The controversy surrounding the show has spread beyond the Florida conservative group which began it. Just this week, as Jim Hoft reports, WordPress took down the blog Bare Naked Islam, which had been calling for the show’s cancellation. (Though the reasons cited by WordPress don’t specifically include a reference to the show.) They were also getting attacked from the Left, as PETA blasted them over one woman’s decision to give up her ten year old dog.

Lining up on the opposite side of the aisle, hip hop artist Russell Simmons took the side of the show, being joined by Mia Farrow. He called for a boycott of Lowe’s, (though I’m not sure what that’s supposed to accomplish) and bought advertising time during the broadcast himself.

So has the show benefited in the form of higher ratings amid all the Sturm und Drang, as I speculated it might earlier this month? The premier episode actually did fairly well, with more than 1.7 million viewers and a .9 overall rating, though it dropped nearly 50% over the next couple of weeks. The impact on the ratings from these stories seems to be… not so much.

TLC’s ‘All-American Muslim’: Controversy Does Not Equal Ratings

It would appear members of the conservative Florida Family Association are among the few actually paying attention to TLC’s All-American Muslim.

The reality series about Muslim families living in suburban Detroit, which lost advertising from Lowe’s and other brands after FAA condemned it as propaganda, is languishing in the ratings.

Only five episodes into its first season, the series ranked 78th among Sunday’s cable broadcasts for Dec. 11. With only 908,000 viewers and a 0.3 rating among adults 18-49, it’s being easily outperformed by series like History’s American Pickers, Discovery’s Moonshiners and its latest lead-in, Little People Big World: Holiday Surprise.

We’re still waiting for the confirmed numbers for the last episode, but the trend lines don’t seem to indicate that all of the shouting over the subject matter is causing viewers to come back in droves.

Apparently, when the findings of the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear weapons program are compared to earlier reports crafted by “moderate” Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei, the obvious conclusion is that ElBaradei was working for the Mullahs. ElBaradei has since moved on. He’s now one of the leading candidates vying to be Egypt’s president.

###

ynetnews.com, 11/9/11

Israeli officials: ElBaradei an Iranian agent

Senior state officials accuse former IAEA chairman of covering up for Islamic Republic during his term, allowing Iranians to move ahead with nuclear program while playing for time. ‘He is a despicable person,’ one of them says.

Senior Israeli officials said Tuesday night that the International Atomic Energy Agency report stating that Iran has been working on developing a nuclear weapon design proves that the former UN nuclear watchdog chairman “was an Iranian agent”.

The former IAEA chairman, Mohamed ElBaradei, is an Egyptian diplomat who even won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

For years he defended the Iranian nuclear program, claiming that it was peaceful, thus allowing the Iranians to continue their activity with the nuclear watchdog’s seal of approval.

According to one of the state officials, the new report published Tuesday proves “just how much he was working for the Iranians.

“He simply rescued Iran and was constantly busy covering up for them, causing serious damage by allowing the Iranians to fool the entire world and play for time. History may judge him as the person who helped Iran obtain a nuclear weapon.

“The things exposed now are not new. These are old things which were hidden and not published,” the official added. “Now it turns out that ElBaradei led an active policy of concealment and disregard. This is very serious. He is a despicable person.”

“ElBaradei didn’t just mess us up, he messed up the entire sane world,” added Uzi Eilam, former head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Agency. “He was dishonest his entire term. He is the one who stopped the Security Council from imposing serious sanctions, providing the Iranians with precious time.”

Gee, after the multi-billion dollar Oil-for-Food scandal; the IPCC Global Warming Bunko Scam; mass-murder in Darfur; the Rwandan genocide; accusations of rape and child pornography in the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, and Sudan; and ties to a North Korean counterfeiting operation, who could have suspected a corrupt U.N. was helping the Iranians acquire nukes?
 
 
Related: “The Atomic Mahdi.”

The article that caused the stir appeared last Monday, though the details of the PA’s galling plan was available as early as May. The Mail report noted that the PA has authorized payments of £5million ($8.2 million) to the families of “martyrs” (aka suicide bombers) and £3 million ($4.9 million) to the 5,500 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Approximately half of the PA’s operating budget comes from U.S. foreign aid.

But the story gets even more outrageous when you consider that some of the victims of PA terrorism are American citizens in Israel. In essence, the U.S. government is using taxpayer funds to finance the murder of its own citizens.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Nadler writes:

The U.S. has provided about $2 billion in bilateral aid to the Palestinians between fiscal year (FY) 2009 and 2011.  Of that, $800 million went directly to the PA government.  President Obama has asked for $200 million more for the PA government in FY 2012.  It is abhorrent to learn that such foreign aid is possibly being used to support terrorist attacks on Israel….

At a time when our own nation is in dire economic straits, can we really afford to increase the amount of foreign aid we give to those bent on our destruction and that of our allies?

Two weeks ago, the president wore out his lungs and voters’ patience asking people to contact their members of Congress to fight his battle against House Republicans. Now would seem to be an even better time for concerned citizens to contact their elected officials to ask them to oppose the president’s mind-boggling plan.

Related Articles

• Tea Party terrorists and the left’s civility pledge
• The Sore Loser Party threatens to hold its breath (Video)
• Obama’s approval rating hits new low of 40%, loses 40K Twitter followers

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

According to the International Islamic News Agency, in the next few months, the US will host a meeting with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to coordinate implementing UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on “combating defamation of religions.” (H/t: JihadWatch, Next 2 Cents) The report indicates the meeting will look at the following:

…how to prevent stereotypes depicting religions and their followers; as well as disseminating religious tolerance, which has been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council last March, in agreement with Western countries. The resolution was adopted after lengthy discussions held between the OIC and countries in which the phenomenon of Islamophobia is in the rise.

The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had announced the intention of the U.S. State Department to organize a coordination meeting during her participation in the meeting which she co-chaired with the OIC Secretary General, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Istanbul on 15 July 2011. The meeting issued a joint statement emphasizing the dire need for the implementation of resolution 16/18. … the two sides, in addition to other European parties, will hold a number of specialized meetings of experts in law and religion in order to finalize the legal aspect on how to better implement the UN resolution.

The sources said that the upcoming meetings aim at developing a legal basis for the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution which help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.

It is natural to mentally connect the timing of this with the Anders Breivik attack in Norway, and there may be something to that.  I suspect it may be related as well to the prospect of the execrable “Durban III” conference at the UN headquarters in New York in September.  The Durban conference series — started in Durban, South Africa and nominally about racism and discrimination – has been dedicated to the crassest anti-Semitism and the propagation of lies about Israel.  But it has also had a persistent side interest in “defamation of religion.”  The US will not have a delegation at the Durban III conference because of its anti-Semitic, anti-Israel character, but Hillary Clinton may well be attempting to generate momentum for a separate, US-led effort to address “religious defamation.”

A number of commentators have warned that Resolution 16/18 is a pretext for shutting down critical, independent examination of Islam and Islamism – and with good reason, considering the case of Austrian Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff.  This case provides a peep into how national laws against defaming religion would work in the West.  Ned May had a good summary of the outcome of her case at Big Peace earlier this year (emphasis added):

On February 15, 2011, the Austrian anti-jihad activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted of hate speech in a Vienna courtroom. The original charge against her was “incitement to hatred”. On the second day of her trial, the judge decided to add a second charge, “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion.” The latter count is the one on which Elisabeth was convicted.

That means what it sounds like.  Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted by an Austrian court for “denigrating the religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion.”  If you do any research at all about her, you discover that the background of her work is a lot of seminars and writings in which she simply adduces facts and discusses them.  There are no drawings of Mohammed or burned Qurans or provocative videos lampooning Islam lurking in her closet.

Even if there were, most Americans would agree that there are no circumstances under which these should be punishable offenses.  Christianity is relentlessly denigrated, after all, frequently in the most offensive terms, in the nominally “Christian” nations – including Austria – and no one is prosecuted for it.  Intellectual freedom means, precisely, that people can criticize religions, and the form of such criticism is subject – and properly so – to very few limitations of law (e.g., libel laws that apply to any forms of “speech,” enforced on general principles and not on guidelines specific to commentary on religion).

The Sabaditsch-Wolff case illustrates perfectly why special limitations on criticism of religion are unacceptable.  They are impossible to enforce reasonably.  What “some people may be offended by” is not a sound basis of law and punishment:  some people are offended by provocative depictions of Mohammed, and consider it reasonable to be so, whereas others are offended to the point of homicidal rage by the assertion that Mohammed was not God’s prophet and the doctrinal tenets of Islam are invalid.  Yet one cannot be a believing Christian or Orthodox Jew without agreeing with the latter assertions.

Does holding one religious belief inherently constitute denigrating another religious belief?  Pakistani jihadists who murder and torture Christian converts would say so.  Do we agree?  And what about atheists, who use their intellectual freedom to assert that the context of who is or isn’t God’s prophet doesn’t even exist?  They would seem to be engaged in denigrating religion 24/7 – are they to be punished under law?

This is not merely a matter of people agreeing to remain silent about religion and each other’s beliefs – although that would be unacceptable enough.  Colleges would have to close religious studies departments under a regime of such intellectual repression.  Media outlets would find it virtually impossible to cover religious topics.  Why could they not be punished for “denigrating” the Branch Davidians by implying that they were child abusers?  Indeed, the New York Times, the UK Guardian, and Norway’s Dagbladet could all be prosecuted for implying that Christianity is what caused Anders Breivik to blow up a government building and shoot dozens of people on Utoya Island.  In the entertainment realm, the Law & Order franchise would quickly find itself in court for its frequent insinuations against Christianity and its sometimes condescending depiction of Judaism.

But the problem will become worse than the impossibility of observing a rule of silence.  A case is already in court in the United States in which a police officer was demoted by the Tulsa police department after he declined to attend a Muslim-sponsored event.  It’s not enough to keep your opinions to yourself: to retain your civil-employment rank, you must make active demonstrations on command.

In a brief filed in response to the police officer’s subsequent lawsuit, the city of Tulsa alleges that he has an “anti-Islamic agenda” – which it deduces not from his professional actions but from his choice of legal counsel.  “Brandi” at zTruth points out that Officer Fields and his legal counsel are concerned with political Islamism and not the religion of Islam, and thinks Tulsa should know better; but the significant point is that the city’s brief reverts so reflexively to the religious-bias argument in defending a lawsuit over an employment action.  Fields, the subordinate in this situation, is not alleged to have mistreated any of his fellow officers or members of the public; he simply declined to attend an event.

(*Update*: a reader at my home blog points out that besides declining himself to attend the event sponsored by an Islamic organization, Officer Fields declined to order officers under his command to do so.  That is correct, and for
completeness in relating the story, I should have added that.  It does not change the issue, however.  If anything, it makes Fields’ position more solid.  Imagine a police department ordering an officer to attend a Christian-sponsored event, and ordering him to require his subordinate officers to.  Can’t imagine that holding up in court as a department policy?  Exactly.)

Imagine a police officer being ordered to attend an event sponsored by a Christian organization, and being punished afterward for declining to do so.  Imagine a police department being honored by a Jewish organization, and a Muslim police officer declining to attend the ceremony.  Would the Muslim officer be punished for his choice?  Of course not.  In either case, the officer(s) declining to attend might very well have an anti-Christian or anti-Jewish agenda.  Some people do.  But their choices to not attend events would not be considered punishable, or indeed actionable in any way.

The outcome of the Paul Fields case in Tulsa is still unknown, but it will be informative.  If you have never given much thought to what might constitute “denigration of a religion,” you will want to do so soon.  Hillary Clinton will be hosting a gathering of people who already know what their ideas are regarding that question, and are prepared to forge ahead with laws against it.  In that regard, there are two more interesting points to make.

One is that the head of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, is an unapologetic Islamist and Ottomanist.  However Hillary Clinton may see the role of the OIC, he sees it this way.  Ihsanoglu became secretary-general of the OIC in 2004, and it is on his watch that the OIC has launched its campaign to end “Islamophobia” by imposing laws against denigrating and defaming religion.  Ihsanoglu’s effort and motives have been reported one way in the West, and another way in the Islamic world.

But what constitutes “Islamophobia,” or constitutes denigration of Islam, remains sketchy. In the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff – a Westerner-on-Westerner situation – the facts in evidence were that someone other than Sabaditsch-Wolff used the word “pedophile” in relation to Mohammed, and Sabaditsch-Wolff then engaged in a discussion of whether that word was appropriate or not, given that Mohammed had married a 6-year-old and consummated the marriage when his bride was nine.  That combination of facts got her convicted of denigrating religion in Austrian court.

What other information do we have that can nail down what constitutes Islamophobia or denigration of Islam?  Anjem Choudary and the UK’s Muslims Against Crusades have an answer.  This is quite a long video – over an hour – but the first 15 minutes suffice to clarify what they consider Islamophobia and denigration of Islam: that is, resistance to the imposition of sharia.  They recorded this “news conference” on 29 July 2011, just as their henchmen began to post notices around several areas of Britain proclaiming that the neighborhoods were now being administered under sharia law.  Resistance may not be futile – but in the view of Choudary and his faction, it is Islamophobic, and it is what constitutes denigrating Islam.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Soeren Kern has a post at the Hudson Institute blog outlining the Islamic Emirates Project launched recently by a British group, Muslims Against Crusades, which hopes to turn 12 British cities into independent Islamic states.

According to the Muslims Against Crusades website:

There are now over 2.8 million Muslims living in the United Kingdom – which is a staggering 5% of the population – but in truth, it is more than just numbers, indeed the entire infrastructure of Britain is changing; Mosques, Islamic Schools, Shari’ah Courts and Muslim owned businesses, have now become an integral part of the British landscape.

In light of this glaring fact, Muslims Against Crusades have decided to launch “The Islamic Emirates Project,” that will see high profile campaigns launch in Muslim enclaves all over Britain, with the objective to gradually transform Muslim communities into Islamic Emirates operating under Shari’ah law.

Kern points out that usual suspect Anjem Choudary, former spokesman of Islam4UK, is a leading figure behind Muslims Against Crusades.  Choudary, of course, was planning to hold a Washington, D.C. rally for sharia in the US in March of 2011, but “postponed” the event at the last minute, due (according to him) to the media’s misrepresentations of his purposes.  One of the 12 prospective Islamic states would be the Tower Hamlets section of London, where a prominent mosque hosts events for the Islamic Forum of Europe (and gays run scared).

Calls for the establishment not just of sharia but of a caliphate (“khilafa”) are increasing in stridency and frequency around Europe, like this rally for a khilafa by Muslim youth in Britain in February.  Here is video of a demonstration in Amsterdam in May 2011.  Nominally assembled to support “democracy” in nations like Syria and Libya, the demonstrators wave the flags of the khilafa:  the white flag (al-liwaa) of the head of state, or caliph, and the black flag of war (ar-raya).  (The flags bear the same inscription in opposite colors:  the shahada, or statement of faith.)  More video here shows a demonstration in Copenhagen in 2008.  Cities in France, Spain, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden have seen such demonstrations as well.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), which has been behind many of the rallies in Europe, has held Khilafa Conferences in the United States in each of the last three years.  A video from one of the lectures at the first one, in 2009, shows a speaker against the backdrop of an oversize al-liwaa flag.  (Note the speaker’s accent.)  The white al-liwaa is the flag used by the caliph; it is not a battle flag but a flag of state, representing the authority of the earthly sharia ruler.

If that video was too long, consider checking out this one from the 2011 Khilafa Conference USA (held in late June).  The first 4 minutes are a little difficult, as it’s hard to tell where the Arabic Quran recitations stop and English statements begin, but the lecturer’s commentary becomes much clearer – and quite chilling – after that.

The Khilafa Conferences in the US have been held in the Chicago area, so it is no surprise to see video of Muslims in downtown Chicago, in February 2011, demanding the establishment of a caliphate.  (The signs all bear the inscription “KHILAFA.”)  It is important to understand, however, that kinetic, bomb-throwing terrorism is not the aspiration or the modus operandi of Hizb ut-Tahrir or the various other khilafa movements (most of which are affiliates of Hizb ut-Tahrir).  The establishment of a sharia caliphate is their objective, and a good indicator of the method can be found in the manifesto of the Muslims Against Crusades group:  build up a critical mass of sharia institutions within Western societies, and then begin demanding self-rule.

The jihad of terror is still with us, but jihad by other means is gathering force.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Q: Was the weighing of the free speech question heavily…?

Juror: It was an issue that we talked about but again we were…we were there to really discuss whether it could, uh, provoke a, uh…

Q: Violence?

Juror: Violence in the community.

So free speech was an issue but violence was the important issue. This is absolutely wrong and not how free speech is meant to work in America. Allah calls it the “codification of the heckler’s veto” and that’s exactly what it is. We’ve now located that Mosque Exclusion Zone people were talking about last year. Turns out it’s real in Dearborn, MI where free speech has been excluded from the area around America’s largest mosque for the next three years.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamic movement and the founder of Hamas, has set up a network of political parties around the country that eclipse the following of the middle class activists that overthrew the regime. On the extreme fringe of the Brotherhood, Islamic groups linked to al-Qeada are organising from the mosques to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the dictatorship.

The military-led government already faces accusations that it is bowing to the surge in support for the Muslim movements, something that David Cameron warned of in February when he said Egyptian democracy would be strongly Islamic.

{feigned surprise} Oh, my, who’d have thought that could happen?  Only the terminally naïve or those with no understanding of the area or human nature would have figured otherwise.

Power vacuums produce opportunities for others to fill them.  The US helped create that vacuum by insisting Hosni Mubarak must step down.

Usually, as we’ve mentioned here any number of times, the most organized and ruthless succeed in filling such power vacuums.  And that’s precisely the case in Egypt where Islam in general is as pervasive as the air breathed there and the Muslim Brotherhood, while never allowed to be in power previously, was the most organized of the groups with the potential to fill the power vacuum.

And that is coming to fruition.  Not just in an Islamic sense, but in an Islamist sense as well.  The Muslim factions are poised to take over and control any government voted in by the public and do it in a big way:

Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, last week predicted the group’s candidates would win 75 per cent of the seats it contested.

Fundamentalist factions have also emerged as parties. Gamaa al-Islamiya, an al-Qaeda linked group that promotes Salafist traditions has used its mosques as a political base for the first time since the 1970s.

Egypt attempted in the past – however oppressive that effort was – to keep a largely secular government, at least by Middle Eastern standards.  And that was to our benefit and certainly to the benefit of the region.  It produced the peace treaty with Israel and ushered in a few decades of relatively peaceful times in the Middle East.  That’s pretty much likely to go by the wayside soon.  This next government will be steeped in Islam if not a good measure of Islamism.  That has been ordained by the first “democratic” vote in Egypt:

A scare campaign that a No vote in last months referendum would eliminate Islamic law from the Egyptian constitution ensured a 77 per cent Yes result.

As for those who participated in the April 6th movement and want a more secular and democratic Egypt?  Well, again, the best organized is the most likely to succeed, right?  And they have little or no organization:

But the April 6th movement that spearheaded protests has no clear plan for party politics. Diplomats have warned the demonstrators are not well prepared for elections.

“The leadership of the protests was so focused on the street-by-street detail of the revolution, they have no clue what to do in a national election,” said a US official involved in the demonstrations. “Now at dinner the protesters can tell me every Cairo street that was important in the revolution but not how they will take power in Egypt.”

Entirely predictable and clearly not in the best interest of the US – which calls into question the administration’s decision not to back Mubarak but call for his ouster.  The result is an unintended consequence one assumes – we backed a faction that we knew little about, which has had little impact since and now we’re going to see results that we don’t want and are not in the best interests of the US or peace in the region.  The same could be said about Libya.

Finally, don’t be fooled by the “independent” status of Egyptian political candidates for the Presidency there.  Their independence is in name only as they must court the factions that are likely to hold power in any legislature that forms.

Although the leading contenders for Egypt’s presidency are independents, many have begun wooing the Muslim blocs. Front-runner Amr Moussa, the Arab League president, has conceded that its inevitable that Islamic factions will be the bedrock of the political system.

Of course they will and that means, inevitably, that Egypt will eventually revoke its treaty with Israel thereby setting the peace process back to square one.

Yes, this has been beautifully played by the President and the State Department.  If naiveté in foreign affairs was ever more  evident than now, I’m having difficulty remembering it (Jimmy Carter is as close as it comes, and they’re making even him look competent).

—
Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.  Follow him on Twitter: @McQandO

And now there’s a third type, invented earlier this month by Muslims in Afghanistan during their three days of rioiting to protest an obscure Florida pastor’s burning of the Koran. This type of sin, which doesn’t have a formal name, might be called shooting your religion in the foot by going way overboard in your defense of it.

The reference here is not to the protesters’ brutal and senseless murder of twelve innocent U.N. workers who had no relation to Pastor Terry Jones or his actions. In fact, those crimes are blessed by the Koran, which instructs the faithful to “kill the infidels wherever you catch them.”

Rather, the sin committed by the demonstrators was the torching of tens of dozens of copies of the very holy book whose desecration by fire they were protesting. It seems that every shopkeeper throughout the Muslim world keeps a copy of the Koran on the premises—akin, one supposes, to the bible found in every hotel room across America. When the rioters set fire to the shops, they inadvertently barbecued the same number of copies of the Koran.

On Wednesday, the top spiritual leaders in Kandahar province powwowed to address the rich irony. The Christian Science Monitor quotes Maulavi Mohammed Omar, a prominent mullah, as having said:

One person burned the holy Koran in America. This was not good, so we came to speak out and protest, but unfortunately the police fired on us because they did not know what the protest was about. Why did people burn the shops and markets, and the holy Koran? That is not good.

I don’t know if a particular adage is in the Koran, but if not it should be. It’s the adage that states that turnaround is fair play.

Related Articles

• Latest: Afghan mob torches cross, effigy of Obama (VIDEO)
• Pastor Terry Jones’s encore: Staging a trial for the prophet Muhammad
• Is FL pastor alone to blame for Afghan deaths following Koran burning?
• Islamic “jury” offers $2.2 million for head of Koran-burning FL pastor
• BREAKING: Koran burning canceled; Ground Zero mosque to relocate
• The myth of rampant Islamophobia

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

The non-partisan, non-profit, non-advocacy Center for Public Integrity shares this informational bombshell in a report that also notes that an unnamed senior ABC News journalist was a mole for the FBI.

The CPI provides a quote from the memo to the effect that the journalist

advised that a source within the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service advised that the Oklahoma City bombing was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services who contracted seven (7) former Afghani Freedom Fighters out of Pakistan.

The memo was brought to the CPI’s attention by a Utah attorney named Jesse Trentadue.  Trentadue discovered the document—unredacted and still marked “secret”—in a box of documents gathered by the defense team for Terry Nichols, a co-defendant of McVeigh who was convicted and is serving a life sentence.

According to the memo, a year after coming forward with the information on the Islamic connection, the reporter agreed to divulge ABC’s source for the uncorroborated claim. He or she identified the source as a former CIA officer named Vincent Cannistraro, who was on contract to the network as a consultant.

In fairness, the CPI article raises as many questions as it answers. The authors of the piece, John Solomon and Aaron Mehta, for example, report that Vincent Cannistraro, whom they interviewed, insists the information was never corroborated and was just a rumor passing through Saudi circles.

Nevertheless, the story is worth following, if for no other reason than to learn what our government knew about the Oklahoma City bombings and when they knew it. As for the FBI’s using a journalist as an informant, that’s another conversation that will need to take place.

Related Article

• The myth of rampant Islamophobia
  
• The shootings in Tucson and Tea Party Derangement Syndrome
• The shooting in Tucson and the political blame game

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

The biggest barrier between the mujahidin and freeing al-Aqsa were the tyrant rulers. Now that the
friends of America and Israel are being mopped out one after the other, our aspirations are great that
the path between us and al-Aqsa is clearing up.

There could be no freeing of Palestine with the presence of the likes of King Abdullah to the East, Hosni Mubarak to the West and al-Saud to the South. Now that Hosni is gone, we heard the Imam of the Friday prayers praying: “O Allah we ask you to allow us to meet in al-Aqsa,” and the millions in Tahrir square roared with one voice: Âmîn.

Al-Aqsa is the mosque located on the temple mount in Jerusalem. There is still plenty in the magazine to indicate hatred for the West and America in particular, but this opening letter seems to indicate a focus closer to home. The recent call for a third intifada on Facebook which attracted tens of thousands of followers is an indication that, whether leading or following, al Qaeda is sensing a shift in focus among radicals towards Israel.

Jones, who made headlines in March for burning a copy of the Koran and more recently for his putative role in inciting protests of his actions in Afghanistan, is now contemplating Act 2 of his real-life morality play. One possibility under consideration is placing the Islamic high prophet Muhammad on trial, presumably for “crimes against humanity,” Jones’s rationale for burning the Koran.

“It is definitely a consideration,” Jones told the English newspaper The Telegraph on Saturday.

Jones, who claims to bear no responsibility for the violence that has occurred in Afghanistan since protests began three days ago, is calling on the president and the U.N. to condemn the protesters for the deaths of eleven United Nations workers, adding:

We find it very tragic any time that someone is murdered but we do not feel any responsibility for that. It definitely does indicate that there is a very radical element of Islam.

The pastor recently handed over the running of his small evangelical church to his son Luke so to permit him focus more attention on Stand Up America,an organization he founded to defend Christians living in Muslim countries against the injustices of militant Islam. (The organization is a wholly separate enterprise from the synonymously named group started up former U.S. Army Major General Paul Vallely, which has a different URL.)

Jones and his supporters have already announced plans to join a protest against jihad and sharia law later this month in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a large Islamic population. The protest will take place in front of Dearborn’s biggest mosque.

If the trial of Muhammad goes forward, it is almost certain to fuel more and greater violence in the Arab world—which is probably exactly what Jones is hoping for.

Recent Articles

• Is FL pastor alone to blame for Afghan deaths following Koran burning?
• Islamic “jury” offers $2.2 million for head of Koran-burning FL pastor
• BREAKING: Koran burning canceled; Ground Zero mosque to relocate
• The myth of rampant Islamophobia

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

Two days ago, Allahpundit picked up the story of gorgeous Pakistani actress, Veena Malik, courageously going off on an Egyptian Mullah who accused her of “immorality” because he didn’t approve of her appearance, or the fact that that she appeared on an Indian equivalent of the television show Big Brother. Jonah Goldberg was the first major blogger to report on this story, and it has been all over the right-wing blogosphere ever since. So, what makes this a possible seminal moment for feminism instead of just another viral video? Well…several things.

First of all, the liberal mainstream media has hardly been chomping at the bit to report any story regarding Islamic violence towards women. For example, when Time magazine featured a cover with a picture of a woman whose face had been disfigured by the Taliban, The New York Times called it “war porn” (see the image below).

Furthermore, when an Iranian woman was sentenced to be stoned to death last summer, and when a fourteen year old Bangladeshi girl was recently lashed to death for being raped by her cousin, you could pretty much hear crickets from the MSM because those were pesky, politically incorrect stories that didn’t fit their multicultural narrative. (Not to mention, you probably won’t hear that much about the woman who was recently raped by Gaddafi’s thugs in Libya either.)

Second of all, liberals seem to have an overwhelming tendency to downplay Islamic abuses towards women (as well as towards gays) under the guise of multiculturalism. Don’t believe me? Well, then I suggest that you read the column by liberal Boston Globe columnist Susan Jacoby where she asks the question, “Why are liberals excusing religious abuses on grounds of cultural relativism?” To be specific, Jocoby makes some great points when she writes the following:

The latest example of the Left’s blind spot on this issue is the antagonism of so many liberal reviewers toward Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s recent memoir, Nomad. The Somali-born Hirsi Ali immigrated to the United States in 2006 after her close friend, the Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh, was murdered by a radical Islamist. Hirsi Ali still needs bodyguards because of frequent death threats.

She was educated as a child in Muslim schools, subjected to genital mutilation, and broke with her family when she refused to consent to an arranged marriage. She first settled in Holland, where she worked as a Somali-Dutch interpreter, and her convictions about violence in many (though not, she emphasizes, all) Muslim families are rooted in her work with immigrants as well as her own upbringing. Yet Nicholas D. Kristof, reviewing Nomad for The New York Times Book Review, writes that “I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Hirsi Ali’s family is dysfunctional simply because its members never learned to bite their tongues and just say to one another: ‘I love you.’”

I was startled by this patronizing comment, because I admire Kristof for being one of the few male columnists who writes frequently about violence against women. Somehow, “I love you” isn’t the first thing that would come to mind if I were being held down by female relatives while my clitoris was maimed or if my father told me I had to marry a stranger.

Moreover, Jacoby really finished off her column with a bang when she shared the following anecdote:

An 80-year-old friend of mine — a woman of forceful intellect who used to teach Renaissance history — now lives in a Florida retirement community where many of the part-time staff are teenaged children of recent Afghan immigrants. When my friend saw one of her favorite young Afghan-American women — a high school senior — weeping in the dining room, she asked what was wrong. “Oh, madam professor,” the girl replied, “my father has arranged for me to meet my future husband. He is 40 years old, and the wedding will take place in six months. I wanted so much to go to college, and this will not be permitted.

My friend replied gently, “You know, Yasmin, you don’t have to marry anyone in this country because your parents say so. There are organizations to help girls like you think these things through. There are college scholarships. I can give you the names of people to talk to.” Another resident of this community sharply reproved my friend, saying, “We have no right to interfere with her culture, her religion, her family,”

Wrong. This type of “interference” — telling a troubled young woman that she has choices other than an arranged marriage — is exactly what a true liberal ought to be doing. The idea that someone should ignore the tears of a 17-year-old who says she is being pushed to give up her education is utterly perverse.

Now, if you still aren’t satisfied, here is another example of liberal moral relativism with regard to radical Islam’s abuses towards women (as well as gays). Da Tech Guy wrote an excellent column titled, “You can tell a lot about a person by what they bold when quoting”. First, Da Tech guy demonstrated what liberal blogger, Matthew Yglesias, thought was important enough to put in bold type when he quoted Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s writings in her New York Times column about the Egyptian revolution:

I’ll tell you why: because Islam is the new fascism. Just like Nazism started with Hitler’s vision, the Islamic vision is a caliphate – a society ruled by Sharia law – in which women who have sex before marriage are stoned to death, homosexuals are beaten, and apostates like me are killed. Sharia law is as inimical to liberal democracy as Nazism. Young Muslims need to be persuaded that the vision of the Prophet Mohammed is a bad one, and you aren’t going to get that in Islamic faith schools.

Next, Da Tech re-pastes the exact same quote from the exact same column, but puts in bold type what he finds to be important in Ms. Ali’s column:

I’ll tell you why: because Islam is the new fascism. Just like Nazism started with Hitler’s vision, the Islamic vision is a caliphate – a society ruled by Sharia law – in which women who have sex before marriage are stoned to death, homosexuals are beaten, and apostates like me are killed. Sharia law is as inimical to liberal democracy as Nazism. Young Muslims need to be persuaded that the vision of the Prophet Mohammed is a bad one, and you aren’t going to get that in Islamic faith schools.

Nifty little trick ain’t it? Furthermore, it’s pretty telling that Mr. Yglesias found Ms. Ali’s supposed “intolerance” to be the most bothersome part of that passage, whereas the rest of us find the whole stoning of women and beating of gays to be the most troublesome part. (Oh, but best not to mention that politically incorrect line, because then you have just officially sinned on the liberal alter of multiculturalism.)

And finally, the ultimate examples of liberals downplaying the Islamic abuses of women are Naomi Wolf writing a column about how sexy the burka is, and Amanda Marcotte (she of “Godbag Christofascist” fame) writing that the traditional Western wedding is comparable in misogynist tradition to female genital mutilation. (I’m not kidding.)

Now, the third and final reason why Veena Malik’s smackdown of an Egyptian cleric is a seminal moment for feminism is because the liberal MSM tends not to air the voices of Muslim women who don’t parrot their talking points. For instance, during the Ground Zero Mosque brouhaha, moderate Mulsim, Neda Bolourchi (whose mother was killed in 9/11), wrote a column in The Washington Post titled, “Build Your Mosque Somewhere Else”–needless to say, she was never invited on any MSM outlets/talk-shows. Not to mention, the liberal MSM has hardly rolled out the welcome wagon for Ayaan Hirsi Ali either. Furthermore, when moderate Muslim, Raheel Raza, was speaking out against the Ground Zero Mosque and calling it “a slap in the face to all Americans”, only conservative talk show hosts, like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, would have her on as a guest.

So, when a Muslim woman from a Muslim country feels free to, you know, actually speak her mind without the threat of stoning when attacked by a real misogynist for her appearance, does she talk about how awful the “Godbag Christofascists” are…or how much better FGM is to endure than a wedding ceremony…or how sexy the burka is…or how racist America is for not wanting the Ground Zero Mosque? Well, not exactly. When Veena Malik gets really fired up at around 3:00 into the embed below, she let’s loose about how people are “killing in the name of Islam”, how the politicians in Pakistan are “committing murder, bribery and theft”, and how clerics are “raping children in the mosques in Pakistan”. Then, Ms. Malik really handed that cleric his arse when she told him that “Pakistan is infamous for many reasons other than Veena Malik”. In other words, she looked like she had absolutely no interest in donning a burka, but a lot of interest in her country not being overrun by true misogyny, corruption and violence.

In conclusion, I think that David Frum hit it out of the park in his excellent column titled, “Feminists need to admit that Western men are not the enemy”, when he wrote the following:

A generation ago, feminists could romanticize non-Western misogyny from a safe distance. In 1984, the Australian feminist Germaine Greer published a book, Sex and Destiny, denouncing birth control as a Western plot against Third World women. But since the 1980s, a great movement of populations has erased the distinction between the First World and the Third. Europe now receives more immigrants than does the United States. European cities are now crowded with hijabs and burkas. European police investigate honour killings. European hospitals confront female genital mutilations.

And these things all happen in North America, too, albeit to a lesser degree.

On this 100th International Women’s Day, the challenge for feminists has become both imperative and anguishing: Will they argue forever against American television sitcoms of the 1950s — or are they morally and intellectually capable of recognizing the dangers to women’s aspirations in the 21st century? Can they transcend their inherited ideology, and recognize that the best and only guarantee of women’s equality is Western liberal democratic capitalism? Will they accept critics of Third World misogyny — such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji — into the pantheon of feminism along with Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan B. Anthony and Simone de Beauvoir? Can they perceive that the people who would destroy Israel hate women even more than they hate Jews?

In short, can they accept that the irony of history has reoriented feminism into a fundamentally conservative movement? Or will their inherited ideological prejudices entrap them forever in a vanished world — dooming feminism to obsolescence and subjecting the dwindling rights of women to the aggressions of “multiculturalism”?

In other words, those nasty “Godbag Christofascists” aren’t the ones trying to suppress the rights of women all over the world; however, radical and fundamentalist Muslim clerics, like the one yelling at Veena Malik, are. Someone needed to finally get angry and say–nay, shout–what everyone (except the liberal MSM) has known to be true for a long time.

Thank you Veena Malik for having the courage and forbearance–even in the face of death threats–to shout out the truth.

Cross-posted at Parcbench, The Minority Report, and Right Wing News.

A former participant on India’s version of “Big Brother” where she apparently smooched a man and wore revealing outfits, Veena returned to Pakistan, went on television and got confronted by a commissar-like anchor asking her if she didn’t feel that she’d embarrassed herself, her faith and her country by her behavior in an enemy land. She was then further insulted via satellite by a fat and furry cleric with one hand on his sacred book and the other on his heavy heart. He’d never watched Indian “Big Brother” yet one clearly sensed that his enmity stemmed from a knowledge that he wouldn’t know the likes of Veena’s companionship until those celestial virgins fulfilled their end of the nasty bargain.

The video is a must-see (if time limited, skip ahead to the 3 minute mark):

My only regret is that the cleric was not physically in studio with Ms. Malik – I would have loved to see her pop him in the nose. I also hope to see her one day take on this Egyptian cleric, who proudly and excitedly declares all the ways that beating one’s wife actually honors the wife; she should be ashamed if not beaten. There is etiquette, you see! You can’t hit her in the face, lest you make her ugly. How thoughtful! You also cannot use a long rod, only a short one otherwise that would be disrespectful.

I’d like to teach both these clerics a little something about respect. With my fist. (I know, I know. Two wrongs don’t make a right, violence never solves anything, yada yada. But, come on. They so have it coming.)

Muslim women like Veena Malik are incredibly brave and strong; they are the only ones speaking out and daring to confront the clerics. These women are just getting their first wave feminism – the real kind, not the kind that our “feminists” make up out of whole cloth while ignoring actual subjugation due to ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘being enlightened’. They speak out while in fear of their lives.

Literally. There are death threats against Ms. Malik now.

—
cross-posted at Newsreal’s That’s What She Said

In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.

Emphasis mine.  As I’ve mentioned previously, “secular” may not mean what you think it means in an Islamic country.  And I’ve all but worn out the David Warren quote, but again which group has the “simplest, most plausible, most easily communicated “vision?” The Muslim Brotherhood, of course.  That means:

It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

Indeed, my guess is that the moment is lost for them for good.  Why?  Because it isn’t in the best interest of either the MB or the military to let that particular “political force” reemerge.  So:

As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.

“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”

And there you have it.  Result?

“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”

So much, I suppose, for the so-called  “Twitter” revolution.

—
Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.  Follow him on Twitter: @McQandO

And, as happens in the event of real or imagined slights, the other shoe summarily dropped. No sooner had Jones fired up his Bic than an Islamic “court” in Pakistan found him guilty of the crime of desecrating the religion’s most holy book. The court then issued a fatwa—loosely translated as “death order—against him, as is their wont.

But here is where the story gets interesting. Pakistan’s Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a banned Islamic organization and suspected terrorist group, announced a bounty of 10 crore rupees for anyone who fulfills the fatwa on Jones. In case you’re wondering, that amount is equivalent to around $2.2 million—not exactly chicken feed. What ever happened to 72 virgins?

I became curious about whether this most supernal of religions actually sanctions killings for hire, so I did a little digging and found that indeed it does. One of the most famous examples of a fee-for-service fatwa involved Taslima Nasreen, an exiled Bangladeshi writer, who had been targeted for execution by Indian Muslim scholars. After Juma prayers at the Tipu Sultan mosque in Calcutta, Majidulla Khan Farhad announced “unlimited financial reward” to anybody who would kill the author.

So there you have it. Islam, at least as it is practiced by Islamofascists, operates similarly to the Mafia. In fact, it’s a little worse since Mafia “hits” are, as The Godfather admirably explained “just business,” while fatwas are supposedly acts of deep-seated religious faith. Doesn’t something as materialistic as a cash exchange debase such a godly mission?

In the meantime, the reliably hypocritical Council on American-Islamic Relations refused to comment on the fatwa. Spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said only that “Terry Jones had his 15 minutes of fame and we’re not going to help him get another few minutes.” Time in the spotlight is not what Jones needs or is presumably seeking at this point.

No word on whether you need to be a Muslim to collect the reward or whether the 30 witnesses of the Koran burning are themselves in hot water.

Related Articles

• BREAKING: Koran burning canceled; Ground Zero mosque to relocate
• The myth of rampant Islamophobia

Cross-posted at the Examiner. Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

That’s not how voters see it, according to the results of a new Rasmussen poll. A telephone survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted on March 8 and 9 reveals that only 17% of Americans think Muslims are unfairly treated. Most also feel that Muslims in this country need to be more vociferous in their condemnation of potential domestic terrorist attacks.

It will come as a surprise to no one that the view on the treatment of Muslims in America was split along ideological lines, though it should be emphasized that even then, fewer than half of liberals claim there is a bias against Muslims.

In any case, Ellison, who is the first Muslim elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, might want to check the facts against his claims regarding knee jerk reactions to acts of terrorism. If anything, the administration and news media—including this writer—have bent over backwards to avoid pointing an accusatory finger at Muslim extremists, this despite their virtual ownership of domestic terrorist acts in the years since 9/11.

Consider a specific case:

• When news of the failed attempt to detonate explosives in Times Square broke on May 2 of 2010, this column reported the bare-boned facts precisely as they were communicated by the mayor of New York City and then-state governor David Paterson. The words Muslim and Islam appeared nowhere in my article.
• When police apprehended a suspect in connection with the bombing effort two days later, I reported the suspect’s name, Faisal Shahzad, and the fact that he was apprehended at JFK airport attempting to board a flight to Dubai. Again, despite the man’s Arab-sounding name, I didn’t so much as hint at his religion.
• I even remained circumspect in my treatment of the suspect’s faith on Day 4 of the investigation, when authorities discovered he was a devotee of the radical American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
• In fact, it was not until a week after the botched attack took place that I intimated that the attacker was a Muslim, by which time the U.S. Justice Department had confirmed that Faisal Shahzad was working in concert with the Pakistani Taliban and that his goal was to kill as many Americans as possible.

If anything, it is Ellison’s colleagues on the left who are in denial. In the case of the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, both the White House and Justice Department were reticent to posit the role Islamic extremism played in both incidents long after the connections were obvious. At least to everyone other than Keith Ellison.

Related Articles

• The real lies behind Keith Ellison’s tearful testimony (VIDEO)
• It’s official: Pakistani Taliban was behind Times Square bomb attempt
• BREAKING: Times Square bomber was a fan of radical cleric
• What were the Times Square bomber’s motives?
• Suspect arrested in connection with Times Square bombing attempt
• Deadly car bomb in Times Square fails to explode

Cross-posted at the Examiner. Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region’s politics.

However, apparently they want to diminish any concern by pretending that such an outcome isn’t really that significant:

The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of Islam in the politics of these countries,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal policy deliberations. “It’s the behavior of political parties and governments that we will judge them on, not their relationship with Islam.”

That speaks to a basic misunderstanding of the role of Islam “in the politics of these countries”.   Unlike Western countries, there is no “separation of church and state” in an Islamic country.   Islam is about politics, governing, the law, you name it.  It is as much a political system as it is a religion.  And that’s why assurances such as those the White House is putting forth here are just not accurate.   The “behavior of political parties and governments” are going to be fundamentally grounded in … Islam.

That takes us to the term “Islamist” which most have used to distinguish the broader religion of Islam from those who have hijacked it and made their version an aggressive theocratic and expansionist version of the religion.  “Islamist” includes the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda as well as other murderous and anti-Western groups throughout the Middle East.

However, WaPo wants to assure you that it’s just not as bad as you think:

Islamist governments span a range of ideologies and ambitions, from the primitive brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan to Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, a movement with Islamist roots that heads a largely secular political system.

Unmentioned, of course, is Turkey’s new belligerence and aggressiveness toward Israel and its seeming turning away from the West and apparent desire to be a, if not the, power broker in the Middle East.  The “largely secular political system” in Turkey is much less so than it was a decade ago when that party took power and it is likely to be even less so as it retains it.

But, you say, what’s made the administration suddenly take off its rose colored glasses and begin assessing anew the probable outcome of these revolts?

None of the revolutions over the past several weeks has been overtly Islamist, but there are signs that the uprisings could give way to more religious forces. An influential Yemeni cleric called this week for the U.S.-backed administration of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to be replaced with Islamist rule, and in Egypt, an Islamist theoretician has a leading role in drafting constitutional changes after President Hosni Mubarak’s fall from power last month.

A number of other Islamist parties are deciding now how big a role to play in protests or post-revolution reforms.

David Warren made the point that no “Walesas or Havels” have emerged in these countries to steer the revolutions down the path of democracy.  And that’s true.  But the Islamist equivalents are emerging – and attempting to subvert the revolutions to their own ends.  And, as Warren points out, they have an advantage:

As we should surely have observed by now, whether or not the Islamists command Arab “hearts and minds,” they are not only the best organized force, but the most ruthless. They are also in possession of the simplest, most plausible, most easily communicated “vision.”

They don’t have to do much selling of their vision, they have the institutions and traditions of Islam to turn too and it just isn’t a very big leap from “Islamic” to “Islamist”.  Democracy and freedom, on the other hand, have no such institutions, traditions or leaders to turn too.  So when figuring probability, it is clear which scenario enjoys the most probable outcome.

Having been forced to accept the obvious, don’t expect the administration to give up all its moon ponies.  There will still be plenty of rationalization which ignores the fundamental differences between what “secular” in the West means, and what it means to Islam.   You can expect to see “Islamism” and “Islamist” defined down:

Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA analyst who now teaches at Georgetown University, said, “Most of the people in the intelligence community would see things on this topic very similarly to the president – that is, political Islam as a very diverse series of ideologies, all of which use a similar vocabulary, but all quite different.”

Yeah, “Death to Israel” doesn’t mean the same thing in Egypt that is does in Gaza.  And Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban don’t necessarily represent what an “Islamist” regime would look like, do they?   And don’t forget, as they continue to try to throw Turkey around as an example of “not so bad” – Turkey has been slowly changing from a true secular democracy to an Islamist state.  And the change has not been a good one for the interests of the US.

The White House has an internal study that it is studying and is still believing that there are good Islamists and bad Islamists:

The report draws sharp distinctions between the ambitions of the two groups, suggesting that the Brotherhood’s mix of Islam and nationalism make it a far different organization than al-Qaeda, which sees national boundaries as obstacles to restoring the Islamic caliphate.

The study also concludes that the Brotherhood criticizes the United States largely for what it perceives as America’s hypocritical stance toward democracy – promoting it rhetorically but supporting leaders such as Mubarak.

“If our policy can’t distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, we won’t be able to adapt to this change,” the senior administration official said. “We’re also not going to allow ourselves to be driven by fear.”

Really?  Have you been watching the timidity with which this President has faced the change in the Middle East and N. Africa?  This sudden equivocation about “Islamists” is a statement of fear.  A firm stand against the Islamist movement taking over any of these countries vs. standing up for secular democratic movements in those lands is evidence of fear.  The equivocation about the word and the accommodation the administration seems ready to make with some “Islamists” says all that needs to be said.

There’s a reason “Islam” and “Islamist” are defined in a particular way.  What the administration is trying to do is blur those lines substantially in order to make what was and has been unacceptable to the US suddenly acceptable (at least to the degree to which “Islamists” appear “secular” to these rocket-scientists).

We have been at war with “Islamists” for a couple of decades.   Is this redefinition of “Islamist” the first sign of our capitulation?

It is a testament to the sheer lunacy of Choudary’s beliefs that his website Shairah 4 America espouses plans for an “Islamic demolition of the Statue of Liberty” and remodeling the White House into a “White Masjid” (click for slideshow).

In any case, the following video by Choudary released this morning confirms that plans for today’s rally in DC have been scrubbed so that he and his fellow believers can turn their attention to thwarting the U.S.’s current “colonization” efforts in the Arab world.

To hear Choudary tell it, he is nothing more than a humble “missionary,” spreading the “gospel.” But what he hopes to proselytize Americans into accepting is not just an alternative to their current faith but an alternative to capitalism, which he perceives as the root of America’s financial woes.

As his fellow British extremist, Omar Bakri Mohammad, explains:

You see, the problem of the economy of the West is that you have a bunch of capitalists who control all the resources and the remainder of the people are living in a very difficult position, some of them are below the lines of poverty….

You begin to understand why liberals are so quick to defend Islamists and claim that their intentions are benign. The two groups speak the same language. They both even claim that the “media” (FOX News Channel and conservative talk radio in the case of liberals) have been distorting their message.

And what is Choudary’s true message? He spells it out in this morning’s video, explaining that

the call for the Sharia is a universal one, and it must be implemented—immediately, wherever we are in the world…

Part of that plan, as noted earlier, is to drape what looks like a giant dish towel over the face of Lady Liberty to shield “this horrendous eye sore from public view” until the statue can be razed and replaced by a giant minaret.

It all sounds perfectly reasonable—harmless, too, unless you’re a pedophile, in which case you will be impaled at the top of the Washington Monument.

NOTE: In this era of spoofs and parodies, let me iterate a point made by Meredith Jessup at the The Blaze—namely, the images and descriptions at the Shariah 4 America website look a little too silly and contrived to be the real deal. By the same token, as Jessup further notes, Choudary does link to this website from his own, AnjemChoudary.com.

Related Articles

• New Ground Zero imam: “True” Muslims follow Sharia law
• New Ground Zero imam clashes with gay community
• Protesters desecrate 9/11 remembrance: Have they no shame?

Cross-posted at the Examiner. Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

The starting gun has been fired in what I call the “race to Jerusalem.” Arguably, it was fired last fall when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited southern Lebanon as the honored guest of Hezbollah. The race started a new phase when Hezbollah unseated the Hariri unity government of Lebanon on 12 January – and then succeeded in facing down Saudi and Turkish negotiators to select its own approved candidate to head the new government.

But a week later the race transitioned again, as Tunisians toppled the Ben Ali government and unrest spread across the Middle East. The region went from one government crisis – in Lebanon – to more than half a dozen in the space of three weeks.

Now Iran has pressed the issue of an unprecedented naval deployment to the Mediterranean Sea, with the latest report today being that Egypt will permit the Iranian warships to transit the Suez Canal.  At the UN, meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has resisted all US efforts at compromise and forced America to veto a resolution declaring the settlements in Judea and Samaria illegal.

Developments of this kind were predicted nearly two years ago, by – full disclosure – me. There are three major influences at work in the current unrest in the Middle East.  One is the genuine desire of many citizens for liberalization and reform.  We must not forget that influence; it requires protection and support – it cannot survive on its own – but it is a positive and welcome factor.

The second influence is the generic drive of various Islamist groups for the imposition of sharia.  The possibility of these groups gaining state power – the Muslim Brotherhood, its offshoots, or similar groups – makes for very high stakes in the national crises of the Arab nations.  Even assuming the Islamists gain power on the Hezbollah model, as part of coalition governments, they are still on the threshold of transforming Islamism from being principally about guerrilla jihad to being principally about national power.

The prospect before us is a new phase of what we may call, for lack of a better term, “caliphate Islamism,” as opposed to the more familiar Islamism of guerrilla jihad.  The auguries of this have been seen already in Tunisia, where the twin flags of the “Islamic caliphate” – the white al-liwaa of the putative head of state and the black ar-raya of jihad – have been observed in abundance in street demonstrations. Indeed, a crowd chanting anti-Jewish slogans outside the great synagogue in Tunis (see here and here) was waving dozens of these flags, referred to by Islamists as the flags of khilafah, or the caliph/caliphate.

This brings us to the third influence: the race to Jerusalem. The aspirants to Islamist leadership have maneuvered for years, in a desultory manner, to back (and ultimately lead) the factions that would succeed in occupying Jerusalem.  The principal state aspirants since 1979 have been revolutionary Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan; the turmoil in the Arab world in 2011 suggests there will be a scramble to reestablish Arab leadership in the coming days.

My argument in 2009 was that withdrawing US support to Israel’s requirement for territorial defensibility would unleash the accelerating maneuvers we are seeing today.  Barack Obama has, in effect, done precisely that with his dismissal of the national security interest Israel has in the settlements issue.  It was foreseeable that Obama’s policies would do what they have done: give the Middle East a green light for a competitive race to Jerusalem.

Here are links to the 4-part series from June 2009.

The Next Phase of World War IV?

The Next Phase of World War IV – Part 2

The Next Phase of World War IV – Part 3

The Next Phase of World War IV – Part 4

J.E. Dyer blogs at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions” and as The Optimistic Conservative.  She writes a weekly column for Patheos.

To compete with UPS, FedEx in Yemen changes motto to: “When it absolutely, positively has to kill Jews overnight.”

The stupider members of the anti-Israel left pointed to al Qaeda’s naming of Israel’s “occupation” as one of the reasons they attacked us on 9/11. The fact that they mentioned Israel after the attack never seems to matter, but I’d like to see them spin this attack on Jewish synagogues in Chicago as the result of building in suburbs of Jerusalem. (Some will, I know, but again, they are the stupider members of the anti-Israel left.)

These were real bombs. There was a SIM card and electrical circuit in at least one of them. The bombs were made out of PETN, the explosive of choice for underwear and shoe bombers. They were heading towards Jews—on a Friday.

Ms. Harman, who was briefed by John S. Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, also said that both packages contained computer printer cartridges filled with the explosive, with one using a cellphone as a detonator and the other a timer.

[...] Counterterrorism officials declined to identify the synagogues to which the suspicious packages found in Dubai and Britain were addressed; they did say they did not include KAM Isaiah Israel, which is across the street from Mr. Obama’s Hyde Park home.

So it wasn’t a plot to kill Obama. It was a plot to kill Jews. Did they think they’d strike on a Friday, when synagogues are filled with Jews? Was their plan to have the packages in the offices on a Saturday, also a high-attendance worship day? Or did they just pick a day, any day, and any Jew would do?

We’re not just the canaries in the coal mine. The very existence of Jews is an affront to Islamic terrorists and extremists. The existence of the State of Israel stands in stark contradiction to their promise that Muslims will reign supreme over the rest of the world, and Israel’s victories in every war since 1948 stick in the craw of the Muslim supremacists. (Let’s call a spade a spade—that’s what al Qaeda are, Muslim supremacists.)

Yeah, sucks to be them.

I suspect Chicago Jews will worship this morning a little more nervously than the rest of us. And the Jewish populations in big cities all over America will be a little more careful from now on. They’ve targeted us specifically. Not Zionists. Not Israelis. American Jews.

I live in a little podunk town near a small city with a small Jewish population. Odds are very high that al Qaeda doesn’t even know the name of my city. So no, I’m not scared.

I’m just angry.

Time to reflect on six years of teaching little Jews to become big Jews, which is my best weapon against the Jew-haters. I’m throwing a party in a few weeks and will be seeing many of my former students. Al Qaeda’s legacy is hate and fear. Mine is knowledge and pride in being Jewish.

I think I win.

In a recent article for Town Hall, Frank Gaffney exposed President Obama’s accommodation of the Muslim Brotherhood, identifying seven areas where the administration had complied with the organization’s chief objectives.  Considering the group’s overall aim is to wage “a kind of grand jihad eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,” it stands to reason that any compliance is de facto submission to the enemy.

The Muslim Brotherhood has engaged in subversive warfare against Israel and the West from its very inception.  It has has served as both an ideological outpost and a covert supporter of violent splinter groups, including (though not limited to) al-Qaida and Hamas.  Muhammad Badi’, the recently-elected General Guide of the group, has affirmed his support for Palestinian resistance to Zionist “oppression”  and made no attempt to disguise his disdain for the United States and its interests.  And now?  The declaration of war against Israel and the West is official.

Barry Rubin, at the center for Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA Center), wrote an enlightening piece explaining how this declaration differs from those of the past, and why the West must take action.  The move from ideology to mobilization is cause for alarm, according to Rubin:

Does that mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done? No.

But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.

When the extreme and arguably marginal British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary says that Islam will conquer the West and raise its flag over the White House, that can be treated as wild rhetoric. His remark is getting lots of attention because he said it in English in an interview with CNN. Who cares what he says?

But when the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood says the same thing in Arabic, that’s a program for action, a call to arms for hundreds of thousands of people, and a national security threat to every Western country. (Emphasis mine.)

Rubin helps to distill the declaration into key requirements for Muslims worldwide:

–Arab and Muslim regimes are betraying their people by failing to confront the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded. Governments have no right to stop their people from fighting the United States. “They are disregarding Allah’s commandment to wage jihad for His sake with [their] money and [their] lives, so that Allah’s word will reign supreme” over all non-Muslims.

–All Muslims are required by their religion to fight: “They crucially need to understand that the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.” Notice that jihad here is not interpreted as so often happens by liars, apologists, and the merely ignorant in the West as spiritual striving. The clear meaning is one of armed struggle.

–The United States is immoral, doomed to collapse, and “experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading towards its demise.”

–Palestinians should back Hamas in overthrowing the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and unite in waging war on Israel.

To summarize: the organization we’ve been accommodating—to the point of considering it a moderate voice in the Islamic world—has now declared war on us directly.  Will Obama call on Dalia Mogahed, Muslim advisor to the White House and vocal advocate of CAIR and ISNA (both with ties to the MB), to denounce the Brotherhood?  Will Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the organization and recipient of a recent Hillary Clinton-approved travel visa, postpone his Islam-is-the-new-Black lecture tour to declare his rejection of the group?  I won’t hold my breath.  If Obama’s acquiescent posture is any indication of future events, the West won’t sleep; rather, it will clear the way, waving palm branches.

But pessimism should never lead to apathy.  Every declaration of war should be taken seriously.  We should never underestimate the threat, even as the current administration is intent on offering the enemy “comfort” in the form of conciliation.  Despite Obama’s overtures, the Muslim Brotherhood has a specific vision of our future. As expressed by its Guide:

The Soviet Union fell dramatically, but the factors that will lead to the collapse of the U.S. are much more powerful than those that led to the collapse of the Soviet empire – for a nation that does not champion moral and human values cannot lead humanity, and its wealth will not avail it once Allah has had His say, as happened with [powerful] nations in the past. The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise…

Is it?  Will we let it?

“Allah honored wives by instating the punishment of beatings.” So said Cleric Sa’d Arafat earlier this year. Last month, a Wellesley, Massachusetts public school took a trip to a mosque, where the school children were taught to pray to that same Allah.

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.” Qaradawi — wonder of wonders — is a trustee of the Roxbury mosque (although he is banned from the U.S. for sanctioning terrorism). 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.”

Well, except for the icky girls. Cooties, and all. They were not allowed to take part in the “tolerance” indoctrination. Have to teach these girls how to show respect! And teach them a little about  the benefits of misogynistic subjugation in the Muslim world, right? See, they were shockingly told – as they were shuttled off to an area away from males – that Islam is “pro-women” and“Islam was actually very advanced in terms of recognizing women’s rights.” They were also told this:

At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, women were allowed to express their opinions and vote. In this country, women didn’t gain that right until less than a hundred years ago.

Of course. Blame America and try to make some sort of sick moral relativism argument. What’s the matter with you rube Islamophobes? Muhammad let women vote and express their opinions. Of course, they were then beaten for them, but still. In Islam, it is an honor to be beaten by your husband! There is even etiquette and stuff. We honor women by beating the crap out of them. Sheesh!

I mean, just let the cleric S’ad Arafat explain further:

Cleric Sa’d Arafat: The Prophet Muhammad said: “Don’t beat her in the face, and do not maker her ugly.” See how she is honored. If the husband beats his wife, he must not beat her in the face. Even when he beats her, he must not curse her. This is incredible!

HE beats her in order to discipline her. In addition, there must not be more than ten beatings, and he must not break her bones, injure her, break her teeth, or poke her in the eye.

There is a beating etiquette. If he beats to discipline her, he must not raise his hand high. He must beat her from the chest level. All these things honor the woman. She is in need of disciplines.

It’s totally okay, you see – there’s etiquette!  Oh, it’s fine – sure you can beat me. Just make sure you don’t curse me at the same time and keep your hands at chest level only. Otherwise, that would be bad.

It’s actually more than fine; it honors the wife. She should be proud, if beaten. You know, he only hits you because he loves you. Plus, it’s not like he hit your face and made you “ugly” or used a long rod which would totally be disrespectful. Unlike a nice respectful beating with a short rod.

He then goes on to inform men of when is the proper time (it’s all about the etiquette) to beat their wives:

These are all choices made during the process, but beatings are allowed only as a last resort. The honoring of the wife in Islam is also evident in the fact that the punishment of beating is permissible in one case only: when she refuses to sleep with him.

Commentator: When she refuses to sleep with him?

Cleric Sa’d Arafat: Yes, because where else could the husband go? He wants her, but she refuses. He should begin with admonishment and threats,

Commentator: Allow me to repeat this, A man cannot beat his wife over food or drink.

Cleric Sa’d Arafat: Beating are permitted only in this case, which the husband cannot do without.

Isn’t it good to know that if your wife doesn’t feel like letting you “hit that” one night, you can simply hit her. I mean, really, you would dishonor her if you did not hit her. Oh, the shame!

You know what actually is shameful? The fact that some want us to teach our children to accept this, because it would be intolerant and meany pants if we dare to point out anything that doesn’t fall in line with the Religion of Peace ™ meme. American citizens are demonized as biased and hateful if even bringing up the subject. Those who not only subjugate women, but also wish to kill us receive apologies. The media frantically avoids perceived “profiling”, including avoiding the use of the word Islam at all costs in any negative stories, out of the insane fear of looking non-politically correct.

We are instead to pretend that Islam is super awesome always and stick our fingers in our ears singing la-la-la as the abuse of Muslim women continues. Because, tolerance. Well, guess what? Barbarism should not be tolerated nor should it be “appeased.”  Silence is not just consent when it comes to such wrongs; it makes one complicit in their perpetuation.

While leftist feminists (femisogynists) continue to screech about perceived systematic misogyny in America, all made up out of whole cloth, we are encouraged to teach our daughters to respect Islam and Sharia Law.  We are expected to worship at the altar of Better Than You ™ multiculturalism. And we are to ignore the actual oppression and subjugation of women in the Muslim world – and of Muslim women here in America. Because, George W. Bush. And oil or something.

I refuse to do so. As do many strong conservative women and men. Including George W. Bush. It is he who is continuing to aid the women in the Middle East who are truly oppressed and abused. The George W. Bush Institute has a women’s initiative, chaired by Mrs. Laura Bush, that is focusing on empowering women in the Middle East, where it is desperately needed.

I won’t, however, hold my breath and wait for N.O.W. or any of their fellow sister travelers to weigh in. They are too busy demonizing American conservative women and endorsing the men who call them whores.

—–

Follow Lori  on Twitter and read more of her NewsReal stuff here

The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue, it is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity.  The burqa is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.

Parliament agreed.  The measure passed the lower house in July and yesterday, in a 247-1 vote, the Senate effectively banned the burqa in public life pending Sarkozy’s signature.  The Globe and Mail reports:

The measure would outlaw face-covering veils in streets, including those worn by tourists from the Middle East and elsewhere. It is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women’s dignity and security, as well as upholding France’s secular values — and its way of life.  [...]

The bill calls for 150 euro fines or citizenship classes for any woman caught covering her face, or both. It also carries stiff penalties for anyone such as husbands or brothers convicted of forcing the veil on a woman. The 30,000 euro fine and year in prison are doubled if the victim is a minor.

Perhaps unsurprising for a country whose national identity is fundamentally wedded to its culture (“Minister of Culture” is a cabinet-level position), France has decided to do what few other countries have done in pushing back against encroaching Islamization.

The ban is equally unsurprising given the nation’s strict commitment to secularism. France has a long history of regulating religion, most recent being the 2004 ban of  ”conspicuous religious symbols” in French schools, including yarmulkes and crucifixes. Naturally, the ban was criticized by many as an intrusion by the state into religious life. Should our response be different now?  Aren’t all religions and related symbols “created equal?”

In a word, no.  Islam is both a religion and a comprehensive socio-political, militaristic system, distinguishing it from all other major faiths.  A chief aim, as we know, includes terraforming the political and judicial landscape toward its own ends, bringing all into conformity, enforced by Sharia law. Consequently, the burqa can never remain a private act of devotion.  It is perhaps the definitive manifestation of Islam’s goal of dominating public life.

Sarkozy clarified that the elimination of face-coverings was not intended to stigmatize Muslims and urged that the religion be treated with equal respect as others.  Predictably, critics have called the ban Islamophobic.  But is this religious discrimination or even xenophobia as some are claiming?  Or, a necessary step to preserve French culture and assimilate the burgeoning Muslim population?

While the French might still consider the faith to be similar to other religions and prefer it neatly tucked away in the private sphere, global Islam begs to differ.  The response should be…interesting.

• Many on both sides the aisle have described the threat by Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, to burn Korans during a self-proclaimed “International Burn a Koran Day” as a “bottom” of anti-Moslem bigotry and insensitivity; but is it really? Or does it mark the bottom of our willingness to be “sensitive” to Moslem feelings, even when those feelings are backed by blatant extortion and threats?
• On another front, when (if ever) do we reach the bottom of our own deeply held principles, such as religious tolerance and property rights, when actual national and cultural survival is at stake? Must we, as Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX, 91%) demands, follow our principles even to the point of extinction?
• Finally, we have the root-bottom axiom from which all other axioms, principles, and fundamental rights arise… the Zeroth Principle: The people will do what they must, no matter what law, religion, or creed demands, to survive as a people. Have we already reached that point, or is it far enough in the future that we needn’t worry about the cultural imperative just yet?

Until we confront these three bottoms, we’re just flibbertigibbets and whirligigs in the hurricane of the war against radical Islamism. So let’s take a look.

Nota bene: After mostly writing this post, I learnt that a “deal” was — or was not — cut to cancel the Koran burning in exchange for moving the GZM to… well, somewhere else: Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, who had threatened to burn the Korans, says “was;” the imam of the GZM, Feisal Abdul Rauf, says “was not.”

At first, I thought this tossed the entire post into a cockeyed hat; but then I reflected that, apart from the uncertainty of whether the deal is on or off, everything I have to say about it is universal and timeless (as always!)… so I have no reason not to plough right ahead. Excelsior!

In response to Rev. Jones vow (or threat) to lead a Koran-burning on Saturday, Moslems across the world have vowed to go on a mass killing spree; already, they’re burning American flags and chanting “Death to Christians!” in anticipation of a delicious round of international riot and ruin. President Barack H. Obama is alternately begging and ordering Jones to call it off (which he may or may not have done). Even Gen. David Petraeus chimed in, warning that the burning could result in our troops being attacked.

As to the latter, it’s a 100% certainty: After such a Koran burning, Moslem insurgents will attack our troops. But of course, it’s also a 100% certainty that if the burning is called off — Moslem insurgents will attack our troops. So it goes.

Shouldn’t we stop the Koranic holocause, somehow prevent Rev. Jones from disposing of his church’s private property via the incinerator? (Hm, what would Ron Paul say?) Or even if such interdiction is too destructive of our First Amendment, shouldn’t we at least redouble our efforts to persuade Jones to forbear, deal or no deal?

Before answering that question, let’s think a second and a third time; there are more reprecussions, no matter what path we choose, than the few we’re encouraged to obsess upon to the exclusion of all others. And let’s start with…

Moslem sensitivity

We’re told “we” can’t burn Korans — or even allow our soldiers to carry personal Bibles into Afghanistan — for fear Moslems will be offended. When offended, they lash out with bloodthirsty savagery, killing innocents. (The Bibles were burnt instead — burnt by American “military officials;” religious sensitivity, thy name is irony!)

But what behavior doesn’t cause Moslems to lash out and kill innocents? They riot, loot, slaughter, and burn in response to everything America, Israel, and the West do — from supporting freedom; to caricaturing some unnamed imam with a bomb for a turban; to allowing military guards at Guantanamo to touch the Koran with their “unclean” hands; to the continued existence of Jews; to attempts to end chattel slavery in Sudan; to allowing unshrouded females and schooling for girls; to the presence of Westerners on the “sacred” soil of Saudi Arabia; to the refusal of the West to “return” Palestine, al-Andaluz, Vienna, England, Africa, Europe, Asia, and eventually South America to the rightful grasp of the ummah; to Salman Rushdie writing the Satanic Verses; and to the presence of El Al at the Los Angeles International Airport. It all provokes the same violent reaction, including (inter alia) mass murders of Christians, Jews, and imperfectly conforming fellow Moslems. (See also this Emo Phillips routine, especially starting around 2:35.)

For that matter, if America were to crawl on its hands and knees and lick Ayatollah Khamenei’s and Ayman Zawahiri’s sandal straps, that too would spark an orgy of violence and slaughter. In fact, that would be the quickest route, since the real Moslem motivation for such rapine and atrocity is their perception that they are the strong horse, while the West is the weak horse; any action on our part that encourages this belief will (you guessed it) lead to riots and butchery of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Animists, wishy-washy Moslems, and the like.

Do we not finally comprehend, at some point in this crisis, that Moslem “outrage” is a calculated political tactic deliberately ginned up by Moslem leaders to pressure the West to make concession after concession? It is a form of Dawa, “soft jihad,” playing upon our liberal guilt and conservative principles to gain for radical Islamism much of what they demand, without the radicals having to confront real armies that can actually obliterate them. When that revelation finally sinks in throughout the American people and their counterparts in the rest of the West, we shall abruptly find the bottom of our “sensitivity” to Moslems’ perpeturally wounded feelings.

And I think we’re just about there, judging from the polling on the so-called Ground Zero Mosque (GZM).

Freedom of religion and other farces

But to heck with Moslem sensitivity, which we all agree borders on hysteria. What about our own deep principles, such as “religious tolerance,” upon which our country was founded (according to President Obama)? Here, he says it directly:

Obama told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview aired Thursday that he hopes the Rev. Terry Jones of Florida listens to the pleas of people who have asked him to call off the plan. The president called it a “stunt.”

“If he’s listening, I hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans,” Obama said. “That this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance.”

Should such religious tolerance be absolute? If so, it would be the only fundamental right or deeply held tenet that is.

Contrariwise, America was not founded on generic religious tolerance; many American colonies had colonial churches and were pretty intolerant towards other sects; and many retained them as state churches, with special privileges including state monetary support, after the American revolution. And in any event, even today, we certainly do not blindly support “absolute religious tolerance”: We outlaw American Indian peyote rituals, religously based child abuse (beatings, clitorectomies, refusal of medical care, child rape), and of course, human sacrifice. Or animal sacrifice, for that matter.

What America was actually founded upon was religious freedom, among others; and those two, freedom and tolerance, can easily be antithetical. In particular, we cannot tolerate religion (radical Islamism) that cannot tolerate freedom.

This paradox is one specific instance of the the great fallacy of tolerance: You cannot, in the name of tolerance, tolerate those seeking to impose their intolerance upon the rest of us; to do so is to become a willing accomplice in bigotry and discrimination.

The controversy over Cordoba House, the putative “Ground Zero Mosque,” is a perfect example, a tar baby that has ensnared everyone from Obama to Rep. Ron Paul and many other libertarians, liberals, and conservatives who argue that our American principles of religious tolerance and property rights require us not merely to allow Feisal Abdul Rauf to build Cordoba House but to celebrate his doing so — since he assures us that, regardless of appearances, the GZM’s purpose is “interfaith outreach,” not Islamist triumphalism.

In particular, Paul issued an official statement that, in essence, insists we adhere to “principle,” even if it leads to the utter destruction of the culture that professess those very principles:

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque….

There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable….

Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam–the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia….

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

In other words, Rauf is a uniter, America is a hater, and we deserved what happened to us in 2001. And we need to apologize and make amends by offering the Islamist victory shrine at Ground Zero.

This is classic sophomoric libertarianism that runs afoul of the more general principle of freedom; for there is ample evidence that Rauf actually supports radical Islamism: He is a longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood; he cannot admit that Hamas is a terrorist organization; he believes (as does Paul himself) that American foreign policy was complicit in 9/11; and Rauf wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times in 1979 — which he now refuses to repudiate — praising the totalitarian, theocratic, sharia state established in Iran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Rauf knows very well the mosque will be seen by Islamists around the world as a “victory shrine” celebrating the great martyrdom at the World Trade Centers; and that he supports that mission.

So by insisting that the American people “tolerate,” or even applaud, Cordoba House in its present location, supporters of the GZM necessarily demand we tolerate those who express the ultimate form of intolerance against us: the mass butchery of Americans and others on September 11th, 2001. It is inherently paralogical — a state of cognitive dissonance that is no stranger either to Barack Obama or Ron Paul.

The Zeroth Principle

But there is a deeper bottom below even our own foundational principles in America and the rest of the West. Call it the Zeroth Principle which underlies all other axioms: In the end, people will do what they must to survive and to preserve their culture, no matter what other laws or principles may say. In other words, sometimes you just have to shoot the bastard first and apologize later for “violating his rights.”

Idealogues neglect to factor in the Zeroth Principle all the time, but they do so at their peril; we saw the Zeroth in action in Iraq, when the Sunni in Anbar and other provinces finally decided it was impossible to live under the insane and fickle rules of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Life was utterly unbearable, despite the Iraqi Sunni’s agreement (in theory) with al-Qaeda… so the former rose up and obliterated the latter, and to hell with the Koran, sharia, and Moslem solidarity!

Folks will do what they must to survive, they and their culture, and you can’t stop them. It doesn’t matter if you point out that the principles by which they live — sincerely live — require them to accept the unacceptable and endure the unendurable; they will reject it and drive it out, and principles be damned. They understand that the Zeroth Principle trumps all others: What you cannot endure you must change or destroy. Sometimes you just have to shoot the SOB and justify it later.

And that is where Barack Obama, Ron Paul, and Feisal Rauf just don’t get it; but the Rev. Terry Jones does. We have about reached the end of our collective rope anent Moslem bullying, extorting, whining, and special pleading; we have had enough. At this point, I think an actual majority of Americans is at the point of saying that religious tolerance is all well and good, but we want these radical jackasses out of our hair and out of our lives. It’s a tipping point: If the government won’t do it… then we’ll do it ourselves, and the powers that be won’t like how we do it.

In fact, we’ve hit a triple-whammy tipping point:

• You bureaucrats had better do something about the Islamist problem — or we will.
• You’d better do something about illegal immigration and fraudulent voting and Mexican drug wars slopping over into America — or we will.
• You’d better do something about government intrusion in our lives — or we will!

So Republicans and Democrats alike (and Libertarian loonies) had better start swimming, or they’ll sink like a stone. (I place my bet on the first over the latter two.) From now on, when Moslems (radicals or “moderates”) whine and threaten, we’re going to tell them to take a long walk on a short pier. Come November, Congressman Taxaholic and Senator Nannystate are going to be pounding the pavement looking for honest work. And one way or another, we the people will not allow an Islamist victory shrine on the ashes of the World Trade Centers.

This is what I’ve been yammering about ever since February in my post “What Makes Lefty Run?“: This is what a popular front for Capitalism, Judeo-Christian culture, and American exceptionalism looks like, up close and personal:

• If Moslems want to burn Bibles, fine; then they should shut their falafal holes when Americans burn Korans. And if they riot and kill and try to conquer the world, then don’t be surprised if we bomb their countries, kill their leaders, and convert their citizens to Christianity. (If we make plain that we are the strong horse, that last task won’t be so difficult!)
• As a small minority in the West, Moslems live and thrive at our sufferance; their job is to assimilate as much as possible — and shut up about the conflicts that remain. (Like Jews in America, who wouldn’t dream of insisting Congress enact laws forcing everyone to wear a yarmulke and keep kosher.)
• And if radical Islamists think we’re going to let them dance on the mass grave of 3,000 Americans and other Westerners, then it’s time to tell Imam Rauf to go pound sand down a rathole.

So to answer my own question from above — yes, I believe that if the Dove Outreach Center burns some Korans, Moslems will “retaliate” by killing some Christians and Jews in Pakistan, or Iran, or Qatar, or Indonesia, or France, and by attacking American soldiers who are keeping the peace in various Islamic countries. And yes, that is an enormity; but it’s not our enormity, nor even Rev. Jones’ enormity; moral guilt fully belongs to those who commit actual murder in response to mere symbolism.

And in the meantime, I’m glad Islamists suffer the humiliation of no longer inducing the terror they once wielded, and of seeing their own books burnt; and I really don’t give a hoot that some religious Moslems who don’t support jihad (or at least not much) also feel humiliated and maybe even a little frightened. It’s more urgent that the West finally rouse itself, stand up, and fight back, both physically, though our military forces, and especially symbolically, through such metaphors as burning Korans and driving the GZM off of GZ. Symbols are especially vital in rallying the people and stoking the flames of the popular front.

Sober conservatives cautioning against what Terry Jones wants to do may have the technical right of the argument… but those willing to stand up and fight, consequences be damned, have its heart and its soul.

Cross-posted on Big Lizards…

The media narrative is focused completely on the people who oppose the Ground Zero mosque. The mosque’s opposition has focused almost exclusively on Imam Rauf. But what about the actual developer of the mosque? Sharif Al-Gamal is its developer, and he doesn’t seem like such a trustworthy guy. On top of having been arrested seven times, it turns out that Al-Gamal is also a tax cheat.

The New York Post reported that Al-Gamal owes over $200,000 in back property taxes on the proposed mosque site.

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.

El-Gamal’s company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal’s lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

We’ve established a lot of troubling information about the people behind this Ground Zero mosque. You’ve got Imam Rauf, an advocate for sharia in America. Now it appears that the developer has a long record of multiple arrests and is a tax cheat. Yet somehow, Al-Gamal is getting the money to pay millions of dollars for this and other New York City properties over the last year.

Why isn’t anyone investigating this? We’ve got some very suspect Muslims wanting to build a mosque at the spot where Islamic terrorists have left a lifetime imprint of jihad in America. These two men aren’t exactly coming across as trustworthy, moderate Muslims, yet New York bureaucrats are falling all over themselves to ensure that this mosque is built. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even said she wanted to investigate the people who opposed the mosque, and not the developers of the mosque itself!

Where is the mosque developer getting the money for this project? Why are they so set on building a mosque at Ground Zero? How do we know that Imam Rauf or Sharif Al-Gamal don’t have ties to Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East? We have the answers to none of these questions, yet lefty politicians are ready to go full-speed ahead with this mosque. It’s a disgrace. These are questions that we need to know the answers to, and we need them before this mosque is allowed to be built.

9-11, one of the darkest days in American history, happened less than ten years ago. Part of the reason why it happened was because we as a country were blissfully unaware of the dangers of Islamic terrorism. Have we really learned so little since then?

—–

Follow Cassy on Twitter and read more of her work at CassyFiano.com and Hard Corps Wife.

A Muslim Disneyland Resort hotel employee, Imane Boudlal, has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over Disney’s refusal to let her wear a hijab in front of customers. Now, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is involved, and they’re crying religious discrimination. But is it? Unfortunately for CAIR and Boudlal, the case isn’t quite so cut and dried. This seems to be yet another case of Muslim bullying, this time at the happiest place on Earth.

Boudlal, and her extremist friends at CAIR, are busily spinning the truth about her employment with Disney to try to bully the company into accommodating sharia. The truth is that Disney has tried to work with Boudlal, and every time, she refused.

A Muslim employee is refusing to wear a hat and bonnet that Disney provided in place of a head scarf, which she wants to leave on at work for religious reasons.

Imane Boudlal, a restaurant hostess at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, last week in a press conference accused Disney of religious discrimination for refusing to let her wear a hijab, a head scarf, in public view.

On Monday, Disney offered Boudlal a bonnet with a hat to wear at work in public.

Boudlal rejected the new headwear and went home for a seventh time, according to the hotel workers’ union, Unite Here Local 11. Disney has offered to let her work behind the scenes with the head scarf, but Boudlal has refused.

“The hat makes a joke of me and my religion, and draws even more attention to me,” Boudlal said in a prepared statement. “It’s unacceptable.”

Suzi Brown, a Disneyland Resort spokeswoman, said managers are still trying to meet Boudlal’s request after providing options, including alternative costumes. The company also offered her four different jobs that would allow her to wear her own head scarf.

“We provided Ms. Boudlal with several options, including a modified costume that includes a blouse with a higher neckline and a newly designed head covering that meets our costuming guidelines and which we believe provides a reasonable accommodation of Ms. Boudal’s religious beliefs,” Brown said in a prepared statement.

Boudlal could not immediately be reached for further comment. Her attorney also could not be reached.

So Disney does everything they can to work with Boudlal, to keep her as an employee without making her compromise her religious values. They gave her alternate costuming, they offered her a job backstage, and yet everything they offered, she refused. Now she’s suing Disney and filing a complaint against them. And we’re supposed to find Boudlal at the victim here?

It used to be the case that in America, a business could be run however the owner saw fit. In today’s politically correct world, that’s apparently no longer the case. Let’s take the obvious example: Disney. Disney looks at their entire operation as a “show”, and as such, their employees aren’t even called employees. They’re called cast members, and cast members sign a contract upon employment agreeing to adhere to Disney’s incredibly strict dress code. Believe it or not, the dress code has been loosened in recent years; it used to be even stricter than it is now. Until recently, men couldn’t have moustaches and women had to wear pantyhose if they wore shorts or a skirt (imagine that during summertime in Orlando at DisneyWorld). Women can also now have bare arms while at work. Disney even has a dress code for visitors — for paying customers! This is all because there is an image that Disney is trying to uphold of a clean-cut, family-oriented place. It’s also to keep up with the various Disney themes throughout the parks (in Liberty Square at Disney World, for example, cast members wear full colonial costumes, including bonnets, dresses, and petticoats for women). Cast members are not given uniforms, they’re given costumes, and they are required to wear these costumes to keep the Disney look uniform. This would seem to make sense to reasonable people, especially when a cast member works in front of the public. When an employee is hired, they are made aware of the stringent dress code and are expected to comply.

And for two years, Boudlal worked at Disney with no complaint. Then suddenly, she became an American citizen and decided she wanted to start wearing a hijab. What made her change her mind and why was it suddenly so important to her? This obviously goes against the Disney dress code and yet, Disney still tried to accommodate her. There’s a long paper trail of proof of all the different ways Disney tried to make her happy, but she refused every one of them. And now she’s trying to cash in. This isn’t religious discrimination; it’s nothing more than a case of a greedy woman and a scheming organization trying to bully a multi-million dollar company.

—–

Follow Cassy on Twitter and read more of her work at CassyFiano.com and Hard Corps Wife.

The rift reflects only a difference of opinion about the precise strategies and tactics for achieving that goal. Islamist victory conditions are the same in both groups: a pure, radical Islamism dominant across the globe, with sharia the final law in every country.

This is, of course, the central thesis of Andrew McCarthy’s seminal work, the Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. But we see it played out in the carefully parsed response of the administration of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to the documentation, throughout the leaked papers, of cooperation between Pakistan officials and the Taliban… at the very time the former are supposed to be allied with the United States and NATO at war with the latter.

Note how carefully spokesmen dance around the actual accusation:

A senior ISI official, speaking on condition of anonymity under standard practice, sharply condemned the reports as “part of the malicious campaign to malign the spy organization” and said the ISI would “continue to eradicate the menace of terrorism with or without the help of the West.”

The unnamed official pointedly restricted the term “menace” to terrorism; but the danger is not terrorism but Islamism. The accusation against the ISI, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan, is not that they, themselves engage in “martyrdom operations” in Pakistan or Afghanistan; of course they don’t (in general). Rather, the data-dump documents that the ISI especially, but other Pakistan government bodies as well, leak military intelligence like a sieve. Some of the leaks are simple incompetence; but others are due to corruption (bribery) or a radical ideology that deliberately aids and abets Islamist groups… including those who prematurely engage in terrorism at this time, before Pakistan has been sufficiently “Islamicized” to embrace the ideology of the Taliban.

And again:

Farhatullah Babar, the spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, dismissed the reports and said that Pakistan remained “a part of a strategic alliance of the United States in the fight against terrorism….”

Mr. Babar questioned how Pakistan could possibly have the kind of connections to the Taliban that some of the reports suggest, asking if “those who are alleging that Pakistan is playing a double game are also asserting that President Zardari is presiding over an apparatus that is coordinating attacks on the general headquarters, mosques, shrines, schools and killing Pakistani citizens?”

Yes, I think we all agree that the current quasi-democratic, partially authoritarian regime in Pakistan believes it should remain in charge; consequently, it opposes terrorist attacks on “mosques, shrines, schools,” and especially upon “the general headquarters” of Pakistan’s military. But that isn’t the question, is it?

Are elements of the ISI collaborating with the Taliban to bring about an Islamist revolution in Pakistan? That is the real question, and it remains unanswered by the Zardari administration.

Such a revolution needn’t include terrorism; for example, if Zardari himself fully embraced Islamism and enacted sharia law, overturning what democracy Pakistan still possesses and joining “the Project” — but if he declared himself the supreme Taliban leader in Pakistan — that would still constitute an “Islamist revolution,” without firing a shot. And it would be just as catastrophic for America and the rest of the West as a bloody insurrection or coup d’état.

Terrorism is not the enemy; it is a tactic of the enemy, one bolt in an entire quiver of bolts. A “global war against terrorism” has no meaning; but surely we can understand and support a war against radical Islamism.

This specifically includes not only those who want to advance Islamist ideas by terrorism but also those, like the Muslim Brotherhood, who share that goal but believe, at this time in history, that the Islamist Project is best advanced by propaganda, sabotage, bribery, “democratically” electing a totalitarian government (which then “pulls the ladder up” behind it)… and only sometimes by terrorism and bloody revolution.

Thus the surety we need is that Pakistan rejects the Islamist Project, and all it comprises:

• Dominance — Islam is dominant over all the world; infidels worldwide must pay the special tax and be treated as inferior beings.
• Purity — Islam is the Islam of Mohammed and his original followers; no reformation, no enlightenment, containing no Western ideas of individual liberty, democracy, or separation of religion and State.
• Completeness — Sharia is the entire law in every country and Islam the entire morality.
• Hegemony — the “true” Caliphate is restored to its rightful place as supreme ruler of the world.

If highly placed individuals within Pakistan (or Afghanistan) still support any element of the Project, then those individuals are our enemies, regardless of whether they believe terrorism is the best route to advance the Project at this time, in that particular place; and they should be treated as enemies by anyone who purports to reject radical Islamism.

The clever way found by representatives of Pakistan to ignore the implication that high-ranking government and intelligence officials either support the ideology of radical Islamism, or are at least willing to ally with them (for money, for power), and tendentiously redefine the question to focus only on the straw man of direct ISI involvement in terrorist attacks upon themselves, should make us very nervous indeed.

Why can’t Pakistani officials, or President Zardari himself, just come right out and denounce the ideology of the Taliban? While it’s important what tactics they use to advance that ideology, the most important factor is radical Islamism itself.

But don’t look for the current American administration of Barack H. Obama to demand an answer; it has already ruled out ideology as a motivator of “Man-caused disaster” in the first place (an act of “Willful Blindness“). We cannot possibly win the war until and unless we are willing to confront the real enemy — radical Islamists — and win the war of ideas.

There are many ways to win a war of ideas or ideologies; but our core strategy is the same as that of the Islamists: conversion. We must convert the unaligned and even the enemy — either to another religion entirely (Christianity, perhaps), or at least to a non-radicalized version of Islam.

One path to conversion is to prove that our Western “culture of life” leads to a better life than the Islamists’ cult of death. Another is to show that the West is the “strong horse;” this plays directly into the Arab cultural tendency to gravitate to the winning side in any conflict. But in order to convert, we need a Borg-like ideology that is powerful and seductive, against which “resistance is futile.”

Fortunately, we have a couple ready to hand: Evangelical Christianity is winning that war in Africa, for example, as Animists and even Moslems on that continent are converting in mass numbers to an African Christianity that is both Western in outlook and native in local implementation.

Too, our own American ideology of individual liberty, Capitalism, rule of law, separation of religion and State (while maintaining the connection between religion and culture), and democratic governance by the consent of the governed is itself powerful and awesome, leading to a staggering improvement in human life and meaning, and to a strength that has made the still-young America the most powerful nation on Earth. (Even after eighteen months of Obamunism!)

But you can’t surrender your way to victory; we must engage on the most important front — the ideological one.

That’s how our Founders won the Revolutionary War, how the North won the Civil War, and how the Democratic West won World War II and the Cold War… they fought and won the war of ideas. Yet by allowing the multi-culti “elite” to jettison the entire intellectual arsenal of liberty, we have disarmed ourselves in what could be an existential armageddon.

So to hell with taking back “the night;” it’s long past time for real America to recapture the light of the Western day.

Cross-posted on Big Lizards…

On Sunday Sarah Palin, exhibiting common sense and courage of her convictions, called for a rejection of the planned mosque at Ground Zero. The planned mosque has been causing controversy, controversy that was easily foreseen by anyone with a brain and, you know, an ounce of true as opposed to feigned sensitivity. Apparently, this does not include a New York City Community Board nor Mayor Bloomberg.

Nearly two months ago, Manhattan Community Board 1 voted to approve the plans for a mosque to be built at ground zero. The vote was 29 to 1 in favor, although 10 chose to “vote present” by abstaining. Suffice it to say, the public had a few things to say about it.

The alleged purpose of the mosque was to spread “healing.” The actual result? Not so much. So, you’d think that the plans would have been scrapped once that was crystal clear. But, nope. Of course not. Because it’s always sensitivity for me, but not for thee, to those on the Left. Enter Sarah Palin, who once again is displaying her uncanny ability of creating a national dialogue via social media postings.  But she’s just a dum-dum, right? She tweeted this on Sunday:

“Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing,” she tweeted Sunday.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? Not if you are an aide in Nanny Mayor Bloomberg’s office.

While a recent poll showed a majority of New Yorkers oppose the plan to build the mosque built near Ground Zero, an aide in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s City Hall hit back at Palin, first tweeting “@SarahPalinUSA mind your business.”

The aide, policy hand Andrea Batista Schlesinger, followed that up with:

“@SarahPalinUSA whose hearts? Racist hearts?”

Schlesinger deleted both tweets shortly after posting them.

“Andrea was only speaking for herself, and she has the right to her own opinions,” said Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser.

Schlesinger posted threee new tweets Sunday evening, explaining why she wrote, and took down, her Palin response:

“Deleted post bc I regretted curt response. But fact is, I believe this city belongs to everyone – and no one more than another”

“Unlike @SarahPalinUSA, I was born here grew up here. Was showing off to a visitor today – look at how beautiful and diverse my city is.”

“I felt pain of 9/11, the trauma. I got through it by believing in my city. Not through fear and hate.”

Sigh. Firstly, “mind your business” is hilariously ironic coming from Bloomberg’s administration. An administration that is striving to stick it’s nanny nose in every aspect of everyone’s business, down to how much salt they use. Furthermore, this was, of course, followed by the good old “you haters! So Racist ™ !” narrative. Not surprising, coming from an aide for Mayor Bloomberg. Remember, when the car bomb was found it Times Square, Mayor Bloomberg went on air and accused “somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something” as the perpetrator. Then, when even he could no longer deny the obvious and was forced to admit that it was an attempted terrorist attack, he fretted about a “backlash” against Muslims. His first thought was that Americans are racist and bullies. I’ve always said that everyone has the right to be stupid, but Mayor Bloomberg totally abuses the privilege.

After Palin’s tweet, a fracas on Twitter ensued, with the most prevalent, and intellectually dishonest straw man being “It’s not at Ground Zero! Stop discriminating, you discriminator-y wing nuts!” Only, it is at Ground Zero and only someone suffering from acute moral relativism and cognitive dissonance wouldn’t recognize that fact. The mosque is to be built at the site of the destroyed Burlington Coat Factory. The building was destroyed by fuselage from one of the planes that were purposely flown into the World Trade Center, by Islamic terrorists, killing nearly 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001.

There is another fact conveniently overlooked by those who wish to sanctimoniously condemn others as haters while patting themselves on the back for being oh-so-faux-tolerant, even at the expense of human decency. In Islam, a religion that demands the conquering and conversion of those it deems to be infidels, “mosques of war” are often built at the sites of odiously perceived victories over infidels. Even if this particular mosque isn’t being built for that reason, to the jihadists that is exactly what it will be. A shrine of conquer and honor. Where almost 3,000 innocent ‘infidels” were killed.

Mayor Bloomberg supports this. Until now, it has remained primarily a local New York City issue. Sarah Palin, once again bravely speaking her mind without fear of being not politically correct,  has hopefully brought this to the forefront nationally. This mosque must not be built. We must stop cowering in fear of the politically correct and we must stop condoning blatant provocations as a form of deluded tolerance and appeasement. Instead of busily demonizing American citizens, apologizing to those who wish to kill us, and frantically avoiding perceived “profiling” out of the insane fear of looking non-politically correct, Nanny Bloomberg can learn from the Mama Grizzly. Let’s hope that he does.

—–

Cross- posted from NewsReal:

Follow Lori  on Twitter and read more of her newsreal posts here

It’s certainly possible the CBS staff didn’t know about the US request, of course, but that’s another topic.  Meanwhile, the Lebanese flotilla has reportedly joined the Iranian flotilla in standing down for the time being.  The Israelis had already affirmed to the UN that they would stop the flotilla, and warned Lebanon that they would hold her government responsible for an incident provoked by a Lebanese-sponsored flotilla.  The US communication came on top of that warning from Israel.  The flotilla was supposed to depart around the 25th or 26th, but with the coincident announcement that Iran’s flotilla would be cancelled, Lebanon seems to have thought better of letting the Levantine flotilla proceed.  Haaretz had reported as early as 20 June, right after the Israelis issued their warning, that Beirut was holding up the flotilla over its failure to secure bureaucratic permissions.  An American activist who had gone to join the Lebanese flotilla reported two days ago that it looked very unlikely the planned flotilla would leave at all.

The subtitle of his report is “Controlling Civil Disobedience.”  That’s worth reflecting on briefly, as civil disobedience is something that always occurs at the sufferance of the authorities.  Of course it’s possible to shut down these flotillas – as long as they maintain their cover of being acts of civil disobedience.  The Lebanese flotilla had just enough of that cover to knuckle under when it became clear the combined Lebanese, Israeli, and US authorities opposed it.

We should not forget, however, that what we’re talking about here is not Henry D. Thoreau leading a flotilla to Walden Pond.  One of the flotilla’s chief sponsors was Syrian businessman Yassir Qashlaq, who had this to say about the flotilla’s purpose and the fate of Israel’s Jews.  The clip is short; don’t skip it.

One of the two ships scheduled to participate in the Lebanese flotilla was a French ship originally named Julia, whose name was changed to Nagi al-Ali for the flotilla outing.  Nagi al-Ali waited in Tripoli to pick up its passengers (mostly European activists and journalists); not surprising, but an additional sign that Libya – which hosted a hysterically anti-Israel Arab League conference in March – is back on Qadhafi’s old path of facilitating anti-Israel actions.  Actually committing them is probably not far behind.

The third prong of the flotilla assault was to be from Turkey – and that effort is alive and well.  That’s bad news, because Turkey remains the most formidable potential flotilla-wielding foe.  The next Turkish flotilla will reportedly head for Gaza in late July.  Although we are hearing little about it at the moment, there is good reason to credit the Turkish planners with serious intentions:  their main foreign sponsor is still fully engaged, and is even holding an international conference, which will start 11 July, on breaking the Gaza blockade.  That sponsor is the Perdana Global Peace Organization (PGPO), headed by former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammed.

It’s worth visiting PGPO’s website just to take in its overwhelming obsession with the flotilla campaign.  The homepage is basically “all flotilla, all the time,” and has been since the first flotilla began nearing Gaza in late May.  PGPO, which is based in Malaysia, sponsored three of the ships in the last flotilla, including M/V Rachel Corrie.  And as I outlined here, Mahathir Mohammed and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, received special thanks from Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, at an “al-Qods” (Jerusalem) conference convened in Beirut in January.  Qaradawi is the founder of the Union of Good, from which Turkey’s IHH organization – which has ties to Hamas and has been designated a terrorist group – receives its funding.  (See here for Qaradawi on killing Jews, bringing down America, and other topics; h/t Jihad Watch.)

(Of note, PGPO is also the organization of which Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Ground Zero mosque imam who founded the Cordoba Initiative, is a prominent founder.  This is not a superficial or accidental connection; Rauf’s father, an Egyptian Islamic scholar from Cairo’s al-Azhar University, founded the Islamic University of Malaysia and had a long association with Mahathir Mohammed.  When Mahathir was hospitalized and required surgery in 2007, after the elder Rauf had passed away, the younger Rauf arrived from New York to lead interfaith prayers for him in Kuala Lumpur.)

PGPO’s Gaza blockade conference starts on 11 July.  It will presumably be after the conference that the next IHH flotilla sets out from Turkey.  As of now, the Lebanese and Iranian flotillas are in abeyance – a testament to the good it does to issue warnings (or at least look like you are doing so).  Turkey’s susceptibility to warnings will be contingent on the attitude with which we issue them, if we do; and the other flotillas may not remain stood down without continuing encouragement.  Meanwhile, Turkish flotilla advocates protested under this sign in June.  The Turkish phrase means, roughly, “health to your hands,” and is an expression of thanks.

H/t ReligionofPeace.com via Jihad Watch

Their latest attempt at bending over backwards to please their peace-loving Muslim neighbors? Last week, police banned a sausage and wine party because Muslims got upset.

A giant “sausage and wine” party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday.

The event, announced on the social networking site Facebook late last month, had drawn growing criticism from politicians and civic groups in recent days as its page containing barely disguised anti-Muslim slogans attracted over 7,000 members.

The event, called an “apero geant” (giant cocktail party), was due on Friday, a date seen as highly provocative because that will be the day of the weekly Muslim prayer and the World Cup soccer match between England and majority Muslim Algeria.

It is also the 70th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle’s famous 1940 “Appeal of June 18″ from London calling on the French to resist the German occupation of their country.

“This open-air event creates serious risks of disturbances to public order,” the police said in a statement, noting the symbolism of the time and place chosen for the flash mob-style party. It also said counter-demonstrations were planned.

The main organiser, Sylvie Francois, wrote that she wanted the event to be “a joyous protest” against the closing down of roads in the Goutte d’Or neighbourhood every Friday by Muslims praying in the street outside the overcrowded mosque there.

So basically, it’s OK for Muslims to pray in the streets and threaten violence against anyone who dares to not follow Islamic law. But it’s not OK for Parisians to have a peaceful protest against them by drinking wine and eating pork. You know, if it’s a Muslim holy day, then every Parisian who might be within yards of a Muslim better not offend that Muslim. Freedom of speech and religion? Bah, that’s only something that those dirty, unsophisticated, racist, un-cultured Americans do. Standing up against foreign invaders? They’d rather just wait until things get completely FUBAR, and then wait for us dirty Americans to come in and save them.

French politicians, along with police, are saying the event was cancelled because it was sure to degenerate into violence — and this was framed as the fault of the cocktail partiers, not the violent Muslims sure to be whipped into a bloodthirsty rage at the sight of someone eating pork on their holy day. It’s OK for Muslims to pray in Parisian streets — for roads to be closed down for Muslims to pray in the streets — , but Parisians can’t eat pork in Parisian streets.

On the anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s appeal of June 18th, a speech urging the French to fight the German occupation, native Parisians are being told they can’t hold a mild protest against Muslims who, for years now, have been violent rioters waging war against the French way of life. How sad, yet predictable.

If this is how it is going to be in Paris, then why even bother trying to act as if the city hasn’t completely given in to Muslim demands? Just go ahead and surrender. Give in to the dhimmitude. Let the Muslims institute Shariah law. Heck, they’re just keeping with tradition, aren’t they? A violent foreign power invades and threatens the French way of life, and it would never occur to the French to fight back. Surrender is the French way of life. So they might as well just do what they do best and get it over with.

Anyone who values liberty and freedom, meanwhile, knows where they should go.

—–

Follow Cassy on Twitter and read more of her work at CassyFiano.com and Hard Corps Wife.

One might hope that, if and when Rauf seeks to explain himself, his political adversaries will apply the same rules of extenuation, attention to context, and open-mindedness that they demand when one of their own is under scrutiny.  As welcome as a clearer picture on Rauf might be, however, it would not bear directly on the piece of mine that AP linked and discussed.  My post was entitled “Fight Them All Together:  The Conservative Reaction to the ‘Ground Zero Mosque,’” and I provide the title in full to emphasize a point (not for the first time in recent days):  The piece was only secondarily about the “Ground Zero Mosque” – Cordoba House – at all.

AP provides his interpretation of my position as follows:

A few days ago, Greenroomer CK MacLeod accused the mosque’s critics of playing into jihadists’ hands by conflating radical Muslims with all Muslims. Why punish all members of the faith collectively by denying them a mosque near Ground Zero, asked CK, when it’s the Bin Ladenites who are culpable for bringing down the towers?

The first sentence summarizes one major theme of my post.  I say “one major theme” because I do not argue only that many Cordoba House critics have “play[ed] into the jihadists’ hands.”  As if that would set them apart from everyone else!  I’d like to think I’ve said much more damning things than that.

The emphases in AP’s second sentence also aren’t mine, but his rhetorical question does go to my central argument, whose basis should be obvious to anyone who does not favor collective judgment as a doctrine or policy – anyone who, for example, supports the Nuremberg approach of holding individuals responsible for what they have done as individuals, neither allowing them to hide within a collective (“I was only following orders”), nor holding them or anyone else responsible for things that others did “in their name.”  At that critical moment following the end of World War II, as victorious Americans sought both to exercise and to show themselves worthy of moral leadership on a global and historical scale, we rejected any species of moral collectivism because it conflicted with our traditions, precepts, and interests.  Put more simply, we rejected collective judgment because embracing it would have turned us into what we had fought against for so long, and had defeated at such great cost, and knew we were already facing again.

In recent days I’ve read confounding and dispiriting attempts, some from friends or possibly former friends, to reject that tradition by in effect denying that Muslims are included among those “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”  (And, no, I’m not concerned about, afraid of, or offended by Muslim pride in Ummayyad Cordoba – nor do I presume a right to judge.) Much more frequently, I see expressions of opinion that imply such a view.

I won’t provide a handy catalog of derogatory, intentionally blasphemous and offensive, calculatedly extreme remarks of the sort that are easy to search up at HotAir and allied sites.  (Others may prove less hesitant in this regard than I am.)  I’m not just saying that religious bigotry and lesser related offenses appear “permissible” under lax enforcement of whatever Terms of Service or, more charitably, a zealous commitment to freedom of speech.  I mean that such sentiments are common, while protests and counter-arguments are rare and weak, and, when offered at all, are more often energetically denounced than even meekly seconded.  I can’t imagine an average Muslim, or anyone sensitive to religious hatred and blasphemy, feeling comfortable on Islam-related discussion threads at many conservative sites.  What discussions are not taking place that could be – either because people are reluctant to speak up, or have long since moved on?  At what point does a failure to respond – and condemn – become tacit communal approval?

One reason for self-disfiguring and self-destructive insensitivity, aside from common xenophobia and ignorance – amplified by reaction to 9/11 and terrorism more generally, as of course intended – could be the insensitivity and aggressive stereotyping of Muslims practiced by opinion leaders, as represented, for instance, in the material I examined in “Fight Them All Together.”

Now having returned to the actual thesis of my prior post, we can also look at AP’s final question referencing “CK’s logic”:

If some imam decided he wanted to build a mosque on Ground Zero itself, at the foot of the never-to-be-completed Freedom Tower, shouldn’t we indulge him per CK’s logic? And if he decided he wanted to build it in the shape of an airplane — just to “reclaim the symbol” from the evil jihadists who attacked on 9/11, mind you — shouldn’t we indulge him that, too? At what point is it okay to question motives here?

I want and really don’t want to answer “yes,” “yes,” and “for us, maybe never” – to say that we’ve become such irretrievably pathetic mockeries of what we pretend to be, we don’t deserve a Freedom Tower; to say that at most we deserve a “Freedom” Tower or Freedom* Tower – or a burlesque airplane mosque; to conclude that we are in no position to question anyone else’s motives; and to wonder if there are deeper reasons why current progress at the site seems to say “unfulfilled promise.”

AP’s formulation does acknowledge what the convenient shorthand on this issue usually doesn’t.  Cordoba House is not really (planned to be) a “Ground Zero mosque.”  Even if we preserve the incessant and exclusive focus on the mosque, the mosque, the mosque, the actual location presents a difficulty for opponents – or should – in the form of a different question that once upon a time I would have presumed repugnant to an American patriot:  How far does the “Islamic worship exclusion zone” have to extend to be “OK” – maybe a mere yellow on the Outrage Scale?  (And I’ve seen attempts to answer that.)

What I mainly have against AP’s three questions, however, is that they don’t have much to do with “CK’s logic” at all.  CK appealed, in passing, to a conventional sense of proportion about Cordoba House:  “You’re getting this excited about a 15-story building in Manhattan?”  CK can consistently apply the same man-on-Park-Place standard regarding absurd or exclusionary or absurdly exclusionary uses of the actual WTC site.  Additionally, following prior appeals to a conservative’s local preference, CK could consistently, and confidently, defer to the Manhattan Community Board and others if anything resembling AP’s hypothetical ever came up.  CK’s screwy Islamophilia and unfair, unkind, condescending etc. up to evil, morally depraved, and treacherous judgments of good, solid conservatives don’t even enter the picture.

Nor does CK claim any copyright on the logic that tells him the following:  Those upset about any perceived absurd, insulting, or imprudent initiative – for their own sake, for the sake of those in whose name they’re arguing, for the sake of the larger community, and eventually for the sake of the political life of this country and for the sake of its particular aims and mission in the world – should consider how their words and actions are taken by those who are not already inclined to agree with them, and even by some who are or were.  They should consider how they themselves would like to be treated or would like to have their public representatives treated.  They should consider what their words and actions turn them into.

Peace be upon you.

cross-posted at Zombie Contentions

The destiny of the Aryan race, Hitler claimed, was to dominate Europe by cleansing the gene pool. The cleansing process was straightforward: exterminate Catholics, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, and other ‘undesirables’. Only then would the thousand-year Reich reign.

The Nazis quickly violated every international treaty agreement related to armed forces and military equipment. They created new, deadly organizations like the SA and SS for internal and external security. And they began undermining the governments of neighboring countries through clandestine military and intelligence activities.

The German people were, at first, hesitant to embrace the tenets of Nazism. Church leaders and many members of the original Prussian officer corps resisted the Nazis. Students, academics and unions also served as opposition to Hitler in the early years of the Reich.

By 1938, however, the Nazis had seized sufficient power to launch the Holocaust and the attendant military takeover of Europe. Their rationale:

A massive arms buildup defied every international convention and represented forward-thinking military technology. The Nazis’ Panzer tanks and Stuka dive-bombers quickly proved, at least regionally, that the German war machine was without peer.

Furthermore, their demonstrations of dominance quickly convinced the Soviets that an alliance was preferable to conflict. And no one else in Europe was willing to challenge the buzz-saw represented by Hitler’s war machine.

Historians now claim that Hitler’s buildup could have been preempted much earlier. But opposition from the allied powers — England and France — came only after an untenable series of affronts by the Nazis. And the U.S. tried to avoid direct intervention until it suffered a catastrophic sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.

But the most effective check against Nazism — a sanity check, if you will — never came, because most Germans could not believe that Hitler was serious about exterminating the Jews. In fact, German Jews felt relatively secure seeing as how they operated in Europe’s most culturally and economically advanced country.

Compounding the issue, leaders in England and France believed that their political fortunes rested on diplomacy with Hitler. While history now reviles Neville Chamberlain, he had returned from negotiations with Hitler in 1938 as an acclaimed peacemaker.

Many years ago, Iran began a massive military buildup. Its most secretive program related to the production of nuclear weapons — and attendant guided missile technologies. At the same time, Iran helped support terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Ansar al-Islam.

Today, members of Iranian society believe that they are ruled by the Middle East’s equivalents of rednecks and hill-jacks. This year’s deadly student protests in Iran prove that most citizens are simply not aligned with the Mullahs.

But the greatest check on serious measures against Iran are — just as in the case of Nazi Germany — eradicating the sober suspicion that the Mullahs “can’t be serious.”

Now, as in the case of the thirties, little time remains. Will the President have the wherewithal to truly isolate Iran if it defies basic international convention? That appears unlikely, based upon Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent actions and remarks. Somewhere, Neville Chamberlain is shaking his head.

Based upon: R. James Woolsey’s Parallels Between Present-Day Iran and Nazi Germany Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

I myself would choose to discuss that question without suggesting that conservatives, in particular, have failed embarrassingly to recognize its validity.  Some have presented their conclusions on the matter without taking us through the whole argument, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t thought it through.

On the question of the mosque itself, however, I don’t think any treatment of the topic can be complete without reference to the meaning behind the name of the “initiative” that intends to establish it – the Cordoba Initiative – or to the plan to name the mosque Cordoba House.  My first question on hearing this a couple of weeks ago was whether Americans are completely ignorant of history.

Cordoba was, of course, the seat of the caliphate established in what is now modern Spain after the Islamic invasion from North Africa in the 8th century A.D.  The medieval occupation of Spain – “al-Andalus” – is considered by Islamic theorists to have been an inevitable step in the manifest destiny of Islam, and its eventual reversal through the lengthy European “Reconquista” a tragic but temporary triumph of the infidels.  The great mosque at Cordoba was built on the foundation of a Christian cathedral, and when Europeans retook Cordoba in the 13th century they turned the magnificent mosque back into a cathedral.

There is no question that the opulence and beauty of the mosque were the products of Muslim builders and artists.  But there is also no question that the mosque at Cordoba represents a history of conquest and reconquest that, from the perspective of Islamists, is at an unfinished stage as of today.  The caliphate of Cordoba was the geographic high point of Umayyad Muslim rule – that is, of the original caliphate that succeeded Mohammed – on European territory.  It represents a glory that Islamists intend to restore.  Its eventual loss to the Europeans represents, equally, an evil reversal, imposed by infidels, that requires redress.

“Cordoba,” in Islamic symbolic terms, means Islamic rule in the West.  It does not mean “coexistence,” unless coexistence is interpreted as referring to Islamic rule.  Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs cites the article (original in Arabic) published by Iraqi-American Khudhayr Taher on 18 May, in which Taher explains the following:

We must note that a hostile and provocative name [Cordoba] has been chosen for this mosque…Choosing the name ‘Cordoba House’ for the mosque to be constructed in New York was not coincidental or random and innocent. It bears within it significance and dreams of expansion and invasion [into the territory] of the other, [while] striving to change his religion and to subjugate him…

It used to not even be a stretch for reasonably well educated Westerners to recognize the place of Spain and Cordoba in the history of the West and Islam.  Many of today’s younger adults, however, have learned nothing about the Mediterranean before 1492 except that the Muslim period in Spain was a flowering of science, art, and culture.  There was a great deal to admire in the accomplishments of the Muslim Cordobans, but they did, in fact, invade and conquer Spain, sell its inhabitants into slavery, provide a base for slaver raids into other parts of Europe, and rule by the sword in much of the caliphate.

“Cordoba” is not a name that evokes peaceful coexistence of Islam and the West.  Perhaps a contest should be held to come up with a name that does; I don’t know that I can think of one offhand.  That shouldn’t surprise us.  Our own lifetimes all began less than a century on from the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the entity that shifted over the centuries of its existence from fighting against Europe to buffering it from the restive tribes and sheikdoms in its hinterland.  Most of us today don’t have much of a cultural memory of Islamic invasion; the peoples of Southeast Europe would be the exception.  But the rest of us have grown so accustomed to the absolute character of the Pax Americana that we tend to dismiss, out of our privileged disconnectedness from history, the implications that the peoples of other times and places would have recognized – with greater wisdom – as meaningful.

A mosque at Ground Zero is something intelligent people can dispute honestly and in good faith.  But honesty is essential, and it would be dishonest to dismiss the implications of proposing to name it Cordoba House.  Let’s propose naming it instead Tours House, after the Battle of Tours and the defeat of the Umayyad Muslim forces there in 732; or Lepanto House, after the naval battle in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1571, in which the Western forces broke the maritime power of the Ottoman Empire; or Vienna House, after the battle of 1683 in which the Western armies broke the siege of Vienna by the Ottoman invaders.

Heck, let’s tell the mosque’s backers they can have a mosque there but its name will be Baghdad Bob House.  If these seem like bad ideas because they send the wrong signal – well, exactly.  So does “Cordoba House.” We should not passively accept that name out of fear of being ridiculed or second-guessed, any more than we should accept a mosque at all for such a reason.

The building of mosques in America does raise more and more civic questions for us, as the evidence mounts that some of them are centers for cultivating jihadism and facilitating the logistic end of terrorism.  But that’s not because conservatives are hidebound and reactionary in their thinking, it’s because of what goes on in the mosques. It’s a legitimate question, what form our affirmation that most Muslims are not Islamist radicals needs to take.  And it’s legitimate as well to argue that it need not take the form of agreeing to a prominent mosque at Ground Zero named Cordoba House.

Cross-posted at The Optimistic Conservative.

"There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad."

Leaving aside some melodrama – “insane,” “looming horror,” “surrender” – that question sums up much conservative reaction to Cordoba House, a.k.a. “The Ground Zero Mosque,” a project of the the Cordoba Initiative (CI) that last week added the approval of Manhattan Community Board 1 to okays from New York City’s Mayor and Chief of Police. Left unstated is why it’s anybody else’s business, in the land of the free. Why not put up an Islamic cultural center with worship area among the many buildings, great ones existing and much greater ones already under construction, within a two- or three-block radius of hallowed ground?  More important, what would denying permission for the project, and what does seeking that denial, say about us?

It would say that we granted a victory, in America, to the un-American doctrine of collective guilt – a doctrine incompatible with the precepts of the American nation, according to which no one can be pre-judged on the basis of religion or other beliefs.  Rejection of the project would constitute such a victory because consistently, perhaps inescapably, calls to reject Cordoba House have sooner or later rested on the assignment of responsibility to Muslims, in general, for the 9/11 attacks. This pattern should be a cause of concern for conservatives whether the project goes forward or not.

This transference of guilt, from those directly involved onto a diverse and immense global population, and then to the actual sponsors of the project, is often accomplished by rhetorical misdirection, as facilitated by emotional distraction.

Alabama congressional candidate, Marine Corps veteran, and self-styled Tea Party activist Rick Barber begins the above statement (rough transcript here) with an indictment of “Islamic jihadists,” but immediately moves to the general level via the phrase “in the name of Islam.” This “in the name of” construction appears frequently in anti-Cordoba statements: It’s a conventional usage that anyone might employ non-controversially, but acknowledging the obvious – a connection or association between Islam and 9/11, even the implication of some traditional Islamic teachings – is different from establishing the responsibility and accountability of (all) Muslims.

Rather than maintain the distinction, however, Barber erases it.  Following the initial statement on Islamic Jihadists and a second invocation of the in-the-name-of construction, Barber says: “Now Muslims want to build a Mosque just two blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.” Instantly, the enemy has become not radical Islamists, but “Muslims.” Barber then asks, “When is the grand opening of this Ground Zero Mosque?” His own answer:

September Eleventh, 2011. This is unacceptable.

Many listeners may inwardly respond, “Yes sir!” – and remain ignorant of the CI’s rationale. For the CI, opening on September 11th emphasizes their central message that Muslims, rather than being co-responsible for 9/11, can stand diametrically opposed to Bin Ladenism and its call, announced using scriptural language in the 1998 Al Qaeda declaration of total war, to “fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together.”  The 9/11 terrorists destroyed buildings, killed strangers, and preached and sought the clash of civilizations. The CI is constructing a building, welcoming strangers, and preaching interfaith cooperation and exchange.

Perhaps because Cordoba House itself, or the timing of its opening, is not and will not be citizen or even Congressman Rick Barber’s call, he closes with a demand for broader confrontation:

There is a difference between tolerance and surrender. The word Islam literally means surrender and if we don’t start electing leaders that are able to recognize the enemy, call them by name and stand up against them, then surrendering is exactly what we are doing.

Ironically, even while Barber promises to name “the enemy,” he encourages, or perhaps relies on, ambiguity about his specific meaning. He started with Islamic Jihad, but ends with a strong yet possibly deniable suggestion that “Islam,” and surrender even worse because it’s somehow Islamic, are the problems.

Barber’s blogger allies can be much more direct. Responding to the “super-mosque” “outrage,” Ace of Ace o’ Spades dances around the edge of declaring holy war, but finally loses his balance completey (emphasis added):

Someone truly interested in peace and moderation would not build a temple to the religion that killed 2,996, allowing jihdis [sic] to literally — literally — dance on the unmarked, uncollected remains of their victims.

HotAir Greenroom blogger MadisonConservative gets to collective responsibility more quickly – that is, immediately: His anti-Cordoba piece refers in its title to “Islam” giving a “tremendous middle finger to America.” While the “religion” that Ace refers to only kills, MadCon’s “Islam” is a collective entity capable of both destroying buildings and of constructing them – and of making vulgar hand gestures, too.

Though more polite than Ace, MadCon, and Barber, Rod Dreher works in much the same way.  Having given himself away completely in his title – “A Mosque at Ground Zero? Insane” – he marches through obvious but profoundly incommensurate analogies to Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust, but the core of his argument is a version of that same question we began with:

Of course it is wrong to blame all Muslims for 9/11. But why on earth rub salt in the wounds of the 9/11 dead by allowing a mosque to go in just two blocks from where jihadists incinerated or crushed over 2,700 innocent victims, in service of their faith?

The rambling syntax and nonsensical metaphor (salt in the wounds of the dead) may be symptomatic: In plain English, Dreher, said to have been a direct witness to the WTC collapse, is still angry – with Muslims. He starts out hedging with his concession on “all” Muslims, but in a way that leaves “most,” “practicing,” “authentic,” etc., in play. After that odd bit about the dead and their wounds (time to let them rest?), Dreher the “Beliefnet” blogger ends up close to Ace the South Park conservative by way of the phrase “in service of their faith.” “Faith” stands as an odd word for a fanatic’s belief system – unless you’re asserting an essential commonality between the “jihadists” and the average believer; unless, contrary to your promise, you are indicting the whole religion.

Dreher’s writing suggests a guilty conscience – justifiably, because the assignment of collective guilt is itself an injustice to fellow citizens, fellow human beings, who never harmed or would harm Rod Dreher, or Ace, or Rick Barber.  The tiresome emotional and other excesses of all the amateur anti-imams who gather in the virtual house of anti-Islam, flaunting their adherence to the fundamentalists’ interpretations of the same passages from the same sacred texts, expand the offense.  The symmetry with Bin Ladenism is perfect:  fight the Muslims all together as they fight us all together.

Along just these lines, we this week have Andy McCarthy’s latest anti-Islamist fatwa at The Corner, which begins with a reference to the Obama Administration’s plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan, then, in the familiar pattern, seamlessly connects the terrorist to “very mainstream” Muslims:

That dissent was enough to forestall the trial, but it will have to be even more energetic to stop the mosque — whose construction would be a classic instance of supremacist Islamists building their icons over those of the non-Muslims they mean to vanquish. As I explain in the book, this is not a case of me drawing an inference from the facts we can observe, although those facts are obvious enough. Leading Islamists — not just terrorists but Muslims who adhere to very mainstream Brotherhood ideology — insist that they will “conquer America” and turn it slowly into a shariah society.

That latest book McCarthy mentions has the alarming title The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, but the title of his previous book, Willful Blindness, may apply better:  In terms of conqueror’s icons, just try, for a moment, to imagine how an Islamist or anti-American leftist views the embassy we’ve constructed in Baghdad (“the size of Vatican City”) or Bagram Air Base (“size of a small town”) – as compared to a projected 15-story building in Lower Manhattan. 

In the meantime, if some group wants, deep down or right out front, to turn America “slowly into a Shariah society” – by organizing, by advocating, by building impressive or maybe-not-really-so-impressive cultural centers in some proximity to symbolically important places – or for that matter if they hope to re-create and extend the medieval Caliphate by peaceful, free, and democratic means, what in the American tradition, in the values to be represented in the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, could deny them the right to give such an unlikely project the ol’ madrassa try?

“Looming horror,” “insane,” “surrender,” “the religion that killed,” “conquer America”:  Nearing ten years on, and we still act as though terrorized out of our moral presumptions and emotional bearings by Mohammed Atta – by the militant who pretends to have joined the West while remaining secretly beholden to his hatred of the West. Or maybe impatience makes it too difficult to imagine the awesome skyscrapers and massive and luxuriant memorial/museum in and around the WTC site that together should someday dwarf Cordoba House and most other structures in the vicinity.  Either way, it betrays a lack of self-confidence unbecoming to defenders of the American idea to fear the suicide killer, who dies with his irreconcilable contradictions, more than we trust our influence on the millions of his co-religionists who choose to reconcile their contradictions in their real, everyday lives – in private, in public, in American uniform and as allies, and maybe with a building currently set to open its doors on 9/11/11.

Finally, re-assigning collective guilt in the other direction by calling conservatives bigots or Islamophobes cannot be justified either.  If opposition to the Cordoba Initiative has been disproportionate and overly emotional, that would not make it wholly irrational.  There may be good reasons – suspicion regarding project supporters, disagreement with their objectives, concern for some 9/11 families – to oppose “this building, there.”  My position is that these concerns have been exaggerated and manipulated, and are vastly outweighed by other factors, potential harm to the conservative movement not the least of them.  In a real sense, there would be no American conservative movement under the doctrine of collective guilt:   There would only be a culturally defensive right wing, under whatever name, and that would represent a great collective loss to us all.

cross-adapted from Zombie Contentions – “In My Own Name  Only” and “Imam McCarthy’s Latest Fatwa“

Did Hollywood finally see at a least a sliver of the light? Sure, Sex and the City isn’t really Feminist Hawk-y. They promulgate that whole “sexual empowerment” meme that is actually harmful to women and demeaning to them. As such, they generally fit the liberal Feminist (Femisogynist) role.

That’s where this movie gets interesting. They are breaking with the Stepford Feminist lockstep, wherein American liberal feminists hypocritically ignore the misogyny in the Islamic world because they want to be cool and enlightened and embrace diversity. Because Shut Up, Racists ™. Also, George Bush.

They usually worship at the shrine of multiculturalism and make excuses for Islamic misogyny while desperately inventing a way to denigrate American culture. So, whatever will they think when they read the reviews for the latest movie from their usual poster girls? You see, apparently the new Sex and the City movie dares to acknowledge, albeit rather superficially, the fact that Islam is misogynistic. Egads! How will the left resolve that in their minds, as Hot Air notes?

The rather scathing portrayal of Muslim society no doubt will stir controversy, especially in a frothy summer entertainment, but there’s something bracing about the film’s saucy political incorrectness. Or is it politically correct? “SATC 2″ is at once proudly feminist and blatantly anti-Muslim, which means that it might confound liberal viewers.

Indicative of the film’s contradictory stance is a scene in which the ladies perform a karaoke version of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” in an Abu Dhabi nightclub. An equally outrageous moment comes when the interlopers are rescued by a bunch of Muslim women who strip off their black robes to reveal the stylish Western outfits they are concealing beneath their discreet garb. These endearingly loopy scenes exhibit the tasteless humor that enlivened the TV series on its best nights.

Other reviewers show their multiculturalism zealotry in their reviews; they actually seem angry that Islamic misogynistic behavior was pointed out.

In Variety, critic Brian Lowry said the film featured “some not-very-convincing rumination on the treatment of Muslim women – even in what’s supposed to be a relatively progressive Arab country – that seems more condescending than stirring”.

How dare they ruminate on the treatment of Muslim women! And it’s a relatively progressive country; no fatwa on suntans has even been issued yet!

Writing for Slant magazine, Ed Gonzalez said: “Such is the arrogance of this self-congratulatory movie. It takes the Sex and the City girls to the Middle East so they can cavalierly thumb their nose at the region’s retrograde gender politics.”

Oh, we wouldn’t want to thumb our noses at misogynistic policies in other countries, would we? We should only bash things like the institution of marriage here in silly, old America. Other regions are culture-y and all. That makes misogyny exotic! Who cares about misogyny if it lets you be an enlightened “Citizen of the World!”

And in New York magazine, David Edelstein wrote: “The thinking behind the movie (written and directed by Michael Patrick King) is undisguised. Let’s start with an over-the-top gay wedding! Then we’ll send the girls to Abu Dhabi so they can rile up the fundamentalists with their sexuality! Then they’ll make fun of women in niqab (‘Certainly cuts down on the Botox bill!’) but later show (campy) feminist solidarity!

Wait, what? I thought sexuality was good? Now it’s offensive to “rile people up” with it? That smacks of “she had it coming” to me. And you know what is solidarity, Mr. Edelstein? Acknowledging the fact that other cultures make women cover their faces in shame, instead of pretending that it doesn’t exist.

The biggest irony, perhaps, is how will liberal feminist Sex and the City fans defend this one?

There is high sensitivity in the United Arab Emirates about plots considered too racy, and the first Sex and the City movie was not shown there at all.

Huh. Fancy that.

I’m generally the last person to defend Sex and the City, for the demeaning “sexual empowerment” issue alone. But, anything that helps shed even a glimmer of light on and raises even slightly the awareness of Islamic misogyny, deserves credit where due.

So, bring on the “cavalier thumb-nosing”. And relish in the fact that it’s poetic justice that it is being done by women in super cute shoes (Seriously, have you seen Carrie’s shoes? Am I right, ladies?)

———–

Follow Lori  on Twitter and read more of her NewsReal posts here.

They’ve recently gone so far as to condone genital mutilation. They have defended child rape in the case of Roman Polanski.  They are silent on Iran gaining a seat on the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women. Why? Because it’s never actually about people to them. It’s all agenda-driven, always.

The latest instance, specifically Amanda Marcotte’s defense of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recent decision to embrace genital mutilation is beyond infuriating. It is twisted, sickening and disturbing beyond belief. How can anyone in their right mind defend such an inhumane thing? Granted, “right mind” is the operative term there, but still.

The AAP, like the UN, started referring to female genital mutilation as merely “cutting” because mutilation sounds icky and may be offensive and insensitive to other cultures. Boo hoo. I’m sorry you are offended that sane people define the acts of clitoridectomy and excision as what they are: mutilation. Now, the AAP has gone one further and said a “little nick” is a nice compromise. No big whoop! Sacrifice girls and allow a misogynistic practice to occur, all in the name of appeasement. I don’t think the girls who are barbarically maimed feel very appeased, do you?

Not so, says Marcotte! Marcotte used the standard and oh-so-lame talking point of “but what about US? We are meany pants and awful too!”  Leftists/Progressives always say “but what about US?” in an attempt to act as apologists, due to their religious fervor and zealotry for the nebulously defined “multi-culturalism.” They invent an example of a perceived American wrong, one that is usually both idiotic and utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand. And, you know, cuckoo pants.

As Jenn Q. Public pointed out in her article, Marcotte had this to say, in defense of the AAP’s decision:

And it’s not like Western culture is so free of blatantly misogynist traditions, either.  Part of me wishes that we had a two minute nicking at the doctor instead of the entire painfully misogynist wedding tradition that persists in the name of tradition.

See, pointing out true evil doesn’t fit the “progressive” meme. Instead, subjugation and misogyny must be invented out of whole cloth regarding things like marriage, but the very real—and often deadly—subjugation of women under Islamic law must be tolerated and ignored. The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance have reached epic levels.

Oh, just a little two minute nicking, says Marcotte. It’s not like it’s as awful as getting married and sharing your life with a loving partner! I can maybe see where Marcotte is coming from, personally. As self-loathing as she is, she must feel that marriage is a horrid punishment—for the man. I’d have more to say in response to Marcotte, but it makes me feel a little cheap because it’s so easy to refute the intellectually defenseless.

The left’s lack of intellectual prowess, as well as their absolute hypocrisy was also on display in regards to the child rapist known as Roman Polanski. Here is what the founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation said about that:

“My personal thoughts are let the guy go,” said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “It’s bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It’s crazy to arrest him now. Let it go.”

Just let it go, will you? He makes super cool movies and he’s all arty and stuff. And like the intellectual giant, Whoopi Goldberg said, it wasn’t like it was “rape-rape.” The Hollywood Left all gathered around Polanski, even circulating a petition demanding his release. France’s Society of Film Directors said his arrest would have “disastrous consequences for the freedom of expression.”

The freedom to express pedophilia?  Drugging and raping (yes, “rape-rape”) a 13-year-old CHILD. Who repeatedly said no. Over and over. Who was scared out of her mind, yet this “man” Polanski, continued to use and abuse her in various ways. Over and over again until he “freely expressed” his own sick enjoyment, for which he felt no remorse. He didn’t even believe he had done anything wrong. And neither does the Left, apparently.

How enlightened and cultured they are. The rape of a child is perfectly acceptable, so long as you dig the rapist’s art and his liberal thought. I suppose you all figured “Well, at least he tried not to get her pregnant. What’s a little sodomy? At least that way she wouldn’t be “punished with a baby.” Sheesh! Relax, you uncultured wingnuts! Plus, it’s not like he disagrees with Obama or wants to stop illegal immigration!”

Most recently, their silence was telling on Iran gaining a seat on the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women. From Leftist camps, there was either silence or there was attempted down-playing of Iran’s horrific record towards women. Others, again, tried to equate women in Iran being stoned to death or lashed for immodest dress with being pro-life here.  No, really.

These are all just the latest examples that clearly show what some of us have always known.  To the Left, the truth does not matter. What matters is their dangerously naive agenda. Their need to further that agenda, along with the narratives that they have set in stone, trumps all. They will also, even in the face of overwhelming facts and reason, keep repeating the lies. Eventually, they hope, the lies will be perceived as reality.

They care more about pushing politically correct “tolerance” and “diversity” memes, including in the form of appeasement, in order to further their identity politics agenda. They care more about that than they care about actual people, particularly women. I’ve said this before, but it’s something we must remember:

This is the difficulty we face, as people who do have moral compasses. We face an opponent who has none.

—-

(Cross-posted from NewsReal)

The horror.  Apple decided that that was “defamatory.”  I deduced originally that this was code for “our lawyers would freak and Waxman would retaliate as only he can”; but there’s also the possibility that selling derogatory app content about Soviet farming regulations could tend to discourage purchases of the iStalin app.

Now comes word from Allahpundit that Apple killed a just-created app, iSlam Muhammad, for reasons the company’s representative “could not discuss” over the phone with the content creator, a comedian and filmmaker.  Referring to this app as “KoranThumper” seems appropriate, given that it was modeled on an app called BibleThumper that remains available as of 6:15 PM PDT today (20 May) on the iTunes commercial site.  (Threatening to behead Steve Jobs over BibleThumper is, in the end, not What Jesus Would Do.  One of the many crucial differences between him and Mohammed.)

Apple gets it coming and going, of course.  The company pulled its popular app iMussolini earlier this year, although it appears that there was a legitimate issue with coyrighted material behind the challenge in Italian court.  It’s not clear whether the objections of Holocaust survivors would have gotten the app pulled on the basis of offensiveness.

They would surely have done so if the iHitler app, proposed to Apple by the same Italian app designer, had seen the light of day. Apple rejected the concept outright, however, according to Italian tech media.  (Admin note:  if you use an online translator for this Italian-language news item, it will probably mistranslate the key verb bocciare, which occurs in the third-person singular in the summary – boccia – as the noun “ball.”  The verb means “reject,” and what the text actually says is that Apple’s approval team rejected the proposed app before it got to the App store.  It doesn’t say “the team approved prior to the ball.”  One of the many delights of online translators.)

So Ari David can congratulate himself that Apple recoiled from an app criticizing Henry Waxman with the same promptitude accorded its rejection of the iHitler app, intervening before anything could even get recorded.  As others have pointed out, however, Apple continues to sell the Che for iPhone app.  If you’re in the mood for laughing at credulous fools who imagine themselves to be striking blows for Totally Blow-Worthy Stuff, this interview of the (yet again Italian) creator of Che for iPhone is priceless.  His i-app posse was reportedly inspired by the Steven Soderbergh movie – information he may have actually communicated with a straight face.

Apple does seem to be an unerring windsock in the siroccos of political correctness.  Che – check.  BibleThumper – check, check.  Mussolini – court case!  Separate column.  Hitler – NOT.  Criticism of Henry Waxman – NOT EVEN.  KoranThumper – “Can’t discuss that with you at this time.”

But it’s interesting to note that we go orange and horizontal in some winds too.  Does anyone think it’s actually a travesty for civil liberties that there isn’t an iHitler app?  Certainly the civil right exists for us to have one.  Apple could have made a lot of money with iHitler – it would probably have outsold iMussolini and undoubtedly would have cleaned iStalin’s clock – but we all know why Apple rejected the app.  Most of us would have.  And for most of us, enforcing the right of some people to buy an iHitler app if they want one isn’t worth whatever it would take to make one available (a hostile takeover of Apple?  Extorting Jobs somehow to sell off the iPhone division?  Creating unauthorized software with pirated code and selling it through China?).

There are forms of censorship we care little about and live with unconcernedly.  Apple doesn’t always pick the ones we agree are tolerable.  We ought to be concerned when censorship – including selective censorship by a private company – is being imposed because of the fear of retaliation, even though theoretically nothing has changed in terms of our rights under the law.  The Apple decisions about KoranThumper and the David campaign app fall into that category, and the rejection of iHitler overlaps with it.

But our motivation to do something about it depends – always – on what is being censored, who is censoring it, and what there is to do.

If people want to draw Mohammed, they should draw Mohammed.  Some enterprising folks might want to “gig” Apple for KoranThumper by displaying their drawings on Macs, iPhones, and iPads across America, and leaving plenty of photographic evidence on the web.  Others with less free time might just swear off Apple products.

But for my money, banning the burqa will be one of the biggest useful steps taken in the West in a long time, if France can close that deal.  It’s a deal that will require courage when the backlash begins; whether the French have that courage or not will be one of the key tests of this young century.

Meanwhile, the real payoff, in A.D. 2010, would come from inducing regime-change in Iran.  Symmetric political warfare – e.g., having confrontations with Islam in civic venues in the West – hasn’t been working for us.  The question is what, if anything, will motivate us to go asymmetric in defense of our civilization.  It’s when we do that that we will see results.

Cross-posted at The Optimistic Conservative.

It was a scene Saudi women’s rights activists have dreamt of for years.

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition.

But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

To say that this is inspiring to oppressed women in the Middle East is a massive understatement.

“To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist, told The Media Line news agency. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”

Hopefully, Al-Huwaidar is right. Unfortunately, the repercussions for this woman’s actions could be severe, should the police choose to press charges.

Neither the religious police nor the Eastern Province police has made a statement on the incident, and both the names of the couple and the date of the incident have not been made public, but on Monday the incident was all over the Saudi media.

Should the woman be charged, she could face a lengthy prison term and lashings for assaulting a representative of a government institution.

Saudi law does not permit women to be in public spaces without a male guardian. Women are not allowed to drive, inherit, divorce or gain custody of children, and cannot socialize with unrelated men.

Not only did this woman break Saudi law by socializing with an unrelated man, she also assaulted a male police officer. I find it hard to believe that Saudi authorities will let this one go. Supposedly, more women in the Middle East are standing up against the oppression and abuse forced upon them. That’s a wonderful thing, and this woman’s bravery and spirit should be applauded and shouted about around the world. Muslim women need to see that they do not have to tolerate these abuses. I really hope that she doesn’t end up in prison and getting lashings. I highly doubt that the cop just strolled up to her, her male friend spontaneously collapsed, and she then beat the crap out of him. Something had to have happened. And if nothing else, this story just goes to further illuminate the way that women live in Saudi Arabia. It’s awful.

Meanwhile, the feminists are silent about this. For all of their supposed championing of “womens rights”, they seem to have more pressing issues to worry about than real oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. They certainly don’t seem to mind the misogyny and oppression Islam currently perpetuates. Feministing is currently running posts moaning about the lack of women in late night comedy. Feministe’s most recent posts are talking about Miley Cyrus and Woody Allen. Pandagon is discussing immigration and “anti-feminism”. Shakesville reposts a text message conversation about Dana Carvey and complains about so-called racism in the United States.

Ah, our modern-day feminist crusaders. They’re really working hard to liberate oppressed women, aren’t they? Maybe they should take a cue from real feminists like this unnamed women and stop worrying about ridiculous issues like women on late night comedy shows.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

The Left often pays lips service to, while actually doing nothing about, the  military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Yet, in regards to radical Islam, that is exactly what the left wants us to do. Don’t ask.  And, dear Allah, never tell!

Instead, they prefer to demagogue American citizens, while “bitterly clinging” to their insane politically correct worship of diversity and tolerance.  It’s funny how those who deride religion constantly, are actually zealots in their own right. They worship at the altar of Better Than You ™ multiculturalism.

It has never been more apparent than it is now. In just the past couple of months alone, examples of this attitude have uncovered that what was once perhaps just dangerous naivety, is now the purposeful ignoring of what should be basic knowledge. All in order to appease, accommodate and appear culturally sensitive. The fact that the very people for whom they are apologists want to, you know, kill them is somehow lost on them.

They have yet to realize, or are choosing to ignore in their moral vacuum, the fact that political correctness is no longer just incredibly annoying. It’s now deadly. The politically correct culture has been hurl-worthy to me for years, but it has recently reached gastric lows. First, there was the absurd narrative being pushed about the Fort Hood terrorist. Oh, he was “bullied” and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder – via osmosis, apparently, as he was never once deployed.

Flash forward to the attempted Times Square car bomb and the delusional narratives were even worse. Not only was the first thought of our alleged leaders and the mainstream media an attempt to demonize the new fall guy “someone upset about health care”, but even after the attempted bomber’s name and history was known, they were more concerned with being “culturally sensitive” than the actual bomb attempt itself.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says New York City “will not tolerate any bias” following the arrest of a U.S. citizen from Pakistan in the Times Square car bombing attempt.

Bloomberg said Tuesday that also applies to potential backlash against Muslim New Yorkers.

Like I said then, it’s rather telling that the only time the words Muslim or Islam ever appear is when the rest of us are being accused of being racist, bigoted half wits. Don’t ask! And don’t tell. That must explain the administration’s silence on two other recent developments. Firstly, Iran being appointed to the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women. I wrote the following when it was announced and, to my knowledge, they all still remain silent:

The United States Ambassador, Susan Rice, appointed by President Obama, was silent and did not even attend the vote. In fact, she wasn’t even in the building. Apparently, the administration believes that Iran will help shatter that glass ceiling with stray rocks, used as they stone women to death for being raped. A week later, and they remain mum. Not one word of denouncement from President Obama, who is too busy demonizing one of our own American states and and ignoring devastating floods. Too bad we can’t call ourselves “Los Women”. Maybe he’d give a hoot then. Ambassador Rice also refuses to comment, which is the status quo with her, evidently. The State Department, headed by Hillary Clinton, she of “not staying at home baking cookies” because that would be demeaning fame, is silent.

Not long after that affront to sane human beings everywhere, the American Academy of Pediatrics went one further in the “who can be the most vile in their attempts to appease” game. They decided that female genital mutilation should now just be called cutting (not as offensive sounding, you see) and that perhaps it would be okay to just allow doctors to perform a ritual “nicking”.  What’s a little nicking and all? As long as we can all get along and everyone feels nice and appeased. Well, except for the girls you are sacrificing and who are being barbarically maimed.

What is worse is that the left doesn’t just look the other way; they have actually become apologists for barbaric behavior under the guise of tolerance. They explain away all wrongs perpetrated by others by trying to equate them in some way, usually invented out of whole cloth, with some delusionally perceived American wrong or Christian wrong.

Phyllis Chesler recently published an article entitled Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings. When the American Academy of Pediatrics released their “nicking” opinion, I said that it was the same as saying “well, don’t actually behead your wife in an honor killing. Just slit her throat a little.” Turns out, that actually is how the left thinks, as Chesler explains:

Former National Organization for Women (NOW) president Kim Gandy compared the battered and beheaded Aasiya Hassan[9] to the battered (but still living) pop star Rihanna and further questioned whether Hassan’s murder was an honor killing:

Is a Muslim man in Buffalo more likely to kill his wife than a Catholic man in Buffalo? A Jewish man in Buffalo? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that there is plenty of violence to go around—and that the long and sordid history of oppressing women in the name of religion surely includes Islam, but is not limited to Islam.[10]

At the time of the Hassan beheading, a coalition of domestic violence workers sent an (unpublished) letter to the Erie County district attorney’s office and to some media stating that this was not an honor killing, that honor killings had nothing to do with Islam, and that sensationalizing Muslim domestic violence was not only racist but also served to render invisible the much larger incidence of both domestic violence and domestic femicide.

Misogyny apologizing again, under the guise of tolerance. Only now, that apologist position may end up being complicit in murders. Don’t ask! And don’t tell!

The Left’s default position is that other cultures, no matter how barbaric, must be revered and honored. But American traditions, must be eradicated and are the true root of all evil. Anyone who doesn’t do the same, must be a redneck-y rube. And a racist, of course.

My hometown in New Jersey, for instance, no longer has an Easter Egg Hunt. It is now called Spring Celebration with Bunny.  A town that is lily white and primarily Christian and Jewish. In all my 39 years, I’ve yet to come across a person of the Jewish faith who was offended by Easter bunnies or Christmas for that matter. And, even if offended, they’d never threaten to set off a bomb in the town or commit acts of violent intimidation as seen in this video after the assault on Lars Vilks. But, I suppose my “rich life experiences” don’t count, since I’m plain old Caucasian and all.

Finally, most recently our own Attorney General, Eric Holder, could not even bring himself to utter the word Islam when being questioned about the Faisal Shahzad investigation.

See, it’s not about truth or even common sense. It’s about furthering an agenda, always. That agenda relies on identity politics and is more important to them than actual human beings.

Apologizing for evil, violent acts is not embracing diversity. It’s embracing insanity. It’s not just condoning barbarism; it is complicit in it’s perpetuation.

So, I am asking. And I am telling. Because, as George Washington said, “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

—–

(cross-posted from NewsReal, RedState)

This Saturday night, following South Park, tune in for Comedy Central’s “Greatest Athletes of All Time” special telecast.

You’ll see legends from the world baseball:

Basketball:

Boxing:

Football:

And many more!

Plus, Comedy Central’s “Greatest Athletes of All Time” will feature the best Tweets from your favorite current NBA stars:

Don’t miss it!

Comedy Central’s “Greatest Athletes of All Time” is proudly sponsored by:

And by…

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe