Archive for February 4, 2016

Obama at Muslim Brotherhood-linked Mosque: “Muslim Americans Keep Us Safe”

February 4, 2016

Obama at Muslim Brotherhood-linked Mosque: “Muslim Americans Keep Us Safe” And: “Islam has always been part of America.” Really?

February 4, 2016 Robert Spencer

Source: Obama at Muslim Brotherhood-linked Mosque: “Muslim Americans Keep Us Safe” | Frontpage Mag

When Barack Obama visited the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday, he said: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Muslim Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.”

While Obama has been President, Muslims have murdered non-Muslims, avowedly in the cause of Islam, at Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino, and attempted to do so in many, many other places. Imagine if armed Baptists screaming “Jesus is Lord” had committed murder, and explained that they were doing so in order to advance Christianity, in four American cities, and had attempted to do so in many others. Imagine that those killers were supporters of a global Christian movement that had repeatedly called for attacks on U.S. civilians and declared its determination to destroy the United States.

Imagine how incongruous it would be in that case for the President of the United States to visit a church and say: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Christian Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.” And imagine how unlikely it would be that Barack Obama would ever have done that.

But his visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore was the apotheosis of the Muslim victimhood myth, as he signaled yet again to the world (and worldwide jihadis) that in the U.S., Muslims are victims, victims of unwarranted concern over jihad terror, and thus that concern is likely to lessen even more, as Obama dismantles still more of our counter-terror apparatus.

“We’ve seen children bullied, we’ve seen mosques vandalized,” Obama claimed. “It’s not who we are. We’re one American family. And when any part of our family begins to feel separate or second class, it tears at the heart of our nation” – he said to his gender-segregated Muslim audience, with the womensitting in the back. In reality, Muslims are not victimized in American society: FBI hate crime statistics show that the hysteria over “Islamophobia” is unfounded, but that matters not at all to Barack Obama. At the mosque, he said: “If we’re serious about freedom of religion — and I’m talking to my fellow Christians who are the majority in this country — we have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all faiths.”

Once again Obama felt free to scold and admonish Christians, but said nothing about Muslims in the U.S. needing to clean house and work for real reform that would mitigate jihad terror. And his premise was false: there is no attempt to restrict Muslims’ freedom of religion. Donald Trump hasn’t called for that; nor has Ben Carson or any serious analyst. But the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (a representative of which accompanied Obama to the mosque Wednesday) and other Islamic advocacy groups have consistently charged that counter-terror efforts and attempts to restrict the political, supremacist and authoritarian aspects of Sharia that are at variance with Constitutional principles were tantamount to restricting Muslims’ religious freedom.

Now the President of the United States has endorsed their false narrative, which will only further stigmatize initiatives to understand the jihadis’ ideology and counter it effectively. He further criticized those who dare to suggest that Islam might have something to do with Islamic terrorism by criticizing those who say that the U.S. is at war with Islam: “That kind of mind-set helps our enemies,” he intoned. “It helps our enemies recruit. It makes us all less safe.”

The U.S. certainly isn’t at war with Islam, but segments of the Islamic world are at war with the U.S., and Obama did not explain what might be done to counter the beliefs that have given rise to that idea. He is, of course, against studying the beliefs of the enemy. Yet he said proudly: “Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Qur’an,” without bothering to mention that they had them in order to understand the ideology of the enemy the new nation faced in the Barbary Pirates. They held, of course, the same ideology he ignores and denies today, the one he ordered all traces of removed from counterterror training.

“Islam,” Obama declared, “has always been part of America.” Really? There were Muslims at Jamestown? In the Massachusetts Bay Colony? At Roanoke? Obama’s statement is so wildly ridiculous that it doesn’t just invite parody; it pleads for it. Remember the Muslims among the Founding Fathers, Yahya al-Adams and Iskandar Hamilton? Remember the Muslims who told James Madison about Muhammad’s Constitution of Medina so that he could lay out the foundations of a republic in the U.S. Constitution? Remember the Muslims who fought so valiantly in the Revolutionary Jihad, and the Jihad of 1812, and the Mexican Jihad, and the Civil War, aka the Jihad Between the Caliphates? Remember all the controversies about whether Muslim soldiers in the Civil War could make sex slaves out of the wives and daughters of Confederate commanders? The jihad suicide attacks that broke the Germans’ will to fight on during World War I?

Burrowing deeper into fantasy, Obama proclaimed: “Generations of Muslim Americans helped to build our nation.” He didn’t mention the real contributions Muslims have made to our nation: you know, like rearranging the New York skyline, transforming government buildings into grim, nervous fortresses, making air travel into exercise in annoyance and humiliation that it is today, and draining the American economy with two futile wars and hundreds of billions spent on security and counterterror initiatives.

In detailing the contributions that Muslims have made to the U.S., Obama said: “Muslim Americans keep up safe. They are our police. They are our fire fighters. They’re in (the Department of) Homeland Security.” And remember: none of them were screened for jihadi sympathies. To have done so would have been “Islamophobic,” and transgressed against the prevailing dogma that Islam is a Religion of Peace that non-Muslims are wrong and bigoted to be concerned about.

The most ominous thing Obama said in this speech full of treacle and humbug was this: “We’re not going to strengthen our leadership around the world by allowing politicians to insult Muslims or pit groups of Americans against each other. That’s not who we are. That’s not keeping America safe.” So what is he going to do? Destroy the First Amendment and disallow politicians to insult Muslims?

Obama decried “phony tough talk and bluster and over-the-top claims.” Yet in the final analysis, that was all he offered.

Obama’s Mosque Speech: Missing a ‘Berlin Wall Moment’

February 4, 2016

Obama’s Mosque Speech: Missing a ‘Berlin Wall Moment’ Clarion ProjectRyan Mauro, February 4, 2016

(Please see also, The US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Presidential Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties. — DM)

Obama-mosque-visit-640Screenshot during Barack Obama’s mosque speech in Baltimore on Feb 3.

U.S. President Barack Obama delivered his first speech from a mosque on February 3. He pushed the Muslim-American community to lead the Muslim world into a better future, but he missed a “tear down this wall” moment by speaking at a mosque with a radical history instead of giving a lift to Muslim reformists who confront Islamism.

Here are three hits and three misses from Obama’s speech in alternating order:

Hit: Using quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, Obama simultaneously countered Islamist preaching that Muslims cannot reconcile their faith identity with American patriotism. This is also a strong rebuttal to those that wish to exempt Muslims from constitutional protections simply for their choice of faith. He said:

Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans.  And Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom he wrote was designed to protect all faiths — and I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson now — “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan.”  (Applause.)

…Benjamin Franklin wrote that “even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”  (Applause.)

Miss: He implied that Muslim terrorists and extremists purposely “twist” Islamic verses to suit their agendas, as if groups like ISIS do not actually believe in the Islam they practice and impose. He said:

“Right now, there is an organized extremist element that draws selectively from Islamic texts, twists them in an attempt to justify their killing and their terror. Part of what’s happened in the Middle East and North Africa and other places where we see sectarian violence is religion being a tool for another agenda—for power, for control.”

By denying the Islamist ideological root of these threats, President Obama removes the obligation from the Muslim world to directly address, debunk and reform Islamic interpretations that are dangerous and strongly-held. He disarms the chief argument of the best Muslim allies, like those in the Muslim Reform Movement.

Hit: Pressuring Muslim leaders to confront anti-Western propaganda, anti-Semitism in Europe and persecution of Christians.

Obama did not call on Muslim leaders to refute Islamism overall but he did directly tell them that they have an obligation to confront anti-Western views that present the U.S. and its allies as an enemy of their faith.  He said:

“Muslim political leaders have to push back on the lie that the West oppresses Muslims, and against conspiracy theories that says America is the cause of every ill in the Middle East. Now, that doesn’t mean Muslim Americans aren’t free to criticize American-U.S. foreign policy. That’s part of being an American.”

“…The fact is, there are Christians who are targeted now in the Middle East, despite having been there for centuries, and there are Jews who’ve lived in places like France for centuries who now feel obliged to leave because they feel themselves under assault—sometimes by Muslims.”

The Islamists’ constant depiction of the U.S. and its allies as evil, including reflexive bashing of the integrity of law enforcement, acts as a trigger for radicals to become violent jihadists. We need genuinely democratic Muslims around the world to hold Islamist propagandists accountable for their incitements.

Miss: The choice of the Islamic Society of Baltimore as a venue, which he described as “an all-American story.”

The ideological war against Islamism is somewhat like a political campaign. The Muslim reformers need positive press, resources and a platform. By praising the Islamic Society of Baltimore, the president gave a helping hand to the Islamist side of the competition.

The Islamic Society of Baltimore, as documented in this impressiveexpose by the Investigative Project on Terrorism , has a long history of promoting Islamist extremism including the very same views Obama pushed Muslim leaders to confront.

A Muslim Brotherhood leader from Sudan named Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh served as the imam for a total of 15 years from 1983 to 1989 and 1994 to 2003. He was instrumental in setting up the U.S. branch of the Brotherhood. He also led the radical Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, was regional director for an al-Qaeda-linked charity and said in 2004 suicide bombings are justifiable if authorized by afatwa and if it’s in a situation where “Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means.”

El-Sheikh signed a letter condemning ISIS, but the letter endorsed the foundational doctrines of ISIS and other Islamist terrorists.

A screenshot from 2000 shows the mosque’s chosen resources for Muslims were radicals, including known supporters of terrorism like Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi, Bilal Philips and Jamal Badawi.

Even after El-Sheikh left, the mosque has not been a model for countering Islamist extremism. Its imam preaches against“progressive groups within Muslims” like those that tolerate homosexuals. It has radicals as guest speakers, such as Zaid Shakir in 2008.

The Obama Administration did a better job in selecting the Muslim participants in the preceding roundtable with Obama, but still included Imam Khalid Latif, who was a board member of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2008. The FBI’s official policy prohibits using CAIR as a liaison partner because of evidence linking it to Hamas. The New York chapter has been a particularly radical chapter of CAIR.

Hit: Advising Muslims to respond to negativity by rejecting extremist views and maintaining patriotism.

After ISIS’ attacks in Paris, Clarion Project wrote here and explained on Fox News how the group’s supporters were salivating at the prospect of reprisals against innocent Muslims. ISIS and other jihadists have a separatist view and want Muslims to see democracy as a failed concept for them and to accept Islamism as the alternative.

Obama urged Muslims not to respond to anti-Muslim sentiment by validating these views, decreasing their patriotism or accepting propaganda legitimizing hostility towards the West. He said:

“You’re not Muslim or American. You’re Muslim and American. (Applause). Don’t grow cynical. Don’t respond to ignorance by embracing a worldview that suggests you must choose between your faith and your patriotism. Don’t believe that you have to choose between your best impulses and somewhat embrace a worldview that pits us against each other—or, even worse, glorifies violence.”

Miss: Failing to endorse or at least include the best Muslim allies for this cause, even if they are less resourced and well known.

Imagine what would have happened if Obama gave global coverage to the declaration of the Muslim Reform Movement, putting them on at least equal footing with the Islamists. Imagine the shiver down the spine of the Islamists who have defamed them essentially as “apostates,” all the while touting their own professed inclusiveness and moderation.

Imagine if Obama used the microphone of the White House to form a common thread between Muslim activists against Islamism everywhere: From Malala Yousefzai to the Muslim mayor of Rotterdam who cursed off Islamists promoting separatism in Europe; from the Muslims of the Green Movement who protested against the Iranian regime in 2009 to the Muslims who demonstrated and defeated the Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia; from the Muslims in Libya, who asked for U.S. help in their fight against Islamist militias and held pro-American rallies after Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed, to the Syrian protestors who greeted the American ambassador with cheers, roses and olive branches.

Just outside the Islamic Society of Baltimore, Muslim women protested the mosque for its gender separation and inequality. Asra Nomani wrote a powerful op-ed about Obama’s choice of venue. She pointed out how photos from 2010 showed the “second-class conditions women endure in spaces akin to a ‘penalty box.'”

Imagine what a quick photo-op with the Muslim women would have caused. Think of the attention to their cause and productive dialogue that it would have spurred simply due to a choice by the Obama Administration to be inclusive of Muslim reformers and their progressive agenda.

Watch President Barack Obama’s full speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore: