Archive for the ‘Political correctness’ category

Trump and Democratic Political Incorrectness

June 8, 2016

Trump and Democratic Political Incorrectness, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 8,2016

Trump and PC

Remember the time a presidential candidate suggested that Gandhi used to run “a gas station down in St. Louis.” No it wasn’t Trump. That was Hillary Clinton. Had Trump said it, we would still be hearing about it. But since Hillary Clinton was responsible for it, it went down the memory hole.

Along with her more recent “Colored People Time” gag.

And who can forget the time that Trump said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” But that wasn’t Trump. It was actually Vice President Joe Biden.

But still it was indisputably offensive when Trump told the Asian Chamber of Commerce, “I don’t think you’re smarter than anybody else, but you’ve convinced a lot of us you are.”

Then he followed that up by joking, “One problem that I’ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight.”

You would have to be ridiculously politically incorrect or an outright buffoon to say something like that to the Asian Chamber of Commerce. And this is exactly why Trump is… but wait, those lines actually came from Democratic Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

Reid recently popped up to call Trump’s comments racist. And he ought to know. Harry Reid believed that Obama was electable because he was “light-skinned” with ”no Negro dialect”.

Memories are short when it comes to Democratic racial and ethnic stereotypes. Not to mention slurs.

Trump is certainly not the only prominent politician who says wildly politically incorrect things. Democrats do it all the time. And they do it in more pointed ways.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is running for the Senate. Sanchez is a racist who accused the “Vietnamese” of “trying to take this seat” when running against a Vietnamese-American candidate. Last year she managed to ridicule both Hindus and Native Americans with one slur.

There was the time that Bill Clinton suggested that, Obama “would have been getting us coffee”. Or when Biden described his future boss as the, “first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guy.” Despite two terms in which Republicans were accused of racially stereotyping Obama with secret dog whistles, nothing any major Republican figure said was anywhere as bad as what Obama’s Democratic predecessor and his own Senate ally had said about him.

Democrats actually say politically incorrect things all the time. Trump has become famous because he’s one of the few Republicans who talks like a Democrat and says the sort of things that Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid have no problem saying in private and even in public speeches.

A Republican who told the Asian Chamber of Commerce that he had trouble “keeping my Wongs straight” would have been forced out in disgrace by a combination of media pressure and Republican shame. And having standards of respectable civic discourse is not a bad thing. But standards that are applied unilaterally to one side are not standards, they’re weapons.

Political correctness is a weapon brought out to punish political opponents for statements that run the gamut from offensive to those whose offensiveness is entirely manufactured by the media’s political echo chamber, such as Romney’s comments about having binders of qualified female candidates. Challenging political correctness does more than challenge these standards. It challenges the dishonest ways in which they are applied for political purposes.

Any of the above comments would have disqualified a Republican, but barely rate mention for Democrats. The truth about Trump is that he hasn’t said anything that plenty of Democrats haven’t said.

Long before Trump’s call for a Muslim ban, President Carter responded to the Iran hostage crisis by banning Iranians from America. Harry Reid had also proposed eliminating birthright citizenship long before Trump did. Building a wall with Mexico? Hillary Clinton called for it back in the Senate. Before she was condemning “talking about building walls”, she was talking about building walls. And warning that, “A country that cannot control its borders is failing at one of its fundamental obligations”.

The media has made a game out of pretending that everything Trump says is shocking. When Trump poses with a taco bowl and posts, “I love Hispanics”, the media gets giddy with outrage. But when Hillary Clinton foolishly panders to black voters by claiming to carry around hot sauce in her purse or posts, “7 Things Hillary Clinton has in Common with Your Abuela”, there are shrugs.

All politicians have their cringeworthy pandering moments. But the media chooses which of them it plays up and which of them it plays down.

That’s why Trump is shocking only in contrast to a Republican field that had been trained to carefully avoid even the faintest suggestion of insensitive or politically incorrect remarks. And that training did no good whatsoever with a media establishment that insisted on manufacturing gaffes no matter what.

Trump is often just as unrestrained as Democrats are. He feels the same freedom to speak his mind that is enjoyed by Joe Biden or Bill Clinton. He pays as little attention to political correctness as Harry Reid.

And it’s time that we were honest about that.

Sensitivity is not a bad thing. But what we have is not sensitivity as a value, but as a weapon. When one side is free to be as offensive as it wishes to be with no consequences whatsoever, then eventually the other side will escalate to match it. When oversensitivity becomes used to enforce an agenda that limits basic personal freedoms then the reaction to that will run roughshod over any and all sensitivities.

Political correctness, like all forms of censorship, is about power. Not fairness, sensitivity or decency. Trump is taking the license to be politically incorrect back from Democrats. The ability to determine what may or may not be said is the essence of power in a system where discourse dictates elections.

If Democrats are truly outraged by Trump, they might want to try looking in a mirror.

Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

May 30, 2016

Enemies, Foreign and Domestic, Front Page MagazineMark Tapson, May 30, 2016

Enemies

Enemies, Foreign and Domestic: A SEAL’s Story is a new book by former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie. Higbie was on the Navy SEAL assault team that in the summer of 2007 captured the most wanted man in the Middle East (apart from Osama bin Laden) – Ahmed Hashim Abd Al-Isawi, known as the Butcher of Fallujah. But afterward, Higbie and others in his unit were charged with prisoner abuse when Al-Isawi alleged that they had bloodied his lip.

Suddenly, the “mission accomplished” became a much more challenging ordeal as Higbie et al were threatened with courts-martial over supposedly roughing up a ruthless terrorist. When he went public with his account of what happened, the Navy pushed back hard to save face and protect careers. But Higbie pushed back harder.

Higbie, also the author of Battle on the Home Front: A Navy SEAL’s Mission to Save the American Dream, became a SEAL in 2003 and deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is now a political commentator in national media including the Fox News Channel, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Daily Caller, and Breibart. He graciously agreed to answer a few questions for FrontPage Mag about his lates book, Enemies, Foreign and Domestic.

Mark Tapson:         About the mission to capture and extract this high-value target, the Butcher of Fallujah. You and your unit accomplished the mission, handed him over, and all seemed good – but then what happened afterward?

Carl Higbie: After turning over custody to the Master at Arms (MP), the MP admittedly left his post. During this time the prisoner bit his lip (as testified by an oral surgeon) and spit blood on his clothing. Out of fear for his own career, the MP concocted a story that he saw many of us abuse the prisoner. This story was fabricated, as was apparent from his numerous changes in his official statement.

MT:     The accusation should have been cleared up quickly, but instead, the Navy did its best to break you and the other suspects down and get confessions out of you. Tell us what happened.

CH:     Initially we were investigated by NCIS and their investigation made the recommendation to not charge us. It was our Commanding officer along with General Cleveland that decided to proceed despite the facts. Because of the lack of evidence, they wanted to proceed “general’s mast” where there is no need for evidence and a punishment can be issued arbitrarily. They were doing to his to save face and “make an example” out of us.

We all requested a courts-martial so we would have a fair trial and be able to present evidence in our favor. The command tried to talk us out of this because they knew they would lose. They separated us and threatened us with all kinds of punishments, but we held strong and forced the courts-martial.

MT:     Why do you think this guy made such a serious accusation about some of his fellow soldiers, and why do you think the higher-ups weren’t more supportive of the accused, especially considering that the so-called victim was a terrorist?

CH:     The higher-ups were afraid of simple allegations, how that would affect their careers. They lost sight of the mission and their duty to their men. They put politically correct public image in front of their oath. They had us pegged for guilty from day one despite ALL the evidence. So much for “innocent until proven guilty.”

MT:     What’s your opinion of the Rules of Engagement our warriors were bound by which were so strict that merely bloodying a terrorist’s nose could get you court-martialed? Do you think those ROE are proper or are they hindering our men in the field and perhaps even endangering them?

CH:     Rules of engagement are different from guidelines for treating prisoners. I think the Rules of Engagement are atrocious. You cannot have one side playing by a set of rules that does not apply to the other side. War is not a moral endeavor, it is people killing each other; therefore you must be willing to be as ruthless as your enemy.

As for prisoner handling, we should never have stood any discipline after NCIS cleared us and recommended not going forward. This is what investigations are for and they should not be overstepped by a commander who has no knowledge of the situation. Moreover, who cares if a terrorist that we had legal authority to kill had a bloody lip?

MT:     After you were eventually cleared, you wrote a book – as a private citizen, not as a SEAL – called Battle on the Homefront based on your experiences, in which you complained about various ways in which Americans are failing to live up to our country’s own exceptionalism. But the Navy brass gave your manuscript the runaround and did their best to suppress publication. Why do you believe they did that, particularly since many of them privately agreed with what you wrote?

CH:     I spent almost two years, 24 times the length of time the DOD has allowed by their own standards for the review. At every corner, they stonewalled me, refusing even to conduct a review. I had been consulting an attorney throughout the process who was dumbfounded, as we had continuously jumped through hoops to accommodate their ever-changing requirements.

The book was controversial and no one wanted to review it because they were concerned about how it would affect their careers if they were the ones with the approval stamp on it. The military spent more resources trying to bury it than it would have taken to conduct the review. After a review from NCIS on security, and under advice from my attorney, we published without command approval since they had failed to comply with their own rules.

MT:     Since leaving the Navy, you’ve pursued a path as a political commentator in the media. Is that another way you feel you can best serve your country? Do you have political ambitions in the future as well? Tell us about what you’re doing to help reinvigorate the American Dream.

CH:     I have pursued the political route because I believe that to be the root of the problem today. I am unsure whether I will run again but I am heavily involved with this presidential race and many other races as well. If we want to fix this nation we have to start at the top.

Will America Follow Britain further Into, or away from, the Abyss?

May 14, 2016

Will America Follow Britain further Into, or away from, the Abyss? Dan Miller’s Blog, May 14, 2016

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

The Muslim invasion is changing European and British demographics to the degree that some countries will soon have Muslim majorities. Will America follow Europe? What about our Publican and Demorat elites? Will we reject them and the unelected bureaucrats they have spawned and empowered? 

America needs to vote for her own version of Brexit this November.

British and European Demographics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-hPCnel0qc

Paul Weston is the vile “Islamophobe” who dared to read — aloud and in public — a passage from a book written by another vile “Islamophobe,” Winston Churchill, a couple of years ago. For that, he (Weston, not Winston) was arrested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB7en-eu0X8

So what if Weston spoke accurately? He offended Muslims and that can’t be tolerated. Besides, Britain is terribly “racist” even though Islam is not a race.

Meanwhile, London’s East End is losing its native population and the place looks “less like a British city, more like Baghdad.”

The European Union and Britain

Currently, Mr. Weston of the Liberty GB Party is campaigning for Britain to leave the Europen Union, a force for unrequited love, charity and destruction. So is Nigel Farge of UKIP.

Here’s a long video about the EU and why Britain should leave it. It’s over an hour long but well worth watching. It’s principally about economics, the destructive power the EU has given unaccountable bureaucrats and the stifling of democracy.

As you watch and listen, please consider the similarities and differences between the EU and governance of, by and for the Publican and Demorat Establishment in America. Both have empowered and continue to expand unelected bureaucracies.

I was disappointed that the video does not deal with the immigration problem which will continue to plague Britain if she remains in the EU. Perhaps the topic was seen as likely to displease Britain’s already substantial Muslim population and prompt them to vote to remain in the EU. Remember, London just elected its first Muslim mayor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYqzcqDtL3k

Here’s another “Islamophobic” EUophobe:

Democracy and self-governance are seen by far too many as absurdly old fashioned. In Obama’s America, where would we be if governance were taken away from our betters in the Publican and Demorat Establishment and returned to the vulgarian little people? Do we need great Establishment intellects to think for us so that we don’t have to do it ourselves? The vulgarian dummies living in EU member states haven’t had to think for years. Now, with the upcoming referendum, those in Britain l have a chance to do so. We will have a chance this November.

Obama has told the citizens of once-great Britain that membership in the EU is economically and otherwise good for them — perhaps even as good as His presidency has been for citizens of His America. Many disagree with “the smartest person in any room;” those in Obama’s America who do may even elect Vulgarian-in-Chief Donald Trump as President shortly after citizens of Britain who cherish self-governance may vote to exit the EU.

Conclusions

America does not yet have the same Muslim demographic problems as Europe or Britain. Unless we halt or at least reduce Islamic immigration and cease to subsidize it we will eventually. One way to minimize the problem is to get rid of the politically correct “Islamophobia” nonsense and speak of Islam as it is rather than as though it were a benign unicorn.

Islamophobia-copy (1)

The elites of the Publican and Demorat establishment are a big part if the problem. Just as Britain seems to be moving toward leaving the EU, we need to diminish the power of our own elected elites by electing “vulgarians” to replace them. We also need to reduce the very substantial power of the masses of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats they have empowered. There is no need to replace them.

16/10/09 TODAY Picture by Tal Cohen - Muslims protest outside Geert Wilders press conference in central London 16 October 2009, Wilders who faces prosecution in the Netherlands for anti-Islam remarks pays visit to the capital. The Freedom Party leader said 'Lord Malcolm Pearson has invited me to come to the House of Lords to discuss our future plans to show Fitna the movie.' Wilders won an appeal on October 13 against a ban, enforced in February, from entering Britain. Ministers felt his presence would threaten public safety and lead to interfaith violence. (Photo by Tal Cohen) All Rights Reserved – Tal Cohen - T: +44 (0) 7852 485 415 www.talcohen.net Email: tal.c.photo@gmail.com Local copyright law applies to all print & online usage. Fees charged will comply with standard space rates and usage for that country, region or state.

All Muslim Terrorists are Crazy

May 11, 2016

All Muslim Terrorists are Crazy, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, May 11, 2016

munich-terror-534656

A Muslim terrorist stabbed four people at a train station near Munich while screaming, “Allahu Akbar”. In between proclaiming the glory of Allah, he also shouted that his victims were all “unbelievers”. A woman heard him say, “Infidel, you must die”.

The German authorities came to the inescapable conclusion that the attack had nothing to do with Islam. Instead the Muslim terrorist had been “mentally ill” and was probably not even fit to stand trial. The Koran wasn’t to blame. It was the fault of his psychological problems.

This isn’t surprising. It’s a well known fact that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. Instead there are just a lot of people out there, of Muslim origin, suffering from a unique set of psychological problems that cause them to shout Allahu Akbar while trying to kill people who aren’t Muslims.

This should not however be attributed to the notoriously peaceful religion of peace.

Just last week the FBI busted James Muhammad who had been plotting to shoot up a Florida synagogue for the “glory of Allah”. Muhammad explained that he wanted to murder the men, women and children praying at the synagogue because, “I have a lot of love for Allah”.

Not only did this minor story receive only a fraction of the attention devoted to the truly important news that a Muslim teenage girl had Isis written in her High School yearbook, but Muhammad’s lawyer insisted at a bail hearing that he isn’t a terrorist, just suffering from mental problems.

Much like Ahmed Ferhani, who plotted to bomb a New York synagogue a few years ago to, in his own words, “send a message of intimidation and coercion to the Jewish population of New York City.” Ferhani however wasn’t just a racist terrorist, he’s also a cause célèbre for The Nation which five years later continues to advocate on behalf of an aspiring anti-Semitic mass murderer. The latest report from the left-wing magazine breathlessly informs readers that prison guards are being mean to poor Ahmed and that he never really meant to kill any Jews, but was entrapped due to his “psychiatric problems”.

Muhammad and Ferhani join Shahawar Matin Siraj who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Herald Square subway station in New York. Siraj was an illegal alien who worked at a Muslim bookstore and boasted, “I want at least 1,000 to 2,000 to die in one day.” His family and defenders claimed he had a low IQ. His co-defendant, James Elshafay, suffered from, you guessed it, psychological problems.

Matthew Aaron Llaneza converted to Islam and tried to blow up a bank in Oakland. His defenders blamed mental problems. Muslim ISIS supporter Emanuel Lutchman plotted a machete attack in Rochester last year. Despite his contacts with ISIS, the culprit once again was mental illness.

Sami Osmakac plotted to bomb Florida nightclubs. He recorded a “martyrdom” video issuing a call to “Muslims worldwide” to carry out terrorist attacks and avenge Osama bin Laden.  He declared that the toenail of a sinning Muslim is worth more than all the non-Muslims in the world put together.

You’ll probably be surprised to hear that his lawyer blamed “mental illness” and claimed that his client had been “entrapped”. As has every Muslim terrorist ever for 1,400 years since Mohammed.

Mansour Arbabsiar was dispatched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington. His defense claimed that he was bipolar. His lawyer insisted that the fact that he had confessed to everything proved that he was mentally ill because his illness, “led him to believe that he could convince the agents to see things his way”. Him and every other criminal out there.

Even when Muslim terrorists don’t claim mental illness, the media is happy to plead it for them.

When Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 Americans in the Fort Hood Massacre, Time and the New York Times suggested that he had somehow contracted PTSD from treating soldiers.  In fact Hasan was a Muslim terrorist. No media outlet would stop claiming that he had PTSD long enough to read his letters in which he explained that he was a Jihadist, supported ISIS and killed American soldiers “for the greater cause of helping my Muslim brothers”  and defending the “Islamic Empire”.

The defense for the surviving Tsarnaev terrorist who had carried out the Boston Marathon bombing went one better by blaming the “severe psychiatric disorders” of his parents. The Boston Globe, had interviewed psychologists to determine what possible “mental health conditions” he might have had.

Any mental condition will do when it comes to Muslim terrorists.

And the media never leaves any exculpatory stone unturned when it comes to finding a crazy excuse for a Muslim terrorist. The Los Angeles Times tried to find excuses for Syed Rizwan Farook, the San Bernardino Muslim killer, by claiming that he had grown up in a home “racked by mental illness”.

If a Muslim terrorist isn’t actually mentally ill, maybe one of his relatives was mentally ill. Or maybe, like Hasan, he once met someone who was mentally ill and got PTSD all over himself.

Internationally all Muslim terrorists are also mentally ill. Zehaf-Bibeau opened fire at the Canadian Parliament. Terror apologists claimed that he was mentally ill. In the UK, Muhaydin Mire tried to behead a man while shouting, “This is for Syria”. He had ISIS material on his phone and pictures of the Paris and San Bernardino shootings. His brother claimed that smoking pot had given him a “mental problem”.  Sydney hostage taker Sheikh Man Haron Monis, who had become infamous for sending threats to the families of dead Australian soildiers, had his actions blamed on “mental instability.”

Michael Adebowale, one of the Jihadists who brutally beheaded British soldier Lee Rigby on a London street, also went the mental illness route.

In Russia, Muslim monster Gyulchekhra Bobokulova beheaded a 4-year-old girl and displayed her head in the street while shouting, “Allahu Akbar. I hate democracy. I am a terrorist. I want you dead.” Faced with these bafflingly inscrutable statements, the authorities blamed mental illness.

It was the safe thing to do. It always is.

Mental illness requires nothing of us except horror. Islamic terrorism demands that we do something about it. And that’s the last thing that the authorities who helped make this mess want.

German authorities, like their American, Russian, Europe and Australian counterparts, don’t want to take on Muslim immigration. It’s much easier to shove some more money at mental health clinics.

And what is mental illness anyway?

In the West, the conviction that you must kill people in order to receive 72 virgins in paradise would be considered a mental illness. In Islam, it’s a mainstream belief. 89% of Pakistanis believe in genies. But then again genies are present in Islamic scripture. 89% of Tunisians believe in witchcraft. 72% of Iraqis believe in the “evil eye”. 1 in 5 Afghanis have witnessed an exorcism. Half of Pakistanis believe in fairies.

Saudi religious police have a special Anti-Witchcraft Unit and there are actual witch trials. Majorities of Muslims don’t believe that Muslims carried out the 9/11 attacks. 40% of Pakistanis believe that fathers have a right to kill their daughters if they engage in premarital sex. Half of British Muslims think that the Jews are in league with the Freemasons. A third believes that Princess Diana was murdered to stop her from marrying a Muslim.

Ideas and behaviors associated with mental illness in the West are mainstream in parts of the Muslim world which exist in a pre-rational medieval universe brimming with conspiracy theories, paranoid delusions, lack of personal responsibility, erratic emotions and an inability to apply reason to reality.

Western psychiatric benchmarks don’t mean much in the Muslim world where witchcraft is a major problem, Jewish conspiracy theories abound and genies are responsible for psychiatric problems. Killing your daughter or just non-Muslims in general is socially approved behavior. The Muslim world has fundamentally different social norms than we do. And that means very different concepts of sanity.

Misattributing Muslim terrorism to madness is convenient, but meaningless. It’s a way for us to avoid dealing with the difficult questions posed by Islam. And that avoidance is also a form of insanity.

Trump: Unexpected and Unconventional but Suited for Our Times

May 11, 2016

Trump: Unexpected and Unconventional but Suited for Our Times, American ThinkerScott S. Powell, May 11, 2016

One of the most extraordinary things about Donald Trump’s primary victory in the Republican Party is that he received more votes from people identifying as Christian than his closest competitor Ted Cruz — the son of an evangelical pastor and one who profusely displayed his Christian identity in speech and temperament. In contrast, by standards that many believe to be the essence of Christian character as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, Donald Trump has been anything but meek, merciful, or peacemaking in his political rise. Some have likened him to a one-man wrecking ball. So what’s going on?

No one doubts that these are unusual times, with more forces pulling the United States down than at any other time in history. There is plenty of blame to go around for America’s spiraling state of decline, but at the top of the list are two things: First, we have had a culture captured and constrained by secular progressive political correctness. Second, we have an overbearing federal government that has corrupted both parties, the bureaucracies, and even the supposedly independent Federal Reserve.

At the grassroots, Republicans have tried to bring about a corrective, and they did succeed in getting many conservative reform candidates elected to congress in the last six years. Yet the stranglehold of political correctness and the corruption of Washington from special interests and lobbyists have proven insurmountable. Washington, DC — a metropolis producing very little with limited industry and almost no manufacturing — has become the richest city in the country, while driving the nation to the edge of financial ruin, as manifest in a national debt exceeding $19 trillion, 47 million people on food stamps, and a true unemployment rate that may be three times higher than the manipulated official rate released by the federal government.

Even as white Christians have diminished in their overall percentage of the population at large, according to the Pew Research Center, they still account for nearly seven in ten Americans who identify with, or lean toward, the Republican Party — about the same percentage as in the 1980s during the Reagan years. The problem is the GOP — despite its success in gaining majorities in both houses of Congress and controlling the power of the purse — has been ineffective as an opposition party during the Obama years.

The tipping point for many Christians came with a realization that the Republican Party was as incapable of protecting their rights and values at home as it was feckless in stopping an errant foreign policy that undermined trust with allies and emboldened enemies.

Two unnerving breaches of protection prompted many to recognize compelling qualities in Donald Trump over other candidates. First, he exuded an unapologetic toughness about building a wall and stopping the wave of illegal immigrants flooding over the Mexican border. Second, he was unequivocal about obliterating ISIS quickly and decisively — ending its wanton slaughter of Christians and other ethnic groups. And bridging both of these issues, in the aftermath of ISIS-inspired attacks in San Bernardino and Brussels, Trump unhesitatingly opposed Obama’s wish to take in undocumented Syrian refugees, “until we figure out what the hell is going on.” In that alone in the eyes of the majority, Trump demonstrated he was presidential, putting the protection of Americans as the top priority.

Political correctness and intolerance, which debilitates critical thinking, discourse and debate, has been shaping American culture for more than a generation. Throughout the seven plus years of the Obama administration, political correctness has driven domestic and foreign policy — with disastrous results. Obama has gone beyond anyone in recent memory in assaulting the First Amendment, undermining both speech and the exercise of Christian religion. We now see among liberals and secular progressives operating in the Democrat Party an Orwellian power structure that seeks to advance a statist, socialist and globalist transformation of the U.S. by silencing opposing views through the courts, misinformation, and distortion of the truth. Call it “newspeak” as Orwell did or the successor term “doublespeak,” its purpose is the same: to shape the masses thinking and obfuscate what is really going down.

Political correctness has not only prevented development of an effective strategy to deal with Islamist terrorism. It has turned U.S. relations in the Middle East upside down. The Obama administration celebrated the ouster and replacement of Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak, a long-standing U.S. ally, with Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. A similar glee was initially expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the news of Muammar Gaddafi being hunted down and killed, only to be followed by increased mayhem in Libya, leading to the tragedy and humiliation of the U.S. at the hands of terrorists in Benghazi.

But for many Christians, the bridge too far was Obama’s rebuke of Israel and his end run around the U.S. Congress, in forcing through a fundamentally flawed nuclear deal with Iran. Iran is both the top exporter of hate and the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism whose longstanding primary targets are the United States (often referred to as the “big Satan”), and Israel (the “little Satan”).

Everyone recognizes that Donald Trump is a flawed candidate. His Christian supporters certainly know this as well or better than his critics. But they also recognize that sinners are all that there are to choose from and that America’s precarious position at home and abroad requires an unconventional leader with unusual characteristics — some of which may not be aligned with a stereotypical Christian temperament.

One thing few could disagree with is that Trump deserves credit more than any conservative for fracturing the foundation of political correctness, upon which rests the entire liberal superstructure.

In fact, conventional conservatives may have reached a limit in expanding their audience. In contrast, it appears to be harvest time for Trump. His style of common sense plain talk has the potential to make huge inroads into both independent and liberal constituencies who are just now waking up to the absurdities of political correctness. While many still can’t see clearly, the fog is lifting, and the soul, spontaneity and humor of America is making an incipient revival, even in the midst of rancor.

If one can get past the braggadocio, narcissism and other negatives of Trump’s character, on the positive side he exudes confidence, ambition and a keenness to make good deals, get results and win. He is bold, direct and doesn’t shy away from confrontation. Mr. Trump is quite social and clearly likes to entertain, but he is also tough as nails, unrelenting and unpredictable with adversaries. He is unquestionably and refreshingly patriotic.

It turns out that some of these qualities are among those most vital to rebuilding relations with America’s allies and restoring respect — even fear — from adversaries. Mr. Trump’s irectness also suggests he is the best-suited presidential candidate to take on America’s greatest threat — insolvency. He could break the cycle of denial that completely engulfs the Democrat Party, and has hitherto prevented predecessors from doing much of anything regarding the nation’s out-of-control spending, deficits and unsustainable debt. Additionally, Trump’s toughness may be the key virtue needed to rule in a divided country and to successfully downsize and restructure federal agencies and get Washington out of the way of the American economy and its people.

Although the GOP believes it has a big tent, understandably many party members with well-established positions and values have great difficulty in accepting for the highest office in the land a newcomer candidate as fundamentally different as Donald Trump. To them I would say, unusual times with threats on every front at home and abroad call for an unconventional candidate. And it’s not so hard after all to recognize qualities in Donald Trump that make him in certain ways uniquely well-suited for our times.

 

Manchester Police Apologize for “Allahu Akbar”

May 11, 2016

Manchester Police Apologize for “Allahu Akbar” Power LineJohn Hinderaker, May 11, 2016

In Manchester, England, police staged a mock suicide bombing attack at a shopping center as part of a training exercise. The pretend bomber yelled “Alluhu Akbar” just before he detonated his mock explosives–a touch of verisimilitude appropriate to the exercise. But it prompted a complaint, followed by an apology:

Police in Manchester, England has issued an apology, after a suicide bombing “simulation” which involved an actor shouting the Islamic phrase “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) before detonating mock explosives.

The simulated terror attack was held at one of the UK’s largest shopping centers, the Old Trafford Centre, and was part of a counter-terrorism training drill preparing for a possible Paris-style assault by jihadist terrorists.

However, police later apologized for “linking Islam” with terrorism.

The drill had been criticized by some politicians and Muslim activists, including The Community Safety Forum, an anti-Islamophobia organization.

“This sort of thing panders to stereotypes and further divides us. It will increase anti-Muslim hate crime,” the group claimed.

Anti-Muslim hate crimes being, of course, the issue that is currently roiling Europe. Here is the Manchester Police Department’s statement:

“For the past 24 hours, GMP (Greater Manchester Police), along with other agencies, has been hosting a counter-terrorism training exercise based at the Trafford Centre, which began with a mock suicide bomber detonating a bomb inside the shopping centre,” police spokesman Gary Shewan said.

“It is a necessity for agencies, including the police, to train and prepare using exercises such as this, so that we would be in the best possible position to respond in the event that the unthinkable happened and an attack took place.”

“The scenario for this exercise is based on a suicide attack by an extremist Daesh-style organisation,” he continued, using the Arabic term for the ISIS terrorist group, “and the scenario writers have centred the circumstances around previous similar attacks of this nature, mirroring details of past events to make the situation as real life as possible for all of those involved.

“However, on reflection, we acknowledge that it was unacceptable to use this religious phrase immediately before the mock suicide bombing, which so vocally linked this exercise with Islam. We recognise and apologise for the offence that this has caused.”

“Linking” Islamic terrorism to Islam is now an offense punishable by career derailment.

So, what is the actor carrying out a mock suicide bombing supposed to yell before he pulls the cord? Excelsior? Geronimo? (No, wait, never mind.) Take that, you Limeys? I suppose he had best maintain a discreet silence.

Reality eventually intrudes:

Also on Tuesday, Italian police revealed that two Afghan nationals arrested in the southern Italian city of Bari were part of an Islamist terror cell linked to ISIS, which was plotting attacks in both Italy and Britain.

Three other cell members are still at large, two of whom are believed to have returned to Afghanistan.

Fortunately, the terror attacks planned by this stall have been forestalled, at least for now. But if they had been carried out, you can be sure they would have been preceded by cries of “Allahu Akbar.”

fake-suicide-bomberThe Manchester suicide bombing exercise

Where are we Now?

April 16, 2016

Where are we Now? Power LineSteven Hayward, April 15, 2016

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.

********************************

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 Politicization of the English Language

April 7, 2016

The Politicization of the English Language, Townhall, Victor Davis Hanson, April 7, 2016

Mucky Mucks

Last week, French President Francois Hollande met President Obama in Washington to discuss joint strategies for stopping the sort of radical Islamic terrorists who have killed dozens of innocents in Brussels, Paris and San Bernardino in recent months. Hollande at one point explicitly referred to the violence as “Islamist terrorism.”

The White House initially deleted that phrase from the audio translation of the official video of the Hollande-Obama meeting, only to restore it when questioned. Did the Obama administration assume that if the public could not hear the translation of the French president saying “Islamist terrorism,” then perhaps Hollande did not really say it — and therefore perhaps Islamist terrorism does not really exist?

The Obama administration must be aware that in the 1930s, the Soviet Union wiped clean all photos, recordings and films of Leon Trotsky on orders from Josef Stalin. Trotsky was deemed politically incorrect, and therefore his thoughts and photos simply vanished.

The Library of Congress, under pressure from Dartmouth College students, recently banned not just the term “illegal alien” in subject headings for literature about immigration, but “alien” as well. Will changing the vocabulary mean that from now on, foreign nationals who choose to enter and reside in the United States without being naturalized will not be in violation of the law and will no longer be considered citizens of their homeland?

Did the Library of Congress ever read the work of the Greek historian Thucydides, who warned some 2,500 years ago that in times of social upheaval, partisans would make words “change their ordinary meaning and … take that which was now given them.”

These latest linguistic contortions to advance ideological agendas follow an established pattern of the Obama administration and the departments beneath it.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s described Egypt’s radical Muslim Brotherhood as “largely secular.” CIA Director John Brennan has called jihad “a legitimate tenet of Islam,” a mere effort “to purify oneself.”

Other administration heads have airbrushed out Islamic terrorism by referring to it with phrases such as “man-caused disaster.” The effort to combat terrorism was called an “overseas contingency operation,” perhaps like Haitian earthquake relief.

The White House wordsmiths should reread George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” which warned that “political writing is bad writing” and “has to consist largely of euphemism.”

Obama has said the greatest threat to future generations is “climate change,” a term that metamorphosed from “global warming.” The now anachronistic term “global warming” used to describe a planet that was supposedly heating up rather quickly. But it did not account for the unpleasant fact that there has been negligible global temperature change since 1998.

Rather than modifying the phrase to “suspected global warming” or “episodic global warming,” the new term “climate change” was invented to replace it. That way, new realities could emerge. Changes of all sorts — historic snows, record cold, California drought, El Nino storms — could all be lumped together, supposedly caused by man-made carbon emissions.

Volatile weather such as tornadoes, tsunamis and hurricanes was sometimes rebranded as “climate chaos” — as if Western industry and consumer lifestyles were responsible for what used to be seen as fairly normal occurrences.

The term “sanctuary cities” describes municipalities that in neo-Confederate fashion deny the primacy of federal immigration law and refuse to enforce it.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch used the term “justice-involved youth” to describe young criminals arrested and charged with crimes. From such terminology, one might think the offenders’ “involvement” meant that they were parole officers or young lawyers.

So what is the point of trying to change reality by making up new names and phrases?

It’s mostly politics. If Hollande had used the label “skinheads” to describe European right-wing movements, the White House might not have altered the video. If a half-million right-wing Cubans were pouring illegally into Florida each year, or if 100,000 Serbs were crossing the border from Canada, the Library of Congress might not object to calling them “illegal aliens.” Clapper and Brennan are unlikely to claim that the Crusades were largely secular or an exercise in self-purification.

The Obama administration probably would not describe rogue police officers charged with crimes as “justice-involved police.” If cities with conservative mayors declined to enforce the Endangered Species Act or federal firearms statutes, they probably would not be known as “sanctuary cities,” but rather as “nullification cities.”

Orwell also wrote about a futuristic dystopia ruled by a Big Brother government that created politicized euphemisms to reinvent reality. He placed his novel in the year 1984, warning Westerners about what was in their future.

Op-Ed: The Left stands with the Islamist thought police

April 1, 2016

Op-Ed: The Left stands with the Islamist thought police, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, April 1, 2016

The interview with Die Zeit is astonishing: “I feel much freer in Algeria than in France.” This shocking disclosure is from an Algerian writer who collected literary prizes in France, from the Mauriac to the Goncourt for his first novel.

On January 31, 2016, Kamel Daoud published an article on the events in Cologne in the French newspaper Le Monde .

What Cologne showed, says Daoud, is how sex is “the greatest misery in the world of Allah”.

So is the refugee a ‘savage?’

“No. But he is different. And giving him papers and a place in a hostel is not enough. It is not just the physical body that needs asylum. It is also the soul that needs to be persuaded to change”.

A few days later, Le Monde ran a response by sociologists, historians and anthropologists who accused Daoud of “recycling orientalist cliches” and of being an “Islamophobe.”

It was anathema for the “bête noire des intégristes”, (the fundamentalists’ bad guy) as Daoud was defined. The writer announced his decision to abandon journalism.

The attacks on this brave Algerian novelist and journalist also came from the London Review of Books, the journal of the Anglo-Saxon liberal elites, which defines Daoud as “irresponsible”. Rafik Chekkat called Daoud “the native informant,” arguing that “his decision to leave journalism would be the only good news in the midst of all this noise.” The Mediapart electronic magazine wondered: “Is Daoud Islamophobic?”, while its patron, Edwy Plenel, asked Daoud to issue an “apology.”

Olivier Roy, an Islamic scholar, published an article in Libération that, without ever naming Daoud, charged the writer of stigmatizing the Muslims. Jeanne Favret-Saada, an orientalist at the Ecole pratique des hautes études, wrote that Daoud “spoke as the European far right.” Jocelyne Dakhlia, professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, charged Daoud with “a culturalist vision of sexual violence.”

Daoud received a supportive phone call from the Prime Minister of his country, Abdelmalek Sellal, and has been openly defended in the press only by a few Arab colleagues.

One is Karim Akouche, who wrote in the magazine Marianne: “Our time is absurd, ridiculous, violent. They shoot without warning to those who dare shake (question, ed.) clichés (…)The voice of Daoud is more essential than ever for healing the ‘disease of Islam’”.

The Franco-Tunisian writer Fawzia Zouari wrote in Libération that the Left is silencing criticism like the bearded terrorists do, while Serenade Chafik, the author of “Repudiation”, pointed that “while the Islamists around the world shouted ‘death to blasphemers’, some journalists accused their colleagues from Charlie Hebdo of xenophobia. ‘Islamophobia’ has become the verdict of the new inquisitors and their Islamo-leftist Western friends.”

The Moroccan entrepreneur Ahmed Charai defended Daoud saying that “the intellectuals, at risk of their lives, are fighting for the universal values, but they are treated as ‘Islamophobic’. This is a great defeat of thought.”

Boualem Sansal, the author of the successful novel “2084” (Gallimard), said that Daoud is attacked by a “thought police lurking in the tall structures of culture and information.” According to Sansal, “saving Daoud means saving freedom, justice and truth.”

It is what happened to Salman Rushdie after the release of the “Satanic Verses”, when so many left-wing writers attacked not the Iranian Khomeini, but the writer: Roald Dahl, celebrated author of amusing children’s books, said that “Rushdie is a dangerous opportunist,” George Steiner, one of the most respected cultural critics, declared that “Rushdie has made sure to create a lot of problems,” Kingsley Amis commented that “if you go looking for trouble, you can not complain when you find it,” while the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said to enjoy the suffering of Rushdie.

And it will happen again with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the most brave and important Islamic dissident. In the book “Murder in Amsterdam” and in a series of articles for the New York Review of Books and The New York Times, leftist relativists such as Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash attacked Hirsi Ali. Her call for the emancipation of women marked her as an “Enlightenment fundamentalist.”

A few days after the murder of Theo van Gogh, The Index on censorship, the magazine founded by Stephen Spender to defend freedom of expression during the Cold War,  published an essay by Rohan Jayasekera, associate director of Index, which described Hirsi Ali as a silly girl manipulated by Van Gogh in a “relation of exploitation.”

And when the Netherlands deprived Hirsi Ali of the bodyguards she needed for protection, the appeal to assign her protection of the European Union, promoted by French Socialist Benoît Hamon, failed in the absence of a sufficient number of votes, when only 144 of 782 supported the motion.

This is the terrible meaning of the “Daoud Affair.”

A great Arab writer told some important truths and the European intellectuals, instead of thanking and protecting him while Islamists threaten him with death, exhorted this novelist to choose silence, to take refuge in the novel, to surrender to his executioners.

It is an echo of what happened to Tahar Djaout, another famous Algerian writer, killed in 1993 by Islamists. The manuscript of his last novel was found among his papers after the assassination.

It recalls André Glucksmann’s famous title: “Silence on tue.” Silence, it kills!

No More Hug-A-Terrorist

March 23, 2016

No More Hug-A-Terrorist, Gatestone InstituteRaheel Raza, March 23, 2016

(Please see also, Islamic Reformation and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. — DM)

♦ How hard is it to understand that radical Islamist jihadis have declared war on the West? In simple English this means: they will find you and kill you wherever and whenever they can.

♦ Time and again, many of us concerned Muslims have highlighted the dangers of political Islam/Islamism, which stems from one of three sources: the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi/Salafism or Khomeinism.

♦ The West has been asleep at the wheel, waffling about how to address the issue with “sensitivity.” Calling out the truth should never be subject to political correctness.

♦ The world needs to take the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to task and challenge it about what it is doing to stem the tide of violence emanating from the Muslim world. The world needs to understand that ISIS is not trying to set up a Caliphate. OIC is the Caliphate.

The terrorist attacks at an airport and Metro station in Brussels has by now claimed at least 34 dead and 250 injured.

Shocking, sickening and appalling — but surprising? No.

How hard is it to understand that radical Islamist jihadis have declared war on the West? In simple English this means: they will find you and kill you wherever and whenever they can.

Why? Because the Islamists have pinpointed the West to be “Dar al Harb” (land of war), a concept that allows them to justify killing anyone on this land. You, me and everyone in between — from the USA across to Canada, the UK and Europe.

Just this year, there have been terrorist attacks all over the globe, including Paris, Turkey, San Bernardino, Israel, Toronto, Ivory Coast and yesterday in Belgium. Whether carried out by groups or so called “lone wolves,” these attacks are not isolated and have one thing in common.

They are all the result of a dangerous, violent and sick ideology. Time and again, many of us concerned Muslims have highlighted the dangers of political Islam/Islamism which stems from one of three sources: the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi/Salafism or Khomeinism. This ideology has been on the rise for 35 years while the West has been asleep at the wheel, waffling about how to address the issue with “sensitivity.” Calling out the truth should never be subject to political correctness.

How are we Muslims dealing with this ongoing terror in the name of our faith? Social media tells us a lot. There are the usual deniers and apologists; there is a comparison that “while we show solidarity for Brussels, we must simultaneously remember every other country of the world,” hence watering down the impact of the horror and carnage that has just taken place in Belgium and showing a rancid face of inhumanity and deflection from the real issue.

Then the victim ideology kicks in and it’s all about the fear of a backlash. I say let’s speak out, take responsibility and deal with the backlash — it will be worse if we remain silent.

Added to this are people like the repulsive British politician, George Galloway, who says Europe is to blame for what has happened. No one wants to touch the real issue.

The real issue is that this violence will continue and get much worse unless all of us stand up and acknowledge the ugly virus within us and say no to armed jihad. All of us, in once voice, need to denounce and condemn armed jihad as a seventh-century construct, not applicable in this day and age.

How have media addressed the issue? They immediately brought in “experts” to analyze the motives of the attackers to smithereens. There is nothing left to analyze. It is simple: It is a war against us. Let us stop the talking heads and take some action.

Political correctness should not trump the truth.

To bring home this point: Following an attack on two Canadian military officers in Toronto on March 14, 2016, I was invited the next day by a local TV station to comment. At first, the media did not wish to publish the words spoken by the attacker: “Allah made me do it.” The next day, the news reported that the attacker had “mental health issues.” Again, no surprise here. Mental health issues are a good “fallback.” But I said on the news that if a person has the wherewithal to find a specific military location and attack two officers, he is capable of being a terrorist.

Once again, we failed to connect the dots. The CTV News clip of my interview never made it to the internet. Are they not able to handle the truth?

1522Following a terrorist attack on two Canadian military officers in Toronto last week (left), the media initially did not wish to publish the words spoken by the attacker: “Allah made me do it.” Following yesterday’s bombings in Brussels, the media immediately brought in “experts” to analyze the motives of the attackers. There is nothing left to analyze. It is simple: It is a war against us.

Our leadership, meanwhile, has developed a philosophy of “hug-a-terrorist” and deflecting the conversation into a politically correct Kumbaya mode.

On October 22, 2014, I wrote an open letter to Canadians on my blog. In this I made some clear suggestions about the dangers we face, and solutions. The backlash was fast and furious, not only from Muslims but from bleeding-heart white liberals — those who do not help our cause by promoting the victim ideology.

So, once again we are standing where we were many years ago, but worse off because hundreds more civilians have been slaughtered in the radical Islamist war against the West.

Countering this armed jihad is our responsibility because the problem emanates from the House of Islam and the lives of our next generations are at stake here.

There are solutions. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has a membership of 57 Muslims states spread over four continents, is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations. The world needs to take the OIC to task and challenge it about what it has done or is doing to stem the tide of violence emanating from the Muslim world. The world needs to understand that ISIS is not trying to set up a Caliphate. The OIC is the Caliphate. Its members conveniently look away in face of blatant terrorism because their only focus is to dislodge Israel and condemn the West.

We cannot let the OIC speak for us. We face a simple choice: We can either speak out ourselves or wait for Mr. Trump to be elected and he will do it for us.

Raheel Raza is president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow and founding member of the Muslim Reform Movement.