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Video: Steve Coughlin Counterterror Training Education and Analysis

January 24, 2015

Video: Steve Coughlin Counterterror Training Education and Analysis, Counter Jihad Report, January 24, 2015

(Long videos, well worth watching at leisure. — DM)

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Center for Security Policy, September 13, 2012

Over more than a decade following 9/11, MAJ Stephen Coughlin was one of the US government’s most astute and objective analysts, and an expert in the connections between Islamic law, terrorism and the jihadist movement around the globe.

Through knowledge of published Islamic law, MAJ Coughlin had a demonstrated ability to forecast events both in the Middle East and domestically and to accurately assess the future threat posture of jihadist entities before they happen.

He has briefed at the Pentagon, for national and state law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress. Today, he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy. His book, Catastrophic Failure, will be released in late 2012.

With this series of presentations, the general public has access to a professional standard of intelligence training in order to better understand the jihadist threat.

Part 1: Lectures on National Security & Counterterror Analysis (Introduction)

Part 2: Understanding the War on Terror Through Islamic Law:

Part 3: Abrogation and the ‘Milestones’ Process:

Part 4: Muslim Brotherhood, Arab Spring & the ‘Milestones’ Process:

Part 5: The Role of the OIC in Enforcing Islamic Law:

Categories: Center for Security Policy, Foreign policy, Intelligence, Islam, Islamic jihad, Muslim Brotherhood, Rules of war, Sharia law, Stephen Coughlin, Terrorism
Tags: Center for Security Policy, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic law, Muslim Brotherhood, Rules of war, Sharia law, Stephen Coughlin, Terrorism

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Argentine Prosecutor Death in Iran Terror Case Gets Curiouser

January 23, 2015

Argentine Prosecutor Death in Iran Terror Case Gets Curiouser, Legal Insurrection, David Gerstman, January 23, 2015

He documented enough of his charges that Interpol issued “red notices” for seven high-ranking Iranian officials, including Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ali Velayati, who were Iran’s president and foreign minister respectively at the time of the AMIA bombing. (Interpol does not have the power to arrest, so a “red notice” is as close as it comes to issuing an arrest warrant) Rafsanjani, despite being implicated in an act of terrorism in another nation is often referred to as a “moderate” nowadays. He is also considered to be a mentor to Iran’s current president, also often referred to as a “moderate,” Hassan Rouhani.

Alberto Nisman’s work exposed the danger that Iran poses to world security. Iran continues to violate international law with impunity and unfortunately there are too few Nisman’s daring to challenge Iran’s brazen misbehavior. His death will make the task of reining in Iran’s ambitions that much more difficult.

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Sunday night Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found shot to death in his apartment. Nisman had been scheduled the following day to present his criminal complaint against Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner before a closed session of Argentina’s congress.

The initial claim (one made by Kirchner herself on her Facebook page) that Nisman committed suicide hardly seemed credible at the time. How many people would kill themselves before the high point of their careers? Nisman had spent ten years investigating the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing in Buenos Aires and now he was about to charge the president and other officials of his country with conspiring to cover up the Iranian involvement in that attack. (Now Kirchner says he was killed but “suggests that Nisman was murdered on the instructions of his foreign masters in order to create a scandal damaging to her and to her government.”)

Subsequent revelations during the week have made the claim of suicide even less credible now. At Business Insider, Armin Rosen recounted some of those revelations.

The lack of an exit wound suggested the fatal shot was fired at a further distance than Nisman could have managed had the wound been self-inflicted. His last WhatsApp was a photo of stacks of documentation related to the next day’s testimony and Nisman had apparently given his maid a grocery list for the following week. A 10-person government security detail was reportedly pulled off of his apartment the night of his assassination. Most damningly, there was no gunpowder residue found on Nisman’s hands, physical evidence that he didn’t discharge a firearm prior to his death.

Fausta has more, including some gleaned from the Spanish press. Notably despite earlier claims that Nisman’s apartment was locked from the inside, there are reports that there were two other ways into his apartment that were not locked. Fausta is also right that Nisman’s murder is all about Iran. (Rosen also wrote, “no matter who’s responsible for Nisman’s death, the Iranian regime benefits.”)

Nisman’s work on the AMIA case was invaluable in documenting Iran’s efforts to build a terror infrastructure in South America. Matt Levitt, an expert on Hezbollah, who recently published a book about the Iran-backed terror organization, wrote this week, “As I was writing my book, trying to navigate the convoluted details of the AMIA bombing and other Hezbollah plots, Nisman was an invaluable resource.”

Nisman’s work wasn’t just academic though. He documented enough of his charges that Interpol issued “red notices” for seven high-ranking Iranian officials, including Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ali Velayati, who were Iran’s president and foreign minister respectively at the time of the AMIA bombing. (Interpol does not have the power to arrest, so a “red notice” is as close as it comes to issuing an arrest warrant) Rafsanjani, despite being implicated in an act of terrorism in another nation is often referred to as a “moderate” nowadays. He is also considered to be a mentor to Iran’s current president, also often referred to as a “moderate,” Hassan Rouhani.

The AMIA bombing was not the only time Iran’s leadership was implicated in an attack on foreign soil. In addition to Rafsanjani and Velayati, a red notice was issued for Ali Fallahian for the AMIA bombing. Rafsanjani, Velayati and Fallahian were all implicated in another terror attack on foreign soil.

A German prosecutor “without naming them … implicated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian” in the 1992 massacre at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin.

Iran’s revolutionary government is lawless. The Iranian actors in these foreign terror attackes weren’t rogue operators but members of the country’s political elite. It’s something to keep in mind when the Obama administration insists that it will make a nuclear agreement with Iran that will make everyone safer and more secure.

Even assuming the P5+1 nations can come to an agreement with Iran (an agreement is hardly a foregone conclusion, Iran would probably be very happy with a series of temporary agreements that free up billions and don’t force it to dismantle any element of their nuclear program), what grounds are there to trust Iran to keep its commitments?

Remember that the crisis with Iran over its nuclear program stems from Iran’s violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that it signed. Six UN Security Council resolutions – three of them unanimous – were passed imposing sanctions on Iran for its violations. Iran isn’t looking to come into compliance but to be granted absolution for its violations.

Alberto Nisman’s work exposed the danger that Iran poses to world security. Iran continues to violate international law with impunity and unfortunately there are too few Nisman’s daring to challenge Iran’s brazen misbehavior. His death will make the task of reining in Iran’s ambitions that much more difficult.

Categories: Argentina, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic jihad, Obama, P5+1, Rouhani, Supreme Leader, Terrorism
Tags: Alberto Nisman, Argentina, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Islamic Jihad, Rafsanjani, Rouhani, Supreme leader, Terrorism

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The Muslim Brotherhood Inquiry: What’s Happening?

January 23, 2015

The Muslim Brotherhood Inquiry: What’s Happening? The Gatestone Institute, Samuel Westrop, January 23, 2015

There are several reasons the British government may be publishing only the “principal findings” of the report. First, some of the information gathered will have been done so by the intelligence services, so there are assets and agreements to protect. Another is the possibility that by revealing the scope of the Muslim Brotherhood network in full, the government would be revealing its own partnerships with Brotherhood organizations, and providing insights into the vast amount of public funds that has filled the coffers of Brotherhood charities.

The British government will publish only the “principal findings” of an inquiry commissioned by the British government into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Although the former head of the MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has described the Brotherhood as being, “at heart, a terrorist organization,” Brotherhood organizations in the UK have, nevertheless, long enjoyed the support of government ministers and taxpayers’ money.

Previous media statements have indicated that the report written for the inquiry, first commissioned in April 2014, has since sparked a great deal of argument between government ministers and officials and has led to a lengthy delay.

The biggest point of contention has reportedly focused on concerns over the expected reaction of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — both of which have recently designated the Muslim Brotherhood and some of its front groups as terrorist organizations – if the inquiry’s report is perceived to be a whitewash.

London, it seems, has long been an important hub for the Muslim Brotherhood. Over the past 50 years, Brotherhood members have established dozens of Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, including lobby groups, charities, think tanks, television channels and interfaith groups.

The secretary-general of the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, Ibrahim Munir, is a resident of London. In 2013, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported that Munir was providing funds to the Egyptian Brotherhood through British Brotherhood groups such as the Muslim Welfare House — but under the guise of fundraising for Palestinians in Gaza.

This government inquiry was established to examine not just the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain, but to understand better the workings of the worldwide Brotherhood network. This network is both big and nebulous. The inquiry sought to examine the network comprehensively, including the Brotherhood’s collaboration with other Islamic groups, such as Jamaat-e-Islami, a South Asian Islamist network that also has a strong presence in Britain.

Why, then, has the report been delayed?

The question that has dominated most British media reports of the inquiry’s findings has centered on the allegation of terrorism. The relationship between Western governments and the Brotherhood on this point has long appeared murky. In 2002, for instance, the United States government shut down the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood fundraising group for the Hamas terrorist organization. And in 2011, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives: “I can say at the outset that elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.”

At the same time, however, both the Bush and Obama administrations also sought to woo the Muslim Brotherhood. One anonymous Palestinian official, quoted in Asharq Al-Awsat, claimed: “The Americans mistakenly think that moderate political Islam, represented by Muslim Brotherhood, would be able to combat radical Islam.”

The inconsistency seems to have revolved around the Muslim Brotherhood’s connection to Hamas. Although Hamas’s 1988 covenant asserts that, “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine,” Western governments have nevertheless treated Hamas and the Brotherhood as unconnected entities — despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

In the United Kingdom, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas networks appear to overlap heavily. In 2005, for instance, the British government handed over the running of London’s Finsbury Park mosque to the Muslim Association of Britain [MAB]. The Muslim Association of Britain was founded by Muslim Brotherhood activists including Kemal Helbawi, who described the Israel-Palestinian conflict as “an absolute clash of civilisations; a satanic programme led by the Jews and those who support them, and a divine programme carried [out] by Hamas … and the Islamic peoples in general.”

One of the trustees appointed to run the Finsbury Park mosque was Muhammad Sawalha, a fugitive Hamas commander who, according to BBC reports, is “said to have masterminded much of Hamas’s political and military strategy” from London. Yet the police and local government continue to fund the mosque with tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

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Muhammad Sawalha, a fugitive Hamas commander who is “said to have masterminded much of Hamas’s political and military strategy” from London, is a trustee of the Finsbury Park mosque, which receives tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. (Image source: inminds YouTube video screenshot)

By ignoring both the operational and ideological relations between the Brotherhood and Hamas, Western governments have been able to claim a dedication to opposing terrorism while at the same time courting Islamist allies, ostensibly to help fight the jihadist threat. By 2009, for instance, the British government provided the Muslim Welfare House, mentioned earlier, with £48,000 of “counter-extremism” funds. To this day, leading Islamist charities, established by Brotherhood figures, continue to receive millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

The Muslim Brotherhood, without Hamas, has worked hard to present itself as a benign organization. It is the government’s apparent failure to demonstrate adequate evidence of connections to terrorism, some critics argue, that has led to the delay in publishing the inquiry’s report. The prominent newspaper journalist, Peter Oborne, has claimed that the report “had discovered no grounds for proscribing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group… Publication of the report as originally written would infuriate the Prime Minister’s Saudi allies — and not just them. The United Arab Emirates have long been agitating for the defenestration of the Brothers…. The reason [for the delay] is simple: money, trade, oil, in a number of cases personal greed.”

Peter Oborne, a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, was, in fact, echoing the line taken by the Brotherhood itself. British Brotherhood operatives, such as Anas Al-Tikriti, recently placed an advertisement in the Guardian newspaper that claimed, “this review is the result of pressure placed on the British government by undemocratic regimes abroad, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.” The letter was signed by a number of senior Brotherhood activists, MPs, Peers and journalists — including Peter Oborne.

The “Saudi pressure” argument serves a useful purpose. There is not a lot that can undermine a government inquiry so much as an accusation of political leverage and foreign financial influence. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE regard the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat, and would like to see it suppressed. But neither the Saudis nor the Emiratis are naïve: both have worked to influence the British government for decades and both know how Westminster works. Hence, both know that it is extremely unlikely that the British government would ban the Muslim Brotherhood.

All that said, it is still possible to ignore Hamas and nevertheless link the Brotherhood to violence. In September 2010, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, advocated violent jihad against the United States, and declared that, “the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life… The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.” In 2013, Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters in Egypt attacked 70 Coptic Christian churches, and more than 1000 homes and businesses of Coptic Christian families were torched.

Banning the Brotherhood, however, is difficult for another reason. Security analyst Lorenzo Vidino writes:

“Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in each country work according to a common vision — but in complete operational independence, making the Brotherhood an informal global movement. It’s what makes designating the whole movement a terrorist organisation virtually impossible in the UK, as authorities knew from the very beginning. But the lack of a ban does not equal an exoneration or an endorsement — hardly the general tone of the review.”

If the delay in the report’s release has been the product of political wrangling at all, the debate within Westminster is most likely over the influence of the Brotherhood upon extremism and radicalization, and with which groups the government should continue to work.

There is already some indication that changes are taking place. On December 18, 2014, the government announced publicly that two Brotherhood-linked Islamic charities, Islamic Help and the Muslim Charities Forum, were to lose their government grants over links to extremism. The Department for Communities and Local Government stated that it would not fund any group “linked to individuals who fuel hatred, division and violence.” This loss of funding followed a Gatestone Institute report investigating the Muslim Charities Forum’s links to extremism, which was subsequently picked up by mainstream British media.

Also in December, Islamic Relief, after being placed on terror lists by both the governments of the UAE and Israel, published an “independent audit,” claiming there was “absolutely no evidence” to link the charity to terrorism.

The British government, which has provided over £3 million of funding to Islamic Relief since 2013, offered little comment, but did publish, at the end of December, a document revealing that the UK government would match £5 million of donations to Islamic Relief until 2016.

Herein lies the contradiction. The Muslim Charities Forum is essentially a project of Islamic Relief. The present chairman of the Muslim Charities Forum, in fact, is Hany El Banna, who founded Islamic Relief, the leading member body of the Muslim Charities Forum. Islamic Relief, as the Gatestone Institute has previously revealed, has given platforms to the same extremists as those promoted by the Muslim Charities Forum, an act that led to its loss of funding. Why would the British government discard one charity while embracing the other? Is this perhaps a sign of further sleight-of-hand to come? Rather than sanction the Brotherhood as a whole, is the government likely in future to work only with sections of the Islamist network?

We have seen such posturing before. In 2009, Britain’s Labour government cut ties with the Muslim Council of Britain after some of its officials became signatories to the Istanbul Declaration, a document that calls for attacks on British soldiers and Jewish communities. The government has continued, however, to work with and fund interfaith groups partly managed by MCB figures and Istanbul Declaration signatories.

There are several reasons the British government may be publishing only the “principal findings” of the report. First, some of the information gathered will have been done so by the intelligence services, so there are assets and agreements to protect. Another is the possibility that by revealing the scope of the Muslim Brotherhood network in full, the government would be revealing its own partnerships with Brotherhood organizations, and providing insights into the vast amount of public funds that has filled the coffers of Brotherhood charities.

In spite of the expectedly unexciting report, the global Muslim Brotherhood still seems worried. Even the most benign report could damage the legitimacy upon which the Brotherhood thrives. Although unlikely, visas for Brotherhood residents in Britain could be revoked, and the report could produce a domino effect — sparking inquiries in other European countries. Evidently, the Brotherhood attaches great importance to its political and diplomatic connections and influence.

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the report, media misinformation and Brotherhood propaganda have been spreading. Back in April 2014, the British government’s announcement of the inquiry produced a great deal of noise. The actual scope of the inquiry and the possible consequences, however, were left to the imaginations of the many commentators and conspiracy theorists.

Consequently, just as the full findings of the report are unclear, so is its significance. If certain sections of the Brotherhood are declared unsuitable, it seems that the report might provide a useful opportunity for the British government — aided by new statutory powers for the Charity Commission and proposed new counter-extremism powers — to crack down on those parts of the Muslim Brotherhood which serve to accrue financial and political support for Hamas.

Thus far, for the government, the Muslim Brotherhood inquiry has been a PR disaster. The eventual publication of the inquiry’s report could provide an opportunity for the British government to end its continued support and funding for Britain’s Muslim Brotherhood charities, and to stop treating Brotherhood operatives as representatives of Britain’s Muslim community. It would indeed be a shame if the only outcome of the inquiry were an even cozier realignment with the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities.

Categories: England, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Hamas, Islamic jihad, Muslim Brotherhood
Tags: England, Foreign Policy, Funding terrorism, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood

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Analysis: Former al Qaeda operative freed, sent home to Qatar

January 20, 2015

Analysis: Former al Qaeda operative freed, sent home to Qatar, Long War Journal, David Weinberg, January 20, 2015

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Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, back in Qatar with his youngest son. Photo provided to the Peoria Journal Star by al Marri’s family.

Editor’s Note: For more on Qatar’s track record in fighting terrorism, see Dr. Weinberg’s report for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions & Illicit Finance, Qatar and Terror Finance, Part 1: Negligence.

The US government’s decision to repatriate al Marri to Qatar is a curious one, to say the least.

According to The Guardian (UK), al Marri’s nephew revealed that upon arrival in Doha, his uncle “was greeted by representatives from the Qatari interior and foreign ministries” and is now in “high spirits.” He thanked Qatari officials for exerting “tremendous efforts” for his uncle’s release.

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Editor’s Note: For more on Qatar’s track record in fighting terrorism, see Dr. Weinberg’s report for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions & Illicit Finance, Qatar and Terror Finance, Part 1: Negligence.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, an admitted former al Qaeda operative, has been released from a American jail and permitted to return home to Qatar.

No formal statement has been released yet by either government, but it is being reported that al Marri’s release was the result of a bilateral agreement between the Qatari and American governments. According to the US Bureau of Prisons, a prisoner with the same name and estimated age (ID number 12194-026) was freed on Friday.

Additionally, a source from al Marri’s family told the Qatari press he was recently released and arrived in Doha Saturday. Soon afterwards, the story was confirmed by Agence France Presse (AFP), which spoke to al Marri’s nephew.

This followed statements by two of his former attorneys that he was expected to be released within days. And photographs have been posted on social media that reportedly show al Marri coming home to his children for the first time in over a decade. A Kuwaiti newspaper posted video of a man identified as al Marri at the airport in Doha bumping noses with male relatives and kissing his mother’s feet.

An al Qaeda sleeper agent

Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri was at one point the only enemy combatant detained on US soil. According to the terms of a plea deal he accepted in 2009, al Marri “was instructed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to enter the United States no later than September 10, 2001” and to await further instructions. Mohammed, also known as KSM, was serving at the time as the chief of al Qaeda’s external operations and is considered the mastermind of 9/11 attacks. According to the FBI in 2009, “Ali al-Marri was an al-Qaeda ‘sleeper’ operative working on U.S. soil.”

President George W. Bush indicated that the US intelligence community believes al Marri discussed various targets with KSM, including “water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange, and United States military academies.” Bush also described him as “a present and grave danger to US national security.”

The plea bargain accepted by al Marri acknowledged that his computer’s search history included research on “various cyanide substances” according to “the method taught by al Qaeda for manufacturing cyanide gas,” as well as research on “dams, waterways and tunnels in the United States, which is also consistent with al Qaeda attack planning regarding the use of cyanide gases”. The plea deal also noted that “between 1998 and 2001” he “attended various training camps because he wished to engage in jihad”.

In other court documents, US officials alleged that KSM chose al Marri to be an al Qaeda sleeper agent because he had a family and would therefore be less likely to attract suspicion. He was pulled over in a routine traffic stop two days after 9/11 when a police officer saw al Marri’s son standing up in the moving car’s back seat.

Al Marri was then briefly arrested on an old warrant for driving under the influence and raised authorities’ suspicions when he paid his $300 bail out of a briefcase full of bundles of hundred dollar bills. Al Marri would later acknowledge receiving these funds from an al Qaeda financial facilitator in the United Arab Emirates, Mustafa Hawsawi, whom KSM had instructed him to visit. Soon afterwards, al Marri was detained again when law enforcement officials confirmed a telephone at his home had been used to contact Hawsawi, whom they had already connected to one of the 9/11 hijackers.

Hawsawi was captured alongside KSM in early March 2003 and then held in the CIA’s controversial detention and interrogation program before being transferred to Guantanamo, where he remains in detention.

Reason for release unclear

Al Marri’s release seems to be the end result of a process set in motion by President Obama during his first month in office.

Al Marri had been held for years under solitary confinement at the Navy Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. But President Obama directed the government to reconsider his case in parallel to reviewing all the cases of detainees held at Guantanamo. The president ordered the Defense Department to transfer al Marri to the custody of the Justice Department, which would try him in a civilian court.

However, it is unclear as to why the United States released al Marri now. Taking into consideration what the judge called al Marri’s “unacceptable” treatment by the military, al Marri was sentenced to only an additional eight years and four months in prison in late October 2009. His sentence had already been reduced from fifteen years to account for his time in custody of the military. That would have meant a release in early 2018. The reasons for Al Marri’s early departure from prison have not been made public. He may have received credit for prior time served in civilian jails and possibly also for good behavior.

The Journal Star newspaper in Peoria, Illinois, where al Marri was living in 2001, reports that he was “was spirited out of the United States on Friday [Jan. 16], two days before he was scheduled to be released from a maximum security prison” in Florence, Colorado. The paper elaborated that “the move was unknown to his attorney Andrew Savage of Charleston, S.C., who had met with his client just one day before.”

Initially, it was unclear whether or not the US government had negotiated ground rules with the Qatari government to justify his repatriation there. However, a Qatari-owned Arabic news outlet based in London, al-Araby al-Jadeed, quotes sources close to al Marri’s family claiming that his release was the result of a bilateral agreement between the two governments.

Even if the United States did reach some sort of prior understanding about the terms of his release, Doha has violated these sorts of commitments in the past.

Qatar’s negligent record

The US government’s decision to repatriate al Marri to Qatar is a curious one, to say the least.

Ali al Marri’s brother, Jarallah Saleh Kahlah al Marri, was detained at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border shortly after 9/11 and subsequently held at Guantanamo. According to a leaked threat assessment prepared by Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), Jarallah al Marri also spent time at al Qaeda training camps and was suspected of seeking to transfer $10,000 in operational funds to his brother at KSM’s direction. He was released back to Doha’s supervision in 2008.

The Qatari government violated a pledge to Washington on how it would handle Jarallah al Marri. He was repatriated based on an explicit, written commitment from Qatar that he would not be allowed to leave the country. Qatar even promised to notify Washington immediately if he merely tried to do so.

And yet Washington found out from British authorities that they had arrested Jarallah al Marri on charges of visa fraud, after he had been permitted to leave Qatar not once but twice without mention from the Qatari government. The US ambassador in Doha at the time concluded that the decision to let Jarallah travel was “almost certainly” a decision that involved Qatar’s attorney general, who outrageously contended he “was bound only by signed judicial assistance agreements and not diplomatic notes”.

At least once Qatar also withheld cooperation from the United States on the case of Ali al Marri himself. A leaked US cable from October 2008 stated that Qatar’s attorney general “decline[d] our judicial request on Ali al-Marri,” specifically refusing to honor “a long-standing request for banking records” involving him.

More broadly, Qatar has been labeled a permissive jurisdiction for terror finance by the US Treasury Department. It is home to several individuals on US or UN blacklists who allegedly provided high-level funding to al Qaeda. Local authorities have refused to charge the suspected al Qaeda financiers with a crime.

And the last time Qatar promised to keep an alleged senior terrorist operative “under control,” that individual showed up several years later on Treasury sanctions announcements as having again transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to al Qaeda’s senior leadership abroad.

Received as a hero

Ali al Marri’s reception in Qatar so far should raise additional concerns in the counterterrorism community. The Qatari government has given no public sign it plans to supervise his activities, nor has it indicated disapproval of his prior al Qaeda role. It is unlikely he will face further charges in Qatari court, and he is not currently being detained.

Worse, al Marri is being received as a returning hero.

Abdulrahman al Nuaymi has been blacklisted by the US and UN on charges of terror finance yet enjoys legal impunity in Qatar. Al Nuaymi welcomed the news of Al Marri’s release on his Twitter account, while also minimizing any suggestion of wrongdoing on al Marri’s part.

“Praise Allah, Brother Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri has been released and returned to his country and his people after thirteen years in the prisons of global injustice (America),” a post on al Nuaymi’s Twitter feed reads.

Al Nuaymi is not the only one celebrating al Marri’s return. According to The Guardian (UK), al Marri’s nephew revealed that upon arrival in Doha, his uncle “was greeted by representatives from the Qatari interior and foreign ministries” and is now in “high spirits.” He thanked Qatari officials for exerting “tremendous efforts” for his uncle’s release.

Similarly, the editor-in-chief of one of Qatar’s main newspapers, al-Arab, proclaimed in Arabic on Twitter: “We thank Allah for his favor in returning Brother Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who was detained by America. Our congratulations to him and to his family, and many thanks to all those who followed his case and worked for his return.”

Another major Qatari paper, al-Sharq, covered his release without polemics, but it also elided any mention of al Marri’s plea bargain or its contents, including his admitted connection to al Qaeda and plotting against civilian targets. In fact, the story did not even note that he was accused of involvement with al Qaeda, instead simply stating that he was detained in the US in the aftermath of 9/11.

Only one of two articles by the Qatari-owned UK outlet al-Araby al-Jadeed included some limited details from al Marri’s plea bargain, but the article quoted Qatar’s former minister of justice basically dismissing those admissions as a means to an end for al Marri to get released. The paper also quoted the head of Qatar’s state-controlled National Human Rights Commission, who revealed that his group had been pushing US officials for years for Ali al Marri’s immediate release.

If this collective amnesia is reflective of how the Qatari authorities feel, Doha will likely give al Marri free rein, viewing him more as a victim than an admitted terrorist agent who plotted mass attacks against civilians for the sake of jihad. This risk seems especially acute given that a Twitter account appearing to belong to his brother, Jarallah, recently lavished praise upon Osama bin Laden and repeatedly publicized a fundraising campaign for Syria that was shut down after allegedly serving as a financial conduit for the Al Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria.

During her confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the current US envoy to Doha, Ambassador Dana Shell Smith, pledged that if confirmed she would monitor the so-called Taliban Five “continuously” at “the very top of my list of priorities.” The Taliban Five is a group of senior Taliban leaders who were exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl last year. Qatar helped broker the swap.

Smith testified she would work “every morning when I wake up, every night when I go to sleep, to reassess whether these people [the Taliban Five] pose any threat whatsoever, to our national security.”

Smith may wish to add the al Marri brothers to the list of jihadists she monitors.

Categories: Ali Saleh Kahlah, Foreign policy, Islamic jihad, Obama, Qatar
Tags: Al Qaeda, Ali Saleh Kahlah, Foreign Policy, Islamic Jihad, Qatar

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Obama plans to restrain media offensiveness to Islam

January 15, 2015

Obama plans to restrain media offensiveness to Islam, Dan Miller’s Blog, January 14, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

All the “news” that ~~is fit to print~~ serves Obama.

In keeping with Obama’s policy and practice of pressuring “legitimate news media” to follow His desires vis a vis news coverage (see generally Sharyl Attkisson’s Stonewalled), Josh Earnest announced on January 12th:

President Barack Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation’s defense forces, the White House’s press secretary said Jan. 12. [Emphasis added.]

“The president … will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever journalists’ work may provoke jihadist attacks, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing.[Emphasis added.]

The unprecedented reversal of Americans’ civil-military relations, and of the president’s duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administration’s opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. [Emphasis added.]

Here’s what Obama said on January 7th about the Islamic jihad attacks in France. Please note that He expressed approval of a free press and mentioned terrorism, but mentioned neither jihad nor Islam, “radical,” “extremist” or any other flavor.

Earnest’s January 12 statement, generally not reported by the “legitimate news media,” is a masterpiece of ambiguity and hence of obfuscation. Hence, we will have to wait to learn what “anti-jihadi” means, how and under what circumstances Obama, in His capacity as President and Commander in Chief of active duty U.S. armed forces, and His minions, will know in advance which media organizations are planning to publish what material and what tactics He will employ if expressing His views is insufficient.

What, in Obama’s view, are “jihadi” activities? Are they un-Islamic?

What types of “anti-jihadi articles” “might cause a jihadi attack against our nation’s armed forces”? Those criticizing Muslim attacks on members of the U.S. or allied military forces? Those criticizing Muslim slaughter of Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims? Those critical of Sharia law? Those critical of a Muslim clerics, perhaps Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, or its President, Rouhani (also a cleric)? Those critical of a nuclear deal with Iran? Those critical of Mohamed and/or Allah? Those critical of Islam in general — perhaps televised interviews with Ayaan Hirsi Ali or with other apostates from Islam? Interviews with reformist Muslims, such as Egyptian President Sisi? Any of these, as well as others casting even minimal aspersions on the “religion of peace” might (or might not) have that effect.

Would media reports about attacks on members of U.S. or allied military by forces of the Islamic State and its various cohorts fit within Obama’s parameters? Since the Islamic State, et al, are “not Islamic,” perhaps Obama does not consider such attacks to be true jihad.

How about reports of “anti-Muslim” backlash? Obama most likely wants as many as quickly as possible, whether real or imagined.

When the media rushes to print interviews with Muslims claiming to suddenly be terrified of an imaginary backlash, it is marginalizing and silencing the real victims of Muslim violence who have been the subjects of a Muslim assault for over a thousand years complete with literal lashings.

Earnest threatened that Obama will “will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary” to restrain the media. That suggests that if, after expressing His views, a media outlet does not oblige Him, He will take additional steps. How? What? Ms. Attkisson provided many examples of what His administration has done to make media accede to His views on what should be reported and how, and what should not be reported. For example, Government employees have been instructed to refuse or restrict access to journalists out of favor with the Obama administration, they have been excluded from photo ops and other, more important, events and, if Ms. Attkisson is correct, as I think she is, her computers and those of others less than favorable to Obama have sometimes been hacked and their other electronic devices have been tampered with by Government agents. “That’s a nice newspaper/radio station/television station you have there. I sure hope nothing unfortunate happens to it.”

Whatever Earnest may mean and whatever Obama may intend, the ambiguous warning to the media — even standing alone and even without further public clarification — seems likely to have an unwholesome restraining effect on what is reported about Islam and how.

Categories: Charlie Hedbo, Foreign policy, Humor, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Obama, Sisi, Terrorism
Tags: Charlie Hedbo, Foreign Policy, Humor, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Sharyl Attkisson, Sisi, Terrorism

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Throw Islamists out or give them the “peace” of Islam they seek

January 10, 2015

Throw Islamists out or give them the “peace” of Islam they seek, Dan Miller’s Blog, January 10, 2015

(The opinions expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors. — DM)

They should welcome Islamic peace, including eternal bliss with their beautiful virgins.

Many more await you

Many more of us await you. Hurry up!

The attacks by adherents to the Religion of “Peace” in France were not the first, nor will they be the last, by “extremists” who live for nothing better than to demonstrate Islamic tolerance by slaughtering blasphemers who mock their “holy prophet” or otherwise insult Islam. We are told, ad nauseam, that they and their cohorts — like the Islamic State — are not Islamic: the Fort Hood massacre was mere “workplace violence” that had nothing to do with Islam, the Islamic Republic of Iran can be trusted with nukes and Saudi Arabia is our friend.

No matter that Major Hasan, a Muslim, yelled “Allah Akbar” while he slaughtered thirteen people and injured thirty more, and now wants to be a citizen of the Islamic State. No matter that there were many more Islamic jihad attacks during 2014.

No matter that Iran has long sought (and may already have) nukes and the death of Israel. Is Iran non-Islamic? No matter that our “ally,” Saudi Arabia, just applied to Raif Badaw the first fifty of the one thousand lashes imposed as part of his punishment for blasphemy for calling for religious freedom and thereby insulting Islam. Is Saudi Arabia non-Islamic?

A lengthy article from the Catholic World Report dated January 8, 2015 is titled “What is Islam?” Revisited, by Father James V. Schall, S.J. He

taught political philosophy at Georgetown University for many years until recently retiring. He is the author of numerous books and countless essays on philosophy, theology, education, morality, and other topics. His most recent book is Reasonable Pleasures: The Strange Coherences of Catholicism (Ignatius Press).

After highlighting only a few of many Islamic murders* and persecutions of Christians, Father Schall contends, quite persuasively, that

In the Quran, there is no mention of the Trinity or Incarnation, except explicitly to deny them. It is blasphemy to believe in them, as well as to question anything connected with the Quran. Allah intends the whole world to observe the Sharia, the Muslim legal code, observing its letter. As soon as it can, this law is imposed in every Muslim land or smaller community, even in democratic states. No distinction between Islam and the state exists. Everyone is born a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, it is because his parents or teachers corrupted him. It is impossible to convert from Islam to another religion, without grave, often lethal, consequences. [Emphasis added.]

It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates. The voluntarist presuppositions of Islamic thought allow what is prohibited to become good. Allah is not bound by the distinction of good and evil. Whatever Allah wills, even if it was the opposite yesterday, is good. [Emphasis added.]

. . . . To most Muslims, the West is itself morally decadent. Many think that the decline of population in the West and the high birth rate of Muslims almost guarantee eventual control of many European countries by Islam. And no talk exists of “converting” Islam by Christians. With Fatima, Reagan and John Paul II could talk of ending the evil empire of the Soviet Union, but the question, “What is Islam?”, is seldom addressed. There is certainly nothing said about really changing Islam, only containing it. [Emphasis added.]

[I]t is possible that Islam will follow its pattern in the early modern world. Much of its recent success has depended on its good fortune with oil and other resources. But no Islamic state or group has been the origin of any properly modern inventions or developments. There seems to be theological reasons for this, as there is no reason to investigate a world that is based solely on the arbitrary will of Allah. Islam lacks any real notion of a natural law or a basis in reason that would allow it to criticize itself and recognize the extremism of many of its own practices, and especially the killings. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[N]o real basis for the much-appealed-to “dialogue” with Islam seems to exist. Almost all the initiative for dialogue has come from the Christian side. Islam has no central authority. It has no fixed theology except what is in the Quran and attempts to defend its consistency.

Dialogue is looked upon as a sign of weakness unless it can be used to further Muslim goals. In the case of the killings that Coren lists, if they are looked upon as legitimate means, there is no need either to talk about them or to cease their presumed effectiveness in spreading Islam. One cannot really appeal to the Quran to cease these killings, as there is ample reason within it to justify them as worthy means. Had it not been possible to justify these means in the Quran, the whole history of Islam would be different. Indeed, it probably never would have expanded at all. [Emphasis added.]

Somebody should tell the Pope, who wants more interfaith dialogue.

Speaking at the start of a three-day trip to Turkey, Pope Francis said “terrorist violence” showed no sign of abating in Turkey’s southern neighbours, where Islamist insurgents had declared a caliphate and persecuted Shiite Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam.

“It is licit, while always respecting international law, to stop an unjust aggressor,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said in reference to the Islamic State militants after a meeting with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan.

“What is required is a concerted commitment on the part of all … [to] enable resources to be directed, not to weaponry, but to the other noble battles worthy of man: the fight against hunger and sickness.”[Emphasis added.]

Sure. That should take care of the problem. In an Islamic pig’s eye.

Perhaps Obama and His devotees should read the article, even though it would not likely change their minds even a whit.

Why do many refer to Islamic terrorists as “extremists” or “radicals?” Aren’t they actually Islamists, dedicated to defending their religion against “slander?”

Are Christians and Jews, who actually practice their religions, “extremists” or “radicals?” Aren’t they practicing Christians and Jews? Or are Christians, in the eyes of Obama and His supporters, just bitter little people who cling to their religion or their guns and hate those who are not like them? (That’s a good characterization of Islamists.)

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. [Emphasis added.]

How about the Jews of Israel, who would much rather live in peace with their neighbors than kill or be killed by them? Are they also “bitter clingers?” They cling to life, so they must be, in Obama’s view.

An article at Breitbart titled ‘Don’t denigrate Islam’ says Obama after calling Americans ‘butter clingers’ notes,

President Obama finally remarked upon the attacks on our consulate in Libya — but was silent on the attack on our embassy in Egypt — and stressed the importance of not disrespecting religion in his speech, something he’s newly concerned about:

While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.

It’s interesting that only when Islamists riot is Obama concerned for religious respect. I assume that Islam is excluded from what is called his ‘war on religion’ as he’s never before shown any concern for the denigration of other faiths. He’s demonstrated none of what he asks these past several years. Who could forget his demeaning characterization of middle America as ‘bitter clingers?’ [Emphasis added.”

Remember Obama’s October 3, 2014 Eid greeting to Muslims around the world?

As our Muslim neighbors and friends gather for Eid celebrations, Muslim Americans are among the millions of pilgrims joining one of the world’s largest and most diverse gatherings. Hajj brings together Muslims from around the world – Sunni and Shiite – to share in reverent prayer, side by side. It serves as a reminder that no matter one’s tribe or sect, race or religion, gender or age, we are equals in humanity.

On Eid, Muslims continue the tradition of donating to the poor and joining efforts with other faith communities in providing assistance to those suffering from hunger, sickness, oppression, and conflict. Their service is a powerful example of the shared roots of the world’s Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together in shared peace, with dignity and a sense of justice. [Emphasis added.]

Is there such a thing as “moderate” Islam of the type to which Obama may have referred? After searching high and low and finding none, Daniel Greenfield finally found an example:

There is no moderate Islam in the mosques or in Mecca. You won’t find it in the Koran or the Hadiths. If you want to find moderate Islam, browse the newspaper editorials after a terrorist attack or take a course on Islamic religion taught by a Unitarian Sociologist wearing fake native jewelry.

You can’t find a moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but you can find it in countless network news specials, articles and books about the two homelands of their respective brands of Islam.

You won’t find the fabled land of moderate Muslims in the east. You won’t even find it in the west. Like all myths it exists in the imagination of those who tell the stories. You won’t find a moderate Islam in the Koran, but you will find it in countless Western books about Islam.

Moderate Islam isn’t what most Muslims believe. It’s what most liberals believe that Muslims believe. [Emphasis in original]

The new multicultural theology of the West is moderate Islam. Moderate Islam is the perfect religion for a secular age since it isn’t a religion at all. [Emphasis added.]

Take Islam, turn it inside out and you have moderate Islam. Take a Muslim who hasn’t been inside a mosque in a year, who can name the entire starting lineup of the San Diego Chargers, but can’t name Mohammed’s companions and you have a moderate Muslim. Or more accurately, a secular Muslim. [Emphasis added.]

Perhaps such secular Muslims are not “bitter clingers.”

Islam and the multicultural “blessings” of “shared peace, with dignity and a sense of justice” (from Obama’s Eid greeting) it brings are rampant in Europe. They could have been avoided but were not, on the apparent theories (a) that there is no evil in the world, (b) that all religions are equally evil, (c) that all religions are equally good and/or (d) that no other evil is even comparable in its insidiousness to Islamophobia.

Some in Europe are learning, but their principal leaders seem to be too dense, too devoted to their ideologies or both, to absorb the lessons of even recent history. French President Hollande decried “racism and anti-Semitism” and proclaimed that the Islamic attacks in France had “nothing to do with Islam.” Apparently, in his twisted view, “true” Islam rejects racism and “antisemitism.” This Islamic preacher must not be Islamic.

In similar vein, a Palestinian envoy to Iran recently “said that ‘Israel is a cancer’ that ‘will be destroyed.”

Islamists throughout the world are as antisemitic as they are anti-Christian and appear to be proud of it.

Here are five more short videos:

Appeasement (is that another name for multiculturalism?) is not a viable solution; it merely postpones evil until it become stronger and multitudes are slaughtered, unnecessarily. Unfortunately many of us, as well as many of our “leaders,” have yet to learn the lessons of history; hence appeasement continues to be the preferred, but most deadly, response to evil.

Meanwhile, Obama and all too many leading RINOs insist that massive immigration must continue in the United States and that amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the there is good. I have found no credible statistics suggesting the numbers of Islamists or other murderers among actual and potential illegal immigrants, but their numbers cannot rationally be assumed to be insignificant. Nor can it be assumed that the apparent hopes of our “leaders” that all will turn out just fine will be realized; it may all depend on their definitions of “just fine.” It can reasonably be assumed that the Obama Nation is galloping, and will continue to gallop, down a path similar to that trod by Europe and that the consequences will be comparable in lives and freedoms lost, to say nothing of the financial burdens incurred by Federal, State and local governments and, of course, their citizens.

Here are eighteen points adopted by the American Freedom Defense Initiative in April of 2013.

– AFDI denounces the crippling rules of engagement under which our soldiers are forced to labor. They should be given the freedom to defend themselves and protect their comrades.

— AFDI calls for profiling of Muslims at airports and in hiring in professions in which national security and public safety could be compromised.

— AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.

— AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.

— AFDI calls for curriculum and Islam-related materials in textbooks and museums to describe the Islamic doctrine and history accurately, including its violent doctrines and 1,400-year war against unbelievers.

— AFDI calls for a halt of foreign aid to Islamic nations with Sharia-based constitutions and/or governments.

– AFDI denounces the use of Sharia law in any Western court or nation.

– AFDI advocates deportation hearings against non-citizens who promote jihad in our nations.

– AFDI calls for an immediate halt of immigration by Muslims into nations that do not currently have a Muslim majority population.

— AFDI calls for laws providing that anyone seeking citizenship in the United States should be asked if he or she supports Sharia law, and investigated for ties to pro-Sharia groups. If so, citizenship should not be granted.

– AFDI calls for the cancellation of citizenship or permanent residency status for anyone who leaves the country of his residence to travel for the purpose of engaging in jihad activity, and for the refusal of reentry into his country of residence after that jihad activity.

— AFDI calls careful investigation of Muslims resident in non-Muslim country who have obtained naturalized citizenship or permanent residency status, to ensure that that status was not obtained under false pretenses.

— AFDI calls for the designation of the following as grounds for immediate deportation: fomenting, plotting, financing, attempting or carrying out jihad attacks; encouraging or threatening or attempting to carry out the punishments Islamic law mandates for apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, fornication or theft; threatening or attempting or carrying out honor murders, forced marriage, underage marriage, female genital mutilation, or polygamy.

— AFDI calls for the U.S. and other free nations to have jihad, as it is traditionally understood in Islamic jurisprudence to involve warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims, declared a crime against humanity at the U.N., or to withdraw from the U.N. and have its headquarters moved to a Muslim nation.

– AFDI calls for legislating making illegal the foreign funding of Islamic Studies departments and faculty positions in our universities.

– AFDI demands the repeal of U.N. resolution 16/18 and any other resolutions that might limit the freedom of speech.

– AFDI calls for all Muslim chaplains in prisons and the military to be thoroughly vetted, and dismissed if they have ties to any Islamic supremacist group, or if they advocate jihad.

– AFDI calls for the development of energy policies that will free us from dependence upon oil from Muslim countries.

Through SION, AFDI establishes a common American / European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.

AFDI and SION stand for:

— The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of “blasphemy” and “slander,” which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;

— The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;

— The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia’s institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

Here’s a link to an essay by Allen West proposing much the same. It’s well worth reading.

The Obama Nation won’t take any of the suggested steps, of course, and no European nation seems likely to; they are too preoccupied with fighting Islamophobia and pursuing the “blessings” of multiculturalism. However, it’s worth pushing hard for. After all, it’s more humane than giving Islamists the “peace” they claim to want, wholesale, and sending them to their virgins.

In the meantime, let’s load up on neat gifts and get ready for a merry Christmas.

_________________

*An exhaustive list of Christians slaughtered during November of 2014 is available in an article titled Christians Burned Alive, published on January 10, 2015 by the Gatestone Institute.

Categories: Allen West, Antisemitism, Christians, Diversity, Europe, Executions, Foreign policy, Freedom, International Community, Iran, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jerusalem, Jihad, Koran, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinians, Peace process, Political correctness, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism
Tags: Allen West, Antisemitism, Christians, DIversity, Europe, Executions, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Iran, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jerusalem, Jihad, Koran, Moderate Islam, Multiculturalism, Palestinians, Peace Process, Political correctness, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

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Christians Burned Alive

January 10, 2015

Christians Burned Alive, Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, January 10, 2015

Muslim Persecution of Christians, November 2014

“They picked them up by their arms and legs and held them over the brick furnace until their clothes caught fire. And then they threw them [alive] inside the furnace.” — Javeed Maseeh, family spokesman, concerning a Christian couple in Pakistan murdered on rumors they had burned verses from the Qur’an.

“I would appeal to your honor to put pressure on the government of Pakistan to end misuse of blasphemy laws against Christians, Ahmadiyyia and other religious minorities and condition US Aid on human rights and repeal of blasphemy laws.” — From a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama by Dr. Nazir S. Bhutti, President of the Pakistan Christian Congress, expressing surprise that the U.S. did not even bother to condemn the burning of Christians alive.

East Jerusalem: Despite constant and ever bolder attacks on a church, police refuse to respond to pleas for help from the Christian congregation.

Denmark: Muslim refugees are persecuting Christian refugees. “Christian asylum seekers are repeatedly exposed to everything from harassment to threats and physical abuse….” — Niels Eriksen Nyman, 10news.dk

“Young Christian men are made scapegoats to show police performance, while the real culprits are carrying out their illegal activities right under the police’s nose.” — Brother-in-law of “Mithu,” 35, Christian father of five, who was arrested in Pakistan on false charges and tortured to death in prison.

The youngest [slave] being the most expensive. 20-30 years old: 100,000 dinars [$86]; 10-20 years old: 150,000 dinars [$129]; 9 years old: 200,000 dinars [$172]. — The Islamic State.

The Islamic State called on its followers to take the jihad to Egypt.

Qaiser Ayub, a 40 year old professor of computer science in Pakistan, of Christian background, was arrested and charged with insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad.

Both in the Islamic world and the Western world, Muslims continued to attack and slaughter Christians.

In Pakistan, “A mob accused of burning alive a Christian couple in an industrial kiln in Pakistan allegedly wrapped a pregnant mother in cotton so she would catch fire more easily, according to family members who witnessed the attack,” reported NBC News:

Sajjad Maseeh, 27, and his wife Shama Bibi, 24, were set upon by at least 1,200 people after rumors circulated that they had burned verses from the Quran, family spokesman Javed Maseeh told NBC News via telephone late Thursday. Their legs were also broken so they couldn’t run away.

“They picked them up by their arms and legs and held them over the brick furnace until their clothes caught fire,” he said. “And then they threw them inside the furnace.”

Bibi, a mother of four who was four months pregnant, was wearing an outfit that initially didn’t burn, according to Javed Maseeh. The mob removed her from over the kiln and wrapped her up in cotton to make sure the garments would be set alight.

814

Shama Bibi (left) and Sajjad Maseeh, a Christian couple and parents of four children, were burned to death by a Muslim lynch mob in Pakistan because of a false blasphemy accusation.

Discussing this latest atrocity against Pakistan’s Christian minorities, an AFP report states:

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the majority Muslim country, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence.

Anyone convicted, or even just accused, of insulting Islam, risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes.

A Christian woman [Asia Bibi] has been on death row since November 2010 after she was found guilty of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed during an argument with a Muslim woman.

An elderly British man with severe mental illness, sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan in January, was shot by a prison guard last month.

Two days after the Christian couple were burned alive, a policeman in Pakistan hacked a man to death for allegedly making blasphemous remarks against Islam.

About the Christian couple, Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti, President of the Pakistan Christian Congress, wrote a letter to U.S. President Obama expressing surprise that the U.S. did not even bother to condemn this crime:

It is surprising that neither US Administration under your honor nor US State Department even bothered to condemn this horrific crime of burning live of Christian couple by a mob living in country named Islamic Republic of Pakistan which is receiving billions of aid of US taxpayers.

I would appeal your honor to put pressure on government of Pakistan to end misuse of blasphemy laws against Christian, Ahamadiyyia and other religious minorities and condition US Aid to Pakistan on human rights and repeal of blasphemy laws.

Meanwhile, in America itself, in Oklahoma, Jimmy Stepney, a Muslim, stabbed Jerome Bullock, a Christian, after Stepney had said that Muslims need to “step up” beheadings. According to Koco5 News:

The [police] report went on to say Stepney had been making comments about beheading people.

“We were watching the news,” said Bullock. “He said he felt like more Muslims need to step up to the plate and do certain thing. He was talking about beheading people.”

The severity of the plight of Christians in the Middle East was further underscored by Dr. Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, who wrote:

Russia is currently considering the possibility of initiating a draft decision of the UN Human Rights Council on the protection of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. Russian experts are now working on this document.[…]

The scale of the problems demands the coordination of international efforts to protect Christians in the Middle East.

Further initiatives, new measures and relevant discussions aimed at finding durable solutions in this regard are strongly needed. Of course, we believe that Europe, including the UK, should make its contribution to these efforts, taking into account the Christian roots of the European civilization, which are now often forgotten for the sake of political correctness.[…]

The fate of the region’s religious minorities is of the greatest concern. The mass exodus of Christians, who have been an integral part of the Middle Eastern mosaic for centuries, is particularly troubling.

The rest of November’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches

Bangladesh: Two Christian pastors from the Faith Bible Church of God were arrested for preaching the Gospel to Muslims . They could face two years in prison if convicted for “hurting religious sentiments” and luring Muslims to convert by offering them money. The pastors deny both charges. Police arrested the pastors and 41 other people, including Muslims, after a throng of Muslims disrupted a house meeting. According to a witness: “More than 100 Muslims headed by local Jamaat-e-Islami party members and Muslim clerics gathered at the house and started barking questions at the pastors—why did they propagate Christianity in the locality and convert some of them,” and who gave them permission to preach to Muslims. “The pastors replied that it did not take any permission from any authority to propagate any religion and convert people to any religion. Suddenly the Muslims became apoplectic with rage, tried to pick a fight and started jabbing the pastors’ faces.”

Egypt: Father Timothy Shakar, priest of St. Mina Church in Port Said, confirmed that two homemade bombs were planted near the St. Mina Church but caused no injuries, or losses of life or property. Police searched other churches in the region for more bombs.

Germany: Nine men who had earlier broken into, vandalized, and robbed several Christian churches in the Cologne area—including by stealing money from the collection boxes and liturgical vessels—were caught during a massive raid. Apparently, all of the arrested are German by nationality, but Muslim by background and heritage. Some were also identified as “Salafis”—especially fundamentalist Muslims—connected to international terrorist organizations. Some had even raised hundreds of thousands of Euros from native Germans to support overseas “charities,” the proceeds of which actually went to terrorist groups such as ISIS.

Iraq: As cries of “Allahu Akbar” emanated from surrounding mosques, Islamic State militants blew up yet another Christian church — St. George’s Church and its associated nunnery in the city of Mosul — along with other non-Sunni sites. Separately, after breaking the cross from off the dome of the St. Ephrem Church dome (before and after pictures here) and selling its pews and other furnishings, the IS transformed the church into a mosque and council seat for the jihadis.

East Jerusalem: Despite constant and ever bolder attacks on a church, police refuse to respond to pleas for help from the Christian congregation. According to Morning Star News, “The attacks, driven by both intent to seize property and opposition to Christianity, have been mounted by young men with ties to Palestinian militants who for more than three months have been trying to force Living Bread Church from its rented building. Church pastor Karen Dunham and others have filed at least eight police reports about the assaults.” The most recent incident took place on November 5, when the gas tank of a car owned by a church volunteer was filled with sugar. On November 2, a car owned by one of the pastor’s relatives was stolen. And on October 16, three American Christians were injured while trying to repair a metal security door: A crowd of Palestinian men attacked them with box cutters, sticks, clubs and pepper spray. According to the church’s attorney, authorities “have their [the assailants’] pictures, they have their names, they even have their national ID numbers, and still they do nothing…. The level of brute force compared to the level of lack of response of the police force there is pretty shocking…. It almost seems like if someone is going to go in and murder her [Dunham], that no one is going to lift a finger.”

Malaysia: Approximately 70 local residents in Petaling Jaya protested the construction of a church. They claimed the growing number of Christian places of worship in the area is part of an attempt to evangelize and convert Muslims to Christianity. An NGO, the local branch of Pertubuhan Sahabat, supported the claims of the Muslims. They argued that there are three churches in the vicinity, although close to 70 percent of the residents in the area are Muslims. According to a spokesman, “Even before the church is built, flyers on Christianity have been distributed to our homes, and this could confuse our children and divert them from the path of Islam.” The vacant plot was previously occupied by squatters, a car park and several food stalls. Another local Muslim added “None of our neighbours are Christians, we can vouch for that… it is an insult to Muslims to allow a church to be built here, but none of our representatives seem to have the time to listen to us.” One demonstrator hurled large rocks at the temporary steel fence around the vacant plot.

Jihadi Slaughter of Christians

Kenya: Members of neighboring Somalia’s Islamic group Al Shabaab—”the Youth”—hijacked a bus carrying 60 passengers in the town of Mandera, near Kenya’s border with Somalia. They singled out and massacred 28 non-Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom were Christian. According to an eyewitness, “When we got down, passengers were separated according to Somali and non-Somalis. The non-Somalis were ordered to read some verses of the holy Koran, and those who failed to read were ordered to lie down. One by one they were shot in the head at point blank range.”

Nigeria: On November 10, a suicide bomb attack on a Christian secondary school as students gathered for morning assembly killed at least 47 people. The Islamic group Boko Haram— meaning: “Western education is forbidden”—is believed to be behind the blast. In a separate incident, Christians from the predominantly Christian city of Mubi in Adamawa state were tortured and killed after Boko Haram took control of the town. Churches and homes were torched throughout the city, which was renamed Madinat al-Islam, or “the City of Islam.” In yet another separate incident, Boko Haram militants raided the mostly Christian town of Shani. According to a resident speaking to Reuters, “They rode on motorcycles and were more than 30 men. They started throwing bombs into houses… then the Boko Haram fired shots at people fleeing. They set ablaze the police station, houses and a telecom mast… I saw people fleeing, some bodies on the ground.” Reuters continues: “The Sunni jihadist movement is fighting to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in Nigeria’s north.”

Pakistani Persecution

A few days after the Christian couple, mentioned earlier, was burned alive, a 35-year-old Christian father of five known as “Mithu” was arrested on false charges by police and tortured to death in prison. According to the deceased’s brother-in-law: “It was a fake allegation, because the raiding party failed to recover any contraband from Mithu’s person and his house… On the morning of Nov. 22, we were informed by Ilyas Gill, a local councilor, that Mithu had died in police custody because of heart failure…. Young Christian men are made scapegoats to show police performance while the real culprits are carrying out their illegal activities right under the police’s nose.” Morning Star News adds: “Area police routinely round up young, impoverished Christians on false charges of drug peddling and bootlegging, and then force their families to pay heavy bribes in return for their release… family elders had seen signs of torture on the body…”

Christian families in a Punjabi village were forced to flee after a Christian man married a Muslim woman—an act forbidden by Islamic law. According to the Pakistani report, “The Muslims in this village became enraged when this occurred and began threatening them…. When the news of the marriage was learned, the Muslims in Sahiwal attacked Shahab’s [the Christian husband’s] family as well as other Christian families in the village. The Muslims demanded that Ruksana [the Muslim wife] be returned immediately, according to Sharia which prohibits Muslim women from marrying a man from another religion…. the entire Muslim community was threatening to kill Shahab’s father and all of the village’s Christians…. The Christians’ pleas for help from the local police were all in vain.”

And Qaiser Ayub, a 40-year-old professor of Christian background, was arrested and charged with insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad. The computer science professor had been a fugitive avoiding the police since 2011, when he was first accused of having written blasphemous comments on his blog.

Dhimmitude: Generic Contempt and Hostility

Denmark: In an apparent replication of the Islamic world’s modus operandi, Muslim refugees in the European nation are persecuting Christian refugees. According to 10news.dk, “Christian asylum seekers are repeatedly exposed to everything from harassment to threats and physical abuse by other refugees in the asylum centers, simply because they have converted from Islam to Christianity.” According to Niels Eriksen Nyman, who led the study, “There are certainly many more cases around the country than the ones we hear about in the church. I hate to say it, but I’m afraid that on some of the asylum centers there are some very unhealthy control mechanisms when the staff turns their back… I refuse to support Islamophobia, but we have a serious problem here.” Two recent examples: “An eight year old Christian at the Center Sandholm was bullied and beaten by the larger Arab boys on their way to school. Now the boy nolonger [sic] dares to go to school. On the island Bornholm, somebody had tampered with a Christian asylum seeker’s bike so that he crashed and broke both hands.”

Egypt: The Islamic State called on its followers to take the jihad to Egypt. Abu Mus’ab al-Maqdisi, a leader in the Islamic State, said in a statement titled “Advice to Egypt’s Mujahidin” that “It is necessary to take the battle to Cairo, until the Sinai is safeguarded from the apostates [reference to Egyptian government] and becomes a rear base [qaeda] from which to expand the jihad.” He also called on the jihadis in Egypt to “target the Copts,” the nation’s indigenous, Christian minority: “For targeting them, following them, and killing them is one of the main ways to serve the cause of our virtuous male and female hostages of the tyrants.”

Iraq: Christian homes in Tel Isqof were looted by Kurds who, after fighting the Islamic State, took control of the area on August 17. According to Agenzia Fides, “The city of Tel Isqof was occupied on August 7 by jihadist militias who already in June had conquered Mosul. Faced with the advancing of jihadists, the civilian population, mainly Christians, had fled to the autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan, leaving the city deserted. Ten days later [on August 17], with a counter-offensive the Kurdish Peshmerga had regained control of the city. But it is precisely since then that [Christian] residents periodically return to the city to check the status of their homes, and acknowledge that the doors of a growing number of homes and businesses have been forced and property looted: money and jewelry, technical equipment and electronic instruments.” As in the Islamic State, most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.

Islamic State: IS issued a document breaking down the purchase prices of Christian and Yazidi women being sold as sex-slaves. Apparently these enslaved unfortunates are priced based on age— the youngest being the most expensive. The breakdown is as follows (with USD equivalency in brackets): 40-50 years old: 50,000 dinars [$43]; 30-40 years old: 75,000 dinars [$64]; 20-30 years old: 100,000 dinars [$86]; 10-20 years old: 150,000 dinars [$129]; 9 years old: 200,000 dinars [$172].

Spain: Real Madrid, a professional football (soccer) team, stripped the traditional Christian cross from its club crest as part of a deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. “It is believed the European champions’ new crest, minus the Christian cross, was created so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where a marketing drive will take place,” wrote the Telegraph. Club president Florentino Perez said, “This agreement will help the club to keep conquering the hearts of followers in the United Arab Emirates.”

Syria: As of November, Raqqa, which once had approximately 1,500 Christian families, had only 23 Christian families remaining in it—the others were driven out or killed by the Islamic State. Those few remaining were unable to leave the city for lack of resources or for reasons of age and health. On November 16 they were told that they must pay $535, an exorbitant sum (human sex-slaves are being sold for as little as $43). “In all likelihood Christian families, impoverished by the war, will not be able to pay the tax and will have to leave their homes” or convert to Islam, as many elderly, debilitated Christians unable to flee have already done.

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Categories: Christians, Executions, Foreign policy, France, Freedom, Heresy, International Community, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Jerusalem, Koran, Kurds, Obama, Terrorism, Torture
Tags: Christians, Executions, Foreign Policy, France, Freedom, Heresy, International Community, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Koran, Kurds, Terrorism, Torture

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Can Charlie Hebdo’s Spirit Include Israel?

January 9, 2015

Can Charlie Hebdo’s Spirit Include Israel? Algemeiner, Noah Beck, January 9, 2015

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Grieving Parisians gathered to mourn the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Photo: Screenshot, Vice News.

[H]ad Palestinian gunmen similarly attacked Israel’s most important daily newspaper and then escaped, would the event inspire such constant coverage or international sympathy? Israel has suffered countless massacres followed by a suspenseful manhunt for the Islamist terrorists; in each of these incidents, the world hardly noticed until Israel forcefully responded and Palestinians died (prompting global condemnation of Israel).

The best response to the Charlie Hebdo attack is to redouble the free expression Islamists meant to stifle. Similarly, the best response to Islamist attacks on the only Mideast democracy, Israel, is to increase support for it.

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The Islamist massacre at Charlie Hebdo has understandably captured global attention because it was a barbaric attack on France and freedom of expression. In a moment of defiant moral clarity, “je suis Charlie” emerged as a popular phrase of solidarity with the victims. Hopefully such clarity persists and extends to those facing similar challenges every day in the Middle East.

Christians and other religious minorities have been beheaded by Islamists for years, but it wasn’t until US journalist James Foley was beheaded that the West cared. The Islamic State raped and slaughtered thousands of Yazidis — leaving the surviving refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar — before the West took notice. But one Islamist besieging a cafe in Sydney, killing two, dominated global coverage for the entire 16-hour incident.

Western leaders and media must realize that religious minorities in the Middle East are the canary in the coalmine for the West when it comes to Islamist threats. And Israel provides the clearest early warning of all, precisely because — despite Israel’s location in a region of Islamists and dictatorships — the Jewish state has free elections, freedom of speech, a vigorous political opposition and independent press, equal rights and protections for minorities and women (who are represented in all parts of civil, legal, political, artistic, and economic life), and a prosperous free market economy.

But had Palestinian gunmen similarly attacked Israel’s most important daily newspaper and then escaped, would the event inspire such constant coverage or international sympathy? Israel has suffered countless massacres followed by a suspenseful manhunt for the Islamist terrorists; in each of these incidents, the world hardly noticed until Israel forcefully responded and Palestinians died (prompting global condemnation of Israel).

However, when there is an attack in Europe, North America, or Australia, there is widespread grief, solidarity, and an acceptance of whatever policy reaction is chosen. But when Israel is targeted, there is almost always a call for “restraint,” as happened last November after fatal stabbings by Palestinian terrorists in Tel Aviv and the West Bank.

If two Palestinians entered a European or North American church and attacked worshipers with meat cleavers, killing five people, including priests, the outrage would be palpable in every politician and journalist’s voice. But when Israelis were victims of such an attack, Obama’s reaction was spineless and tone deaf. Did Obama condemn the Charlie Hebdo massacre by noting how many Muslims have died at the hands of French military forces operating in Africa and the Middle East? Of course not. Such moral equivocation would be unthinkable with any ally or Western country except Israel.

Similarly, would Secretary of State John Kerry ever suggest that the Islamic State is somehow motivated by French policies (whether banning Muslim headscarves at public schools or fighting Islamists in Mali)? Obviously not. Yet Kerry did just that sort of thing with Israel when he suggested that the Islamic State is driven by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And the media’s anti-Israel bias is well known but became even more obvious when they couldn’t get a simple story about vehicular terrorism against Israelis correct. Compare how The Guardian writes accurate headlines when France or Canada suffers an Islamist car attack but not when Israel does.

Consider all of the justifiable news coverage and outrage over the 2013 Boston bombings, and imagine if one of those happened every week. Would anyone dare suggest that the US make peace with any Islamists demanding changes to US policy? And yet Israel had such bomb attacks almost every week of 2002 and was invariably asked to restrain itself and make concessions to the very people bombing them (as happened again last summer, when Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel).

As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has ruefully observed, “There is a standard for dictatorships, there is a standard for democracies, and there is still a third standard for the democracy called Israel.”

Even when compared to Western democracies, what other country gives incredibly forgiving medical care to terrorists and agrees to treat the children of those working to destroy it? Israel is where a Hamas family member finds refuge when he is a gay convert to Christianity but this is yet another inconvenient fact for the mainstream media (as is the fact that some Israeli Arabs supported the IDF’s 2014 war against Hamas). Why report what contradicts the one-sided, anti-Israel narrative that the media and groups like Human Rights Watch have adopted? That narrative is only reinforced on college campuses (leftist college history professors openly supported Hamas last summer). Nevertheless, US funding of anti-Israel groups continues to aggravate the misinformation problem.

Israel is still the country that everyone loves to hate. So it’s the cheap way to please Muslim voters in Europe and oil producers in the Gulf. But what happens to Israel eventually comes to the West, because Israel is an extension of the West. And just as surrendering Czechoslovakia failed to appease the expansionist appetite and murderous rampage of Nazi totalitarianism, so too will feeding Israel to Islamist totalitarianism fail to appease that movement. In the end, there is no set of concessions — short of civilizational surrender — that the Islamists will accept.

Nevertheless, an EU court decided to remove Hamas from the European Union’s terror list, even though Hamas is responsible for scores of terrorist attacks that have murdered hundreds of Israelis, North Americans, and Europeans, and has a charter calling for the destruction of Israel. And Western European countries have voted for Palestinian statehood at the UN and in their parliaments, effectively rewarding Palestinian terrorism and intransigence. Europe supports the Palestinian Authority as if Hamas couldn’t overthrow it in the West Bank as easily as Hamas did in Gaza Strip in 2007. How can Europe not know that Hamas has designs on the West Bank and that any Israeli withdrawal from that territory will only facilitate such a takeover? And how can Europe believe that Israel could ever make peace with Hamas, which has launched three unprovoked wars on Israel in the last five years (in the decade since Israel withdrew from Gaza)?

Moreover, if lofty concerns about self-determination and human rights are the true motivation behind Europe’s vocal support for Palestinian independence (despite its undemocratic and violent record), why is Europe deafeningly quiet on Kurdish statehood? Given that six million Jews were annihilated by a genocide on European soil, Europe’s hypocrisy on Israel should embarrass the continent even more.

Worse still, Europe’s gestures of appeasement only encourage the Islamists. The best response to the Charlie Hebdo attack is to redouble the free expression Islamists meant to stifle. Similarly, the best response to Islamist attacks on the only Mideast democracy, Israel, is to increase support for it.

Categories: Charlie Hedbo, Europe, Foreign policy, Freedom, Gaza, Golan Heights, Hamas, International Community, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Kerry, Kurds, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Obama, Terrorism, West Bank
Tags: Charlie Hedbo, Europe, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Gaza, Golan Heights, Hamas, International Community, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Kurds, Middle East, Moral equivalence

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Je Suis Jihad

January 9, 2015

Je Suis Jihad, Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, Jr., January 9, 2015

It was an act of violence prescribed by shariah to punish what that code deems to be a capital offence: giving offense to Muslims by caricaturing, or even just portraying pictorially, the founder of their faith, Mohammed. Unfortunately, acknowledging this reality is a practice that continues to be eschewed by governments on both sides of the Atlantic and by many in the media – even as they decry the attacks.

Therefore, it would be clarifying if, as those who profess solidarity with the fallen and their commitment to freedom of expression by declaring “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) would also acknowledge the impetus behind the perpetrators: “Je suis jihad.”

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In the aftermath of the murderous attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo, the iconically irreverent French satirical journal, there is a widespread – and welcome – appreciation that the Islamic supremacist perpetrators sought not only to silence cartoonists who had lampooned Mohammed. They wanted to ensure that no one else violates the prohibitions on “blasphemy” imposed by the shariah doctrine that animates them.

In other words, the liquidation of twelve of the magazine’s cartoonists and staff – and a police officer (a Muslim, as it turns out) assigned to protect them after an earlier 2011 firebombing of its offices – was an act of jihad. Not “workplace violence.” Not antisceptic “terrorism” or the even more opaque “violent extremism.”

It was an act of violence prescribed by shariah to punish what that code deems to be a capital offence: giving offense to Muslims by caricaturing, or even just portraying pictorially, the founder of their faith, Mohammed. Unfortunately, acknowledging this reality is a practice that continues to be eschewed by governments on both sides of the Atlantic and by many in the media – even as they decry the attacks.

Therefore, it would be clarifying if, as those who profess solidarity with the fallen and their commitment to freedom of expression by declaring “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) would also acknowledge the impetus behind the perpetrators: “Je suis jihad.”

Such a step could begin a long-overdue correction in both official circles and the Fourth Estate. Both have actually encouraged the jihadists by past failures to acknowledge the reality of jihad and shariah, and by serial accommodations made to their practitioners.

One of the most high-profile and egregious examples of this phenomenon was President Obama’s infamous statement before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2012 – two weeks after he first, and fraudulently, blamed the attack on U.S. missions in Benghazi, Libya on a online video that had offended Muslims: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

This outrageous submission of the constitutional freedom of speech to shariah not only tracked with the sorts of statements one might have heard from global jihadists like al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden, the Taliban’s Mullah Omar or the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was of a piece with an agenda the Obama administration had been pursuing since its inception: finding ways to satisfy the demands of another, less well known, but exceedingly dangerous jihadist group – the supranational Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

As documented in a superb film on the subject entitled Silent Conquest: The End of Freedom of Expression in the West (spoiler alert: I appear in this documentary, as do most of the preeminent international champions of freedom of expression), starting in March 2009, Team Obama began cooperating with the OIC in its efforts to use the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to impose what amounted to shariah blasphemy laws worldwide. This collaboration ultimately gave rise to UNHRC Resolution 16/18 entitled, “Combating Intolerance, Negative Stereotyping and Stigmatization of, and Discrimination, Incitement to violence, and Violence against Persons based on Religion or Belief,” which was adopted with U.S. support in March 2011. Despite its pretense of protecting persons of any religion or belief, the motivation behind and purpose of Res. 16/18 was to give Islamic supremacists a new, international legal basis for trying to impose restrictions on expression they would find offensive.

Resolution 16/18 is, in other words, a form of what the Muslim Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad” – a stealthy, subversive means of accomplishing the same goals as the violent jihadists worldwide: the West’s submission, and that of the rest of the world, to shariah and a caliph to rule according to it.

It fell to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to try to accommodate the Islamic supremacists’ demands. She launched something called the “Istanbul Process” which brought the United States, the European Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation together to find ways of giving force to Res. 16/18. On July 15, 2011, after paying lip service to the fact that, “for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy,” Mrs. Clinton announced:

We are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing anti-discrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.

The Charlie Hebdo attack is a particularly vivid reminder of what comes of such appeasement and how it encourages jihadists – pursuant to their shariah ideology – to redouble their efforts, not just through stealth but through violence, to achieve our absolute submission. If are to have any hope of preventing more such incidents in the future, let alone far worse at the hands of shariah’s adherents, we must acknowledge the true nature of these enemies and adopt a comprehensive and effective counter-ideological strategy for defeating them.

Categories: Blasphemy, Diversity, Europe, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton, Human rights, International Community, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Moral equivalence, Obama, Peace process, Terrorism, United Nations
Tags: Blasphemy, Charlie Hebdo, DIversity, Europe, Foreign Policy, human rights, International Community, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Moral equivalence, Peace Process, Terrorism, United Nations

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Here’s an Idea: Million Muslim Man Marches Around the World

January 9, 2015

Here’s an Idea: Million Muslim Man Marches Around the World, Bernard Goldberg dot Com, January 9, 2015

(Obama continues to tell us, ad nauseam, that Islam is the religion of peace. He should lead some of the ~~one million man~~ small processions, hand in hand with Iranian President Rouhani and no security guards present. Then, surely, Islamic terrorists will ~~lay down~~ swallow their weapons and peace will reign. Right?

— DM)

Not-Afraid

Here’s another idea: Million Man Muslim Marches in every major capital city around the world to denounce Islamic terrorism, a show of solidarity to tell the jihadists that good, law abiding Muslims hate what the extremists are doing in the name of Islam.

Of course none of this will happen. Moderate Muslims may tweet, but if history is any guide that’s as brave as most of them will ever get.

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In a column about the massacre in Paris, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wanted us to understand that while there is indeed a “strain of Islamic intolerance and extremism” that has caused too much violence in the world, most Muslims are good people who detest what happened in Paris the other day as much as you and I do.

“Terror incidents lead many Westerners to perceive Islam as inherently extremist,” he wrote, “but I think that is too glib and simple-minded. Small numbers of terrorists make headlines, but they aren’t representative of a complex and diverse religion of 1.6 billion adherents. My Twitter feed Wednesday brimmed with Muslims denouncing the attack — and noting that fanatical Muslims damage the image of Muhammad far more than the most vituperative cartoonist.”

That’s the age we live in. Tweets – 140 characters or less – is how people express outrage. Remember when Michelle Obama held up her little sign that read “# Bring Back Our Girls” after a Muslim terrorist group in Nigeria kidnapped 300 schoolgirls? # or no # … the girls are still missing. Terrorists aren’t afraid of tweets and hash tags.

Here’s another idea: Million Man Muslim Marches in every major capital city around the world to denounce Islamic terrorism, a show of solidarity to tell the jihadists that good, law abiding Muslims hate what the extremists are doing in the name of Islam.

Muslims should march in Paris and London and Madrid and Rome and Washington and Cairo and Riyadh and Beirut and every other capital of every other Muslim country.

They should make speeches that condemn the violence. They should say that the jihadists are backward people who must be shunned. They should make clear that they not only condemn Islamic terrorism, they will give the terrorists no comfort by even understanding it.

Imams should look out at the crowds and say that those who kill in the name of Allah will not be greeted by virgins in Paradise. They should say they will be greeted by fire in Hell.

Of course none of this will happen. Moderate Muslims may tweet, but if history is any guide that’s as brave as most of them will ever get.

Most, but not all. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi recently told an audience of religious scholars that they must lead a “revolution” to transform Islam. “You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world—I say it again, the entire world—is waiting for your next move because this umma (a word that can refer either to the Egyptian nation or the entire Muslim world) is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

A sliver of sunshine in what too often is a very dark Arab world.

Categories: Blasphemy, Diversity, Foreign policy, Hamas, Human rights, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Moral equivalence, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Sisi
Tags: Blasphemy, DIversity, Foreign Policy, Hamas, human rights, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic terrorism, Moral equivalence, Palestinian Authority, religion of peace, Sisi

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