken from core Islamic texts.

We submitted our ads to go up in Atlanta in the same areas as the ICNA kitman billboards: Camp Creek Parkway at Desert Drive; at Mountain Industrial Boulevard at Stone Mountain Freeway; and at Chamblee Tucker Road at I-285.We countered ICNA’s lies with the truth about Muhammad. Our ad reads, “Muhammad believed in war, denial of rights to women, denial of rights to non-Muslims, deceit of unbelievers,” and directs people to an AFDI website, TruthAboutMuhammad.org. At that site, we laid out abundant evidence for what we said about Muhammad – evidence taken from core Islamic texts.

Clear Channel rejected our ad, saying it wasn’t very nice. So we submitted a different ad, using Muhammad’s own quotes. That way Clear Channel could not say we were editorializing or opining. Our new ad quoted Muhammad saying, “I have been made victorious through terror”; “I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)”; and “I have been commanded to fight against people.”

Clear Channel rejected that ad, too.

ICNA is dedicated to “establishing a place for Islam in America” – which means a place for jihad and a place for Sharia. ICNA, like the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is a terror front group whose “Muslim advocacy” front masks their true Islamic supremacist agenda. Despite the carefully constructed myth surrounding Muslim Brotherhood groups in America, advanced by a hostile and pro-jihadist media, the truth about these subversives is out there.

DANIEL GREENFIELD - "HOW ISLAM IN AMERICA BECAME A PRIVILEGED RELIGION"

I find Greenfield's article important, incisive, and illuminating. He writes:

What is Islam? The obvious dictionary definition answer is that it’s a religion, but legally speaking it actually enjoys all of the advantages of race, religion and culture with none of the disadvantages.

Islam is a religion when mandating that employers accommodate the hijab, but when it comes time to bring it into the schools, places that are legally hostile to religion, American students are taught about Islam, visit mosques and even wear burkas and recite Islamic prayers to learn about another culture. Criticism of Islam is denounced as racist even though the one thing that Islam clearly isn’t is a race. 

Islamist organizations have figured out how lock in every advantage of race, religion and culture, while expeditiously shifting from one to the other to avoid any of the disadvantages. 

The biggest form of Muslim privilege has been to racialize Islam. The racialization of Islam has locked in all the advantages of racial status for a group that has no common race, only a common ideology.

Islam is the only religion that cannot be criticized. No other religion has a term in wide use that treats criticism of it as bigotry. Islamophobia is a unique term because it equates dislike of a religion with racism. Its usage makes it impossible to criticize that religion without being accused of bigotry.

By equating religion with race, Islam is treated not as a particular set of beliefs expressed in behaviors both good and bad, but as an innate trait that like race cannot be criticized without attacking the existence of an entire people. The idea that Islamic violence stems from its beliefs is denounced as racist.

Muslims are treated as a racial collective rather than a group that shares a set of views about the world.

MUSLIM CALL TO PRAYER TO BE CHANTED EVERY FRIDAY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

Update:  Duke's Muslim call to prayer cancelled.  Franklin Graham is interviewed here.

Breitbart reports:  (HT: Drudge)

In a new initiative to promote religious pluralism, Duke University will broadcast the Muslim call to prayer every Friday on campus. The call to prayer—also known as “adhan”—will be chanted by the Duke Muslim Student Association.

The prayer itself is set to start this Friday at 1:00 p.m. and will be broadcast and amplified from the Chapel bell tower on campus.

As campuses continue to foster political correctness, they use it as a way to favor religions seemingly at war with Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian beliefs.

ANDREW E. HARROD - LGBT AND SHARIA AGENDAS DISPLAY SURPRISINGLY SIMILAR TOTALITARIAN TENDENCIES

Andrew E. Harrod has penned a column that brilliantly and compellingly spells out the similarities between the two aggressive movements - Islamic sharia and Gay Rights.  Both censor and silence opposition.  Harrod:  (HT: VirtueOnline)

. . .  Parallels between these two movements had occurred to me before while reporting on the Family Research Council’s (FRC) Values Voter Summit (VVS).  As discussed here, Christians along with others face violence from sharia-supporting Muslims and legal demands to support phenomena such as same-sex “marriage” (SSM) or abortion.  While some Muslims destroy churches abroad, LGBT advocates along with others destroy businesses at home in a two-front war against Christian faith and morals.

A similar duality exists in the world’s democracies with respect to campaigns against “homophobia” and “Islamophobia.”  As used by their various proponents, these terms define as a phobia or irrational fear any reservation to any beliefs and behaviors of LGBT and Muslim individuals respectively.  For these ideologues only public approval, not just private autonomy, will suffice.

This demand for public approval is perhaps most manifest in the censorship of criticism.  Americans, for example, recently received a graphic display of LGBT wrath in failed attempts to pressure the firing of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.  Analyzing this latest of similar homosexual power plays, various conservatives spoke of “Homosexual jihadists” and a “‘Duck Dynasty’ jihad.”

Abroad, however, individuals have also faced legal repercussions for opposition to LGBT behavior.  Canada, for example, has witnessed a host of legal actions against opposition, sometimes merely spoken, to SSM since this became law in 2005.  Letters against homosexuality in the United Kingdom, meanwhile, have brought police visits and hate speech law warnings.  Swedish Pastor Åke Green also endured a 2004 hate speech conviction due to his pulpit denouncement of homosexuality before the Swedish Supreme Court overturned his sentence in 2005.

ANDREW C. McCARTHY ON "CAIR" - COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS

In an article subtitleld, "The group opposes a law curtailing Jew hatred," McCarthy sets the record straight on CAIR saying:

[...] CAIR is the Muslim Brotherhood bullhorn created to cheerlead for sharia, for Hamas, and for sundry other jihadists — all under the guise of “civil rights.” In unison with its “social justice” collaborators on the left, CAIR is most often found campaigning against “Islamophobia.” This is a term strategically created by the Brotherhood to slur as “defamation” or “incitement” (collectively, “hate speech”) any criticism of Islamic supremacism. That includes the ideology’s undeniable roots in Muslim scripture; its vow to destroy the West from within; and its promotion of terrorism against legitimate sovereign authority, spun as “resistance” against “occupation.”

It is farce. CAIR has no real interest in hate speech per se. Indeed, it has no real interest in civil rights — no proponent of sharia could. Its sole actual imperative is Islamic supremacism: promoting any cause that increases Islamic influence and protesting any effort either to reduce Islamic influence or to subject Islamic-supremacist doctrine to scrutiny. Consequently, CAIR’s precious fretting over hate speech extends only so far as Islam is advanced or imperiled.

U.S. ELEMENTARY AND HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS WHITEWASH ISLAM

How do you react when you become aware of blatant lies being fed our youth?  I find myself upset, angry -- and amazed.  What kind of mentality is so bold as to put forth not only distortions of the truth, but outright, bald-faced lies?   Are publishers in the pay of Saudi Arabia that they would agree to print such material?  How can school districts agree to use these textbooks?   Enquiring minds want to know

Erick Stakelbeck of CBN news reports:

WASHINGTON -- Through the years, American public schools have taught students that Nazism, communism, and other totalitarian ideologies should be opposed.

But when it comes to the current war with Islamic jihadists, public schools are taking a much different course.

According to a new report, students are getting a white-washed version of what our enemies believe, and it could have dangerous implications for America's future.

Sugar-coating Islam

For students in America's middle and high schools, 9/11 is a distant memory. Some were still toddlers when the World Trade Center towers fell.

But if they're looking for answers in their history textbooks about who attacked the United States and why, they may be disappointed.

One 2003 world geography textbook widely used in public schools gives the following explanation for the 9/11 attacks:

"On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four passenger planes, crashing two of them into New York City's World Trade Center and the third into the Pentagon. The devastation and loss of so many lives made the United States firmly resolved to rid the world of terrorism."

Guy Rodgers, a former public school teacher who is now executive director of ACT! for America Education, noted that while the text mentions terrorism or a terrorist attack, it never mentions Islam or that the attackers were Muslim.

"The closest they'll get to it is they'll mention al Qaeda," Rodgers told CBN News. "But they don't typically define what al Qaeda is or describe it."

QUICK TAKES

Chuck Colson - Vending Machine Abortions

When contraception is as convenient as sodas and candy bars, that’s the sign that sexuality has not only been divorced from marriage and procreation, it’s been divorced from any relational responsibility.

The Silence Regarding the Persecution of Christians

According to a Pew Forum study, Christians are being persecuted in 131 of the world's 193 countries (200 million according to the World Evangelical Alliance). (These data are reported in David Aikman, "The Worldwide Attack on Christians" Commentary, February 2012

The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act requires that the promotion of religious freedom worldwide be a part of U.S. foreign policy, but the Obama administration has yet to take a single step under this Act (see here).

Rick Warren Builds bridges to Muslims

The Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest and one of America's most influential Christian leaders, has embarked on an effort to heal divisions between evangelical Christians and Muslims by partnering with Southern California mosques and proposing a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.   Hmmm....  Update: 3/3/12  -IMPORTANT:  The reporter of this story got it entirely wrong.  Rick Warren sets the record straight here. 

Why No Coverage of This Odd Obama Remark about Religion?

"Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance." Obama said this in his June 2009 Cairo speech that the media praised to the high heavens -- literally.

QUICK TAKES

Andrew c. McCarthy - The Sharia Court of Pennsylvania 

A state judge in Pennsylvania has dismissed an assault and harrassment case against a Muslim defendant who admitted attacking the victim. Magistrate Judge Mark Martin, a veteran of the war in Iraq and a convert to Islam, ruled that Talag Elbayomy’s sharia defense — what he claimed was his obligation to strike out against any insult against the prophet Mohammed — trumped the First Amendment free speech rights of the victim.

If you want a little more privacy, you might want to delete your Google browsing history because

As of March 1, Google’s new, “shorter and easier to read” privacy policy will go into effect. At that time, the search giant that also includes products such as YouTube, Gmail and Calendar will begin “[treating] you as a single user across all [of its] products.”   Click here to find out to reduce Google's information about you.

QUICK TAKES

- Fox News - Muslims, Atheists Pressure Military to Remove Christian Speaker

Me: I strongly recommend you read this.  It won't make you happy.  The De-Christianization of America and the U.S. military continues apace under this administration.

 - Townhall - Horrific honor killing in Canada

Click through the headline above for an accompanying Fox video of the same thing happening in the U.S.  Better not say anything, though, or you'll be accused of being an "Islamophobe" (see the first item).  View the following:

Pamela Gellar says of the above interview, The segment is, in my opinion, unprecedented. Never before has this subject matter been discussed so boldly, so forthrightly, so fully, so accurately and so honestly on cable or broadcast news. I have been a frequent guest on Coren's show. He is on the front lines in the defense of freedom.

- U.K. Guardian - Ahmadinejad launches Spanish TV Channel to woo Cuba, So. America

Me: In one of the recent Republican primary debates, I heard Ron Paul asked about Iranian influence in South America and he didn't have a clue.  Rick Santorum, on the other hand, was fully aware and answered brilliantly, expressing appropriate concern.

MUSLIM STUDENTS ASSOCIATION (MSA) - JIHADI RECRUITING TOOL ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES?

From CBN News:  "The Muslim Students Association is one of the largest Islamic organizations in America. Yet some terror experts are saying the group [is] a recruiting tool for jihad."

 

MARC THIESSEN - AL-QAEDA'S AMERICAN-BRED LEADERSHIP

Thiessen writes:

[...]   Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Awlaki lived in the U.S. until he was seven, moved to Yemen, and then returned to the U.S. to attend college, earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University and a masters degree in education from San Diego State. He went on to become one of the most influential radical preachers in the Muslim American community, leading mosques in Fort Collins, Colo., San Diego and Falls Church, Va.. While serving as an imam in California, Awlaki consulted with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, and has been linked to the Fort Hood shooter, the Christmas Day bomber, group of Canadian Muslims who were charged with plotting attacks on the Parliament building in Ottawa, the six men convicted of planning an attack on Fort Dix, N.J., and the 2005 London subway bombers, among other jiahdists. He is now hiding out in Yemen with other AQAP leaders, plotting new attacks, and is considered so dangerous that President Obama has reportedly authorized the CIA to take him out with an unmanned drone. According to Obama counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, AQAP is "the most operationally active node of the al-Qaeda

SHOCKING! MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS BROUGHT ON MOSQUE FIELD TRIP – BOW TO ALLAH (Video)

"Shocking!" is truly the word for it.  "If you read or watch nothing else today," says Andrew C. McCarthy, "take the ten minutes needed to watch the video [below]."   McCarthy writes:

Here is the story. A sixth-grade class in Wellesley, Massachusetts, was dragged by their teachers to the notorious Roxbury mosque — the $15 million Saudi-funded, minareted Islamic center started by Abdurrahman Alamoudi (now serving a 23-year terrorism sentence) and run by the Muslim American Society (the quasi-official arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States). Capitalizing on the goo that passes for “social studied” curricula, parents were told the “field trip” was “to learn about the architecture of the mosque and observe a midday prayer service.” One parent was concerned enough to volunteer as a chaperone and bring along a camera.

The result is stunning: an unabashed exercise in Islamic dawa, the “call to Islam” and the manner by which the Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, Yusuf Qaradawi, promises that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe.” . .  As the video relates, “Dawa Net,” one Islamic organization that instructs on how to use the schools to inculcate the young, explains that public schools in America are “fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students.

 

Americans for Peace and Tolerance, the outfit that released the video, elaborates:

[T]he video reveals that the students are being blatantly mis-educated about Islam. A mosque spokesperson is seen teaching the children that in Mohammed’s 7th century Arabia women were allowed to vote, while in America women only gained that right a hundred years ago. This seems to be an increasingly recurring theme in American schools – the denigration of western civilization and the glorification of Islamic history and values. In fact, just recently, the American Textbook Council revealed that the New York State high school regents exam whitewashes the atrocities that occurred during the imperialistic Islamic conquest of Christian Byzantium, Persia, the African continent, and the Indian subcontinent, even as it demonizes European colonialism in South America.

The mosque spokesperson also taught the students that the only meaning of Jihad in Islam is a personal spiritual struggle, and that Jihad has historically had no relationship with holy war. As far as we know, the school has not corrected these false lessons.

WHY DOES FOX EMPLOY GERALDO RIVERA?

My guess is so FOX can claim a flaming liberal on its payroll.  And flaming liberal he is, complete with the trademark bias, put-downs, unfairness, false equivalences, and nastiness we've come to associate with  his ideological compatriots.  For  the above reasons, whenever his program comes on, my TV goes off.   Except last night. 

Pamela Geller had announced on her blog she would be on his program, and so I tuned in.  Geraldo's treatment of Geller was utterly disgusting.  I searched for an e-mail address to FOX to vent my disgust but couldn't find it.   Geller describes her experience below.  As a viewer, I can vouch for the truth of everything she says:

UPDATE: Geraldo Hit-Job Interview on YouTube

NEW YORK CITY FREEDOM RALLY DRAWS 40,000; MEDIA WON'T REPORT

From Pamela Geller:

Tens of thousands descended upon Ground Zero today to remember those we lost nine years ago, and to save the American principles of freedom that the sharia tramples.

Crickets are chirping in taqiya media newsrooms nationwide (although they were all there). There has been no coverage.

We organized a rally of remembrance that dwarfed the opposition. If the America haters had 4,000, we had ten times more. The media is playing the dueling rallies; it was no such thing.

Free people came from all over the country and all over the world to stand in solidarity with the 911 families and to declare our iron determination that no victory mosque will be built on their graves. The crowd was young and old, black and white ........ politics of all stripes. The crowd was beautiful. The crowd was proud and good and decent America. All the speakers were excellent. Rousing. . .   [more...]

Is the Dutch political figure, Geert Wilder's the Churchill of our time?  Excerpts from his speech at Gound Zero:

 

MUSLIM DOUBLE-TALK: "WE DON'T SUPPORT TERRORISM" - "UMMM, NO, WE WON'T CONDEMN HAMAS"

Andrew C. McCarthy writes:  (my emphases)

Last night, I was on David Asman’s Fox Business Channel show, Scoreboard, debating Imam Dawoud Kringle of the New York State prison system, a GZ mosque supporter. Imam Kringle, who seems like a nice enough fellow, reeled off the usual talking points about how Islam forbids terrorism and, therefore, if someone commits an act of terrorism that act is, by definition, un-Islamic.

Then came the moment of truth: the very simple question, “Is Hamas a terrorist organization?” Have a look at the YouTube clip below. Like his friend Imam Feisal Rauf, Imam Kringle won’t answer the question. I pressed him, pointing out that it is a very simple question. And it is: Quite apart from the fact that Hamas is formally designated as a terrorist organization under U.S. law, Hamas’s own charter makes abundantly clear — indeed, wears like a badge of honor — that Hamas exists solely for the purpose of driving Israel out of Palestine by violent jihad. Yet the imam cannot bring himself to say Hamas is a terrorist organization.

This is a game that sharia-promoting Islamists like Feisal Rauf have raised to an art form. As I explain in the debate, it is why they can look you in they eye, claim in all apparent earnestness that they condemn “terrorism,” and yet excuse Hamas, call for the “one-state solution” for Israel, and support the Iranian theocracy — the leading terrorist state in the world. They do not consider the killing of non-Muslims whom they portray as opposing Islam to be terrorism — they call that “resistance.” They know if they merely say they deplore “terrorism,” the media and the Left will swoon and call them “moderates.” But what you think you’re hearing, and what they’re actually saying, are two very different things.

CAN ISLAM MORPH INTO MODERATE ISLAM?

Not without a major reform movement.   We in the free West need to wake up to that reality sooner  rather than later, and quit kidding ourselves.  That said, what kind of game plan should the Free West employ?  Andy McCarthy offers comments in his post, "Islamophobia" Or Empowering Pro-Western Muslims?:

My column today addresses what I think is the real battle for religious liberty in the Ground Zero mosque controversy. The question is whether, wittingly or unwittingly, we are going to keep supporting authoritarian Islam – the mainstream, sharia-promoting Islam of the Middle East — or expose and marginalize Islamist ideology, in the hope that a real reformist, pro-Western Islam can emerge.

Having worked for a very long time with moderate Muslims, I can tell you it’s disheartening to be called an Islamophobe. Not by the CAIR types — who cares what they say? No, it’s when the charge (or at least the whiff of it) comes from thoughtful people, people like Ron Radosh, whom I admire. When that sort of thing happens, it tells me two things: first, the smear tactics of the CAIR types work; second, maybe I haven’t been clear enough — although God knows I have tried to be — about my position.

I have long argued that: (1) Islam is not a moderate doctrine; (2) Islamists who practice terror and are otherwise aggressive toward non-Muslims (and toward Muslims who disagree with them) are not twisting or perverting Islam; (3) this does not mean that the Islamist interpretation of Islam is the only possible viable interpretation; but (4) a concrete theology of “moderate Islam” does not exist (even though there are plenty of moderate Muslims) and therefore it will have to be created; and (5) because it will have to be non-literal and reformist, it will have a tough time competing with Islamist ideology which, however noxious it may be, has the advantage of being firmly rooted in Islamic scripture. Nevertheless, (6) Islamist ideology is anti-constitutional and anti-freedom in many of its core particulars, so that (7) if, instead of letting them pretend to be “moderates,” we force Islamists to defend their beliefs, we will marginalize them — at least in our society, which (8) will empower true moderate Muslim reformers and — maybe — give them the space they need to solidify a coherent, moderate Islam that embraces the West, and in particular the separation of secular public life from privately held religious beliefs.

There is more to say about all this, not least to observe that we may be arriving at a juncture at which most people of good will agree that Islam as-is is problematic, that promoting real moderate Islam (meaning reformist Islam) is vital, and that our real difference of opinion is how to do it: Do we expose and confront the Islamists, or do we embrace them — as long as they seem not to be terrorists themselves — and hope that we can co-opt them before they co-opt us?

On that point, and many others, I commend readers to Roger Kimball’s stellar response to Ron Radosh’s thoughtful essay. As usual, Roger says a lot of what I want to say — except better than I could say it.

Me: The Roger Kimball post mentioned above is MUST READING

IS THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO?

Yes.   Rich Lowry:

If you wanted to locate a mosque at Ground Zero, it’s hard to see how you could get much closer. The title of the Malyasian edition of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s book, "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Rubble," is not far from the mark, and Ground Zero mosque seems an appropriate, loose way to refer to his project.      [my emphasis]

Obama's comments take mosque controversy national.  (HT: Drudge)

Robert Spencer - Obama's Ramadan Delusions

CHUCH COLSON ON THE PROPOSED MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO

Colson writes:

Sense and Sensibility

As anyone who listens regularly to BreakPoint might guess, I am distressed—aghast, in fact—over the controversy about building a mosque at ground zero.

Earlier this week, the proposed New York City mosque at ground zero cleared its final hurdle. Nothing seems to stand in the way of its construction.

I am appalled that peace-loving Muslims would want to do this on what is, for most Americans, hallowed ground. I am even more appalled that the mayor of New York is in favor of the idea.

It would be like the Japanese building a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor! At a speech in front of the statue of liberty, Mayor Bloomberg made the case for the mosque on the grounds of tolerance. But tolerance isn’t the issue here. And certainly not tolerance as Bloomberg means it. Tolerance used to mean listening respectfully to others’ opinions, even when you disagree. Tolerance as Bloomberg understands it, means “I won’t say no to you for anything you want, and you don’t say no to me for anything I want.”—The ultimate expression of political correctness, and the most certain formula for moral chaos.

HONOR KILLING AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

The remarkable Pamela Geller, Executive Director of SIOA ("Stop Islamization of America") says:

Today the SIOA honor killing victims awareness and aid campaign rolled out in New York City.

Stop Islamization of America's (SIOA) next campaign to reach and educate the American people has hit the streets of Chicago, the first in a nationwide campaign: taxitops! I thought it was a perfect medium to get our message to the people who are hungry, tired of the lies and starving for information that the media is too afraid to provide.

Keep reading for a lot more information.

"BOOK TV" OFFERINGS THIS WEEKEND

I wish our cable system carried "Book TV."  I regard Ayaan Hirsi Ali as one of the most remarkable women of our time.  Here's the announcement:

Saturday 10 PM, Sunday 9 PM,

Monday 12 PM and 3 PM ET 

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations, interviewed by Paula Dobriansky

In her interview, Ms. Ali discusses her memoir about coming to the United States and the life she left behind.  In this follow-up to her bestselling Infidel, she also mentions how the U.S. should handle Islamic fundamentalism, within and outside its borders.   Ayaan Hirsi Ali is interviewed by Paula Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs and current member of the Leadership Council at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.


Another program looks great as well:

Saturday 1 PM ET

Book TV's coverage of the 2010 Eagle Forum Collegians Summit:

The Eagle Forum Collegians Summit is a conference that brings together conservative speakers, authors and college students held annually in Washington, DC. Our coverage from this year's forum includes:

Tom Pauken, Bringing America Home: How America Lost Her War and How We Can Find Our Way Back

Larry Schweikart, 7 Events That Made America America -- And Proved That the Founding Fathers Were Right All Along 

Ian Fletcher, Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace it and Why

George Allen, What Washington Can Learn From the World of Sports 

Chris Horner, Power Grab: How Obama's Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America

David Kupelian, How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America 

Michael Coffman, Rescuing a Broken America: Why America is Deeply Divided and How to Heal it Constitutionally

VIDEO: LYING POLICE REPORT FILED IN DEARBORN, MICHIGAN

As the current phrase blandly puts it, "This is unacceptable."  No, it's more than unacceptable.  It is infuriating and maddening, and must not be tolerated!  When police arrest someone, and then blatantly lie about the circumstances and reason for the arrest, all American citizens must protest and demand that the corruption be cleaned up immediately -- and those responsible pay a steep price!  Dearborn, Michigan has become an unsafe place for anyone but Muslims.   One wonders what tick in the brain has infected the Mayor and police department to suppose they can deprive ordinary citizens of free speech and the rule of law.   The United States must never allow sharia law to trump the freedom of American citizens anywhere in this nation. 

Pamela Gellar posts:

Back in June, four Christians were arrested and their cameras confiscated at an Arab festival for passing out leaflets. Yes, the lefties, the Muslims, the commies, can go berserk at their hate protests, but decent Americans, OTOH, are living in a police-enforced sharia state. The Christians are being represented by the same brilliant legal team that brought my free speech lawsuit against Detroit, The Thomas Moore Law Center.

David Wood and Acts 17 finally got their video cameras back yesterday, and the police didn't even erase the footage. They have them lying about a dozen or so times. They will be posting the footage over the next few days. Here's a video of Negeen's arrest (apparently for telling police officers not to touch her).

Negeen's Arrest at Dearborn Arab Festival

Here's the video footage from Negeen's camera while she was being assaulted by Dearborn Police. In any other city, in any other state, police officers would recognize her Constitutional rights. But this is Dearborn. They can accuse a Christian of anything, and violate her rights in any way they see fit.

If this doesn't make your blood boil, nothing will.

It is reported that more footage is on the way.

GLEANINGS

--  It Begins. Team Obama Now Strong-Arming Outspoken Politicians & Detaining Reporters Near Oil Spill

--  Planned Parenthood Celebrates Independence Day By Pushing For Military Base Abortions

--  Byron York - Obama’s new mission for NASA: Reach out to Muslim world

--  Dennis Prager explains how “world opinion” is a creation of the Left, reported by the Left.

--  Pamela Gellar - Congressional Muslim staffers on capital hill

ANDREW C. McCARTHY - MAN WITH A MESSAGE

Andy McCarthy's new book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, is getting a lot of attention and rightly so.  Here's an excerpt from Diana West's recent column:

Q: Why are Islam and the Left, as you demonstrate in "The Grand Jihad," not such strange bedfellows?

A: "For all their disagreements on matters like women's rights, gay rights and abortion, Islam and the Left are in harmony on big-picture matters: They are authoritarian, totalitarian in the sense of wanting to control all aspects of human existence, virulently anti-capitalist, and regard the individual as existing merely to serve the collective. Consequently, they have the same obstacle in common: our freedom culture - i.e., Western liberalism, U.S. constitutional republicanism, and their foundation, individual liberty. Historically, Islam and the Left ally when there is a common enemy. But I'd stress that what I am talking about here is an alliance, not a merger. I am not claiming, as someone ridiculously suggested to me the day the book came out, that Barack Obama wants to impose Sharia."

McCarthy contends that "our policy-makers obsess over 'one tactic, terrorism' while ignoring terrorism's goal:  Islamization through the implementation of Sharia (Islamic law)."

West asked him to explain.

"From the beginning of my involvement in counterterrorism in the early nineties,  I've been struck by the government's portrayal of terrorists as beasts who kill for no better reason than to kill - as if the fact that they are brutal means that they are insane.  Government does this as part of its narrative that terrorists couldn't possibly be accurately representing a well-grounded interpretation of Islam, and therefore must be `perverting' or `hijacking' Islam, or must be traitors against the `true Islam.'

"There is a logic to terrorism. It is jihad, the purpose of which is to implement, spread, defend or vindicate Sharia, the Muslim legal code. Sharia is deemed in Islamist ideology to be the necessary precondition to Islamicizing a society. Once you realize that, you

THOUSANDS SHOW UP SUNDAY TO PROTEST THE 9/11 MOSQUE

Story here.  Lots of photos.  Pamela Geller:

Robert and I were expecting 500; imagine our wonder when close to 5,000 showed up. This is just the beginning. We are going to sue to designate the Burlington building a war memorial. There is a large piece of an airplane in that building. That is a war memorial. Instead of a mega mosque at ground zero, let's build a 911 war memorial to the victims. The current plan for a 911 museum is several floors underground, like a dungeon. And the mosque plan calls for the mosque to be on the top floor, looking down triumphantly on the burial ground of Ground Zero. 

I don't think so. The Burlington building must be a war memorial, an historic landmark. We will sue to make that happen. We will protest again in September and stage sit-ins in front of the mosque should they try to break ground. Three thousand good and decent Americans did not die in vain.  [more . . .]

Will we see press coverage of this event?  Next to none.  Speaking of press coverage.  British author Melanie Phillips writes of the "Alternative Universe of the Western Left" in which facts mean nothing and commentators' statements are routinely so ill-informed it is embarrassing.

GELLER VS. CAIR

Pamela Geller (blogger at Atlas Shrugged and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America), is emerging as one of the most remarkable women of our time.  In the video below (a good way in), Geller explains how offensive it is for Muslims to build a 15-story mosque near Ground Zero.   Her debating antagonist, Niwad Awad, is the founder of CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations].  One of the reasons I am posting this is for people to know Niwad Awad's pedigree.  He is not the moderate Muslim he pretends to be. Geller writes:  (her emphases)

I was on FOX news tonight. Kimberly Guilfoyle was subbing (thank gawd) for Geraldo the clown. They had me on to discuss the 911 mega mosque at Ground Zero, and who was my adversary? Niwad Awad, Hamas supporter and founder of the unindicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked, Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR.

Awad was quoted as saying at Barry University “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”

How can you tell Niwad Awad is lying? His lips are moving.  And that the mosque is all about "freedom on religion." Yes, CAIR's position of freedom of religion was best illustrated in their vile response to the freedom buses and persecution of Rifqa Bary.

Worse yet, he has the audacity to say that 911 had nothing to do with Islam.

 

Geller continues:

Awad wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the 1994 trial which resulted in the conviction of four Islamic terrorists who had perpetrated the previous year's World Trade Center bombing was “a travesty of justice.” Notwithstanding the confessions of the terrorists, Awad said: "There is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad [Israel’s intelligence agency] and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role in the explosion."

In a 1994 interview with newsman Mike Wallace, Awad was asked if he supported the “military undertakings of Hamas,” to which he replied:

Geller continues:

Awad wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the 1994 trial which resulted in the conviction of four Islamic terrorists who had perpetrated the previous year's World Trade Center bombing was “a travesty of justice.” Notwithstanding the confessions of the terrorists, Awad said: "There is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad [Israel’s intelligence agency] and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role in the explosion."

In a 1994 interview with newsman Mike Wallace, Awad was asked if he supported the “military undertakings of Hamas,” to which he replied:

Dr. BABU SUSEELAN OBJECTS TO MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO

Pamela Geller posts Dr. Suseelan's factual statements about Islam's history and practice.  Susselan offers a succinct appraisal of the threat facing the United States and Western culture.  Anyone reading his list of questions (see below) will find them devastating.  Here is Pamela Geller's introduction, with Suseelan's article following:

Babu Suseelan, Hindu leader and human rights activist,  is a university professor, and psychologist. He is also the Director of Indian American Intellectuals Forum, New York.

He is the author of several published articles on jihadi terrorism and cognitive psychology. He has been an invited speaker at both national and international conferences on jihadi terrorism.

Babu Suseelan will be speaking at the protest against 911 mega mosque.

PRESERVE OUR FREEDOM, PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY; SAY NO TO MOSQUE AT “GROUND ZERO”!

Dr. BABU SUSEELAN

It has been revealed that now Muslims in the U.S have planned to construct two Mosques for the area around GROUND ZERO. There were only 10 Mosques in New York City in 1970. There were over 100 in 2001, including 17 in Manhattan. There is no reason to allow construction of a 15-story Mosque at Ground Zero.

Muslims paid $4.85 million in cash for the property. Islamic leaders have not explained to the public where the cash came from. It is reported that the funding came from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Iran, the leading promoters of Islam jihad around the world. Muslims plan to inaugurate the Mosque on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Those officials who have approved construction of the 15-story Mosque at Ground Zero are not in touch with Islamic reality, and are afraid of jihadi terrorists. Out of fear, they made an irrational decision. Citizens should not now sit on the sidelines. They should confront

Babu Suseelan, Hindu leader and human rights activist,  is a university professor, and psychologist. He is also the Director of Indian American Intellectuals Forum, New York.

He is the author of several published articles on jihadi terrorism and cognitive psychology. He has been an invited speaker at both national and international conferences on jihadi terrorism.

Babu Suseelan will be speaking at the protest against 911 mega mosque.

PRESERVE OUR FREEDOM, PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY; SAY NO TO MOSQUE AT “GROUND ZERO”!

Dr. BABU SUSEELAN

It has been revealed that now Muslims in the U.S have planned to construct two Mosques for the area around GROUND ZERO. There were only 10 Mosques in New York City in 1970. There were over 100 in 2001, including 17 in Manhattan. There is no reason to allow construction of a 15-story Mosque at Ground Zero.

Muslims paid $4.85 million in cash for the property. Islamic leaders have not explained to the public where the cash came from. It is reported that the funding came from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Iran, the leading promoters of Islam jihad around the world. Muslims plan to inaugurate the Mosque on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Those officials who have approved construction of the 15-story Mosque at Ground Zero are not in touch with Islamic reality, and are afraid of jihadi terrorists. Out of fear, they made an irrational decision. Citizens should not now sit on the sidelines. They should confront

MORE ON THE 9/11 MOSQUE TO BE BUILT IN NEW YORK CITY

This is excellent and well worth seeing.  (6 1/2 minutes)  I have a previous post on the proposed mosque at Ground Zero here.

DOES AMERICA WANT TO SEE A MOSQUE BUILT CLOSE TO "GROUND ZERO"?

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer answer with an emphatic "NO!" with which I emphatically agree.  Please read their summary of the story and the reasons why building a mosque so close to Ground Zero demonstrates insensitivity and triumphalism.  Short excerpt:

How does this mosque honor those who were “harmed” – i.e., brutally murdered — on September 11? Whom does a mosque at 9/11 really honor: the Americans who lost their lives, or the jihadis who murdered them?

Debra Burlingame of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, whose brother died in the Pentagon on 9/11, declared: “This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists. I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened.” . . .

There is ample support for the idea that this Islamic Center is an insult to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Throughout Islamic history, wherever they have conquered, Muslims have converted non-Muslim houses of worship into mosques and built mosques on the holy sites of other religions. The Dome of the Rock, built on the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus built over the Church of St. John the Baptist, and the Aya Sofya mosque in Istanbul, formerly the grandest church in Christendom, are three notable examples among a great many. While at Ground Zero the mosque is not being built over the site of a synagogue or church, the same pattern of conquest and supremacism is in evidence: the World Trade Center site was a symbol of American economic power; the 9/11 Mosque is a symbol of the conquest of that power.  [more . . .]

Geller and Spencer announce the following:

The new group,  "Stop Islamization of America," is holding a rally against the 9/11 Mosque on June 6 in lower Manhattan.  9/11 families and freedom fighters including ex-Muslim human rights crusader Nonie Darwish and ex-slave Simon Deng will be speaking. . .

Huckabee video: Pamela Geller talks about 9/11 mosque at Ground Zero on Huckabee's TV program here.

ERIC HOLDER, THE U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY DOESN'T WANT TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT RADICAL ISLAM

Pathetic!  Utterly pathetic.  Andy McCArthy says:

This YouTube clip [below] from the attorney general's testimony today will be the most painful two minutes of video you will ever watch. Mr. Holder would obviously rather get a root-canal than utter the words "radical Islam" (despite the fact that his description of the American people as "a nation of cowards" on race and of Bush officials as war criminals seemed to roll of the tongue without much difficulty).

You'll be pleased to discover, via the AG, that there is an infinite variety of reasons why Muslims commit terrorist attacks. Those reasons, of course, have nothing to do with Islamic doctrine, which is why, even as we speak, agents are struggling to understand what might possibly have driven Faisal Shahzad to try to blow up Times Square. . .  How can you ever hope to stop something when you refuse even to speak its name?   [more . . .]

PENTAGON DISINVITES FRANKLIN GRAHAM FROM PRAYER SERVICE OVER ISLAM COMMENTS

HotAir covers the story well and includes a portion of a Sally Quinn interview with Graham.   He doesn't back down from his 2001 statement in which he referred to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion."  He cites Islam's treatment of women.  

“[I]f you look at what the religion does just to women, women alone, it is just horrid. And so yes, I speak out for women…”

I honor Franklin Graham's forthrightness.   "Political correctness" tyranny must be broken by men and women with the courage to speak the truth.  Bravo! 

Unfortunately, the media turns a blind eye to anything negative about Islam.  Take the attempted censorship of the signs on buses in south Florida offering help to those wanting to leave Islam.   You hadn't heard?  Read the CNS coverage, one of only two news outlets to cover the story. 

Then there's also the media cover-up of Ohio jihadist's arrest.  Of related interest is Comedy Central's submission to Islamic intimidation. 

I was shocked (and encouraged), that CNN interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali a couple of days ago.  She's an outspoken critic of Islam.

"LEAVING ISLAM" AD CAMPAIGN BEGINS IN SOUTH FLORIDA

- Update 4/18/10 - Pamela Geller writes:

Looks like Muslims and apostates who want to be free are in desperate need of the SIOA bus ads. Miami Dade capitulated to Muslim Brotherhood bullying and supremacism and killed the ads, and we are suing.

- (Original Post) Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have teamed up to found a new movement: "SIOA" - "Stop the Islamization of America."  They have created signs on Miami buses that offer help and hope to those who fear being killed by relatives or other Muslims should they choose to leave Islam.  Pamela Geller writes:

This is the first time anyone has offered public help to those who are threatened under Islam's apostasy law. In the Land of the Free, government and law enforcement should be on this. But they aren't. So we are. It is time for free citizens to stand for freedom -- or lose it.

Here are some photos:

Geller says the ad campaign is designed to counter the deceptive bus campaigns that Muslim Brotherhood groups (CAIR, ICNA, ISNA) have sponsored across the country inviting conversion to Islam (dawah) such as the following:

 

Pamela Geller's message to those contemplating leaving Islam is:

America is the land of the free, and apostates must know they are free here. Safe here.

Rifqa Bary can do it. So can you. Freedom of religion is an unalienable right. Sharia law holds no weight or legitimacy here. Apostates are deliciously free to leave Islam and be who and whatever that want to be.

That was the objective of the bus campaign created for SIOA and FDI. We set up a website RefugefromIslam.org for would-be apostates from Islam.

We want to help.

Me: Good for Pamela and Robert!

UPDATE: Robert announces it here.

RIFQA BARY - WHY HER CASE IS SO IMPORTANT

- Update 1/16/10 - Pamela Geller reviews all the news she herself has  broken in the Rifqa Bary case, none of which the major news organizations have reported. 

- (Original post) - Jamal Jivanjee (her close friend) says: [my emphases]

The next important date for you to put on your calendar is Thursday January 28’th.  This is the date that her trial for dependency is set to begin.  Obviously this date may change, but at this point this is the date that the Franklin County juvenile court has set for her trial regarding dependency.

 . . . I am convinced that God has elevated Rifqa’s case to one of the most significant cases in our nation today.  I am convinced that Rifqa’s life of tremendous love for Jesus and commitment to radical prayer in the face of tremendous suffering is a challenge and example to much of the sleeping institutional American church.  In addition to challenging the American church, Rifqa’s courage in standing up against the brutality and injustice that many other women and converts out of Islam face from Islamic ideology is breaking the dam of fear that millions of others currently live under.  Simply put, Rifqa’s courage to live will continue to give scores of people the courage to break free from this bondage as well.    

The key factor in all of this is Rifqa’s testimony.  Since the beginning of all of this, there has been a concerted effort to keep Rifqa quiet, and her testimony from getting out.  There has also been a concerted effort to direct attention away from what is really important in this case…Rifqa’s story!  The enemy knows that the more that Rifqa’s life is made known, the more that the truth will be exposed.  Groups like C.A.I.R. have an agenda to paint a positive picture of Islam at any cost, and that is why this powerful national organization is advising and directing Rifqa’s parent’s attorneys in their attack against her character and testimony, as well as an attack against those that have helped her.   

. . . Please pray for Rifqa to have wisdom and much courage in the days ahead regarding decisions that she will need to make, and please pray for an opportunity for Rifqa to get the truth out to the court and the nation regarding her true testimony of Jesus, and the threat and opposition that she faced as a result.  I believe this is very significant!

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs has more.  Important stuff...  Rifqa remains isolated; she still has no visitor's list!  As Geller says,

This isolation is a form of psychological torture. I thought Obama said no torture for jihadists. So why is a girl in America, guilty only of freedom of religion, allowed to be psychologically tortured? This is mental abuse, and the fact that the parents are behind it with a terror organization as their hatchet man speaks volumes as to what would happen to Rifqa if they ever dared to send her home. . .

PAMELA GELLER: RIFQA BARY BEING OUTLAWYERED, OUTFOXED, AND OUTGUNNED

  Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs is frustrated and angry that Rifqa Bary isn't getting better, wiser, and shrewder legal representation.  Rifqa's parents are being represented by a CAIR-appointed lawyer who is outmaneuvering Rifqa's lawyers.  Read about the developing situation here. 

Embedded in Geller's post is a plea from Wafa Sultan that was originally published here.  Sultan is an expert on Islam.  Of her Geller says:  "Author, writer, speaker, Sultan was born to a Sunni Muslim family in Baniyas, Syria. Sultan trained as a psychiatrist in Syria and is a US naturalized citizen."

Sultan writes:  (my bolding)

I was born and raised as a Muslim in Syria. I practiced Islam for thirty years of my life. Now I am a known human rights activist striving to save our future Muslim generations  from the impact of the violent, hateful Islamic doctrines embedded in the Sharia. My life is also threatened, not only by my own extended family, but by countless men who consider themselves devout Muslims. Under Sharia, if a Muslim leaves Islam or converts to another religion he / she is an “apostate,” to be killed. Under Sharia every Muslim has the right to kill such an apostate without any questions asked.  [more . .]

Me:  That American "educated elites" refuse to believe the universal testimony  of apostate killings under Sharia [Islamic law] is quite incredible.  Beyond that, it is disgusting.  Political correctness refuses to believe that a religion could be so barbaric.  Naivete and political correctness go together.  At some point, people will invariably recognize the politically correct for the fools they are, but by then it may be too late.  Let us hope and pray that Rifqa Bary survives her Muslim "apostasy" and that the U.S.legal system awakens to the danger in which she remains.

Incidentally, we may send New Year's cards to Rifqa at the following address: 

Rifqa Bary c/o Angela Lloyd 255C Drinko Hall 55 West 12th Avenue Columbus, OH 43210.

WHERE IS RIFQA BARRY? WHY IS SHE NOT ALLOWED CONTACT WITH FRIENDS?

Rifqa Barry, the teenage Muslim girl who embraced Christianity is being held in virtual house arrest.  Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs posts the following:

In the most egregious violation of Rifqa's Bary's civil rights, Rifqa is being denied essential contact with the outside world.

Her laptop has been confiscated. And now friends of hers are being denied the right to see her. And the couple of people who were allowed to see her in the past were fingerprinted.

She has been in Ohio for two weeks, and still there is no "pre-approved list" of visitors for Rifqa. On more than one occasion Rifqa has asked and been denied her request to see friends. At a previous almost covert hearing that was held, Mohamad and Aysha Bary moved to restrict her visitation, and it seems they succeeded.

Can any outside pressure be applied? How do we know she is all right? How do we know she is not being psychologically pressured?

She has not been granted pastoral care. She is being denied the freedom to practice her religion. Where are Rifqa's protectors? Who speaks for Rifqa? 

Inmates in prison get visits from their clergy. She is not being afforded the right of prisoners. She has not committed any crime. Why can't friends see her? One of the people who spoke to

FOOLISH DIVERSITY LED TO DEATH

Michelle Malkin posts an excellent and comprehensive article.

LIGHT BLOGGING. . . ON THE ROAD

Yesterday I had poor internet access and was unable to do any blogging. 

The most comprehensive reporting on Major Nidal Malik Hasan and the Fort Hood shooting remains Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugged.  She is doing outstanding reporting on the Muslim aspect of this terrorist act.  The Arab street is rejoicing.  I like the irony of this: it was an American woman who took down the jihadist.  Check Atlas Shrugged for updates and links.

UPDATE: Frank Gaffney, in reporting on President Obama's strange comments on the Ft. Hood incident, notes:

. . . Perhaps the president publicly handled this attack as he did because he was unsettled by the fact that the alleged shooter is a devout Muslim, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who evidently adheres to the theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.”

Now, Shariah requires its adherents to engage in jihad — the imposition of Islam, by force wherever possible. This reality was characteristically obscured by Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim Brotherhood front and unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism financing conspiracy.

During a news conference, he preposterously declared: “No political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.”

Actually, Shariah not only justifies such violence but also demands it.

To cite but one example of the requirement for individual Muslims to wage jihad, Shariah expert Andrew Bostom observes that the influential Ottoman cleric, Sheikh Shawish, wrote in 1915:

“To whoever kills even one single infidel of those who rule over Islamic lands, either secretly or openly, there is a reward like a reward from all the living ones of the Islamic world. And let every individual of the Muslims in whatever place they may be, take upon him an oath to kill at least three of four of the ruling infidels, enemies of Allah, and enemies of the religion. He must take upon him this oath before Allah Most High, expecting his reward from Allah alone, and let the Muslim be confident, if there be to him no other good deed than this, nevertheless he will prosper in the day of judgment and we ask the Most High to extend the People of the Faith by the favor of their Lord.”

In short, the Fort Hood “outburst of violence” (to use the president’s formulation), looks like the first successful incident of jihadist mass murder in America since 9/11. This could not be a message happily conveyed by a chief executive committed to “outreach to the Muslim world” and so deprecating of his predecessor, who had managed for seven years to prevent such incidents here in America.

[ more . . .]

ARIZONA WOMAN RUN DOWN BY HER FATHER IS DEAD IN HONOR KILLING

Robert Spencer has the story. 

Yet another honor killing in the United States. An update on this story. A press release from the Peoria, Arizona, police department (thanks to Lee): Victim run down by her father dies Noor Faleh Almaleki dies from injuries received on October 20, 2009.  [more ..]

Pamela Geller chimes in:

No more martyrs. No more dead girls. Stand up for your children, your daughters, your wives, your lovers. STAND UP AGAINST ISLAMIC LAW. Another terrible  addition to the gruesome gallery of Islamic gender apartheid.

Rally for Rifqa's Civil Rights on November 16th.   Jamie Glazov of Frontpagemag interviews Geller about the rally for Rifqa here.

ISLAMIC "HONOR KILLINGS" IN THE UNITED STATES

Robert Spencer writes on the Arizona Muslim who "ran down daughter for rejecting Iraqi values."  Spencer is interviewed below on Fox and Friends:

BREAKING:  Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs tells us that THE FLORIDA JUDGE HAS ORDERED RIFQA BARY BACK TO OHIO DESPITE ISLAMIC THREAT.

Geller writes:

UNBELIEVABLE: Judge Dawson has ordered Rifqa Bary back to her home state. This despite the horror described in her testimony in the FDLE report (here). The welfare of this child had nothing to do with the submission to sharia in this case. It was apostasy, and yet Islam was never put on trial. But it should have been.

This girl is not safe in Ohio. Period.  

Me:  This is terrible news.  Officials in the United States are unbelievably ignorant about Islam and honor killings.  For the history of the case and continual updates, see Pamela Geller.  Her post today includes photos of victims of honor killings from around the globe.

Update 10/24/09: Audio of Rifqa Bary's interview to FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) is available here.

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY: FREE SPEECH OUT THE WINDOW?

David Horowitz writes about the hate campaign at Temple University:

Everywhere you look these days Americans’ most basic freedom is under attack by the jihadists of the international left. The infamous UN Human Rights Commission which includes the worst human rights violators on the planet (now joined by the Obama Administration) has recently passed a resolution against religious defamation — defined as linking Islamists to terrorism. At home Democrats have attached a “hate crimes” amendment which would make thinking a crime to the new defense appropriations bill.

“ISLAM ON CAPITOL HILL” EVENT ATTRACTS FAR LESS THAN EXPECTED

- Update: Pamela Geller posts extensive photos of the event and draws on an Amil Imani commentary that argues Muslims and Muslim organizations are guilty of dissimulation and fraud in representing Islam in the West.

- (Original Post) - Joel Rosenberg offers an excellent report and challenge:

Islamic leaders predicted 50,000 Muslims would arrive on Capitol Hill today to provide a show of Islamic solidarity. It didn’t quite turn out that way.

Less than 3,000 Muslims showed up, according to the Washington Post and other eyewitnesses. And those who did got more than they had bargained for. The followers of Muhammad came for a day of prayer and Islamic sermons, which they got. But they also found dozens of followers of Jesus Christ — some of them evangelicals from from Arab countries — eager to share the gospel with them and pray for them to find the love and forgiveness found in the Bible.

“Our church prepared 2,000 packets to be given out to Muslims at the end of the event,” an evangelical Christian woman who lives in the Washington, D.C. area told me in a phone

IMPORTANT WEBSITE: "FORMER MUSLIMS UNITED"

Today I learned of the website, "Former Muslims United" from Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs which has been following the case of the young former Muslim, and now Christian,  Rifqa Bary (see also here). "Former Muslims United" plans a news conference for September 24th at which it will "call on the Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate possible hate crimes and civil rights violations against apostates from Islam, including the circumstances of the current Florida case of 17-year old Rifqa Bary, a former Muslim."  It also plans to release FMU's groundbreaking text, “Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims.”  These developments strike me as extraordinary.  May God bless these efforts which, properly understood, must be viewed as heroic. 

At the FormerMuslimsUnited website, one can find a link to Dr. Andrew Bostom's important article, Apostasy and the Islamic Nations which shows how the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam blatantly contradicts the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the United States Bill of Rights.   Bostom cites the Muslim texts that demand the killing of apostates, a chilling reality that has yet to penetrate the minds of uncomprehending Western multiculturalists.

(See my former post on Rifqa Bary here).

HAVE YOU HEARD OF RIFQA BARRY, THE YOUNG MUSLIM APOSTATE IN AMERICA?

Pamela Geller, whose blog, Atlas Shrugs, has been covering Rifqa Barry's story more extensively than any other, answers questions from Jamie Glazov of FrontPageMag.  It's a great introduction to an important story largely ignored by the MSM!!  It's the story of a an American teenage girl of Muslim background (Rifqa Barry) who became a Christian four years ago but who has had to flee her family because her life is in extreme danger due to the "honor killing" teachings of Islam.  Read Pamela Geller's explanation of Rifqa Barry's story here, and be sure to view the heart-rending video of Rifqa Barry.  Read the archives and keep following the story every day at Atlas Shrugs.

NORTH CAROLINA JIHAD

Robert Spencer reports:

Six American citizens and one U.S. permanent resident were charged in North Carolina with, according to the Justice Department, “conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.” The indictment centers around the activities of an American convert to Islam, 39-year-old Daniel “Saifullah” Boyd (a drywall contractor who was apparently the ringleader of this group). It reveals yet again the international scope of jihadist activity – giving the lie to the common Leftist assertion that various jihads around the globe are isolated nationalist insurgencies with no connection to one another.   [more. .]

CHICAGOLAND CONFERENCE: "THE FALL OF CAPITALISM AND RISE OF ISLAM"

You may have heard of this conference held in Oak Lawn, Il. a suburb of Chicago.  Steven Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, reports:

While Hizb ut-Tahrir, a pro-jihadist group which met openly near Chicago last weekend, is surprisingly candid about its desire to re-establish an Islamic Caliphate, literature available at its conference shows the group also views Christians and Jews as untrustworthy enemies of God.

More than a dozen issues of a Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) newsletter called The Shield were obtained from the conference by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The publication repeatedly condemns interfaith "outreach initiatives" and shows HT believes in the death penalty for Muslims who leave the faith.

HT pushes a radical ideology that is similar to Al Qaeda, although the organization claims it does not carry out terrorist attacks. It has glorified jihadism and excoriated the terrorist organization Hamas as being too soft on Israel. In a leaflet posted on its website July 1, HT argued that if the Caliphate were in existence, all of "Palestine" would be rid of "the usurpation of the Jewish occupiers" and brought "to the fold of the Islamic state."

Turkish authorities meanwhile, arrested more than 200 HT members Friday, although it is unclear what prompted it. The group is banned in Turkey.

Last week, U.S-based HT members gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Oak Lawn, Ill. for a conference called "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam." In addition to speakers' calls to fight "to

CHRISTIAN GROUP BARRED FROM SIDEWALK HANDOUTS AT ARAB FESTIVAL IN DEARBORN, MI

According to the Family Research Council, the Dearborn Arab International Festival is expected to draw 300,000 people.  FRC reports:

Dearborn's Muslim population, which is about 30 percent of the city, wields strong political influence. So strong, in fact, that the city's ordinances were modified in 2004 to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast across the city five times a day.

Yesterday morning, two Christians were detained and questioned by police for over four hours. Their crime? Distributing Bibles on a public sidewalk. Organizers of the festival had adopted a policy that restricted the Arabic Christian Perspective (ACP) from disseminating religious materials or sharing their faith on the public sidewalks around the event. Although the Christians were later released, city officials told ACP that their activities would have to be limited to a booth at the festival.

One News Now has details about the Arab Festival and the denial to the Christian group.  Literature distribution would be limited to a designated table-and-booth section of the festival site.