THE FOLLOWING email was sent to ACT! for America members by Kelly Cook, ACT's National Field Director. We at Jurisprudence fully support ACT's commitment to this issue, and we urge you to help make this happen. The stakes could not be higher. And now, Kelly Cook's message:
Face it. We’ve been played.
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is playing a deadly game with America. Their oil price fixing mechanism is legendary in the unjust world of anti-trust schemes.
The fact is that oil prices in the $15 to $20 a barrel range provide plenty of fair and reasonable profits for any oil exporting nation. Then why are oil prices today over $100 per barrel? OPEC is laughing all the way to the bank.
Here’s the game: OPEC, through the willingness to price fix among its 12 nation partners, gradually ratchets up the price of oil through secretly agreed-to reductions in supply. They don’t care if they’re not producing as much oil. The skyrocketing prices on the oil they do produce are more than enough to provide for their lavish lifestyles and...their generous donations to worldwide Islamic jihadist operations.
As soon as the American public starts to really feel the pain at the pump and begin to lobby their members of Congress to do something about it, oil supplies “magically” increase and the price of gas settles down just enough to prevent the outrage that was about to boil over. And so the cycle goes — by design!
We at ACT! for America are tired of being played in this deadly game of supplying the enemy with the resources to attack us. This is why we are fully supporting the Open Fuel Standard ACT of 2011. We are calling for Members of Congress to enthusiastically co-sponsor this vital legislation.
Why the Open Fuel Standard Act? Imagine you’ve got a flex fuel car — a car that has been retro-fitted to accept at least 2 different kinds of fuel. You notice the price of regular gas just hit $4.10 per gallon. Because you can also run on methanol (or electricity, natural gas, etc), you check the current price for methanol which is approximately $1.65! Now that you’ve got “Fuel Choice,” you fill up with methanol! Methanol can be produced from natural gas and biomass (common trash, plant wastes, landfill materials, etc). Therefore, it’s a potential environmental winner as well.
What happens when tens of millions of consumers start taking advantage of fuel choice and switch to other fuels? OPEC is forced to bring down its prices in order to compete. Game over. The price of oil per barrel would plummet down to its natural market trading range of $10 to $25 per barrel.
How can we be so sure of this? Brazil has already done it — back in the 80’s and it’s still working for them! Do you know that two of the major car suppliers to Brazil’s flex fuel market are GM and Ford? Brazil’s proven success demonstrates that a single nation can employ this strategy successfully as a solitary nation against the forces of worldwide markets.
Why shouldn’t the U.S. and other major oil consuming countries follow suit? The transition costs are minimal when compared to the tremendous savings and security we all will enjoy through fuel choice!
I know some of you are asking: “What about Drill Baby Drill”? We are enthusiastically in favor of developing all strategies to disarm OPEC and their deadly allies. We need to develop all forms of energy, especially our unfathomable supplies of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy technologies. Encouraging fuel choice through the Open Fuel Standard ACT of 2011 will only enhance these and other needed developments.
***Action Items***
1) Invest 5 minutes to support fuel choice for your gas tank and for the nation! Contact your member of Congress and urge them to be a co-sponsor for H.R. 1687, the Open Fuel Standard Act of 2011. We are starting to pick up real momentum in this process! Please make sure your member of Congress is a co-sponsor. Click Here to complete this simple process.
2) Check out the amazing new website dedicated to the passage of the Open Fuel Standard Act of 2011. Please sign up for email updates and find out the many reasons we need to actively promote this bill. The resources this site has amassed are considerable. There are many factors involved that we just don’t have the space to cover in a single email. Please avail yourself to this vital information. Click Here for this creative new website!
May 28, 2011
May 23, 2011
What Does "Freedom" Mean in Islamic Terms?
An an interview with Bernard Lewis, he said:
One has to understand not so much the differences between the [West and the Muslim world] as the differences in the political discourse. In the Western world, we talk all the time about freedom. In the Islamic world, freedom is not a political term. It’s a legal term: Freedom as opposed to slavery. This was a society in which slavery was an accepted institution existing all over the Muslim world. You were free if you were not a slave. It was entirely a legal and social term, with no political connotation whatsoever. You can see in the ongoing debate in Arabic and other languages the puzzlement with which the use of the term freedom was first perceived.
They just didn’t understand it. I mean, what does this have to do with politics or government? Eventually, they got the message. But it’s still alien to them. In Muslim terms, the aim of good government is justice.
The major contrast is not between freedom and tyranny, between freedom and servitude, but between justice and oppression. Or if you like, between justice and injustice. If one follows that particular discourse in the Arab and more generally the Muslim world, it would be more illuminating.
One has to understand not so much the differences between the [West and the Muslim world] as the differences in the political discourse. In the Western world, we talk all the time about freedom. In the Islamic world, freedom is not a political term. It’s a legal term: Freedom as opposed to slavery. This was a society in which slavery was an accepted institution existing all over the Muslim world. You were free if you were not a slave. It was entirely a legal and social term, with no political connotation whatsoever. You can see in the ongoing debate in Arabic and other languages the puzzlement with which the use of the term freedom was first perceived.
They just didn’t understand it. I mean, what does this have to do with politics or government? Eventually, they got the message. But it’s still alien to them. In Muslim terms, the aim of good government is justice.
The major contrast is not between freedom and tyranny, between freedom and servitude, but between justice and oppression. Or if you like, between justice and injustice. If one follows that particular discourse in the Arab and more generally the Muslim world, it would be more illuminating.
One of the Days That Would Have Lived in Infamy That Never Happened
Because of information gathered during interrogations, the mastermind of 9/11 — Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) — was captured, and he, in turn, was interrogated. His questioning produced many intelligence reports. In an article about a new book, the author says:
In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the “Bojinka plot” to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.
Years later, an observant CIA officer notices that the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM’s description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.
In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot. On the night of Aug.9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:
United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p.m.;
Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;
Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;
United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p.m.;
United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p.m.;
American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p.m; and
American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p.m.
They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much. Few Americans are aware of the fact that al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.
And still fewer realize that the terrorists’ true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Melvin Bledsoe on the Radicalization of His Son
The following is from an ACT! for America email. This is the testimony of Melvin Bledsoe. He explains how his son (who Muslimized his name to Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad) become a dedicated orthodox Muslim, waging jihad against his fellow Americans, and how this transformation started right here in the heart of America: A Nashville, Tennessee mosque.
Committee on Homeland Security: US House of Representatives, Washington DC, March 10, 2011. Testimony of Melvin Bledsoe:
Thank you very much for allowing me to come here and tell the country what happened to my son. This hearing today is extremely important to begin the discussion about the issue of Islamic radicalization in America and my hope is that this Committee can somehow address this issue in a meaningful, productive way.
First, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the family of Private William Long, and to the wounded soldier, Quinton Ezeagwula. I would like to talk about those complicit in Private Long’s murder – the Islamic radicals who programmed and trained my son Carlos to kill.
I want to tell the American people and the world what happened to my son. We sent him off to college at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee in the fall of 2003. Our dreams about his future ended up in a nightmare.
Carlos is my only son. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. My wife and I operate a tour company in Memphis, Tennessee and Carlos started helping out with the family business at the age of eight. He loved talking to the traveling public; and he had a lot of fun interacting with the customers.
After graduating from high school, he wanted to get a degree in Business Administration. We thought perhaps he would come back to Memphis to run the business and give my wife and me early retirement.
After the fall of 2005 – his sophomore fall in Nashville –Carlos came home that Christmas for the holidays.
We were sitting around in the family room, Carlos’s only sister, Monica, her husband and I, having a normal conversation about life in general. But at a certain point, Carlos and his brother-in-law Terrell got into a heated conversation about the Muslim religion. Then and later, we felt like Carlos’s personality changed when we spoke about Islam. We thought maybe he had some Muslim friends in college and was offended by our comments.
The next time Carlos came home, we saw another side of him that we hadn't seen before. During the night, he took down all the pictures from the walls in the bedroom where he slept. He even took Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. picture off the wall. We asked Carlos: "What is going on with you?”
He replied that he is now a new convert to Islam and that everything he does from now on will be to honor Allah. We got very concerned: While he was growing up, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s picture had always hung on his bedroom wall; but now treated the picture as if Dr. King was nobody to him.
We asked Carlos not to take Dr. King's picture off the wall, but he took it off the wall anyway. This became a big concern to us. We went to visit him in Nashville because we wanted to learn more about what was really going on with Carlos.
We discovered that Carlos had dropped out of school, at the beginning of the 2005 fall semester. He was working a temporary job. He had gotten a dog while in college, and now we found out that he had turned the dog loose in the woods because he was told that Muslims consider dogs dirty creatures. I really couldn't understand how he could do that, because Carlos grew up with a dog in the house since he was five years old.
So my wife and I thought that there something or someone was getting in his head and changing the way he thinks. It had gotten to the point where he had no interest in coming home, even for the holidays.
All of this was part of brainwashing him, and changing his thinking a little bit at a time. He had a job in Nashville, together with some Muslims, who would tell him that according to Islamic law, his employer had to let him pray at certain times of the day, regardless of what was going on at the job. As a business owner, I told Carlos that it would be very difficult for an employer to do this for all of his employees.
As the next step on his process of radicalization, Carlos was convinced to change his name. He chose the name Abdulhakim Muhammad. At this point, his culture was no longer important to him, only the Islamic culture mattered.
Some Muslim leaders had taken advantage of my son. But he’s not the only one being taken advantage of: this is going on in Nashville and in many other cities in America.
In Nashville, Carlos was captured by people best described as hunters. He was manipulated and lied to. That’s how he made his way to Yemen. Carlos was hoping to go there for a chance to cross over to Saudi Arabia and visit Mecca, as he was taught all true Muslims must do at one time in their life. He was taught that he would get to walk on the ground where Prophet Muhammad walked be able to travel around the area. But these hunters had other plans for him. They set him up, telling him that he could teach English at a British School in Aden in South Yemen, This school turned out to be a front and Carlos ended up in a training camp run by terrorists.
Carlos’s joining in with Yemeni extremists was facilitated by their American counterparts in Nashville. We have since discovered that the former Imam of a Nashville mosque, the Al Farooq Mosque, wrote the recommendation letter Carlos needed for the school in Yemen. We also discovered that the school functions as an intake front for radicalizing and training Westerners for Jihad.
From what I understand, the FBI had been following Carlos since before he left Nashville and continued to do so after he came back from Yemen. When Carlos was arrested for overstaying his visa in October of 2008, he was interviewed by an FBI agent based in Nashville even before the U.S. Embassy was alerted about the arrest. According to the Embassy, the FBI was alarmed about what they learned from Carlos.
We wish they could have told us - his family – about what they learned. If we knew how serious his extremism had become, we could have put in every effort to prevent the tragedy in Arkansas from happening.
When my son was arrested in Yemen, my family cried out for help in bringing our son back to America from our Government. We got in touch with the U.S. Embassy and the State Department. We also asked for help from our U.S. Representative, Steve Cohen’s office, and from FBI Special Agent Greg Thomason, who had been tracking my son since Nashville.
After our son was finally released and brought home to us. No one said anything to us about what might have happened to him in Yemen or what they may have learned that so alarmed the FBI agent who interrogated Carlos while he was in the custody of Yemen’s Political Security Organization.
Carlos’s experience in Yemeni political jail was the final stage of his radicalization. He was in there with true evil-doers – hard-core Al Qaeda members who convinced him to get revenge on America.
Something is wrong with the Muslim leadership in Nashville. What happened to Carlos at those Nashville mosques isn’t normal. I have other family members who are Muslims, and they are modern, peaceful, law abiding people, who have been Muslim for many years and are not radicalized.
I also have several uncles and brothers in the military. Our family has fought for the United States in every war since the Civil War. I have nephews who are currently in Afghanistan, as I speak, fighting for democracy and freedom for all Americans.
It seems to me that the American people are sitting around and doing nothing about Islamic extremism, as if Carlos’s story and the other stories told at these hearings aren’t true. There is a big elephant in the room, but our society continues not to see it.
This wrong is caused by political correctness. You can even call it political fear - yes, fear. Fear of stepping on a special minority population’s toes, even as a segment of that population wants to stamp out America and everything we stand for.
I must say that we are losing American babies – our children are in danger. This country must stand up and do something about this problem. Yes, it’s my son’s tragic story you’re hearing about today, but tomorrow it could be your son or your daughter. It might be an African-American child that they went after in Nashville, but tomorrow their victim might have blonde hair and blue eyes. One thing is for sure, it will happen again.
We must stop these extremist invaders from raping the minds of American citizens on American soil. Here in America today, there are people with radical Islamic political views who are organizing with one goal in mind: to convert our citizens and to turn them against the non-believers. This is a big problem now in Nashville, on college campuses and in the nearby area. Nashville has become a hot bed for radical Islamic recruiting.
Carlos grew up a happy-go-lucky kid. He always had a big smile on his face, and loved to crack a joke or two. Everyone liked him. He loved to play team sports like basketball and football. He loved swimming, dancing, and listening to music.
Today we have two families that have been destroyed. This could have been prevented. I would like to see something change so that no other family in this great country of ours has to go through what our family is facing now.
GOD HELP US! GOD HELP US!
Committee on Homeland Security: US House of Representatives, Washington DC, March 10, 2011. Testimony of Melvin Bledsoe:
Thank you very much for allowing me to come here and tell the country what happened to my son. This hearing today is extremely important to begin the discussion about the issue of Islamic radicalization in America and my hope is that this Committee can somehow address this issue in a meaningful, productive way.
First, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the family of Private William Long, and to the wounded soldier, Quinton Ezeagwula. I would like to talk about those complicit in Private Long’s murder – the Islamic radicals who programmed and trained my son Carlos to kill.
I want to tell the American people and the world what happened to my son. We sent him off to college at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee in the fall of 2003. Our dreams about his future ended up in a nightmare.
Carlos is my only son. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. My wife and I operate a tour company in Memphis, Tennessee and Carlos started helping out with the family business at the age of eight. He loved talking to the traveling public; and he had a lot of fun interacting with the customers.
After graduating from high school, he wanted to get a degree in Business Administration. We thought perhaps he would come back to Memphis to run the business and give my wife and me early retirement.
After the fall of 2005 – his sophomore fall in Nashville –Carlos came home that Christmas for the holidays.
We were sitting around in the family room, Carlos’s only sister, Monica, her husband and I, having a normal conversation about life in general. But at a certain point, Carlos and his brother-in-law Terrell got into a heated conversation about the Muslim religion. Then and later, we felt like Carlos’s personality changed when we spoke about Islam. We thought maybe he had some Muslim friends in college and was offended by our comments.
The next time Carlos came home, we saw another side of him that we hadn't seen before. During the night, he took down all the pictures from the walls in the bedroom where he slept. He even took Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. picture off the wall. We asked Carlos: "What is going on with you?”
He replied that he is now a new convert to Islam and that everything he does from now on will be to honor Allah. We got very concerned: While he was growing up, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s picture had always hung on his bedroom wall; but now treated the picture as if Dr. King was nobody to him.
We asked Carlos not to take Dr. King's picture off the wall, but he took it off the wall anyway. This became a big concern to us. We went to visit him in Nashville because we wanted to learn more about what was really going on with Carlos.
We discovered that Carlos had dropped out of school, at the beginning of the 2005 fall semester. He was working a temporary job. He had gotten a dog while in college, and now we found out that he had turned the dog loose in the woods because he was told that Muslims consider dogs dirty creatures. I really couldn't understand how he could do that, because Carlos grew up with a dog in the house since he was five years old.
So my wife and I thought that there something or someone was getting in his head and changing the way he thinks. It had gotten to the point where he had no interest in coming home, even for the holidays.
All of this was part of brainwashing him, and changing his thinking a little bit at a time. He had a job in Nashville, together with some Muslims, who would tell him that according to Islamic law, his employer had to let him pray at certain times of the day, regardless of what was going on at the job. As a business owner, I told Carlos that it would be very difficult for an employer to do this for all of his employees.
As the next step on his process of radicalization, Carlos was convinced to change his name. He chose the name Abdulhakim Muhammad. At this point, his culture was no longer important to him, only the Islamic culture mattered.
Some Muslim leaders had taken advantage of my son. But he’s not the only one being taken advantage of: this is going on in Nashville and in many other cities in America.
In Nashville, Carlos was captured by people best described as hunters. He was manipulated and lied to. That’s how he made his way to Yemen. Carlos was hoping to go there for a chance to cross over to Saudi Arabia and visit Mecca, as he was taught all true Muslims must do at one time in their life. He was taught that he would get to walk on the ground where Prophet Muhammad walked be able to travel around the area. But these hunters had other plans for him. They set him up, telling him that he could teach English at a British School in Aden in South Yemen, This school turned out to be a front and Carlos ended up in a training camp run by terrorists.
Carlos’s joining in with Yemeni extremists was facilitated by their American counterparts in Nashville. We have since discovered that the former Imam of a Nashville mosque, the Al Farooq Mosque, wrote the recommendation letter Carlos needed for the school in Yemen. We also discovered that the school functions as an intake front for radicalizing and training Westerners for Jihad.
From what I understand, the FBI had been following Carlos since before he left Nashville and continued to do so after he came back from Yemen. When Carlos was arrested for overstaying his visa in October of 2008, he was interviewed by an FBI agent based in Nashville even before the U.S. Embassy was alerted about the arrest. According to the Embassy, the FBI was alarmed about what they learned from Carlos.
We wish they could have told us - his family – about what they learned. If we knew how serious his extremism had become, we could have put in every effort to prevent the tragedy in Arkansas from happening.
When my son was arrested in Yemen, my family cried out for help in bringing our son back to America from our Government. We got in touch with the U.S. Embassy and the State Department. We also asked for help from our U.S. Representative, Steve Cohen’s office, and from FBI Special Agent Greg Thomason, who had been tracking my son since Nashville.
After our son was finally released and brought home to us. No one said anything to us about what might have happened to him in Yemen or what they may have learned that so alarmed the FBI agent who interrogated Carlos while he was in the custody of Yemen’s Political Security Organization.
Carlos’s experience in Yemeni political jail was the final stage of his radicalization. He was in there with true evil-doers – hard-core Al Qaeda members who convinced him to get revenge on America.
Something is wrong with the Muslim leadership in Nashville. What happened to Carlos at those Nashville mosques isn’t normal. I have other family members who are Muslims, and they are modern, peaceful, law abiding people, who have been Muslim for many years and are not radicalized.
I also have several uncles and brothers in the military. Our family has fought for the United States in every war since the Civil War. I have nephews who are currently in Afghanistan, as I speak, fighting for democracy and freedom for all Americans.
It seems to me that the American people are sitting around and doing nothing about Islamic extremism, as if Carlos’s story and the other stories told at these hearings aren’t true. There is a big elephant in the room, but our society continues not to see it.
This wrong is caused by political correctness. You can even call it political fear - yes, fear. Fear of stepping on a special minority population’s toes, even as a segment of that population wants to stamp out America and everything we stand for.
I must say that we are losing American babies – our children are in danger. This country must stand up and do something about this problem. Yes, it’s my son’s tragic story you’re hearing about today, but tomorrow it could be your son or your daughter. It might be an African-American child that they went after in Nashville, but tomorrow their victim might have blonde hair and blue eyes. One thing is for sure, it will happen again.
We must stop these extremist invaders from raping the minds of American citizens on American soil. Here in America today, there are people with radical Islamic political views who are organizing with one goal in mind: to convert our citizens and to turn them against the non-believers. This is a big problem now in Nashville, on college campuses and in the nearby area. Nashville has become a hot bed for radical Islamic recruiting.
Carlos grew up a happy-go-lucky kid. He always had a big smile on his face, and loved to crack a joke or two. Everyone liked him. He loved to play team sports like basketball and football. He loved swimming, dancing, and listening to music.
Today we have two families that have been destroyed. This could have been prevented. I would like to see something change so that no other family in this great country of ours has to go through what our family is facing now.
GOD HELP US! GOD HELP US!
May 22, 2011
Freeing the Slaves in 2011
Charles Jacobs, of PeaceAndTolerance.org, wrote:
I witnessed the redemption of 160 black Christian jihad slaves last week in South Sudan. They were taken out of bondage by my partners from Christian Solidarity International. South Sudan is a newly formed break-away Christian state, having essentially defeated the Islamic Republic of Sudan which waged a self-declared jihad ("holy war") on the Christian and tribalist south for decades, murdering almost 3 million and enslaving hundreds of thousands.Leah Burrows wrote:
Christian Solidarity is trying to free as many of the estimated 40,000 remaining slaves as possible before July, when the secession becomes official. The Americans spent several hours with the Sudanese, listening to their stories. Most are Dinka, the largest ethnic tribe in southern Sudan. Before being captured, they had lived in small villages with thatched huts, farming and herding cattle. Many were forced to convert to Islam by their masters. One woman, who was enslaved for 21 years, told Jacobs and the Polaks of being repeatedly raped and beaten for refusing to say Muslim prayers.For more on modern day human bondage see www.iabolish.org.
May 14, 2011
Islamic Doctrines Include Instructions to Create a Totalitarian Islamic State
Definition of totalitarianism: A political system where the state, usually under the power of a single faction, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life.
As Abdullahi Warfa wrote (and as so many others have pointed out):
"Islamic thought relates to the government’s role in every sector of the society including education, business, labor, sports. This school of thought regulates every aspect of individual behavior through a wide range of Islamic jurisdiction."
The idea is that "only Allah is the creator, sustainer, and master of the universe and of all that exists in it. He alone has the right to command or forbid. Hence, we must act according to Allah’s teachings. Furthermore, Allah alone is the ruler and his commandments are the laws that govern our daily activities politically, economically, and legally..."
Read more about the basic elements of Islam.
As Abdullahi Warfa wrote (and as so many others have pointed out):
"Islamic thought relates to the government’s role in every sector of the society including education, business, labor, sports. This school of thought regulates every aspect of individual behavior through a wide range of Islamic jurisdiction."
The idea is that "only Allah is the creator, sustainer, and master of the universe and of all that exists in it. He alone has the right to command or forbid. Hence, we must act according to Allah’s teachings. Furthermore, Allah alone is the ruler and his commandments are the laws that govern our daily activities politically, economically, and legally..."
Read more about the basic elements of Islam.
May 13, 2011
Muslims Who Love Death
Suhail Khan:
Major Nidal M. Hasan
Hasan al-Banna':
Osama bin Laden:
Hasan Nasrallah:
Hamas Motto:
Khomeini:
"The early Muslims loved death, dying for the sake of almighty Allah, more than the oppressors loved life," said an impassioned Khan, who wiped away tears throughout his speech.
Major Nidal M. Hasan
"We love death more then [sic] you love life!"
Hasan al-Banna':
"The Quran has commanded people to love death more than life."
Osama bin Laden:
"We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the difference between us two."
Hasan Nasrallah:
"We are going to win because they love life and we love death."
Hamas Motto:
"We love death more than the Jews love life."
Khomeini:
"We love death more than you love life."
May 10, 2011
Based on the Criteria in the Koran, "Moderate Muslims" Are Not Really Muslims
IN AN article in Canada's National Post, the author did a great job depicting Geert Wilders and his mission. The author, Jonathan Kay, was surprisingly fair and open-minded. It is as if he just listened and didn't pre-judge.
I've read the Koran twice now, and what Wilders says here is accurate. Here is an excerpt from Kay's article:
"Now, you can certainly make a distinction among the people," says Wilders. "There are moderate Muslims — who are the majority in our Western societies — and non-moderate Muslims."
"But Islam itself has only one form. The totalitarian ideology contained in the Koran has no room for moderation. If you really look at what the Koran says, in fact, you could argue that 'moderate' Muslims are not Muslims at all. It tells us that if you do not act on even one verse, then you are an apostate..."
Mr. Wilders sees Islam as akin to communism or fascism, a cage that traps its suffering adherents in a hateful, phobic frame of mind. Mr. Wilders describes Muslim as victims of bad ideas, in other words. In this way, his attitude is entirely different from classic anti-Semites and racists, who treat Jews and blacks as debased on the level of biology.
Of course, in the modern, politically correct Western tradition, hatred expressed toward a religion typically is held on the same level of human rights opprobrium as hatred expressed toward a race or an ethnicity. But Islam is not really a religion at all, as Mr. Wilders sees it, but rather a retrograde political ideology with religious trappings.
He notes that while other religions draw a distinction between God and Caesar, between the secular and the spiritual, Islam demands submission in every aspect of human existence, both through the wording of the Koran itself and the Shariah law that has developed in its shadow. The faith also supplies a justification for aggressive war, vilifies non-believers and pronounces death upon its enemies. In short, Mr. Wilders argues, it has all the ingredient of what students of 20th-century history would recognize as a fully formed totalitarian ideology. "I see Islam as 95% ideology, 5% religion — the 5% being the temples and the imams," he tells me. "If you would strip the Koran of all the negative, hateful, anti-Semitic material, you would wind up with a tiny [booklet]."
It's easy to see why many Europeans casually jump to the conclusion that Mr. Wilders is a hatemonger. He wants to halt non-Western immigration to the Netherlands until existing immigrants can be integrated, and he wants to deport any foreigner who commits a crime — the same sort of policies as those advocated by genuine xenophobes.
But even so, his insistence on the proper distinction between faith and ideology is an idea that deserves to be taken seriously. For it invites the question: If we permit, and even encourage, the excoriation of totalitarian cults created by modern dictators, why do we stigmatize, and even criminalize, such excoriation in the case of arguably similar notions attributed to a 7th-century Bedouin taking what is claimed to be divine dictation?
It's a good question. And as far as I know, Geert Wilders is the only Western politician taking it seriously.
I've read the Koran twice now, and what Wilders says here is accurate. Here is an excerpt from Kay's article:
"Now, you can certainly make a distinction among the people," says Wilders. "There are moderate Muslims — who are the majority in our Western societies — and non-moderate Muslims."
"But Islam itself has only one form. The totalitarian ideology contained in the Koran has no room for moderation. If you really look at what the Koran says, in fact, you could argue that 'moderate' Muslims are not Muslims at all. It tells us that if you do not act on even one verse, then you are an apostate..."
Mr. Wilders sees Islam as akin to communism or fascism, a cage that traps its suffering adherents in a hateful, phobic frame of mind. Mr. Wilders describes Muslim as victims of bad ideas, in other words. In this way, his attitude is entirely different from classic anti-Semites and racists, who treat Jews and blacks as debased on the level of biology.
Of course, in the modern, politically correct Western tradition, hatred expressed toward a religion typically is held on the same level of human rights opprobrium as hatred expressed toward a race or an ethnicity. But Islam is not really a religion at all, as Mr. Wilders sees it, but rather a retrograde political ideology with religious trappings.
He notes that while other religions draw a distinction between God and Caesar, between the secular and the spiritual, Islam demands submission in every aspect of human existence, both through the wording of the Koran itself and the Shariah law that has developed in its shadow. The faith also supplies a justification for aggressive war, vilifies non-believers and pronounces death upon its enemies. In short, Mr. Wilders argues, it has all the ingredient of what students of 20th-century history would recognize as a fully formed totalitarian ideology. "I see Islam as 95% ideology, 5% religion — the 5% being the temples and the imams," he tells me. "If you would strip the Koran of all the negative, hateful, anti-Semitic material, you would wind up with a tiny [booklet]."
It's easy to see why many Europeans casually jump to the conclusion that Mr. Wilders is a hatemonger. He wants to halt non-Western immigration to the Netherlands until existing immigrants can be integrated, and he wants to deport any foreigner who commits a crime — the same sort of policies as those advocated by genuine xenophobes.
But even so, his insistence on the proper distinction between faith and ideology is an idea that deserves to be taken seriously. For it invites the question: If we permit, and even encourage, the excoriation of totalitarian cults created by modern dictators, why do we stigmatize, and even criminalize, such excoriation in the case of arguably similar notions attributed to a 7th-century Bedouin taking what is claimed to be divine dictation?
It's a good question. And as far as I know, Geert Wilders is the only Western politician taking it seriously.
April 23, 2011
The Global Influence of Wahhabis
The following was written by Mark Silverberg, author of The Quartermasters Of Terror: Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Jihad.
Reza F. Safa, author of Inside Islam: Exposing and Reaching the World of Islam, estimates that since 1973, the Saudi government has spent an unbelievable $87B to promote Wahhabism in the United States, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe.
According to official Saudi information, Saudi funds have been used to build and maintain over 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, 210 Islamic Centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia.
The Kingdom has fully or partially financed Islamic Centers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fresno; Chicago; New York; Washington; Tucson; Raleigh, N.C. and Toledo, Ohio as well as in Austria, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and even in some Muslim countries such as Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia and Djibuti.
Saudi aid to Muslims abroad, however, comes with strings attached, and most of the recipient institutions end up promoting the Wahhabi version of Islam.
A Textbook Case of Wahhabism
In a region where holy war is explained in public-school textbooks as "consider the infidel your enemy," (advises a Saudi text for 10th-graders), the connection between political Islam of the sort advocated by Osama bin Laden and the education offered to Persian Gulf schoolchildren has been the subject of agonizing dispute.
In late 2002, The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) undertook a survey of Saudi Arabian (Wahhabi) textbooks. Unlike the Center's former surveys of Palestinian and Syrian textbooks, however, the Saudi textbook survey included the Saudi Arabian (Wahhabi) outlook on Christianity and the West as well as Saudi notions of government, women's status and children's rights as taught in schools.
The results of the survey provide some insight into the message the Saudis wish to instill in the minds of their students both in their Kingdom and throughout the world. The message, simply stated, is that Wahhabism either must dominate or be dominated.
In terms of the democratization and modernization of the Arab world, Wahhabism stands as a monument to Arab stagnation and decline.
The Report analyzes 93 school textbooks taught in grades 1-10, mostly from the years 1999-2002 and presents a "unique" religious and political worldview to which school students between the ages 6 and 16 are exposed through their textbooks. In these Wahhabi texts, Islam is presented as the only true religion while all other religions are presented as false. "Islam is the only religion leading its followers to Paradise, whereas all other religions destroy their believers in Hell. The Muslims are, consequently, superior to followers of all other religions, in both this world and the next."
Christians and Jews in particular are denounced as infidels. Jews especially are presented as enemies of Islam and of Muslims. "Muslims may not befriend them, nor emulate them in any way, lest that lead to love and friendship which is forbidden."
In a broader context, the textbooks make clear that the West, in particular, is the source of all misfortunes of the Muslim world — its most dangerous effect on Muslim society being "its cultural and intellectual influence in various fields including the spread of Western practices and habits — from Western democracy to Western influence in the fields of literature, art, music, the media, fashion, education and research — including Christian missionary work, Western humanitarian and medical aid, and even Western-invented computer games."
According to the Wahhabi world perspective, "the Jews are a wicked nation, characterized by bribery, slyness, deception, betrayal, aggressiveness and haughtiness." As such, they have been "a harmful element in world history," and are responsible, inter alia, for "the French and Bolshevik revolutions and for the outbreak of World War I."
Not content to portray the Jews solely in negative terms to students, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are presented as an authentic historical source. One textbook mentions that "perdition is the desired fate for Jews." Zionism is presented as an evil movement. Accordingly, "Zionism strives towards world domination or, at least, towards territorial expansion in the Fertile Crescent and Arabia. It uses evil means to direct world history, including some non-Jewish auxiliary organizations like the Freemasons and the Lions and Rotary clubs."
In Wahhabi textbooks, Israel is not recognized as a sovereign state and its name does not appear on any map. Instead, all maps bear the name Palestine. Israeli regions such as the Negev and cities such as Haifa and Acre are presented as Palestinian. Palestine is presented as a Muslim country occupied by foreigners who defile its Muslim holy places, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The occupation of Palestine is portrayed as the most crucial problem of the Arabs and the Muslims, "who should all join forces for the total liberation of Palestine and its purification" from the Zionists.
Nor is peace between Muslims and non-Muslims advocated. Instead, the Saudi textbooks, even grammar books, are full of phrases exalting war, jihad, and martyrdom. [This is consistent with the content of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.]
The Saudi textbooks do prove one thing as a certainty — Wahhabism rejects Western democracy, and praises the type of regime Saudi Arabia has embraced, the character of which is attributed to Islamic directives.
Wahhabi Educational Outreach America, perhaps due to the inherent openness of its society, is the only country outside Saudi Arabia where the Islamic establishment is actually under Wahhabi control.
For American Muslim moderates, the harsh reality of having their religion hijacked by Wahhabi radicals is something they have yet to confront. "Radical Islamic groups have now taken over leadership of the 'mainstream' Islamic institutions in the United States and anyone who pretends otherwise is deliberately engaging in self-deception," said the late Seif Ashmawi, an Egyptian-American newspaper publisher.
Stephen Schwartz, a noted scholar of Islam has commented that "Wahhabi agents have sought to impose their ideology on all who attend the mosques they control."
Of that $87B religious propaganda budget, the Saudis have allocated considerable line-item space toward building religious institutions that promote the Wahhabi version of Islam. The Saudis have funded more than 80 percent of the Wahhabi-influenced mosques built in the United States within the last 20 years. Moreover, the majority of Muslim Student Associations at U.S. colleges are dominated by Islamic and anti-American agendas, as are most of the numerous Islamic Centers and schools financed by the Saudis.
And the most malleable minds belong to Muslim children. An estimated 30,000 Muslim children attend Saudi-funded Wahhabi day schools in America. Intolerance and outright rejection of American values and democratic ideals — classical Wahabbism — are often taught.
Susan Katz Keating, writing in FrontPage Magazine noted that the Saudi-Wahhabi worldview is gradually finding its way into these Wahhabi-funded schools. In affirmation of the CMIP study, she concluded that children learn classical Wahhabi philosophy — that on Judgement Day, "Muslims will fight and kill Jews. The cowardly Jews will seek refuge behind trees. Much like the trees in the forest scene from the Wizard of Oz, these trees will become animated and aggressive. They will call out to the righteous: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.'"
Students are taught "it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims." Students learn it is okay to hurt or steal from a non-Muslim.
The Saudi-supplied textbooks at these Wahhabi schools state that Muslims are obliged to consider all infidels the enemy.
As a rule, Wahhabi worshippers do not embrace the American religious community's spirit of inter-faith cooperation. They are distinctly isolationist. This attitude came to light as early as the 1990's, when Wahhabi mosques in America refused to accept help from local churches wanting to donate food to Bosnian Muslims.
Confirming the parallel findings of the CMIP study, Keating concludes that Wahhabism will not work with infidels, even if the purpose is to save other Muslims.
The Saudis, meanwhile, have directed considerable outreach toward the American Black Muslim community. In one effort to showcase the bounties of Wahhabism to this target audience, the Saudis' enfeebled King Fahd pledged as much as $8M for a lavish mosque in shabby South Central Los Angeles. The Saudis' Islamic Development Bank pledged an additional $295,000 for a school attached to the mosque.
From the Saudi perspective, this and other similar contributions are less an expense than an investment. According to Reza Safa, an authority on the manner in which Wahhabism is spread throughout the world, "as many as 90 percent of American converts to Islam are black." According to some estimates, if the conversion rate continues, Islam could emerge as the dominant religion among urban blacks.
Wahhabi Prison Outreach
The Saudis also have a special program aimed at converting blacks in prison. In a well-documented June 2002 article in the Washington Times, Cal Thomas noted that the program is funded by Saudi Arabian money through the National Islamic Prison Foundation which underwrites a "prison outreach" program designed to convert large numbers of African-American inmates not only to Wahhabism, but to its political objectives including virulent anti-Americanism.
The Wall Street Journal (February 5, 2003) also confirmed that Wahhabism is making serious inroads into the black population of American prisons. It quoted a New York-based Wahhabi imam, Warith Deen Umar (who until his retirement in 2000 helped run New York's growing Islamic prison program by recruiting and training dozens of chaplains and ministering to thousands of inmates himself) as saying: "The 9/11 hijackers should be honored as martyrs. The U.S. risks further terrorism attacks because it oppresses Muslims around the world. Without justice, there will be warfare, and it can come to this country too."
The natural candidates to help press such an attack, in his view, are African-Americans who embraced Islam in prison. Prison dawa, or the spreading of the faith, has become a priority for the Saudi Arabian government. The Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy in Washington disseminates hundreds of copies of the Quran each month, as well as religious pamphlets and videos to prison chaplains and Islamic groups who then pass them along to inmates. The Saudi government also pays for prison chaplains, along with many other American Muslims, to travel to Saudi Arabia for worship and study during the hajj, the traditional winter pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their lives.
The trips, courtesy of the Saudi government, typically cost $3,000 a person and last several weeks. Prison authorities believe that these converted inmates could serve as terrorists once they are released, murdering their own countrymen in a kind of "payback" for perceived injustices done to them by white America.
On October 20, 2002, the New York Times quoted Faheem Shuaibe, imam at a large, predominately black mosque in Oakland, Calif., as saying that more than 200 African-American imams have been trained so far in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Shuaibe told the newspaper: "This was a very deliberate recruitment process by the Saudis — trying to find black Muslims who had a real potential for Islamic learning and also for submission to their agenda. They taught Islam with the intent to expand their influence. A principal target was to stop the indigenous Muslim leadership in America from tinkering with their religion."
According to the Times story, the brand of Islam being taught and exported was Wahhabism.
This is a trend worth watching. Many of America's black Muslims have harshly criticized America and have deemed it an "immoral society." Increasingly, black Muslims oppose U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and are adopting a Saudi-influenced view of Arab-Israeli relations.
Other Wahhabis in the U.S. advocate a Saudi-style approach to American government. Daniel Pipes reports that significant elements within the American Islamic community seek to replace our Constitution with the Quran. A ludicrous fantasy, to be sure; but one that offers a glimpse of Wahhabi dreams for America. [Maybe not so ludicrous after all. Check out their 20-year plan already underway.]
Former CIA Director James Woolsey told Congress: "Wahhabi extremism today is the soil in which al Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are growing."
Our problem is that we are not just fighting terrorists and their financial supporters. We are also fighting a religious ideology. The intrusion of Wahhabism into America is a threat to our security and to our way of life. The fact remains that the government has not done enough to root out Wahhabism, to shut off its funding, to close down its funding recipients, or to encourage moderate Islamic leaders to emphasize the inclusive (as opposed to the exclusive) writings of the Quran and the more humble and pluralistic commentaries of the Hadith.
The U.S. has also failed to pursue a coherent political strategy aimed at de-legitimizing the ideology of Islamic terrorism in America and undermining the terrorists' sources of support. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the reason for this failure is Washington's unwillingness to risk a rupture with Saudi Arabia.
The Bush administration has to face up to the fact that Riyadh has been — and remains — the main ideological and financial sponsor of Islamic extremism worldwide, and the Saudis are not seriously interested in helping us combat it.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations Report, Saudi Arabia is the largest source of financing for al-Qaeda, and blamed both the U.S. and Saudi governments for not being tough enough.
Matthew Levitt, has said that "Saudi officials and state-paid religious leaders sit on the boards of charities that the American government suspects of supporting terrorism."
Let there be no doubt. Al Qaeda ideology is essentially Wahhabism, and most, if not all members of al Qaeda are ideologically Wahhabist.
Billions of Saudi dollars are flowing through legitimate businesses, charitable front organizations, Islamic Centers, academies, private schools, wealthy Saudi individuals and worldwide criminal activities for the sole purpose of promoting a religious philosophy that is antithetical to democracy, the democratic ideals of freedom, tolerance, religious pluralism and Western civilization as we know it. Until the administration confronts this reality in a decisive manner, lasting progress in the war on terrorism is unlikely. Wahhabism, by its very nature and history, represents a nascent fifth column in America.
Reza F. Safa, author of Inside Islam: Exposing and Reaching the World of Islam, estimates that since 1973, the Saudi government has spent an unbelievable $87B to promote Wahhabism in the United States, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe.
According to official Saudi information, Saudi funds have been used to build and maintain over 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, 210 Islamic Centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia.
The Kingdom has fully or partially financed Islamic Centers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fresno; Chicago; New York; Washington; Tucson; Raleigh, N.C. and Toledo, Ohio as well as in Austria, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and even in some Muslim countries such as Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia and Djibuti.
Saudi aid to Muslims abroad, however, comes with strings attached, and most of the recipient institutions end up promoting the Wahhabi version of Islam.
A Textbook Case of Wahhabism
In a region where holy war is explained in public-school textbooks as "consider the infidel your enemy," (advises a Saudi text for 10th-graders), the connection between political Islam of the sort advocated by Osama bin Laden and the education offered to Persian Gulf schoolchildren has been the subject of agonizing dispute.
In late 2002, The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) undertook a survey of Saudi Arabian (Wahhabi) textbooks. Unlike the Center's former surveys of Palestinian and Syrian textbooks, however, the Saudi textbook survey included the Saudi Arabian (Wahhabi) outlook on Christianity and the West as well as Saudi notions of government, women's status and children's rights as taught in schools.
The results of the survey provide some insight into the message the Saudis wish to instill in the minds of their students both in their Kingdom and throughout the world. The message, simply stated, is that Wahhabism either must dominate or be dominated.
In terms of the democratization and modernization of the Arab world, Wahhabism stands as a monument to Arab stagnation and decline.
The Report analyzes 93 school textbooks taught in grades 1-10, mostly from the years 1999-2002 and presents a "unique" religious and political worldview to which school students between the ages 6 and 16 are exposed through their textbooks. In these Wahhabi texts, Islam is presented as the only true religion while all other religions are presented as false. "Islam is the only religion leading its followers to Paradise, whereas all other religions destroy their believers in Hell. The Muslims are, consequently, superior to followers of all other religions, in both this world and the next."
Christians and Jews in particular are denounced as infidels. Jews especially are presented as enemies of Islam and of Muslims. "Muslims may not befriend them, nor emulate them in any way, lest that lead to love and friendship which is forbidden."
In a broader context, the textbooks make clear that the West, in particular, is the source of all misfortunes of the Muslim world — its most dangerous effect on Muslim society being "its cultural and intellectual influence in various fields including the spread of Western practices and habits — from Western democracy to Western influence in the fields of literature, art, music, the media, fashion, education and research — including Christian missionary work, Western humanitarian and medical aid, and even Western-invented computer games."
According to the Wahhabi world perspective, "the Jews are a wicked nation, characterized by bribery, slyness, deception, betrayal, aggressiveness and haughtiness." As such, they have been "a harmful element in world history," and are responsible, inter alia, for "the French and Bolshevik revolutions and for the outbreak of World War I."
Not content to portray the Jews solely in negative terms to students, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are presented as an authentic historical source. One textbook mentions that "perdition is the desired fate for Jews." Zionism is presented as an evil movement. Accordingly, "Zionism strives towards world domination or, at least, towards territorial expansion in the Fertile Crescent and Arabia. It uses evil means to direct world history, including some non-Jewish auxiliary organizations like the Freemasons and the Lions and Rotary clubs."
In Wahhabi textbooks, Israel is not recognized as a sovereign state and its name does not appear on any map. Instead, all maps bear the name Palestine. Israeli regions such as the Negev and cities such as Haifa and Acre are presented as Palestinian. Palestine is presented as a Muslim country occupied by foreigners who defile its Muslim holy places, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The occupation of Palestine is portrayed as the most crucial problem of the Arabs and the Muslims, "who should all join forces for the total liberation of Palestine and its purification" from the Zionists.
Nor is peace between Muslims and non-Muslims advocated. Instead, the Saudi textbooks, even grammar books, are full of phrases exalting war, jihad, and martyrdom. [This is consistent with the content of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.]
The Saudi textbooks do prove one thing as a certainty — Wahhabism rejects Western democracy, and praises the type of regime Saudi Arabia has embraced, the character of which is attributed to Islamic directives.
Wahhabi Educational Outreach America, perhaps due to the inherent openness of its society, is the only country outside Saudi Arabia where the Islamic establishment is actually under Wahhabi control.
For American Muslim moderates, the harsh reality of having their religion hijacked by Wahhabi radicals is something they have yet to confront. "Radical Islamic groups have now taken over leadership of the 'mainstream' Islamic institutions in the United States and anyone who pretends otherwise is deliberately engaging in self-deception," said the late Seif Ashmawi, an Egyptian-American newspaper publisher.
Stephen Schwartz, a noted scholar of Islam has commented that "Wahhabi agents have sought to impose their ideology on all who attend the mosques they control."
Of that $87B religious propaganda budget, the Saudis have allocated considerable line-item space toward building religious institutions that promote the Wahhabi version of Islam. The Saudis have funded more than 80 percent of the Wahhabi-influenced mosques built in the United States within the last 20 years. Moreover, the majority of Muslim Student Associations at U.S. colleges are dominated by Islamic and anti-American agendas, as are most of the numerous Islamic Centers and schools financed by the Saudis.
And the most malleable minds belong to Muslim children. An estimated 30,000 Muslim children attend Saudi-funded Wahhabi day schools in America. Intolerance and outright rejection of American values and democratic ideals — classical Wahabbism — are often taught.
Susan Katz Keating, writing in FrontPage Magazine noted that the Saudi-Wahhabi worldview is gradually finding its way into these Wahhabi-funded schools. In affirmation of the CMIP study, she concluded that children learn classical Wahhabi philosophy — that on Judgement Day, "Muslims will fight and kill Jews. The cowardly Jews will seek refuge behind trees. Much like the trees in the forest scene from the Wizard of Oz, these trees will become animated and aggressive. They will call out to the righteous: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.'"
Students are taught "it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims." Students learn it is okay to hurt or steal from a non-Muslim.
The Saudi-supplied textbooks at these Wahhabi schools state that Muslims are obliged to consider all infidels the enemy.
As a rule, Wahhabi worshippers do not embrace the American religious community's spirit of inter-faith cooperation. They are distinctly isolationist. This attitude came to light as early as the 1990's, when Wahhabi mosques in America refused to accept help from local churches wanting to donate food to Bosnian Muslims.
Confirming the parallel findings of the CMIP study, Keating concludes that Wahhabism will not work with infidels, even if the purpose is to save other Muslims.
The Saudis, meanwhile, have directed considerable outreach toward the American Black Muslim community. In one effort to showcase the bounties of Wahhabism to this target audience, the Saudis' enfeebled King Fahd pledged as much as $8M for a lavish mosque in shabby South Central Los Angeles. The Saudis' Islamic Development Bank pledged an additional $295,000 for a school attached to the mosque.
From the Saudi perspective, this and other similar contributions are less an expense than an investment. According to Reza Safa, an authority on the manner in which Wahhabism is spread throughout the world, "as many as 90 percent of American converts to Islam are black." According to some estimates, if the conversion rate continues, Islam could emerge as the dominant religion among urban blacks.
Wahhabi Prison Outreach
The Saudis also have a special program aimed at converting blacks in prison. In a well-documented June 2002 article in the Washington Times, Cal Thomas noted that the program is funded by Saudi Arabian money through the National Islamic Prison Foundation which underwrites a "prison outreach" program designed to convert large numbers of African-American inmates not only to Wahhabism, but to its political objectives including virulent anti-Americanism.
The Wall Street Journal (February 5, 2003) also confirmed that Wahhabism is making serious inroads into the black population of American prisons. It quoted a New York-based Wahhabi imam, Warith Deen Umar (who until his retirement in 2000 helped run New York's growing Islamic prison program by recruiting and training dozens of chaplains and ministering to thousands of inmates himself) as saying: "The 9/11 hijackers should be honored as martyrs. The U.S. risks further terrorism attacks because it oppresses Muslims around the world. Without justice, there will be warfare, and it can come to this country too."
The natural candidates to help press such an attack, in his view, are African-Americans who embraced Islam in prison. Prison dawa, or the spreading of the faith, has become a priority for the Saudi Arabian government. The Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy in Washington disseminates hundreds of copies of the Quran each month, as well as religious pamphlets and videos to prison chaplains and Islamic groups who then pass them along to inmates. The Saudi government also pays for prison chaplains, along with many other American Muslims, to travel to Saudi Arabia for worship and study during the hajj, the traditional winter pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their lives.
The trips, courtesy of the Saudi government, typically cost $3,000 a person and last several weeks. Prison authorities believe that these converted inmates could serve as terrorists once they are released, murdering their own countrymen in a kind of "payback" for perceived injustices done to them by white America.
On October 20, 2002, the New York Times quoted Faheem Shuaibe, imam at a large, predominately black mosque in Oakland, Calif., as saying that more than 200 African-American imams have been trained so far in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Shuaibe told the newspaper: "This was a very deliberate recruitment process by the Saudis — trying to find black Muslims who had a real potential for Islamic learning and also for submission to their agenda. They taught Islam with the intent to expand their influence. A principal target was to stop the indigenous Muslim leadership in America from tinkering with their religion."
According to the Times story, the brand of Islam being taught and exported was Wahhabism.
This is a trend worth watching. Many of America's black Muslims have harshly criticized America and have deemed it an "immoral society." Increasingly, black Muslims oppose U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and are adopting a Saudi-influenced view of Arab-Israeli relations.
Other Wahhabis in the U.S. advocate a Saudi-style approach to American government. Daniel Pipes reports that significant elements within the American Islamic community seek to replace our Constitution with the Quran. A ludicrous fantasy, to be sure; but one that offers a glimpse of Wahhabi dreams for America. [Maybe not so ludicrous after all. Check out their 20-year plan already underway.]
Former CIA Director James Woolsey told Congress: "Wahhabi extremism today is the soil in which al Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are growing."
Our problem is that we are not just fighting terrorists and their financial supporters. We are also fighting a religious ideology. The intrusion of Wahhabism into America is a threat to our security and to our way of life. The fact remains that the government has not done enough to root out Wahhabism, to shut off its funding, to close down its funding recipients, or to encourage moderate Islamic leaders to emphasize the inclusive (as opposed to the exclusive) writings of the Quran and the more humble and pluralistic commentaries of the Hadith.
The U.S. has also failed to pursue a coherent political strategy aimed at de-legitimizing the ideology of Islamic terrorism in America and undermining the terrorists' sources of support. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the reason for this failure is Washington's unwillingness to risk a rupture with Saudi Arabia.
The Bush administration has to face up to the fact that Riyadh has been — and remains — the main ideological and financial sponsor of Islamic extremism worldwide, and the Saudis are not seriously interested in helping us combat it.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations Report, Saudi Arabia is the largest source of financing for al-Qaeda, and blamed both the U.S. and Saudi governments for not being tough enough.
Matthew Levitt, has said that "Saudi officials and state-paid religious leaders sit on the boards of charities that the American government suspects of supporting terrorism."
Let there be no doubt. Al Qaeda ideology is essentially Wahhabism, and most, if not all members of al Qaeda are ideologically Wahhabist.
Billions of Saudi dollars are flowing through legitimate businesses, charitable front organizations, Islamic Centers, academies, private schools, wealthy Saudi individuals and worldwide criminal activities for the sole purpose of promoting a religious philosophy that is antithetical to democracy, the democratic ideals of freedom, tolerance, religious pluralism and Western civilization as we know it. Until the administration confronts this reality in a decisive manner, lasting progress in the war on terrorism is unlikely. Wahhabism, by its very nature and history, represents a nascent fifth column in America.
April 22, 2011
Answering Taqiyya About Sharia
From an article on Political Islam, Bill Warner writes:
Now that Sharia law is getting more attention, Islam is rolling out its defenses to defuse and confuse the thinking and the not-so-thinking public. If you are a watcher or connoisseur of Islamic politics, it is fascinating to see how similar the different arguments are. Read one apologist for Islam and you have read all of the apologists.
Argument 1:
• Sharia is not static; it changes and evolves.
This promises the hope of reformation over time if Islam becomes more moderate. Islam is the doctrine found in the Koran and the Sunna of Mohammed. Mohammed is the perfect Muslim and his every act and word is to be imitated by all Muslims. The Sunna of Mohammed is found in the Hadith (his traditions) and the Sira (his actions). The complete Islamic doctrine is Allah and Mohammed, or Koran, Sira and Hadith.
Sharia is the interpretation of the doctrine of Islam. Of course, the interpretations change, but they keep being drawn from the same 1400 year old texts. The Sharia circles the sun of Allah and Mohammed, so the evolution of Sharia turns out to be an orbit. The Sharia becomes looser and tighter over the course of history, but it is still the same Sharia and still obeys all of the fundamentals found in the texts of Koran, Sira and Hadith.
One of the biggest fundamental principles of Islam is the Kafir, the non-Muslim. No matter how the Sharia changes, Kafirs are still the same Allah-cursed creature that Mohammed annihilated whenever possible. No amount of adaptation can change the cruel place that the Kafir has in Islam and the Sharia.
Read the rest as the inimitable Bill Warner answers Arguments 2 and 3>>>
Now that Sharia law is getting more attention, Islam is rolling out its defenses to defuse and confuse the thinking and the not-so-thinking public. If you are a watcher or connoisseur of Islamic politics, it is fascinating to see how similar the different arguments are. Read one apologist for Islam and you have read all of the apologists.
Argument 1:
• Sharia is not static; it changes and evolves.
This promises the hope of reformation over time if Islam becomes more moderate. Islam is the doctrine found in the Koran and the Sunna of Mohammed. Mohammed is the perfect Muslim and his every act and word is to be imitated by all Muslims. The Sunna of Mohammed is found in the Hadith (his traditions) and the Sira (his actions). The complete Islamic doctrine is Allah and Mohammed, or Koran, Sira and Hadith.
Sharia is the interpretation of the doctrine of Islam. Of course, the interpretations change, but they keep being drawn from the same 1400 year old texts. The Sharia circles the sun of Allah and Mohammed, so the evolution of Sharia turns out to be an orbit. The Sharia becomes looser and tighter over the course of history, but it is still the same Sharia and still obeys all of the fundamentals found in the texts of Koran, Sira and Hadith.
One of the biggest fundamental principles of Islam is the Kafir, the non-Muslim. No matter how the Sharia changes, Kafirs are still the same Allah-cursed creature that Mohammed annihilated whenever possible. No amount of adaptation can change the cruel place that the Kafir has in Islam and the Sharia.
Read the rest as the inimitable Bill Warner answers Arguments 2 and 3>>>
April 10, 2011
Infidels Connect
ANYTHING THAT helps counterjihadists connect, unite, and coordinate action is a step in the right direction. Here's a small thing, but worth noting. Someone made this comment on a Facebook page:
Want to find fellow infidels? Wear a tee shirt. On CafePress, they've got a huge variety:
My day ended up pretty sweet. I walked into work and was helping out in the front. One of the customers was in line and came up to make his purchase. His shirt said "Infidel" with an Arabic version below it. I asked him if he was an "Infidel." He made a big smiled and said "Damn right!". I shook his hand and said "so am I". As he was leaving both he and his girlfriend had big smiles on their faces. Nice to see fellow Citizen Warriors out in the world.
Want to find fellow infidels? Wear a tee shirt. On CafePress, they've got a huge variety:
April 9, 2011
To Burn or Not to Burn the Koran?
What should be done about the Koran burning and the violence it sparks? If we prohibit Koran burning, we are essentially establishing Sharia law in our free countries, and allowing them to override our previously established rights to free speech and free expression. If we ignore it, nothing will change. What should be done? I thought this video had a sensible, reasonable, and effective solution: Respond with dramatically MORE Koran burning. Watch the nine minute video and see if you can find a flaw in his logic:
The Psychopath’s Argument: Free Speech Kills People
IN A RECENT article at The Gates of Vienna, Dr. Nicolai Sennels, a psychologist and the author of "Among Criminal Muslims: A Psychologist’s experiences with the Copenhagen Municipality," wrote about the latest craziness from orthodox Muslim violence around the world in response to the recent burning of a Koran. Here's Sennels' article:
“But she’s asking for it! She knows I’ll beat her if she says things like that. And still she says it — it’s like she’s begging me to hit her!”
This is the typical psychopathic husband’s explanation for domestic violence, and as an experienced psychologist I can smell this kind of sick logic from miles away. Unfortunately, far too often this is also the explanation given by the media, politicians, and not least violent Muslims when they explain the Islamists’ aggressive reactions to cartoons and Quran-burnings. We are even responsible when Muslims run amok and commit terror after we create art or satire based on their prophet and religion. Either we cease to tease and criticize, or we must accept the consequences.
Jyllands-Posten and Kurt Westergaard have been held responsible for more than a hundred deaths — often trampled by their fellow Muslims — in the wake of the publication of the famous Mohammed cartoons. The same accusations now hit Terry Jones and his minister colleague Wayne Sapp, as eleven UN staff in Afghanistan were killed by Muslims in response to Jones’ and Sapp’s Quran-burning event. Several of the UN staff were beheaded.
But drawings and Quran burnings do not kill. They do not trample people to death and they do not chop their heads off. Only people do such things.
Jyllands-Posten, Westergaard, Jones and Sapp are not mass-murderers — and not in any indirect way, either. No artist or non-violent activist should be ashamed or feel guilty about the violent actions that others take in response to their peaceful actions. Those who believe otherwise can go and talk to the psychopathic wife beater, because they have something in common. Socialist analysis especially often victimizes dysfunctional people, and categorizes their aggressive behavior as natural and automatic reactions — and thereby supports the psychopath’s argument.
A rewrite of the U.S. National Riffle Association’s famous slogan would read: “Free speech doesn’t kill people. People kill people.”
“But she’s asking for it! She knows I’ll beat her if she says things like that. And still she says it — it’s like she’s begging me to hit her!”
This is the typical psychopathic husband’s explanation for domestic violence, and as an experienced psychologist I can smell this kind of sick logic from miles away. Unfortunately, far too often this is also the explanation given by the media, politicians, and not least violent Muslims when they explain the Islamists’ aggressive reactions to cartoons and Quran-burnings. We are even responsible when Muslims run amok and commit terror after we create art or satire based on their prophet and religion. Either we cease to tease and criticize, or we must accept the consequences.
Jyllands-Posten and Kurt Westergaard have been held responsible for more than a hundred deaths — often trampled by their fellow Muslims — in the wake of the publication of the famous Mohammed cartoons. The same accusations now hit Terry Jones and his minister colleague Wayne Sapp, as eleven UN staff in Afghanistan were killed by Muslims in response to Jones’ and Sapp’s Quran-burning event. Several of the UN staff were beheaded.
But drawings and Quran burnings do not kill. They do not trample people to death and they do not chop their heads off. Only people do such things.
Jyllands-Posten, Westergaard, Jones and Sapp are not mass-murderers — and not in any indirect way, either. No artist or non-violent activist should be ashamed or feel guilty about the violent actions that others take in response to their peaceful actions. Those who believe otherwise can go and talk to the psychopathic wife beater, because they have something in common. Socialist analysis especially often victimizes dysfunctional people, and categorizes their aggressive behavior as natural and automatic reactions — and thereby supports the psychopath’s argument.
A rewrite of the U.S. National Riffle Association’s famous slogan would read: “Free speech doesn’t kill people. People kill people.”
April 3, 2011
Islam and Human Rights
In an article by Andrew McCarthy, he writes:
Those who insist that the 1,400-year-old dividing line between Muslims and non-Muslims is ephemeral, that all we need is a little more understanding of how alike we all really are, would do well to consider the OIC’s Cairo Declaration of 1990. It is the ummah’s “Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,” proclaimed precisely because Islamic states reject the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights promulgated by the United Nations under the guidance of progressives in the United States and the West. That is, the leaders of the Muslim world are adamant that Western principles are not universal.
They are quite right about that. The Cairo Declaration boasts that Allah has made the Islamic ummah “the best community . . . which gave humanity a universal and well-balanced civilization.” It is the “historical role” of the ummah to “civilize” the rest of the world — not the other way around.
The Declaration makes abundantly clear that this civilization is to be attained by adherence to sharia. “All rights and freedoms” recognized by Islam “are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah,” which “is the only source of reference for [their] explanation or clarification.” Though men and women are said by the Declaration to be equal in “human dignity,” sharia elucidates their very different rights and obligations — their basic inequality. Sharia expressly controls freedom of movement and claims of asylum. The Declaration further states that “there shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in Shari’ah” — a blatant reaffirmation of penalties deemed cruel and unusual in the West. And the right to free expression is permitted only insofar as it “would not be contrary to the principles of Shari’ah” — meaning that Islam may not be critically examined, nor will the ummah abide any dissemination of “information” that would “violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values, or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society, or weaken its faith.”
Those who insist that the 1,400-year-old dividing line between Muslims and non-Muslims is ephemeral, that all we need is a little more understanding of how alike we all really are, would do well to consider the OIC’s Cairo Declaration of 1990. It is the ummah’s “Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,” proclaimed precisely because Islamic states reject the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights promulgated by the United Nations under the guidance of progressives in the United States and the West. That is, the leaders of the Muslim world are adamant that Western principles are not universal.
They are quite right about that. The Cairo Declaration boasts that Allah has made the Islamic ummah “the best community . . . which gave humanity a universal and well-balanced civilization.” It is the “historical role” of the ummah to “civilize” the rest of the world — not the other way around.
The Declaration makes abundantly clear that this civilization is to be attained by adherence to sharia. “All rights and freedoms” recognized by Islam “are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah,” which “is the only source of reference for [their] explanation or clarification.” Though men and women are said by the Declaration to be equal in “human dignity,” sharia elucidates their very different rights and obligations — their basic inequality. Sharia expressly controls freedom of movement and claims of asylum. The Declaration further states that “there shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in Shari’ah” — a blatant reaffirmation of penalties deemed cruel and unusual in the West. And the right to free expression is permitted only insofar as it “would not be contrary to the principles of Shari’ah” — meaning that Islam may not be critically examined, nor will the ummah abide any dissemination of “information” that would “violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values, or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society, or weaken its faith.”
April 2, 2011
"We Reject the Killing of Innocent Civilians"
The headlines sometimes say things like this: "Islam rejects the killing of innocent people." That headline is a quote by the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
Those of us who have studied Islamic doctrine know that nowhere in the Koran or Hadith does it imply non-Muslims are innocent. In fact, it implies just the opposite. Read more about that here.
Or, as Anjem Choudary, the London-based Islamic activist, put it: "When we say innocent people, we mean Muslims. As far as normal citizens, they have not accepted Islam, and as far as we're concerned that is a crime against God."
That is pure, unadulterated Islam.
Those of us who have studied Islamic doctrine know that nowhere in the Koran or Hadith does it imply non-Muslims are innocent. In fact, it implies just the opposite. Read more about that here.
Or, as Anjem Choudary, the London-based Islamic activist, put it: "When we say innocent people, we mean Muslims. As far as normal citizens, they have not accepted Islam, and as far as we're concerned that is a crime against God."
That is pure, unadulterated Islam.
April 1, 2011
Charles Jacobs, of PeaceAndTolerance.org, wrote:
I witnessed the redemption of 160 black Christian jihad slaves last week in South Sudan. They were taken out of bondage by my partners from Christian Solidarity International.
South Sudan is a newly formed break-away Christian state, having essentially defeated the Islamic Republic of Sudan which waged a self-declared jihad ("holy war") on the Christian and tribalist south for decades, murdering almost 3 million and enslaving hundreds of thousands.
For more on modern day human bondage see www.iabolish.org.
Leah Burrows wrote:
Christian Solidarity is trying to free as many of the estimated 40,000 remaining slaves as possible before July, when the secession becomes official.
The Americans spent several hours with the Sudanese, listening to their stories. Most are Dinka, the largest ethnic tribe in southern Sudan. Before being captured, they had lived in small villages with thatched huts, farming and herding cattle. Many were forced to convert to Islam by their masters. One woman, who was enslaved for 21 years, told Jacobs and the Polaks of being repeatedly raped and beaten for refusing to say Muslim prayers.
I witnessed the redemption of 160 black Christian jihad slaves last week in South Sudan. They were taken out of bondage by my partners from Christian Solidarity International.
South Sudan is a newly formed break-away Christian state, having essentially defeated the Islamic Republic of Sudan which waged a self-declared jihad ("holy war") on the Christian and tribalist south for decades, murdering almost 3 million and enslaving hundreds of thousands.
For more on modern day human bondage see www.iabolish.org.
Leah Burrows wrote:
Christian Solidarity is trying to free as many of the estimated 40,000 remaining slaves as possible before July, when the secession becomes official.
The Americans spent several hours with the Sudanese, listening to their stories. Most are Dinka, the largest ethnic tribe in southern Sudan. Before being captured, they had lived in small villages with thatched huts, farming and herding cattle. Many were forced to convert to Islam by their masters. One woman, who was enslaved for 21 years, told Jacobs and the Polaks of being repeatedly raped and beaten for refusing to say Muslim prayers.
March 31, 2011
Where Does All This Anti-Muslim Bigotry Come From?
In an article by Robert Spencer about Senator Richard Durbin, who expressed his desire to hold hearings on the "rise in anti-Muslim bigotry," Spencer wrote:
"If Durbin really wants to know the cause of what “anti-Muslim bigotry” may actually exist, he need look no farther than Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and so many other jihad murderers and would-be murderers.
"If anyone in the United States today is suspicious of Muslims in general, it is because of those jihadis and others like them..."
March 30, 2011
One Good Reason to Stop Muslim Immigration
In an article entitled Muslim Jihad in Christian Ethiopia: Lessons for the West, Raymond Ibrahim writes:
Help stop Muslim immigration. Sign the petition.
That Muslims are an otherwise peaceable minority group in Ethiopia, but in enclaves where they represent the majority, they attack their outnumbered Christian countrymen—giving them a tweaked version of Islam’s three choices to infidels—suggests that Muslim aggression and passivity are very much rooted in numbers: the more Muslims, the more potential for “assertive” behavior.
This has lessons for the West, especially Europe, which in recent years has seen an unprecedented influx of Muslim immigrants, reaching some 53 million, a number expected to “nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim will shrink by 3.5%,” due to higher Muslim birth rates. In short, it is a matter of time before Muslims account for significant numbers in Europe—perhaps not the majority, but, as the Ethiopian example establishes, a majority is not necessary for the winds of jihad to blow.
Help stop Muslim immigration. Sign the petition.
The Standard Muslim Ultimatum
In an article entitled Muslim Jihad in Christian Ethiopia: Lessons for the West, Raymond Ibrahim quoted this news report:
The string of attacks comes on the heels of several reports of growing anti-Christian tension and violence around the country [Ethiopia] where Muslims make up roughly one-third of the total population, but more than 90 percent of the population in certain areas, 2007 Census data shows. One of those areas is Besheno where, on November 9, all the Christians in the city woke up to find notes on their doors warning them to convert to Islam, leave the city or face death.
March 29, 2011
Israel's Status in the Arab World
An an interview with Bernard Lewis, he said:
There are increasing numbers of people in the Arab world who look with, I would even say, with wonderment at what they see in Israel, at the functioning of a free and open society. I read an article quite recently by a Palestinian Arab whom I will not endanger by naming, in which he said that “as things stand in the world at the present time, the best hope that an Arab has for his future is as a second class citizen of a Jewish state.” A rather extraordinary statement coming from an Arab spokesman. But if you think about it, he’s not far wrong. The alternative, being in an Arab state, is very much worse. They certainly do better as second class citizens of the Jewish state. There’s a growing realization of that. People would speak much more openly about that if it were safe to do so, which it obviously isn’t.
There are two things which I think are helpful towards a better understanding between the Arabs and Israel. One of them is the well-known one, of the perception of a greater danger, which I mentioned before. Sadat turned to Israel because he saw that Egypt was becoming a Russian colony. The same thing has happened again on a number of occasions. Now they see Israel as a barrier against the Iranian threat.
The other one, which is less easy to define but in the long run is probably more important, is [regarding Israel] as a model of democratic government. A model of a free and open society with rights for women — an increasingly important point, especially in the perception of women.
In both of these respects I think that there are some hopeful signs for the future.
There are increasing numbers of people in the Arab world who look with, I would even say, with wonderment at what they see in Israel, at the functioning of a free and open society. I read an article quite recently by a Palestinian Arab whom I will not endanger by naming, in which he said that “as things stand in the world at the present time, the best hope that an Arab has for his future is as a second class citizen of a Jewish state.” A rather extraordinary statement coming from an Arab spokesman. But if you think about it, he’s not far wrong. The alternative, being in an Arab state, is very much worse. They certainly do better as second class citizens of the Jewish state. There’s a growing realization of that. People would speak much more openly about that if it were safe to do so, which it obviously isn’t.
There are two things which I think are helpful towards a better understanding between the Arabs and Israel. One of them is the well-known one, of the perception of a greater danger, which I mentioned before. Sadat turned to Israel because he saw that Egypt was becoming a Russian colony. The same thing has happened again on a number of occasions. Now they see Israel as a barrier against the Iranian threat.
The other one, which is less easy to define but in the long run is probably more important, is [regarding Israel] as a model of democratic government. A model of a free and open society with rights for women — an increasingly important point, especially in the perception of women.
In both of these respects I think that there are some hopeful signs for the future.
March 24, 2011
March 20, 2011
Sharia is Here
The following is an excerpt from an article by Phyllis Chesler entitled, Forced Marriages in Our Own Backyard:
On February 22, 2011, Jessie Bender, a 13-year-old southern California girl, ran away from home. No, Jessie was not into “sex, drugs, or rock n’ roll.” On the contrary. Jessie was terrified that her American-born mother, Melissa, a convert to Islam, and her mother’s Pakistani boyfriend and acting stepfather Mohammed “Mo” Khan, had decided to send her to Pakistan to be married against her will. Had Jessie gone, her mother and “Mo” would have received $3000.00.
Europe is plagued by many more such cases of forced child marriage. According to the BBC, the police in South Wales have dealt with 49 cases of forced marriage in the past year (2010) alone.
Child marriage is opposed by the Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It is a toothless document. The United Nations does not enforce individual rights over the objections of its member nation states.
Child marriage is an abomination. Think of the girls you know who are 10, 12, 14 years old. Can you imagine how a forced, arranged marriage to a much older stranger, probably one who believes it is his absolute right to rape and beat his wife, would psychologically cripple them for life, stunt all growth, demoralize them forevermore?
We should not want to consign young American girls, Muslim and non-Muslim, to such cruel fates.
On February 22, 2011, Jessie Bender, a 13-year-old southern California girl, ran away from home. No, Jessie was not into “sex, drugs, or rock n’ roll.” On the contrary. Jessie was terrified that her American-born mother, Melissa, a convert to Islam, and her mother’s Pakistani boyfriend and acting stepfather Mohammed “Mo” Khan, had decided to send her to Pakistan to be married against her will. Had Jessie gone, her mother and “Mo” would have received $3000.00.
Europe is plagued by many more such cases of forced child marriage. According to the BBC, the police in South Wales have dealt with 49 cases of forced marriage in the past year (2010) alone.
Child marriage is opposed by the Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It is a toothless document. The United Nations does not enforce individual rights over the objections of its member nation states.
Child marriage is an abomination. Think of the girls you know who are 10, 12, 14 years old. Can you imagine how a forced, arranged marriage to a much older stranger, probably one who believes it is his absolute right to rape and beat his wife, would psychologically cripple them for life, stunt all growth, demoralize them forevermore?
We should not want to consign young American girls, Muslim and non-Muslim, to such cruel fates.
Crimes Against Women in Muslim Countries
Some horrifying crimes are routinely committed against women in many Muslim countries. These crimes include normalized daughter- and wife-battering, forced veiling, female genital mutilation, polygamy, purdah, (the segregation or sequestration of women), arranged marriage, child marriage, first cousin marriage, acid attacks, public stonings, hangings, and beheading, and the further victimization of rape victims who are jailed, tortured, and executed.
The above is quoted from an article entitled, A Feminist Duty.
The above is quoted from an article entitled, A Feminist Duty.
March 18, 2011
Sharia Law Has Come to America
In Tampa, Florida, a dispute arose over who controls the funds a mosque received in 2008 from an eminent domain proceeding. Former trustees of the mosque are claiming in court they have the right to the funds. Current mosque leaders are disputing that claim.
The current mosque leaders want the case decided according to secular, Florida civil law, and their attorney has been vigorously arguing the case accordingly. The former trustees of the mosque want the case decided according to sharia law.
Here’s the kicker.
The judge recently ruled “This case will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic law,” (Sharia law), “pursuant to the Qur’an.”
You can read the judge’s ruling here (it's a PDF document).
Now it’s not unusual for a dispute to arise within a religious institution and for a court to order a mediation or arbitration, in order to resolve this without the court having to render its own judgment.
But what makes this case unusual, and highly troubling, is that a group of Muslim leaders — the CURRENT mosque leaders — who do NOT want to be subject to Sharia law, are being compelled to do so by an American judge!
This is reminiscent of the 2009 New Jersey case, where a Muslim woman sought a restraining order, in civil court, against her Muslim husband, who was raping her several times a day. The judge denied the restraining order because, in his opinion, the husband did not commit a crime because he was following his Islamic beliefs.
In the New Jersey case, and now in this recent case in Tampa, Muslims found themselves being subjected to Sharia law against their will in America.
Last October, ACT! for America aired a radio ad across Oklahoma in support of the referendum preventing Oklahoma judges from using Sharia law in their decisions. The referendum won with 70% support.
The point we made then, which now bears repeating, is that such legislation protects non-Muslims AND Muslims alike from being subjected to Sharia law.
When someone claims that opposition to Sharia law in America is “anti-Muslim,” make sure you tell them about the New Jersey woman and the mosque leaders in Tampa.
The above article was a message from Act for America to its members.
The current mosque leaders want the case decided according to secular, Florida civil law, and their attorney has been vigorously arguing the case accordingly. The former trustees of the mosque want the case decided according to sharia law.
Here’s the kicker.
The judge recently ruled “This case will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic law,” (Sharia law), “pursuant to the Qur’an.”
You can read the judge’s ruling here (it's a PDF document).
Now it’s not unusual for a dispute to arise within a religious institution and for a court to order a mediation or arbitration, in order to resolve this without the court having to render its own judgment.
But what makes this case unusual, and highly troubling, is that a group of Muslim leaders — the CURRENT mosque leaders — who do NOT want to be subject to Sharia law, are being compelled to do so by an American judge!
This is reminiscent of the 2009 New Jersey case, where a Muslim woman sought a restraining order, in civil court, against her Muslim husband, who was raping her several times a day. The judge denied the restraining order because, in his opinion, the husband did not commit a crime because he was following his Islamic beliefs.
In the New Jersey case, and now in this recent case in Tampa, Muslims found themselves being subjected to Sharia law against their will in America.
Last October, ACT! for America aired a radio ad across Oklahoma in support of the referendum preventing Oklahoma judges from using Sharia law in their decisions. The referendum won with 70% support.
The point we made then, which now bears repeating, is that such legislation protects non-Muslims AND Muslims alike from being subjected to Sharia law.
When someone claims that opposition to Sharia law in America is “anti-Muslim,” make sure you tell them about the New Jersey woman and the mosque leaders in Tampa.
The above article was a message from Act for America to its members.
March 14, 2011
Open Fuel Standard Act of 2011
Each manufacturer's fleet of covered vehicles for a particular model year shall be comprised of:
"Qualified vehicle" means a covered vehicle that:
The term `flexible fuel vehicle' means a vehicle that has been warranted by its manufacturer to operate on gasoline, E85, and M85.
(1) not less than 50 percent qualified vehicles beginning in model year 2014;
(2) not less than 80 percent qualified vehicles beginning in model year 2016; and
(3) not less than 95 percent qualified vehicles beginning in model year 2017 and each subsequent year.
"Qualified vehicle" means a covered vehicle that:
(A) has been warranted by its manufacturer to operate solely on natural gas, hydrogen, or biodiesel;
(B) is a flexible fuel vehicle;
(C) is a plug-in electric drive vehicle;
(D) is propelled solely by fuel cell that produces power without the use of petroleum or a petroleum-based fuel; or
(E) is propelled solely by something other than an internal combustion engine, and produces power without the use of petroleum or a petroleum-based fuel;
The term `flexible fuel vehicle' means a vehicle that has been warranted by its manufacturer to operate on gasoline, E85, and M85.
The term `E85' means a fuel mixture containing 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline by volume;
The term `M85' means a fuel mixture containing 85 percent methanol and 15 percent gasoline by volume;
The term `biodiesel' means diesel fuel which has been produced from a non-petroleum feedstock and which meets the standards of ASTM D6751-03.
March 11, 2011
The Muslim World is Behind Because of the Way it Treats its Women
An an interview with Bernard Lewis, he said:
The case has been made, and I think there is some force in it, that the main reason for the relative backwardness of the Islamic world compared to the West is the treatment of women. As far as I know, it was first made by a Turkish writer called Namik Kemal in about 1880. At that time an agonizing debate had been going on for more than a century: What went wrong? Why did we fall behind the West?
He said, “The answer is very clear. We fell behind the West because of the way we treat our women. By the way we treat our women we deprive ourselves of the talents and services of half the population. And we submit the early education of the other half to ignorant and downtrodden mothers.”
It goes further than that. A child who grows up in a traditional Muslim household is accustomed to authoritarian, autocratic rule from the start. I think the position of women is of crucial importance.
That is why I am looking with great interest at Tunisia. Tunisia is the one Arab country that has really done something about women. In Tunisia there is compulsory education for girls, from primary school, right through. In Tunisia, women are to be found in the professions. There are doctors, lawyers, journalists, politicians and so on. Women play a significant part in public life in Tunisia. I think that is going to have an enormous impact. It’s already having this in Tunisia and you can see that in various ways. But this will certainly spread to other parts of the world.
Elsewhere, the question of women and the role of the women is of crucial importance for the future of the Muslim world in general.
The case has been made, and I think there is some force in it, that the main reason for the relative backwardness of the Islamic world compared to the West is the treatment of women. As far as I know, it was first made by a Turkish writer called Namik Kemal in about 1880. At that time an agonizing debate had been going on for more than a century: What went wrong? Why did we fall behind the West?
He said, “The answer is very clear. We fell behind the West because of the way we treat our women. By the way we treat our women we deprive ourselves of the talents and services of half the population. And we submit the early education of the other half to ignorant and downtrodden mothers.”
It goes further than that. A child who grows up in a traditional Muslim household is accustomed to authoritarian, autocratic rule from the start. I think the position of women is of crucial importance.
That is why I am looking with great interest at Tunisia. Tunisia is the one Arab country that has really done something about women. In Tunisia there is compulsory education for girls, from primary school, right through. In Tunisia, women are to be found in the professions. There are doctors, lawyers, journalists, politicians and so on. Women play a significant part in public life in Tunisia. I think that is going to have an enormous impact. It’s already having this in Tunisia and you can see that in various ways. But this will certainly spread to other parts of the world.
Elsewhere, the question of women and the role of the women is of crucial importance for the future of the Muslim world in general.
March 10, 2011
Exports From the Arab World
An an interview with Bernard Lewis, he said something remarkable:
"Remember that according to their own statistics, the total exports of the entire Arab world other than fossil fuels amount to less than those of Finland, one small European country."
"Remember that according to their own statistics, the total exports of the entire Arab world other than fossil fuels amount to less than those of Finland, one small European country."
February 19, 2011
Making Sure You See the Facebook Posts You Want to See
I just got the following message from the Worldwide Defense League and thought I'd pass it on to the rest of us:
The "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you've recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile).
So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa, you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!
HERE'S THE FIX: On the homepage click the "Most Recent" title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click the drop down arrow and select "Edit Options." Click on "Show Posts From" and change the setting to "All Of Your Friends and Pages" (you can also access the "Edit Options" link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right).
Simply posting an update about it won't do any good because lots of your friends/fans already can't see your posts by default. You'll have to send out a message to everyone on your list or post it through a group like this one.
The "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you've recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile).
So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa, you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!
HERE'S THE FIX: On the homepage click the "Most Recent" title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click the drop down arrow and select "Edit Options." Click on "Show Posts From" and change the setting to "All Of Your Friends and Pages" (you can also access the "Edit Options" link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right).
Simply posting an update about it won't do any good because lots of your friends/fans already can't see your posts by default. You'll have to send out a message to everyone on your list or post it through a group like this one.
January 27, 2011
Strange Thinking In Muslim Lands
In an article by Raymond Ibrahim, he makes a good point. Many of us think Muslims in Muslim countries think like us. But he has some great examples to show that we would be surprised to discover something quite different. Here are his examples:
- "Iranians arrest fourteen squirrels for spying": According to Iranian state-sponsored news agency IRNA, "Intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders. The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services." (Iran has also arrested "spying pigeons" accused of working for Israel.)
- Israel unleashes rats and pigs against Jerusalem Arabs: According to the Palestinian Authority's official news agency, Wafa, Israel is "using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes" and "Rats have become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents of the occupied Old City of Jerusalem."
- "Israel responsible for fatal shark attack and lethal jellyfish in Red Sea": According to South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel, "Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm."
- Saudi Arabia "arrests" a vulture as part of a "Zionist plot": According to a BBC report, the vulture appears to have been tagged by Tel Aviv University researchers studying migration patterns; even so, "the bird could meet a horrible punishment in the notoriously severe Saudi justice system."
January 21, 2011
Organized Action by ACT! for America Members Produces Results
Here's the latest from ACT! for America:
Last Sunday, one of our members emailed us that Everett Community College in Washington state had scheduled a presentation about Islam in America. The college announcement listed an official with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as one of the speakers.
Chris, a member of our national staff, sprang into action. He put a notice on our Facebook page, urging our friends to contact the college, educate them about CAIR’s background and its ties to Hamas, and demand that the college provide an opposing viewpoint to CAIR’s.
Within 24 hours ACT! for America Facebook friends posted hundreds of comments on the college’s Facebook page!
Everett Community College responded by saying this is by far the most public reaction the college has ever received on any issue.
What’s more, the college removed CAIR from its website announcement and announced another presentation would be offered, this one to feature Raymond Ibrahim presenting a different viewpoint. We emailed Ibrahim’s recent column just this past Tuesday!
This illustrates, yet again, the impact of grassroots people power. This is why we are launching our new television program, which debuts on Family Net on February 5th at 2:30 PM Eastern Time and on ALN at 4:00 PM Eastern Time on February 6th. Please spread the word!
This is why every new member matters. This is why every time we add a new chapter leader our organized voice grows stronger. This is why every contribution counts.
Because it takes more than education to win. It takes ACTION.
Whoever is most organized will win.
Last Sunday, one of our members emailed us that Everett Community College in Washington state had scheduled a presentation about Islam in America. The college announcement listed an official with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as one of the speakers.
Chris, a member of our national staff, sprang into action. He put a notice on our Facebook page, urging our friends to contact the college, educate them about CAIR’s background and its ties to Hamas, and demand that the college provide an opposing viewpoint to CAIR’s.
Within 24 hours ACT! for America Facebook friends posted hundreds of comments on the college’s Facebook page!
Everett Community College responded by saying this is by far the most public reaction the college has ever received on any issue.
What’s more, the college removed CAIR from its website announcement and announced another presentation would be offered, this one to feature Raymond Ibrahim presenting a different viewpoint. We emailed Ibrahim’s recent column just this past Tuesday!
This illustrates, yet again, the impact of grassroots people power. This is why we are launching our new television program, which debuts on Family Net on February 5th at 2:30 PM Eastern Time and on ALN at 4:00 PM Eastern Time on February 6th. Please spread the word!
This is why every new member matters. This is why every time we add a new chapter leader our organized voice grows stronger. This is why every contribution counts.
Because it takes more than education to win. It takes ACTION.
Whoever is most organized will win.
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