One lesson of the Trump phenomenon is that it has revealed that conservatives have been way too timid or conciliatory in confronting the Left—that the latitude for effectively confronting political correctness is much greater than we thought.
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That’s the open-ended title of the panel I spoke on last weekend at the West Coast Retreat of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (and special thanks to all of the Power Line readers in the audience who introduced themselves). Where do you go with such a wide-ranging title? I spoke from a few short notes that I scratched out the night before (which I have now lost), but I think it went pretty much something like this:
I’m not going to talk about the election, partly because so much of what I have said up to this point, especially about Trump’s prospects, have turned out to be wrong. Instead I think this panel’s title—Where Are We Now?—begs for taking a step back and looking at some longer term factors that overshadow the election, no matter who wins.
Lately I’ve been thinking of two sayings by foreigners—one probably familiar to most everyone, and one likely not. The first is Bismarck’s famous quip that “God looks after drunks, fools, and the United States of America.” I’m hoping this is still true. To the extent that accident and chance play a huge role in determining political life (the teaching of the classics), I think we’d have to say that America has been pretty lucky though most of its history. Thank God it was Harry Truman, and not Henry Wallace, who was vice president in April 1945 when FDR died; Truman was far from perfect, but he was right on a lot of important questions at that important moment.
The second saying comes from my late Hungarian-born friend Peter Schramm. Peter grew up under Communism, and when the Soviet tanks rolled through the country in 1956, his father said—“That’s it: we’re going to America.” “Why are we going to America, dad?” “Because, son, we were born American, just in the wrong place.” That was back at a time when people around the world understood clearly what America meant. I’m not so sure it is as clear to the world any more just what America means, or what it stands for, let alone whether it can be counted upon to defend the West.
Anyway, Peter told me that a favorite Hungarian saying is, “Things are serious—but not yet bad!” Now, I’m starting to think that things are bad. It is likely possible to recover from eight years of Obama with the right leadership, but if Obama is succeeded by Clinton or Sanders—or by a clueless Republican—the damage might be so long-lasting as to be near-irreversible.
A few observations:
First, events of just the last 10 days should remind us once again that our politics have become all out war—a fact that conservatives, and their weak vessel, the Republican Party, do not like to recognize. Conservatives like order and moderation (in the Aristotelian sense), and recoil from the idea of political warfare, because when things reach that stage, it means things are out of hand. But avoiding the unpleasantness of political life—and avoiding confronting it directly—will not make it go away, but instead guarantee that it will grow worse.
One lesson of the Trump phenomenon is that it has revealed that conservatives have been way too timid or conciliatory in confronting the Left—that the latitude for effectively confronting political correctness is much greater than we thought. It ought to be a matter of supreme embarrassment and shame that the most forceful and cogent response to the irresponsible demagoguery of Black Lives Matter has come from Bill Clinton. Never mind that he walked it back yesterday—that’s his problem. Our problem is no public figure on our side has spoken out as forcefully and as plainly as Clinton did.
In this regard, if we can’t win the Bathroom Wars, we might as well load up the lifeboats right now and become the refugees from our own country that the Left longs for us to be. And the most outrageous part of the recent controversy over bathrooms in North Carolina is the role played by big business, which is the most potent force in coercing states like North Carolina to back down from a common sense understanding of human nature. Why have big corporations become adjuncts to leftist identity politics? I suspect a study of corporate HR departments will find they are a hotbed of graduates with degrees in gender and ethnic studies, etc.
About Congress, I will just say that for those who have been critical of Republican leadership over the last few years, the problem is deeper and worse than you think. This is a long subject, having to do with the way in which the Democratic Party deliberately sought over decades to degrade the constitutional role of Congress in ways that many Republican members of Congress do not understand or perceive clearly enough. And it is going to take more than just a Republican president to fix this problem, though I think Ted Cruz understands this issue more profoundly than most of the rest of the GOP presidential field. But this is a very long subject, worthy of a separate complete panel all by itself.
Likewise, our response to the latest outbreak of radicalism on campuses is weak. The new mob of the campus Left says: racism, homophobia, sexism, oppression, and patriarchy. To which we have responded—free speech and academic freedom! This response is wholly inadequate. It concedes the premise of the Left: are we really for free speech on behalf of racism? Of course not, but we need to take the next step and throw back in their faces that their narratives of oppression are completely wrong, contemptible, and not to be taken seriously. That and a few expulsions (and more firings of many more professors like Melissa Click) might do the trick.
In summary, the central point of my remarks is to vindicate what I’m going to call the Horowitz Heuristic, or “David’s Desideratum.” For as long as I have known David, he has been saying that conservatives, and their defective organizational vehicle—the Republican Party—have not been vigorous enough in recognizing that the Left is conducting political warfare, and that it can only be beaten back by engaging in political warfare in return. Maybe a few more people are starting to figure out what David has understood all along. Is it too late? As Lincoln said about a real shooting war, “Wars are not won by blowing rosewater through cornstalks.”
(The views expressed in the body of this article are not necessarily mine, those of Warsclerotic or it’s other editors. — DM)
Inspired by the profound wisdom of Nancy Pelosi
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus stated this week that Navy ships no longer need be named after dead old White geezers with medals of honor or politicians who have helped the Navy. Naming them after politicians favored by our dear leader Obama is now Navy policy.
Sharpton may never have won a medal of honor, served in the U.S. Military or helped the Navy. However, he is a fighter for social justice and has destroyed lots of racist stuff. Once the Navy names a destroyer in his honor, he will have much more work to do. Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Min! White Power Gotta GO! Soon, under President Hillary Clinton, Admiral Sharpton will have an entire task force of destroyers with which to fight environmental and other racism.
Navy Secretary Mabus is breaking new ground, and it’s high time somebody did. He recently stated that
an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer will be named the USS Carl M. Levin. The Michigan Democrat served 31 years in the Senate and chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2007 to 2015.
One congressional staffer noted that Mr. Levin presided over the committee during the Obama administration’s major drawdown of troops and weapons systems. Joint Chiefs of Staff officers testified in recent months that they doubt they can fight one major war on the schedule outlined in the National Military Strategy.
Gutting the racist and Islamophobic U.S. military is good! Devout members of “our” military love killing peaceful Muslims and other people of color at least as much as they enjoy breaking things. As our dear leader Obama has often emphasized, we must negotiate with poor and underprivileged people who try to kill us. We must help them to see how wonderful they already are and how we can help them to become happier and even more wonderful. Use of “our” military only makes them hate us and so is completely out of bounds.
Naming a destroyer after the Reverend Sharpton will promote social justice and put racists in their proper place — under his heel. He is good at destroying America’s racist culture and that includes preventing racist white people from appropriating America’s vast and beautiful Black culture. Here’s a stupid video by a vile White racist pig, Bill Whittle.
Whites have never developed any culture of their own beyond that of enslaving Black people. Despite their White privilege, they have no legal right to appropriate the rich and vibrant culture of Blacks, whom they despise and continue to enslave.
Navy Secretary Mabus is also aligned with own dear leader Obama in recognizing the need to prevent global warmingglobal coolingClimate Change. Children and other adherents to the Religion of Peace won’t harm us; Climate Change will kill us.
The Navy will become the first branch of the military to require big vendors to report their greenhouse gas emissions and to outline what they are doing to lower them in response to global warming.
“We’ve got skin in this game,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told a technology conference on government and climate change on Tuesday, noting that the Navy’s fleet is the military’s largest user of fossil fuels.
. . . .
The U.S. military in recent years has called climate change a serious threat to national security. The Pentagon has said climate change is exacerbating everything from droughts to the rise of Islamic terror. [Emphasis added.]
The pentagon appears to have misspoken: there is no such thing as Islamic terror, because Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance. Perhaps the pentagon meant the terror we inflict on innocent Muslims.
The administration routinely repeats that position when discussing the challenge of global warming as the top threat the world faces. GOP presidential candidates often cite the stance to criticize President Obama’s policy priorities. [Emphasis added.]
Hillary Clinton is the only presidential candidate totally opposed to environmental racism. On April 13th, She promised Al Sharpton “a task force” to fight it.
[A]ir pollution from power plants, factories, and refineries contribute to disproportionately high rates of asthma for African-American children. Nearly half of all Latino children live in U.S. counties where smog levels exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s health standards, the campaign says.
Minority communities will also be disproportionately affected by climate change.
“And the impacts of climate change, from more severe storms to longer heat waves to rising sea levels, will disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities, which suffer the worst losses during extreme weather and have the fewest resources to prepare,” the campaign memo states.
. . . .
If elected president, Clinton says she will establish an Environmental and Climate Justice Task Force on her first day in office. [Emphasis added.]
By giving Admiral Sharpton a massive task force, President Clinton will make him Her principal destroyer of environmental racism. As Queen Hillary’s Monarch of the Sea, Admiral Sharpton will rule the waves as well as did Queen Victoria’s own sea ruler!
Three cheers for our own dear leader Obama, His great Secretary of the Navy, our soon-to-be glorious Monarch of the Sea and our loving next president, Hillary Clinton!
The little children knew years ago and now, after almost eight years under Obama, we must all celebrate their profound wisdom, clarity of thought and maturity by giving dear leader Obama at least another eight years by electing Hillary as our beloved Queen! Long may She reign!
A growing number of Islamist radicals are infiltrating Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, with an estimated 30 former soldiers later joining international terrorist organizations, reports German press agency DPA International.
Germany’s military counterintelligence service (MAD) says 65 active soldiers are under investigation for suspected Islamist tendencies. Since 2007, 22 soldiers designated as Islamists have been discharged or left the military. Moreover, 29 former soldiers have left for Syria and Iraq to join Islamist terrorist organizations.
“We perceive a risk that the Bundeswehr may be used as a training ground for potentially violent Islamists,” says MAD leader Christof Gramm.
German intelligence believes that the Islamic State is actively recruiting operatives with a military background. Moreover, Germany’s Ministry of Defense expressed concern that no background checks are required for soldiers in unclassified positions.
“Like all armies, the Bundeswehr can be attractive to Islamists seeking weapons training…,” Hans-Peter Bartels, the parliamentary commissioner for the military, told the DPA. Bartels added that Islamists in the German army pose “a real danger that needs to be taken seriously.”
Following the January 2015 Paris attacks targeting the Charlie Hebdo satirical publication, Gramm became increasingly concerned since the terrorists appeared to have professional military training.
“It would be negligent of a MAD president not to ask what would happen if a Bundeswehr-trained Islamist did something like this, and we had failed to notice anything,” Gramm said.
In one case, a German convert to Islam, called Sascha B for anonymity, gradually began exhibiting signs of increased religiosity and extremism. He began growing his beard, wearing Middle Eastern attire, and even going AWOL at times.
Sascha B eventually refused to train reservists after soldiers in his unit were deployed to Afghanistan. He justified his position by arguing that weapons could be used against other Muslims. During interrogation by MAD officials, Sascha B proclaimed that sharia law should override Germany’s constitution.
Several prominent examples of Islamist infiltration within the U.S. military also have caused immense concern.
A Muslim army soldier killed two comrades and injured 14 others after throwing a live grenade in a tent in Kuwait prior to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In 2009, U.S. Army major and psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hassan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood because he believed that no Muslim could faithfully serve in the U.S. military.
Hassan exhibited signs of increased radicalism for a significant period of time prior to the terrorist attack. “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” Hasan said during a 2007 presentation at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Three years later, Army Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo was arrested for planning an attack on a popular restaurant frequented by Fort Hood troops. He plotted to set off an explosives device in the restaurant, then shoot and kill as many survivors as possible.
When his mother asked her son why he would commit the terrorist attack, Abdo replied: “The reason is religion, Mom.”
Islamic terrorists and droves of illegal immigrants—mainly youths—have slipped into the United States through Mexico recently, but the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) insists the “the border is more secure now than it has been in many, many years.” This delusional assessment brings to mind when President Obama’s first DHS secretary, Janet Napolitano, repeatedly proclaimed the border is as secure as it’s ever been amid escalating drug-cartel violence that spilled into the U.S. and a crisis of narcotics and human smuggling in the region.
Though the situation has only worsened, the administration continues to repeat the same lies even though a number of reports have confirmed that Islamic terrorists have entered the U.S. through the famously porous southern border and tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) keep crossing in without ever encountering federal agents before touching American soil. If anything the southern border has become a national security threat of epic proportions, illustrated by Judicial Watch’s reporting in the last few years. More on that after touching on the latest DHS distortion delivered a few days ago at a global travel and tourism summit in Dallas, Texas. Keep in mind that the event is a forum for business leaders in the travel and tourism industry and the goal is promoting travel. In fact, the forum’s motto was “travel beyond boundaries.”
Attending the event was Obama’s deputy secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. In a local newspaper report Mayorkas defended government efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration, which is laughable considering a record number of illegal aliens have entered the U.S. in the last year. Then he said the United States is a “welcoming, embracing nation that does not operate in isolation.” This appeared to be an effort to justify the tens of thousands of illegal aliens that have crossed into the U.S. lately through Mexico, a huge chunk of them entering through Texas where the forum was held. Then came the kicker, that “the border is more secure not [Sic] than it has been in many, many years.” It was not clear in the news article if Mayorkas delivered the line with a straight face, but he proceeded to pile it on by adding that apprehensions have dropped significantly and that the U.S. works “very closely with our partners [in Mexico] to address illegal migration.” One last comment before we delve into the deputy secretary’s background. He said that the Obama administration has a “wonderful partnership with leaders in the Mexican government that are focused on security.”
Mayorkas initially served as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for the Obama administration and came under fire for reportedly abusing his power to obtain visas for shady Chinese investors in a company run by Hillary Clinton’s brother. The scandal broke after Obama picked him to be second-in-command at DHS and the media obtained documents confirming that Mayorkas was named by the DHS Inspector General’s Office as a target in a probe involving the foreign investor program, known as EB-5, run by USCIS. One of the visas sought by Hillary’s brother (Anthony Rodham) was for the vice president of a Chinese telecommunications firm that’s been investigated by Congress for its ties to China’s intelligence agencies. Nevertheless, Mayorkas got his promotion even though he has a few other skeletons in his closet.
As Bill Clinton’s U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Mayorkas resigned in shame after orchestrating the pardon of a major league drug trafficker. Mayorkas was largely responsible for freeing the drug dealer serving a 15-year prison sentence for operating sophisticated cocaine rings that stretched from California to Minnesota. The convicted drug dealer, Carlos Vignali, is the son of a wealthy political donor (Horacio Vignali) who convinced influential community leaders—mostly recipients of his generous contributions—to advocate for his son’s pardon. Mayorkas’ intervention was the most crucial and by far carried the most weight, Clinton officials later revealed. It also outraged federal prosecutors in Minneapolis, where Vignali was convicted for trying to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. After receiving numerous inquiries from Mayorkas about the case, the Minneapolis federal prosecutors wrote the Justice Department strongly opposing Vignali’s commutation but they were ignored.
This is relevant because it illustrates that Mayorkas is hardly a credible source. His recent assurances on Mexican border safety are insulting. In the last two years Judicial Watch has published a number of reports that prove the southern border is a dangerous region that has created a monstrous national security threat. In 2014 Homeland Security sources confirmed to JW that four Islamic terrorists were apprehended in 36 hours in McAllen and Pharr, Texas. Last summer, as an ongoing series on the porous southern border, JW reported that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling terrorists into the U.S. through a small Texas rural town near El Paso. The information came from sources on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border. Also last year JW reported that five young Middle Eastern men were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in an Arizona town situated about 30 miles from the border. Two of the men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, according to JW’s law enforcement sources. JW also broke a story about a sophisticated narco-terror ring with connections running from El Paso to Chicago to New York City.
Earlier this year JW obtained State Department documents that show the U.S. government has known for more than a decade that “Arab extremists” are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells.” Among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI, according to the records that also reveal some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States.
(Perhaps in retirement Obama could provide a course on the evils of western civilization that the gentle snowflakes of Stanford would find acceptable. — DM)
An effort by a group of Stanford University students to restore a Western civilization class requirement has been decisively rejected by the student body, with voting results released Monday showing it mustering less than 15 percent support.
The ballot initiative was promoted by members of the school’s conservative-leaning Stanford Review. If passed, it would have called for Stanford to require that all freshmen complete a two-quarter course covering “the politics, history, philosophy, and culture of the Western world.” Stanford once possessed a similar requirement, but eliminated it after a student campaign in the 1980s that denounced it as fostering racism, sexism, and other perfidious -isms.
Supporters managed to collect 370 signatures on their petition, enough to include it as a ballot measure for Stanford’s spring student government election.
But it turns out Stanford has no enthusiasm for requiring the study of Western civilization. In election results released Monday, the proposal failed by an overwhelming margin, with 342 votes in favor and a whopping 1992 votes against.
In contrast, over 90 percent of students voted in favor of an initiative requiring the school to administer a new campus climate survey designed to find the rate of sexual assault on campus. The school already administered such a survey in 2015, but it outraged activists by finding a sexual assault rate of just 1.9%, which they deemed far too low.
The mere suggestion that Stanford require studying Western civilization had generated immense outrage among certain Stanford communities. A low-income advocacy group at the school suspended a member based on the suspicion that he wrote an anonymous piece supporting the proposal. A hostile column in The Stanford Daily warned that accepting the proposal would mean centering Stanford education on “upholding white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism, and all other oppressive systems that flow from Western civilizations.”
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Is a meaningful reformation of Islam possible? Probably not soon, but there have been indications that it may eventually come.
The first video in this article features an attractive Saudi television hostess opining that Islam has everything to do with terrorism and that adherents to the “religion of peace” should be ashamed.
Please note the absence of traditional Muslim female garb — on a Saudi television program.
Saudi journalist and TV host Nadine Al-Budair recently criticized the “hypocrites” who say that the terrorists “do not represent Islam or the Muslims.” After the abominable Brussels bombings, “it’s time for us to feel shame and to stop acting as if the terrorists are a rarity,” she said, in an address that aired on the Saudi Rotana Khalijiyah TV on April 3. “Why do we shed our own conscience?” she asked. “Don’t these perpetrators emerge from our environment?” [Emphasis added.]
In 2014, Reporters Without Borders describes the government as “relentless in its censorship of the Saudi media and the Internet”,[1] and ranked Saudi Arabia 164th out of 180 countries for freedom of the press.[2]
Might recognition of the Islam-terrorism nexus be a step toward the moderation of Islam?Apparently, the censors let Ms. Al-Budair message get through. Why?
asks how Muslims would react if western youths acting in the name of Christ blew themselves up in their midst. She also slams Muslim attempts to absolve themselves of guilt by saying that terrorists do not represent Islam, calling such disclaimers “pathetic.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Taking the largest acts of terror from the last couple of decades, Al-Budair . . . wonders what would have happened if they had been perpetrated in the Arab world. Citing terrorist groups like the Islamic states desire to impose 7th century Sharia law, Al-Budair writes,
Imagine a Western youth coming here and carrying out a suicide mission in one of our public squares in the name of the Cross. Imagine that two skyscrapers had collapsed in some Arab capital, and that an extremist Christian group, donning millennium-old garb, had emerged to take responsibility for the event, while stressing its determination to revive Christian teachings or some Christian rulings, according to its understanding, to live like in the time [of Jesus] and his disciples, and to implement certain edicts of Christian scholars.
She asks readers to imagine a world in which Christians call Muslims “infidels” and pray that God will eliminate them all. She continues by conjuring an Arab world that grants foreigners visas, citizenship, jobs, free education, and healthcare, and then asks what would happen if one of those foreigners killed Arabs indiscriminately.
Self-criticism in Arab world
Ms. Al-Budair is not the only Muslim in an Islamic nation calling for recognization of the Islam-terrorism nexus and arguing that change is necessary.
In an article titled “We Have Failed Indeed,” the editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat, Ghassan Charbel, attacked the Arabs and Muslims for sowing destruction and fear in the very same European countries that had agreed to take them in after they had fled their failed countries. Charbel argued that the Arabs and Muslims had not managed to build states and citizens that could integrate into the modern world, and that they must recognize their failure and start from scratch. He wrote: “Are we [the Arabs and Muslims] simply part of this world, or are we perhaps an explosive charge implanted in [this world’s] entrails? Are we a normal neighborhood in the global village, or are we maybe a neighborhood of suicide bombers in [that village]? Are these massacres that move [from place to place] aimed at annexing the Arab and Muslim communities in the West to the lexicon of slaughter and suicide? Are we part of the world’s present and future, or are we a dark tempest that seeks to send [the world] back to the caves that it abandoned when it chose the path of progress and human dignity? [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“This is the truth that can no longer be concealed or condoned. We have failed at building a normal state – a state that lives within its borders. a state of institutions that strives its utmost to obtain progress and development and provide its citizens with work opportunities and involvement, a state that cooperates with its neighbors and the world without being panic-stricken or fettered by spite. We have also failed to build a normal citizen, [one] who belongs to the current stage of development in a rapidly developing world. [Emphasis added.]
Another:
Tareq Masarwa, a writer for the official Jordanian daily Al-Rai, criticized how some Arabs are attempting to justify terrorist attacks by claiming that European countries are racist and marginalize Muslims. He wrote: “… [According to] some analyses [of the Brussels attacks,] the terrorists grew up in the outskirts of European cities and were angry at being marginalized! We hear these same excuses here. However, other analyses responded [to these claims] with a wise comparison: They [the Muslim terrorists in Europe] chose terrorism. Otherwise, why aren’t there millions of [South] American terrorists in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, since they too are poor and grew up in the outskirts of big cities?! According to another analysis, Europe does not give immigrants from North Africa, and specifically from Africa itself, the same opportunities that it gives European immigrants. This constitutes a justification of terrorism, since Europe gives the immigrant the opportunity for a free education, and thousands of Jordanians have attended French and German universities for free… and had an easy time becoming citizens of those countries… How are France, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium expected to promote immigrants who are illiterate? And under what social conditions can a 10-person Arab or African family [hope to] exist?! [Emphasis added.]
“It is shameful that we demand that the world treat us justly as we drive away our sons by killing them, imprisoning them, or failing to provide them with proper education, healthcare, and employment, and with a dignified life. The sight of people flocking to Europe’s borders, including Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans, and Iranians, is heartbreaking, especially when they are carrying their children or pushing them in front of them – but all we do is curse the Europeans as racists who hate Muslims and foreigners, and consider it our right to murder them in their airports, trains, and theaters. [Emphasis added.]
“Did the Europeans take over our countries? Yes. But they left over 50 years ago, and we now call on them to bring down our tyrants, and accuse them of dragging their feet [on this issue].
“Terrorism is a crime, and justifying it is an even worse crime. What is happening in the cities of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia is terrorism, and we are responsible for its formation,its arming, and its funding. It is pointless to justify the murder of Europeans and Americans out of a desire to justify our own crimes.”[3] [Emphasis added.]
Another:
Kuwaiti writer and author Khalil ‘Ali Haidar wrote in the Bahraini daily Al-Ayyam that the Muslims are not doing enough against terrorism and are shirking their responsibility for it. He wrote: “What are we doing here in our countries, or in Western countries in Europe and America, while these terrible blows of terrorism land on us and them, one after the other? … In fact, we do not know how to act against these terrorists. Is it sufficient that following each of these terrorist actions, which take place in merciless rapid succession and are all perpetrated by young Muslims… that we say ‘they aren’t Muslims’ and ‘they do not represent true Islam’ and are misguided khawarij[4] and apostates? And will the world be satisfied with [such statements]?
“Is it normal that while terrorism succeeds in recruiting hundreds and even thousands of Muslims, we are satisfied to persuade ourselves that their numbers ‘are still negligible’ compared to the global Muslim population? Must the number of terrorists swell to tens or hundreds of thousands before we realize that a thunderous pounding torrent [is headed] towards us, and that this means that we must stop, convene, and give intellectuals the freedom to examine the reasons [for this] and the freedom to publish the results of their studies? [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“The religious culture of the Islamic world during this era is afflicted with innumerable ills. We turn the world upside down over various matters, such as an article that offends us, or issues regarding the niqab, Halal meat, Christians using the word Allah – which Muslims in Malaysia, for instance, claim as their exclusive right. [Furthermore,] many leaders of Pakistani and other immigrant [groups] expend all their efforts in the sectarian campaign against the Ahmadi movement, to the point where they have no time to examine this terrorist urge among their young people, including among the educated, engineers and [other] experts. [Emphasis added.]
“Unfortunately, the Muslims do not yet unanimously condemn ISIS. Some Muslims praise them [ISIS members], think the media wrongs them, and join them at the first opportunity, and even carry out the first suicide mission they are offered anywhere in the world!
“One reason for the immaturity of Muslim young people in Britain, France, and the U.S. is that the leadership of the religious institutions, and all religious activity, still remain in the hands of Arab, Pakistani and other activists and leaders who have fled to the West [and continue to] support political Islam parties. These leaders may not [themselves] carry out terrorist attacks, but they also do not truly take a stand against the terrorist religious culture. Moreover, most of their writings, ideas, and strategic positions regarding an Islamic system and the caliphate state share [this religious culture]. [Emphasis added.]
“We say that ‘terrorism has no religion and no homeland.’ But we must confront the fact that most terrorist attacks in the Arab and Muslim world itself are not carried out by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Ahmadis, or Baha’is – but by Muslims and the sons and daughters of Muslims. Some are not satisfied with carrying out their crimes in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, but carry them out in Western countries. And even if they believe that terrorism in Europe and the U.S. is justified because of [these countries’] ‘colonialist past’ and ‘hostile positions’ against the Arabs and Muslims – of what crimes are the Egyptians, Iraqis, Afghans, and Nigerians guilty? Do those countries also have shameful colonialist pasts?”[5] [Emphasis added.]
Islam in Obama’s America
There are also Muslim and former Muslim critics of Islam and its unfortunate teachings in Obama’s America, but their voices tend to be drowned out by Obama’s CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood-linked friends. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, is perhaps the best known.
I have written extensively about her and her quest for an Islamic reformation, most recently here. Here is one of the Honor Diaries videos of which she is the executive producer. It deals with the Islamic concept of Honor and how it constrains women.
Here, in contrast, is an “Islam is good the way it is” reaction.
Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Azeezah Kanji — the featured speaker in the above video — has been very active in disparaging Honor Diaries. Like CAIR, she has ties to the Obama White House and was named a “Champion of Change” by the White House in 2011. What changes in Islam does Ms. Kanji champion? None, apparently, of those intrinsic to it.
And here is a video about the White House reaction to the “folks” in the video embedded immediately above.
When Barack Obama visited the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday, he said: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Muslim Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.”
While Obama has been President, Muslims have murdered non-Muslims, avowedly in the cause of Islam, at Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino, and attempted to do so in many, many other places. Imagine if armed Baptists screaming “Jesus is Lord” had committed murder, and explained that they were doing so in order to advance Christianity, in four American cities, and had attempted to do so in many others. Imagine that those killers were supporters of a global Christian movement that had repeatedly called for attacks on U.S. civilians and declared its determination to destroy the United States.
Imagine how incongruous it would be in that case for the President of the United States to visit a church and say: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Christian Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.” And imagine how unlikely it would be that Barack Obama would ever have done that. [Emphasis added.]
But his visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore . . . he signaled yet again to the world (and worldwide jihadis) that in the U.S., Muslims are victims, victims of unwarranted concern over jihad terror, and thus that concern is likely to lessen even more, as Obama dismantles still more of our counter-terror apparatus. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“If we’re serious about freedom of religion — and I’m talking to my fellow Christians who are the majority in this country — we have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all faiths.”
Once again Obama felt free to scold and admonish Christians, but said nothing about Muslims in the U.S. needing to clean house and work for real reform that would mitigate jihad terror. And his premise was false: there is no attempt to restrict Muslims’ freedom of religion. Donald Trump hasn’t called for that; nor has Ben Carson or any serious analyst. But the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (a representative of which accompanied Obama to the mosque Wednesday) and other Islamic advocacy groups have consistently charged that counter-terror efforts and attempts to restrict the political, supremacist and authoritarian aspects of Sharia that are at variance with Constitutional principles were tantamount to restricting Muslims’ religious freedom. [Emphasis added.]
Now the President of the United States has endorsed their false narrative, which will only further stigmatize initiatives to understand the jihadis’ ideology and counter it effectively.He further criticized those who dare to suggest that Islam might have something to do with Islamic terrorism by criticizing those who say that the U.S. is at war with Islam: “That kind of mind-set helps our enemies,” he intoned. “It helps our enemies recruit. It makes us all less safe.” [Emphasis added.]
In Heretic, Hirsi Ali stated that there is a unique role for the West in the reformation of Islam.
Whenever I make the case for reform in the Muslim world, someone invariably says: “That is not our project— it is for Muslims only. We should stay out of it.” But I am not talking about the kind of military intervention that has got the West into so much trouble over the years. For years, we have spent trillions on waging wars against “terror” and “extremism” that would have been much better spent protecting Muslim dissidents and giving them the necessary platforms and resources to counter that vast network of Islamic centers, madrassas, and mosques which has been largely responsible for spreading the most noxious forms of Islamic fundamentalism. For years, we have treated the people financing that vast network— the Saudis, the Qataris, and the now repentant Emiratis— as our allies. In the midst of all our efforts at policing, surveillance, and even military action, we in the West have not bothered to develop an effective counternarrative because from the outset we have denied that Islamic extremism is in any way related to Islam. We persist in focusing on the violence and not on the ideas that give rise to it. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Why the Tide Is Turning
Three factors are combining today to enable real religious reform:
• The impact of new information technology in creating an unprecedented communication network across the Muslim world.
• The fundamental inability of Islamists to deliver when they come to power and the impact of Western norms on Muslim immigrants are creating a new and growing constituency for a Muslim Reformation.
• The emergence of a political constituency for religious reform emerging in key Middle Eastern states.
Together, I believe these three things will ultimately turn the tide against the Islamists, whose goal is, after all, a return to the time of the Prophet— a venture as foredoomed to failure as all attempts to reverse the direction of time’s arrow.
. . . .
In November 2014, an Egyptian doctor coined an Arabic hashtag that translates as “why we reject implementing sharia”; it was used five thousand times in the space of twenty-four hours, mostly by Saudis and Egyptians. In language that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, a young Moroccan named Brother Rachid last year called out President Obama on YouTube for claiming that Islamic State was “not Islamic.”[Emphasis added.]
Here is the referenced video:
Finally, here’s a video of a Hirsi Ali interview shortly after the San Bernardino attack.
Among other key teaching points she elaborated upon in the video is the Islamist concept “don’t ask questions. Don’t ask why Mohamed wants us to do or to refrain from doing certain things. To question is evil. Just obey.” Only when she went to the Netherlands did she encounter the concept of critical thinking. What can we, in the United States, do to promote critical thinking among Muslims? We are doing little, if anything, now. Indeed, Obama’s America discourages it by affiliating with CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood related groups.
Meanwhile, the Islamic University of Minnesota is among the American “academic” institutions promoting age-old, “radical” Islam.
It is run by a man who used a recent sermon to invoke a Hadith commonly espoused by Muslim terrorists to kill Jews for causing “corruption in the land.” Waleed Idris al-Meneesey also has written that Muslims should place sharia law above “man-made” law.
. . . .
“The Prophet related that in the Last Days his Umma [people] would fight the Jews, the Muslims East of the Jordan River, and they [the Jews] west of [the Jordan River] … Even trees and stones will say: O Muslim, this is a Jew behind me, kill him, except for Gharqad trees, the trees of the Jews. Because of this they plant many of them…” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Al-Meneesy, the IUM’s president and chancellor, also serves as an imam at a Bloomington, Minn. mosque where at least five young men left the United States to fight with terrorist groups al-Shabaab and ISIS.
. . . .
IUM also professes to serve as the official representative of Sunni Islam’s most important institution – Al-Azhar University, which has grown increasingly radical – in the U.S. and Canada. Al-Azhar officials have refused to condemn the Islamic State (ISIS) as apostates and heretics. According to Egypt’s Youm 7, IUM’s curriculum, offered to American students, endorses many practices used by ISIS. These include: “[K]illing a Muslim who does not pray, one who leaves Islam, prisoners and infidels within Islam [those who do not have a clearly specified creed or sect]. [It also allows] gouging their eyes and chopping off their hands and feet, as well as banning the construction of churches and discriminating between Muslims and Ahl al-Kitab [Christians and Jews], and insulting them at times.” [Emphasis added.]
Al-Azhar University was where Obama delivered a major address on the beauties of Islam in 2009. The text of His remarks is at the link.
Conclusions
America should be in a good position to promote an Islamic reformation. Europe has descended deep into the realm of multiculturalism and until she comes to her senses, it won’t happen there. It isn’t happening in Obama’s America due to the reluctance to associate Islam with terrorism and numerous human rights violations. It most likely won’t as long as Imam Obama remains in office. It’s futile to expect or even to hope that it will.
Due to Obama and His people, America is not safe from Islamic terror.
Cox Washington News Bureau reported that there were no fewer than 73 airport workers with possible terror ties, working at airports including Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Logan Airport in Boston, Orlando International Airport in Florida, Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, and others.
Fear not!
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson this week set the record straight: “It’s not that they’re suspected terrorists. It’s that they hadn’t been vetted through all available databases. We have since corrected that problem and the cases have been resolved.”
There are just a few little problems:
Presumably Johnson and his team have consulted their extensive database of card-carrying Islamic State members, and have diligently compared it to their list of airport employees, and have removed those who appeared on both lists. The only problem with this scenario, of course, is that there is no such database, or anything comparable to it. There is simply no database that Johnson could consult that would enable the Department of Homeland Security to remove everyone with terror ties from airport jobs. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
[T]he Obama administration is bound as a matter of policy to ignore and deny the terrorists’ motivating ideology – so how can it vet for it? This goes back to October 19, 2011, [when] Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, wrote a letter to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the CAIR, ISNA, MAS, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA; and MPAC. [Emphasis added.]
The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam,” and emphasized that this was an issue of the utmost importance: “The seriousness of this issue cannot be overstated, and we request that the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem, with a fair and transparent mechanism for input from the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, including civil rights lawyers, religious leaders, and law enforcement experts.”
Mr. Brennan saluted and said “Yes, Maam!”
Brennan assured Khera that all her demands would be met: “Your letter requests that ‘the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem,’ and we agree that this is necessary.” He then detailed other specific actions being undertaken, including “collecting all training materials that contain cultural or religious content, including information related to Islam or Muslims.” In reality this material wouldn’t just be “collected”; it would be purged of anything that Farhana Khera and others like her found offensive—that is, any honest discussion of how Islamic jihadists use Islamic teachings to justify violence. Brennan assured Khera that he saw the problem just as she did, and that remedies were being implemented quickly. . . . [Emphasis added.]
Some Muslims in Arab countries have been candid about the Islam-terror nexus. So have some reformist Muslims and former Muslims in America. Donald Trump also has a realistic perception of the Islam-terror nexus and might provide support for those seeking its reformation. I hope he has a chance to do it.
(Compare and contrast the views of this Saudi TV hostess on Islam and terror with what seems to be the emerging European view. — DM)
[T]he overarching message is that Europe has slowly let this happen year by year, decade by decade, like a frog in a pot slowly brought to a boil. Post-colonial guilt and shame have stopped Europeans from openly loving and defending their own culture. The state of things in Europe today is the natural conclusion of that neglect. We in America are on the same road.
***********************
Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine whose offices Islamists attacked in 2015, published an editorial recently titled “How Did We Get Here?” that has raised some eyebrows. In it, they ask how Europe has become where European-born Muslims have attacked the hearts of Paris and Brussels. Their answer has proved distasteful to many on the Left.
The editorial has been harshly criticized and the magazine accused of racism and xenophobia. The Washington Post says Charlie Hebdo blames extremism on individual Muslims—the veiled woman on the street, the man selling kebabs. There’s some truth to this accusation, and to the extent that there is, Charlie Hebdo is wrong. But this, and other critiques, miss the larger point of the article, which is to demonstrate the gradual and quotidian way in which criticizing Islam has been silenced.
It’s worth quoting Charlie Hebdo at length:
In reality, the attacks are merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed. They are the last phase of a process of cowing and silencing long in motion and on the widest possible scale. Our noses are endlessly rubbed in the rubble of Brussels airport and in the flickering candles amongst the bouquets of flowers on the pavements. All the while, no one notices what’s going on in Saint-German-en-Laye. Last week, Sciences-Po* welcomed Tariq Ramadan. He’s a teacher, so it’s not inappropriate. He came to speak of his specialist subject, Islam, which is also his religion…
No matter, Tariq Ramadan has done nothing wrong. He will never do anything wrong. He lectures about Islam, he writes about Islam, he broadcasts about Islam. He puts himself forward as a man of dialogue, someone open to a debate. A debate about secularism which, according to him, needs to adapt itself to the new place taken by religion in Western democracy. A secularism and a democracy which must also accept those traditions imported by minority communities. Nothing bad in that. Tariq Ramadan is never going to grab a Kalashnikov with which to shoot journalists at an editorial meeting. Nor will he ever cook up a bomb to be used in an airport concourse. Others will be doing all that kind of stuff. It will not be his role. His task, under cover of debate, is to dissuade people from criticising his religion in any way. The political science students who listened to him last week will, once they have become journalists or local officials, not even dare to write nor say anything negative about Islam. The little dent in their secularism made that day will bear fruit in a fear of criticising lest they appear Islamophobic. That is Tariq Ramadan’s task.
The Charlie Hebdo editorial correctly points out that in Europe the dominant liberal culture has pounded into us that we must adapt to Muslims who come to our country, and never ask them to adapt to any of our ways. Doing so would be colonialist and wrong. It’s a double standard, of course. As the welcoming countries, Europeans must suppress their own culture and ideals for those of the Islamic immigrant population. But when they go abroad to non-Western countries, either to live or to visit, it’s considered offensive not to adapt to their ways of life.
Learning a Culture Should Work Both WaysNo one who found the Charlie Hebdo op-ed so offensive would ever suggest Morocco ought to welcome McDonalds or Wal-Mart with open arms. They would say the country is being ruined with Western culture. They want non-Western countries to remain exactly as they are—preserved and frozen in time-while the West must endlessly adapt to anyone who makes it their home.
The article highlights the important fact that Europe has failed to ask its Muslim immigrant population to assimilate. This fact was demonstrated recently when police discovered that the only surviving terrorist from the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was able to travel from Paris to Brussels and conceal himself there until a few days before the Brussels attacks. He was aided by a large community of French and Muslim Belgians whose loyalties clearly lie with their own community, not with Belgium, or Europe at large. What’s more, a 2013 study shows the shocking degree to which European Muslims hate the West.
Asking immigrants to assimilate doesn’t mean white-washing their culture and religion, asking them not to wear the hijab, or demanding that they eat pork. But it does mean asking them to accept, to some degree, the culture of the country to which they have willingly moved. These are things like women’s rights, tolerance, free speech, or criticism of religion. It also means not having to apologize for having a culture of one’s own. This is the point that Michel Houellebecq made in his recent novel, “Submission.”
Slow-Boiling Our BrainsEuropeans have been lulled into accepting that it’s wrong to criticize Islam or scrutinize it in any way. The Charlie Hebdo editorial points out that it’s a slow process, an insidious wearing away of what is and isn’t acceptable to say or think. The process must be slow, because few people would accept a proposal dictating what topics they’re not allowed to discuss. So, you gradually shame them into it.
This establishes a pre-conditioned mindset so the line of acceptability can be moved further and further until the problem of global jihad can no longer be effectively explored because we aren’t even allowed to ask fundamental questions. This is Charlie Hebdo’s point about Tariq Ramadan, whose grandfather founded the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and whose father was an active member of the group. Through the guise of intellectualism and purported adherence to moderate Islam, he instructs his audience ever so gently that the problem has nothing to do with Islam, and that suggesting so is ugly and base.
We acquiesce, because, as Charlie Hebdo points out, we fear being seen as Islamaphobic or racist. We are made to feel guilty if the thought flashes through our head that we wish that the new sandwich shop run by a Muslim sold bacon, or that a woman wearing a hijab makes us a little uncomfortable. That fear that we feel when we entertain those thoughts, the op-ed argues, saps our willingness to scrutinize, analyze, debate, or reject anything about Islam. And this is dangerous.
Fierce Reactions Aim to Condition Us Into Fear
Although Europe is further along in this process, there is a clear relevance to the United States. We are already being instructed on college campuses and by our own president that Muslims are a sort of protected class regarding criticism. President Obama even went so far as to censor French President François Hollande when he used the forbidden phrase “Islamist terrorism.”
The latest incident of shaming those who do push back is happening in Kansas, where the Islamic Society of Wichita invited Sheik Monzer Talib to speak at a fundraising event on Good Friday. Talib is a known fundraiser for Hamas, the militant Islamist Palestinian group that the United States classifies as a terrorist organization. He even has sung a song called “I am from Hamas.” U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo dared to put out a press release objecting to the speech out of concern that it would harm the Muslim community, particularly in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attack.
In response, the mosque claimed Pompeo stoked prejudice and Islamaphobia and that they had to cancel the event because of protest announcements and because some individuals on Facebook made some offhand comments about guns. Cue a local media frenzy, letters to the editor accusing Pompeo of government overreach, and the predictable arrival of two CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) representatives to skewer Pompeo.
This is just one example of how criticizing or questioning the actions of a Muslim community—even one that is supporting a Hamas fundraiser—has become anathema. The line of acceptability has been moved so now it’s Islamaphobic to object to someone with links to Islamist groups being invited to a U.S. mosque while we’re in the midst of a global battle against Islamist terrorism. People don’t even want to discuss it. The conversation is over. Just as Charlie Hebdo asks, so should we ask ourselves, “How did we get here?”
Although the particulars of the Charlie Hebdo editorial may go too far, and I do not endorse everything the article says, the overarching message is that Europe has slowly let this happen year by year, decade by decade, like a frog in a pot slowly brought to a boil. Post-colonial guilt and shame have stopped Europeans from openly loving and defending their own culture. The state of things in Europe today is the natural conclusion of that neglect. We in America are on the same road.
On January 12, at approximately 9:23 a.m., a pair American navy riverine command boats or RCBs, set sail south from Kuwait to Bahrain, headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet. At 2:10 p.m., the navy received a report that the RCBs had been intercepted by the Iranians. At 2:45 p.m., the military reported that all communication with the RCB flotilla was severed. At 6:15 p.m., the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Anzio received a communication from the Iranians that the sailors were being detained. Coincidentally, their detention coincided with Obama’s scheduled State of the Union Address, which predictably, made absolutely no mention of the event.
The Pentagon claimed that the RCBs strayed into Iranian territorial waters as a result of a “navigation error” and thereafter, one of the RCBs experienced engine trouble. They were then greeted by a pair of Iranian speed boats. Photos and video of the incident released by the Iranians show that the Iranian boats were armed with nothing more than forward mounted Russian 14.5mm DShK machine guns of Korean War vintage.
At gunpoint, the Iranians transferred the boats and their crew to Farsi Island where they maintain a military base. The boats and crew members were released some 16 hours later during which time, the Iranians thoroughly inspected the RCBs. Two satellite phone sim cards were stolen by the Iranians and the Pentagon has not divulged what, if any, information they contained. The groveling John Kerry thanked his Iranian counterpart profusely for releasing the illegally detained sailors.
Aside from these bare facts, the Pentagon has not released any new information concerning the embarrassing incident, a humiliation unparalleled in modern U. S. naval history. As I previously noted, several troubling questions still remain unanswered.
First, how did an experienced naval crew, equipped with sophisticated navigational equipment and traveling a well-charted, straight forward path, encounter a “navigational error” that led them into the territorial waters of an extremely hostile entity? In the absence of additional information, the Pentagon’s explanation makes absolutely no sense.
There has been speculation that the Iranians employed a device that spoofed or tricked the RCB’s on-board GPS devices with fake signals, leading the sailors into believing that they were on a correct course when they had in fact, substantially deviated. If the Iranians had in fact employed such a device, it would not have been the first time. In 2011, they reportedly misdirected a U.S. drone operating in Afghanistan by hacking into its GPS. The drone and all of its technology fell into Iranian hands relatively intact. The Pentagon has not issued any comment on this theory and notably, has not issued any denial of this troublesome scenario.
Second, and even more troubling, is how did 10 American sailors surrender their heavily armed and armored RCBs to a vastly inferior Iranian force without firing a single shot? Why weren’t readily available military assets immediately deployed and dispatched after the military was notified of the hostile encounter? Who gave the commander the order to surrender and was the decision to surrender influenced by political considerations, notably Obama’s State of the Union Address?
While the Pentagon continues to remain mute on these and other crucial issues surrounding the seizure of the RCBs, the Iranians have been extremely talkative, missing no opportunity to humiliate the “Great Satan.” The list of outrages includes the following:
The sailors were forced to kneel at gunpoint with their hands interlocked behind their heads. The display was videotaped.
The commander was forced to apologize and acknowledge his “navigational error” and the graciousness of his Iranian captors on Iranian TV.
The Iranians reenacted the surrender spectacle during one of their annual “Death to America” demonstrations.
The sailors were subjected to rather intense interrogation.
Iranian TV aired footage purporting to show an American sailor crying.
A female sailor endured further humiliation and was forced into Sharia compliance by being made to wear a head covering.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly issued the Iranians responsible for capturing the RCB sailors with “medals of conquest.”
Approximately two weeks after the sailors were freed; Iran released footage of one its drones shadowing the U.S. aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. The drone incident occurred on the very day the sailors were captured. A U.S. Navy spokesman called the flyover “abnormal and unprofessional.”
As noted, two satellite phone sim cards, likely containing classified information, were stolen by the Iranians.
In mid-March, naval commander Gen. Ali Razmjou of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced that Iran had retrieved thousands of pages of information from laptops, GPS devices and maps used by U.S. Navy sailors.
It is likely that we have not heard the last from the Iranians on this humiliating saga. In fact, Razmjou said that the IRG will publish a book about the incident. The Iranian bombast stands in marked contrast to the Pentagon’s demurred, almost docile stance. The reasons for the Pentagon’s silence are not hard to fathom. Something happened in the Arabian Gulf on January 12 that if revealed, would likely cause considerable embarrassment to the Obama administration.
In mid-February, Sen. John McCain threatened to subpoena the sailors if the Pentagon was not more forthcoming about the details surrounding the incident. He correctly noted that it did not take that long to debrief the sailors, accused the administration of “dragging [its] feet” and gave the administration a deadline of March 1 to present more information. That deadline has come and gone but the public still remains in the dark thanks to the Obama administration’s attempts to obfuscate.
In the meantime, Iran continues to test ballistic missiles in defiance of UNSC resolution 2231 and flush with $150 billion, continues to operate as a malignant regional influence by providing sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels and other assorted terrorist organizations. More ominously, Iran and its proxy Hezbollah have constructed a ballistic missile base in Syria near the Israeli border, greatly magnifying an already explosive situation.
Obama will ignore these and other Iranian transgressions because he recognizes that the JCPOA, his crowning foreign policy achievement, is on thin ice. For the very same reason, he will continue to order the Pentagon to obfuscate and remain silent on the circumstances surrounding the seizure of U.S. personnel in the Arabian Gulf because it will likely embarrass the administration and add to further congressional calls to toughen sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
I am starting today’s posting with a local story – from my home town.
Indoctrination @ Newton, a new video released today by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), exposes a pattern of anti-Israel teachings found in Newton, Massachusetts high schools, including:
Newton’s high schools have used Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) maps that falsify the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Newton students were not told that the maps were created by the PLO’s propaganda unit.
Newton’s schools presented students with a falsified version of the Hamas Charter. In Newton’s doctored version the word ”Jews” – as a target of hatred — is replaced with the word “Zionists.”
In one lesson, Newton students are asked to consider the Jewish state’s right to exist. (The legitimacy of no other nation-state’s existence is questioned.) The lesson included “expert” opinions, which are drawn overwhelmingly from anti-Israel academics and anti-Semitic activists.
A book used in Newton high schools has a recommended reading list that includes the extremist writings by Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Sayyid Qutb, and Yusuf Qaradawi, whose sermons call for the murder of Jews and homosexuals.
Newton schools officials are shown to continuously refuse to make school curricula and teaching materials available to the Newton residents.
Charles Jacobs, APT President said, “The video also shows that Saudi, Palestinian, and other Arab-funded teaching materials have been inserted into the curriculum, much of it containing anti-Israel bias.”
The Saudi funded Arab World Studies Notebook was used in Newton high schools until public pressure forced its removal. The Notebook, condemned by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and rejected by many other school boards, teaches students, among other things, that Israeli soldiers murder Palestinian women. Newton’s Superintendent of Schools David Fleishman claimed that use of the Notebook helps develop “critical thinking skills.”
The video’s release follows news reports of anti-Semitic incidents, including hateful graffiti found in Newton North High School and at the F.A. Day Middle School. The graffiti featured swastikas and the genocidal statement “Burn the Jews.” According to media reports, Newton Day school officials – in violation of required mandatory reporting procedures – failed to inform parents and police about the incidents. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed concerns about these escalating anti-Semitic incidents.
Upon discovering racist graffiti at Boston Latin High School, city, state, and federal agencies immediately launched an investigation into the matter. Jacobs said, “Concerned parents in Newton demand equal protection for Jewish students. Accordingly, in light of Newton’s biased education, its ongoing refusal to allow public access to curricula and teaching materials, and the recent escalation of anti-Semitism, we urge Newton Mayor Setti Warren, Massachusetts’ state education officials, and the FBI to investigate this hateful situation in Newton schools.”
Let’s go to the videotape. More after the video.
As many of you know, I grew up in Newton – about a 5-minute walk from Newton North High School. I did not attend the Newton public schools. Newton was and is a heavily Jewish suburb of Boston and both Newton North and Newton South have many Jewish students. Some of you may have heard of this alumna of Newton North. One can only wonder how much influence the Newton public schools had on her political views.
Clarion Project launches a new campaign to demand the Muslim Brotherhood be designated a terrorist entity in the United States.
Who is the Muslim Brotherhood?
The Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ihkwan al-Muslimun) is a Sunni, pan-Islamic organization based in Cairo, Egypt whose ultimate aim is the re-establishment of the global Islamic caliphate and the implementation of sharia as state law. Founded in Egypt in 1928 it is the oldest Islamist group in the world and along with Jamaat e-Islami in Pakistan and India, the most influential.
During World War II they backed the Nazis against the British. They were provided with a printing press by the Third Reich to print Arabic copies of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf and the notorious anti-Semitic forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
They see Islam as a holistic system of life that must be implemented at every level. This includes the brutal hududpunishments such as amputations and the death penalty for adultery and blasphemy. However, they are aware that such ideas are unpopular so they seek first to Islamize the society through education. Although the group officially renounced violence in 1971, that seems to have been a practical decision. The group still believes that armed jihad is a legitimate way to achieve its goals when the time is right.
Following that they would implement their policies step-by-step, under their doctrine of gradualism. After the Egyptian revolution the group came to power in an election which attempted to implement this vision. It was deposed after one year because of their tyrannical policies.
They have branches in approximately 80 countries worldwide including the United States.
Is the Muslim Brotherhood Involved in Terrorism?
They have been the leading source of inspiration behind terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and its offshoot the Islamic State. Founder Hassan al-Banna and ideologue Sayyid Qutb wrote extensively on the importance of armed jihad. Qutb is also credited with the idea of modern political understanding of jahilliya, which holds that any government which does not implement sharia as state law is in a state of un-Islamic ignorance and should be opposed.
Osama bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam, and the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were both members of the Muslim Brotherhood before they joined al-Qaeda.
The Muslim Brotherhood branch in Gaza, Hamas, is a terrorist organization which glorifies attacks on civilians and seeks to violently eradicate the state of Israel and commit massacres against the Jews living there.
Muslim-Brotherhood-linked entities in America and other countries have raised money for Hamas. The most famous case of this was the Holy Land Foundation Trial in 2007.
What are other governments doing about the Muslim Brotherhood?
The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as a terrorist organization. The UAE ban included U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) as well as Islamic Relief Worldwide, which has sent money to Hamas.
Israel has also banned Islamic Relief Worldwide for funding Hamas.
The UK commissioned a report into the Muslim Brotherhood. While it stopped short of banning it as a terrorist organization, the British government rejected the myth that the Brotherhood is “moderate” along with the patently false notion that it is “non-violent.” The UK will keep the Muslim Brotherhood under review.
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