A Woman in a Burqa

When you see a woman in your town wearing a burqa, does it make you feel invaded? If so, does that mean you are an intolerant racist? Does that mean you are a narrow-minded bigot?

Let me ask you another question: If you see a nun in your town wearing a nun's habit, do you feel invaded? If you see a Tibetan Buddhist monk in your town wearing monk robes, do you feel invaded? If not, then "narrow-minded bigot" and "intolerant racist" must miss the mark. Something else is causing you to feel invaded when you see a woman in a burqa.

A burqa is a visible sign indicating that the wearer is following a particular ideology. If we see a Catholic nun in a Catholic nun habit, we can guess with a high degree of certainty what ideology she follows. If we see a Tibetan monk with a shaved head and a saffron robe, we can guess with a high degree of certainty what ideology he is following. If we see a man who has shaved his head and has a swastika tattooed on his neck, we can guess with a high degree of certainty what ideology he follows.

Back to the woman in a burqa. Why are you bothered by seeing a woman in a burqa walking down your local street, but many of your fellow citizens are not the slightest bit bothered by it? Some of your fellow citizens would be much more bothered by the fact that you feel invaded. Why? Because they don't know much about Islamic doctrine. They believe Islam is just like any other religion. They may see the woman in a burqa as a wonderful manifestation of multiculturalism. You see it as an invasion. The only difference is how much you each know about Islam.

If you know someone who is not bothered by a woman in a burqa, talk to them about Islamic doctrine. Do it gently. Think small bits and long campaigns. Use Inquiry Into Islam to help you. It may take awhile for the reality to sink in, but when it does, we are in a better position to marginalize, discredit, and disempower orthodox Islam. The fewer non-Muslims unacquainted with Islam the better off we'll be.

Social Studies Textbook Review in Tennessee and Texas

The following was written by Roy White, Chapter Coordinator for ACT! for America in San Antonio, Bexar, and Kendall:

We all know of plenty of examples of the bias in social studies textbooks revealed by various groups and individuals. Concerned Tennessee citizens formed a group called Textbook Advocates that conducted reviews of over 50 textbooks that can be found here. Many of those errors involved Islam to include incomplete information on Muhammad, overstating Islam’s influence and simple disparity in word/sentence count on discussions of Islam versus other religions. Their findings are not surprising to readers of Jurisprudence and others who follow this topic.

The cleverly named, The Textbook Tattler was published to provide citizens with a synopsis of the typical errors found. It is likely these same errors are found in many of the textbooks found in states around the country. Tennessee’s efforts resulted in the current methodology of textbook selection to be under review and will most likely be replaced in the next legislative session. Their landmark success has inspired others to follow their lead including a group in Texas.

In early 2014 Texas begins the process of reviewing Social Studies textbooks that will be used for the 2015-16 school year. A group called “Truth in Texas Textbooks” or “Triple T” have begun recruiting volunteers from inside of Texas and outside who would be willing to help review the Social Studies textbooks that will be submitted by publishers.

Over 48 million textbooks are sold in Texas alone! This is a huge contract for publishers. Estimates range from 50-80% of school districts in the nation choose the same textbooks as those used in Texas schools. Publishers know, what sells in Texas will lead to millions of dollars in other states!

The purpose of TTT is simple, to provide Social Studies textbooks that are truthful and factual that meet the Texas Education Knowledge Standards (TEKS) as defined here. Fortunately Texas has put in place a well-defined set of standards that were recently updated with this resolution on eliminating the pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias found in the current social studies textbooks.

TTT will not simply focus on eliminating this bias but many other “PC” related themes that are so often found in textbooks today. We are not affiliated with any other NPO or national organization but are independent and have reached out to groups and individuals around the country (including Tennessee) for volunteers who are willing to help us.

The long-term goal would be to have one site, such as www.textbookadvocates.com be the single depository of these textbook reviews being done around the country so teachers, parents, advocates can have a single one stop shopping place to go and see a consolidated list of reviews of textbooks.

Publishers get away with their PC tainted textbooks because in the past groups around the country didn’t talk to each other or communicate their findings. Building on what Tennessee has done Texas wishes to continue this movement to put these reviews, along with others, in the public domain at a single website that will give information to everyone who is interested.

Anti-smokers advocacy groups weren’t effective until they banded together against the tobacco companies and shared the data from all their findings. TTT wishes to take the same approach.

The most effective method for having an impact on your children’s textbooks may very well lie on not focusing on your own local school or state but helping Texas adopt the most accurate and factual textbooks which will in turn be likely to show up in your own school district. Additionally you can go through a process with other like-minded individuals who can help you learn the process for conducting reviews.

Collaborative online project management tools, conference calls, use of webinars and other methods will be used to coordinate the efforts of those interested in volunteering. It doesn't matter where you live, you can help Texas and in turn help millions of other children around the country by joining TTT and volunteering. Please share this with teachers, active and retired who are tired of teaching inaccurate or misleading information.

For those interested in serving on the TTT review team, please email truthintexastextbooks@gmail.com and get on the mailing list. You will be asked to complete a survey of interest, experience and level of commitment to the effort. TTT will conduct training beginning in early 2014 to provide reviewers with materials and templates of the best practices found among those experts who review textbooks. If you want to stop the spread of PC myths disguised as facts in social studies textbooks and pro-Islamic/anti-Judeo-Christian biases then please join the TTT team.

Recruiting for experts in the field of US government, history, world history, civics, constitutional law, world history, geography are some of the specific knowledge sets that are needed. Advanced degrees or self-taught are the same to TTT; your knowledge and effort in this endeavor will benefit millions of children for years to come.
______________________

Roy White, Chapter Coordinator
ACT! for America San Antonio, Bexar, Kendall
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/actbexar
Twitter: @ACTBexar

Alleged Kansas Bomber Wanted to Be "Obedient Slave of Allah"

A friend sent me the following: You're probably aware of the attempted bomb attack of the Wichita airport recently. Below is a short description of the event. At the end is a link to the criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District court against Terry Loewen. The complaint is worth reading because of the insight it gives into the thought process of an orthodox Muslim.
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An FBI sting has led to the arrest of a Wichita, Kan. man who thought he was about to die in a suicide car bombing that targeted a terminal at the city's Mid-Continent Airport.

Terry Lee Loewen, 58, worked at the airport as an avionics technician. This gave him access to airport grounds. He was arrested before dawn Friday after he tried to open a security gate and get on the tarmac, the Kansas City Star reports.

According to a three-count complaint, Loewen discussed his view of faith as a Muslim. That included expressing "his desire to engage in violent jihad on behalf of al Qaeda" during an online conversation with someone whom, unbeknownst to him, was an FBI employee.

"I don't understand how you can read the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (saw) and not understand that jihad and the implementation of Sharia is absolutely demanded of all the Muslim Ummah," Loewen allegedly wrote Aug. 5. "I feel so guilt-ridden sometimes for knowing what's required of me but yet doing little or nothing to make it happen. I love my Muslim brothers and sisters, whether they agree with me or not, it's just hard to deal with the denial that some of them appear to be going through."

Osama bin Laden and American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki "are a great inspiration to me, but I must be willing to give up everything (like they did) to truly feel like a (sic) obedient slave of Allah (swt)," he wrote a few days later.

Later that month, he asked for help finding "someone who is active in jihad and could use an occasional influx of 'help' ... I just hate the kaffar government and those who are following it to the Hellfire, and the sooner it and its followers get there, the better."

Loewen was trying to drive a van packed with explosives to a terminal as part of a plan he spent months developing, a Department of Justice statement says. He "talked about his commitment to trigger the device and martyr himself."

The explosives were rendered inert by the FBI and the public was never in danger. Agents were drawn to Loewen early last summer after he made statements about jihad. He is with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Many national Islamist groups have criticized similar sting operations, arguing the FBI is manufacturing a terrorist threat where it might not exist. If Loewen's correspondence in the complaint proves accurate, however, he was a man with the motivation and access to pull off a horrific attack. Left alone, he might have found ways to make his own bomb.

At one point, Loewen acknowledged not knowing whether he could trust his contact. But it wasn't enough to discourage him from pursuing an attack. "my greatest fear is not being able to complete an operation because I was set up," he wrote. "I hate this government so much for what they have done to our brothers and sisters, that to spent (sic) the rest of my life in prison without having taken a good slice out of the serpents head is unacceptable to me."

If convicted, Loewen could face life in prison.

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The complaint, filed Friday, December 13, 2013: http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/2281.pdf#page=13

Rapport, Connection and Thanksgiving

In the United States, almost everyone is anticipating a Thanksgiving feast later this week. Most people will spend the day with their family. For many of us, our families have been the most difficult people to educate about Islam, and it is a painful fact that in many ways some of our own family members are "aiding and abetting" the enemy (without knowing it, of course).

Family get-togethers may seem like a good opportunity to make your case, but I caution you against it. First of all, talking politics in those circumstances can easily ruin the event for everyone. And an argument certainly will. Second, persuading someone in a group situation is much more difficult than one-on-one (unless most of the people there are on your side of the argument). And third, many of your fellow infidels will be drinking alcohol, and that doesn't help with good listening or clear thinking.

The family gathering can, however, help our cause. You can use the occasion to observe and gain rapport. I suggest you focus this Thanksgiving on one person. Who is the most likely to be persuaded who will be attending the feast? Who is the most undecided? Pick one person.

Now, during your family occasion, try to discover which representational system the person favors (click here if you don't know what that means).

And second, use your body to gain and maintain rapport throughout the day with everyone there, especially the person you picked (click here to find out how to do that). I suggest you do this at family gatherings of any kind.

These things will set you up beautifully for future one-on-one conversations with the person — conversations where you'll have a good chance of bringing them to a new understanding of Islam. In many ways, your task is mostly done as soon as you are in strong rapport. Sometimes taking your focus off convincing and persuading can make you more convincing and persuasive. Sometimes not approaching something directly improves your ability.

I have seen a demonstration that perfectly illustrates this principle. In fact, I've done the demonstration myself several times after seeing it in a seminar. Here's how it goes: I toss something to someone, and they miss it. And they say something like, "I'm terrible at catching." So I tell them I'm going to test something. "I'm going to toss you this ball," I say, "but this time don't try to catch it. Instead, I want you to tell me which way the ball is spinning." Then I toss the ball, and to their great surprise, they catch it easily.

How does this work? They take their attention off trying to catch the ball, and instead pay close attention to the ball itself, and their body responds naturally and easily and catches it.

In the same way, if you take your attention off making people believe you, and instead pay close attention to their favored representational system and pay close attention to their body posture and match it, you have a good chance of making them believe you — easily and naturally — without even trying.

These two missions I've given you for your family gathering are not time-consuming, difficult, upsetting, or conflict-creating. You can do these things and fully enjoy the day too. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

We Can Bankrupt the Global Jihad

After the "Arab Spring," Saudi Arabia gave its citizens a raise. Saudis citizens don't pay income taxes. Most of them don't even work. The Saudi government pays them, and to avoid the fate of the leaders in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, the Saudis increased their citizens' pay and pensions. They committed future funds to these payoffs.

This has presented the counterjihad movement an opportunity to strike a decisive blow into the heart of the global jihad.

Jihadist projects are funded largely through Saudi Arabia and Iran, two OPEC nations. The Taliban is a Saudi oil-money project, for example. So is the Muslim Brotherhood and the OIC. Hezbollah is an Iranian oil-money project.

OPEC is a cartel formed of primarily Islamic countries. OPEC was founded for the purpose of raising world oil prices. Jihadist activities around the world have been on the rise because jihadist funding has been on the rise. The source of that funding is oil profits, which have been on the rise.

What keeps the whole thing functioning is oil's monopoly over the most important commodity on earth — transportation fuel.

In the 1980's, because the rising cost of oil, many new programs were started to create a freer fuel market. Brazil launched its ambitious ethanol program, many new ethanol distilleries were built in America, Roberta Nichols created a massive methanol experiment in California, etc. But in the mid-80's, OPEC flooded the world market with oil in order to drop world oil prices, which made all of these potentially-competitive fuels no longer competitive on price, which crashed Brazil's program, put half the U.S. ethanol facilities into bankruptcy, and prompted California to abandon its methanol experiment.

It was a classic monopolist move. It's the oldest trick in the monopolist's book: Drop your price to send the competition into bankruptcy.

Once their competitors were sufficiently crippled, OPEC started raising the world oil price again.

But competing fuels have recently begun to reappear. Brazil permanently changed to flex fuel vehicles (rather than ethanol-only vehicles) for example, which has protected them from OPEC's manipulations (when oil prices drop, drivers buy gasoline; when oil prices rise, drivers buy ethanol). Brazil's economy is booming.

In the United States there is a growing clamor to use methanol as a fuel, ideally in flex fuel vehicles. Methanol can be made inexpensively from America's abundant natural gas, and can be sold for half the cost of gasoline without any subsidies. If it was available as a fuel, people would buy methanol because it would save them a lot of money. But right now, it is not available as a fuel in the U.S. One bill now in Congress is trying to change that.

So let's say the bill passes into law and methanol becomes available, and people start using methanol for fuel. Gasoline would have to drop in price to compete, or it wouldn't sell. Everything would be wonderful. But...

Wouldn't OPEC just drop the world price of oil to crush this new competitor?

This is where things have changed in an important way. This is our new opportunity. Saudi Arabia controls what OPEC does. The Saudis are sitting on the easiest oil to produce in the world, and therefore theirs is the cheapest oil to produce. Because of this, they dictate what the rest of the OPEC nations will do. But if methanol becomes a fuel in America, Saudi Arabia (and the global jihad movement) will be between a rock and a hard place — and it could be the end of both OPEC and the third jihad.

If the Saudis decide to lower the world price of oil to make the U.S. lose interest in methanol, they would not make enough money to fulfill their commitments to pay off their subjects, who would probably rise up and throw the monarchy out. But if the Saudis keep the price of oil high, they would lose their income, because who would buy gasoline at $4.00 a gallon when methanol is available for half the price of an equivalent gallon? Not many.

Gal Luft, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, wrote:

Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, Saudi King Abdullah almost doubled his Kingdom's budget, committing billions in subsidies, pensions and pay raises in an effort to keep his subjects from storming the palaces.

This expensive response effectively raised the price of oil needed for the Saudis to balance their budget from under $70 a barrel before 2011 to at least $110 a barrel by 2015.

When oil is $100 a barrel, gasoline is about $3.50 to $4.00 a gallon. Methanol can sell at about $2.00 an equivalent gallon. Oil would have to be $50 a barrel to compete.

In other words, what happened in the 1980's can no longer happen. Saudi Arabia can no longer afford to drop the price of oil low enough to eliminate the competition. If we introduce vigorous fuel competition now in America, it will be the end of oil's monopoly for good, and funding for the global jihad would evaporate as Saudi Arabia and Iran would be forced to struggle to simply stay afloat.

This is an unprecedented opportunity. And you can help make it happen: If you are an American, join the fuel competition revolution. Go to openfuelstandard.org and sign up for their updates and urge your Representative to co-sponsor the bill. If you are in any other country, let your fellow counterjihadists know about this bill and what it could mean for the world, and let everyone around the world urge Americans to pass this bill. The U.S. is the largest consumer of transportation fuel in the world. If fuel competition happens here, it will spread to other countries. And it will be the death knell of the third jihad.

It’s Time to Shock O.P.E.C.

The following important article is by Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy:

Forty years ago this week, America received a harsh lesson about the dangers of relying on others for energy. President Nixon’s decision in the midst of the Yom Kippur War to resupply Israel with U.S. weaponry gave members of the OPEC cartel an excuse to embargo oil supplies to this country and drive up prices worldwide. It became known as the “oil shock” of 1973.

Ever since, politicians of both parties have promised to reduce our dependency on unreliable foreign sources. To that end over the past four decades, they have invested untold sums on various schemes – from imposing price controls, producing synthetic fuels and subsidizing ethanol production, curbing demand and diversifying overseas sources of supply for oil and natural gas.

Thanks largely to private sector initiatives and funds, however, real progress has lately been made on this longstanding national objective. Finally, the widespread application of technology like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) and a series of discoveries of vast quantities of natural gas around the United States and off its coasts have transformed our situation from one of energy dependency to potentially that of the largest energy exporter in the world.

The geopolitical and economic significance of this transformation will be the focus of conferences sponsored by two influential, bipartisan groups in Washington this week. Former Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officers, senior military personnel and other experts will convene on Tuesday under the auspices of the U.S. Energy Security Council and on Wednesday under that of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) to discuss the oil embargo, the intervening years and where we are today vis a vis those who used energy as an economic weapon against us in the past.

It is very much to be hoped that these conversations will not simply repeat nostrums about the inadvisability of being dependent upon unreliable – to say nothing of  actually hostile – energy sources. Or, worse yet, simply revel in the change of fortunes that will, in the absence of further Obama administration obstructionism, enable us to become again a huge net producer of energy. (Regrettably, between its pursuit of cap-and-trade restrictions on carbon emissions, overreaching EPA regulations, the campaign to destroy the coal industry and further shenanigans with respect to the Keystone XL pipeline, there is ample reason to expect more official impediments to our energy security, not fewer.)

What is needed now is a strategic approach to using our newfound energy leverage to cause some oil “shocks” of our own.

For starters, the windfall of natural gas deposits being found in this country opens up an opportunity to transform the sector in which we are still almost entirely dependent on oil and its byproducts: the transportation of people and goods via automobiles, buses and trucks.  If natural gas can become widely used in eighteen-wheelers and turned into methanol for use in most modern cars, we could dramatically reduce the amount of gasoline we are obliged to import from the Islamists of OPEC.

What is more, as Nobel laureate George Olah observed in an op.ed. article he co-authored in the Wall Street Journal last week, recent breakthroughs in chemistry are allowing another vast U.S. resource – carbon dioxide – to be cost-effectively converted into methanol. Far better to burn it in our automobiles and in modified surface transportation and maritime diesel engines than to pay exorbitant sums, as Team Obama has in mind, to try to store it underground.

Best of all, by enabling these alternatives to oil and gasoline to become available across America, we can create fuel choice for consumers – and competition for the cartelists. The predictable effect would be to drive oil prices down, especially as the scores of other developing nations capable of manufacturing their own alternatives to gasoline begin to do so, as Brazil has already done with ethanol.

The result could be to break the back of OPEC, once and for all. That, in turn, would help dry up the funding that has done so much for decades to power jihadism and undermine our economy.

This is no longer simply a desirable thing to do. It is absolutely imperative. As Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Kevin Freeman has observed, Mideast oil producers seem determined to join the Chinese and Russians, among others, in terminating the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s international reserve currency. Should they succeed in this gambit, the profound and debilitating economic and strategic ramifications will make the oil shock of forty years ago look like the good old days.

Adopting bipartisan Open Fuel Standard legislation and taking such other steps as are necessary to enable fuel choice can help us withstand as well disruptions in oil supply and/or skyrocketing price increases in the event of a new regional war in the Middle East. We can and must be in a position to deliver the next oil shock, not be its recipient.

Separating Kafirs from Muslims

The following was written by Bill Warner, Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam:

When the al Shabaab jihadi group from Somalia attacked the mall in Kenya, they gathered the crowd together and asked who were Muslims and let them go. According to the media, they then started killing the non-Muslims who were left. But non-Muslims is not the word what the terrorists would have used. No, they would have called them Kafirs (actually they would have called them the Arabic plural of kafir, kuffar. Kafirs is the standard English plural form).

Why did members of al Shabaab do this? Why did they ask the Muslims to leave and keep the Kafirs and start killing them? Let’s start with the word terrorists. Members of al Shabaab are not terrorists, they are jihadists or mujahedeen. That is what they call themselves.

So what difference does it make which words we use? Non-Muslim or Kafir? Terrorists, militants, jihadists or mujahedeen? It makes all the difference in the world. You cannot think precisely with imprecise words and a Kafir is much more than a non-Muslim.

The word “non-Muslim” does not imply anything, except not being a believer in Islam.

Kafir, on the other hand, has enormous implications. Kafir is the actual word that the Koran uses for a non-Muslim. Indeed, one of the many remarkable things about the Koran is that over half of its text is devoted to the Kafir. Think about that: most of the Koran is not about how to be a Muslim, but about the Kafir. Every single verse about the Kafir is not just bad, but terrible. Allah hates Kafirs and plots and schemes against them. The cruelest punishments await the Kafir in hell, but who cares about that? The real problem is what is promised to the Kafir in this life — torture, hatred, death, ridicule, rape, enslavement, political domination and deception.

It is the same with mujahedeen or jihadist as opposed to militant or terrorist. The words militant or terrorist do not tell anything about the motivation of the militant or terrorist, only that they are using violence.

Notice that the words non-Muslim and terrorist are not related to each other; they stand alone. There is no implication of one by the other. But that is not true about Kafir and jihad. Jihad is only carried out against Kafirs. Jihad implies Kafir and vice versa.

Jihad and Kafir are all part of a system of Islamic politics. Mohammed preached the religion of Islam for 13 years and garnered 150 followers. When he turned to politics and jihad, he died ruler of all of Arabia, and every Arab was a Muslim. The religion of Islam was a failure, and Islam triumphed by the use of politics and jihad, war against the Kafir.

Islamic doctrine is found in the Koran, Sunna (Mohammed) and Sharia law and divides all of humanity into Muslim and Kafir. There is no middle ground. Unfortunately, both Christian and Jewish leaders have bought into the fiction that they are all People of the Book and are brothers in religion. When you read the fine print (as none of them have done, being professionally ignorant), they are brothers in Abraham who must be politically and religiously subjugated, but that is a small detail.

If jihad, mujahedeen, and Kafir are pure Islamic doctrine, we can now understand why the media refuses to the correct words that Muslims use — it is all too horrible to contemplate. We are not just having independent terrorist events, such as the West Gate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya or the Boston Marathon bombing; we are in the middle of a civilizational war with a historic enemy — an enemy who is winning because we are in total denial.

Published as an article on American Thinker.
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Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
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