Archive for the ‘Terrorism’ category

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Jury Finds Palestinian Authority Liable for Intifada Terror

February 23, 2015

Jury Finds Palestinian Authority Liable for Intifada Terror, Investigative Project on Terrorism, February 23, 2015

The judgment comes at a particularly difficult time for the Palestinian Authority, already strapped for cash and hoping to secure a place in the International Criminal Court to pursue war crimes charges against Israelis.

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

Palestinian Authority (PA) policies, including direct financial support to employees convicted by on terrorism charges, and payments to families of those killed waging terrorist attacks, make it liable for damages in attacks which killed wounded Americans, a New York jury decided Monday.

Jurors awarded $218.5 million in damages to the victims and their families. Provisions in the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act triple that to $655.5 million.

The jury’s award “will not bring back these families’ loved ones, nor heal the physical and psychological wounds inflicted upon them, but it truly is an important measure of justice and closure for them after their long years of tragic suffering and pain,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Israel’s Shurat HaDin law center, said after the jury award was announced. Darshan-Leitner has helped bring numerous civil cases against sponsors of terrorist attacks, saying the aim here, as in the other cases is “making the defendants pay for their terrorist crimes against innocent civilians and letting them know that there will eventually be a price to be paid for sending suicide bombers onto our buses and into our cafes.”

The judgment comes at a particularly difficult time for the Palestinian Authority, already strapped for cash and hoping to secure a place in the International Criminal Court to pursue war crimes charges against Israelis.

The jury received the case late Thursday, after about six weeks of testimony. They heard from survivors and eyewitnesses to the attacks, which included shooting sprees on Jerusalem streets, suicide bombings and the bombing of a Hebrew University cafeteria. Those attacks killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more.

Targeting civilians was “standard operating procedure” for the Palestine Liberation Organization, its Fatah military wing and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, plaintiffs’ attorney Kent Yalowitz told jurors when the trial began. Yasser Arafat, the PLO’s longtime chairman and the PA’s president, controlled all those entities.

Arafat’s handwritten consent appears on PA documents detailing the payments to the terrorists and their families that later were seized by Israeli military forces. Those records became key evidence showing the PA’s knowledge and support for the bloody wave of attacks. One 2002 report sent to the PA’s General Intelligence Service chief praised a West Bank squad for its “high quality successful attacks.”

The squad’s “men are very close to us (i.e. to the General Intelligence) and maintain with us continuous coordination and contacts,” the report said.

Many of the attackers and their accomplices were PA employees. Those who were sent to Israeli prisons remained on the PA payroll, with periodic raises depending on the length of their sentences.

Palestinian officials promise to appeal.

Defense attorneys maintained that the terrorists acted on their own and that the PA could not be responsible for the actions of all of its employees. In his closing argument, Yalowitz asked jurors to consider the outrageous nature of such communication.

“If you have a policy that says: If you commit a terrorist act, you keep your job,” gain promotions and keep your pay while serving a prison sentence, “that says something about who you are and what you believe in.”

Categories: Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Human rights, Intifada, Islamic jihad, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Islamic ‘Ghosts on the Roof’

February 23, 2015

The Islamic ‘Ghosts on the Roof’, Front Page Magazine, , February 23, 2015

lk-450x296

Chambers’ warnings were largely ignored by Western leaders whose willful blindness to the true nature of communism sealed the fate of millions behind the iron curtain in Europe, in China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, and elsewhere.

Today, perhaps the ghosts of Mehemed II and Sulieman the Magnificent are looking down and smiling as Western leaders fecklessly attempt to negotiate with the Iranian mullahs and search for “root causes” of ISIS terror and aggression. The Muse of History would understand, and her sister Melpomene, unfortunately, still has work to do.

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

Seventy years ago, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin met at Yalta to lay the foundations of the post-World War II world order. Less than one month after their historic meeting,TIME magazine on March 5, 1945, published an unsigned article entitled “Ghosts on the Roof.” The article was written by Whittaker Chambers, then TIME’s foreign news editor and formerly a member of a Washington, D.C.-based Soviet espionage ring. Chambers broke with communism in the late 1930s and in doing so remarked to his wife that they were joining the “losing side” in the great world struggle between communism and the West.

Chambers’ repeated efforts during the late 1930s and early 1940s to alert the State Department and the FBI to communist penetration of our government and the existence and activities of the espionage ring fell on deaf ears, so he used his position at TIME to attempt to warn the American public about the true nature of communism and the goals of Stalin’s Soviet Union.

The Yalta Conference, which took place during February 4-11, 1945, was immediately heralded as foreshadowing a peaceful postwar world order. Chambers, having been in the belly of the beast, knew better. He showed “Ghosts on the Roof” to T.S. Matthews, TIME’s associate executive editor, but doubted thatTIME would publish it. According to Chambers’ biographer Sam Tanenhaus, Matthews showed it toTIME’s owner Henry Luce who called it “a forceful piece of journalism” but was otherwise non-committal on publishing it. Other TIME staffers urged Matthews not to publish the piece fearing that it would poison relations between the wartime allies. With some hesitation, and characterizing it as a “political fairy tale,” Matthews decided to publish it.

Chambers’ story has the ghosts of the murdered Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family descend on the roof of the Livadia Palace, their former estate and the site where the “big three” allied war leaders negotiated the fate of the world. Clio, the Muse of History, greets them and discusses with Nicholas and Alexandra what just occurred there. Nicholas, the Tsarina remarks, is fascinated by Stalin. “What statesmanship! What vision! What power!,” says Nicholas. “We have known nothing like this since my ancestor, Peter the Great, broke a window into Europe by overrunning the Baltic states in the 18th century. Stalin has made Russia great again.”

“It all began with the German-Russian partition of Poland,” Chambers has Alexandra say, reminding readers that the Second World War was started by Hitler and Stalin. “Stalin,” says the Tsar, “is magnificent. Greater than Rurik, greater than Peter! . . . Stalin embodies the international social revolution . . . the mighty new device of power politics which he has developed for blowing up other countries from within.” The Royal couple then lists the countries conquered by Stalin—Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland—and those soon to be conquered because of Western appeasement. The Tsarina marvels at Stalin’s ability to persuade Churchill and Roosevelt solve the issues of Central and Eastern Europe to Stalin’s liking in a friendly fashion, remarking that “even peace may be only a tactic of struggle.”

At the end of the tale, the Muse of History foresees the consequences of Yalta as “more wars, more revolutions, greater proscriptions, bloodshed and human misery.” If you can foresee such troubles, the Tsarina asks Clio, why don’t you prevent them. The Muse of History replies that she must leave something for her sister Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, to do.

Readers reacted negatively to the piece. TIME’s Moscow correspondent lost his access to Kremlin officials. Chambers, some said, was zealously trying to destroy U.S.-Soviet collaboration that was so essential to world peace. TIME’s own editors noted in a subsequent issue that they did not believe that U.S.-Soviet relations were doomed to failure.

History vindicated Whittaker Chambers. His courageous efforts to reveal the truth about communism and Stalin’s intentions are not unlike the current efforts by writers—several associated with this journal—to alert the United States and the world to the true nature and goals of Islamic jihadists.

In Chambers’ time, the West was confronted by a murderous, expansionist secular totalitarian ideology whose leaders sought a communist world empire. Today, the West is confronted by a murderous, expansionist religion-based totalitarian ideology whose leaders seek a world caliphate where all must submit to Allah or be eradicated.

Chambers’ warnings were largely ignored by Western leaders whose willful blindness to the true nature of communism sealed the fate of millions behind the iron curtain in Europe, in China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, and elsewhere.

Today, perhaps the ghosts of Mehemed II and Sulieman the Magnificent are looking down and smiling as Western leaders fecklessly attempt to negotiate with the Iranian mullahs and search for “root causes” of ISIS terror and aggression. The Muse of History would understand, and her sister Melpomene, unfortunately, still has work to do.

Categories: Communism, Economy, Foreign policy, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamism, Media, Obama, Sharia law, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Hero of the Middle East: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

February 23, 2015

Hero of the Middle East: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, The Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, February 23, 2015

(Please see also Obama kept reform Muslims out of summit on extremism. — DM)

The courageous, historic speech yesterday by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islam, calling for the reform of Islam, was the result of the even more courageous, historic speech delivered a few weeks ago by Egypt’s devoutly Muslim President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the current American administration’s great friend, is the poison tree whose fruit is the Islamist terrorism embodied by the ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram and others.

Apparently some of the Sunni Arab States have not yet realized that their own national security, and ability to withstand Iran, depend on how strong Egypt is.

It is possible, in fact, that U.S. policy is to weaken the Sunni world seeking to unite under el-Sisi’s flag of modernity. With European complicity, the U.S. Administration is trying to defraud the Arabs and turn the Israel-Palestine conflict into a center of Middle Eastern chaos, in order to hide the nuclear deal they are concocting with Iran.

The treachery of the U.S. Administration is the reason why Egypt’s faith in the United States, which is supposed to defend the Arabs against a nuclear Iran, has effectively evaporated.

And now the greatest American insanity of all time: America and Turkey are arming and training Islamist terrorist operatives in Turkey, on the ground that they are “moderates” opposed to Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. They either ignore or are unaware that there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist terrorist. The other name of the “moderates” opposing Assad is ISIS.

The Muslim Brotherhood, in effect, runs Turkey. According to recent rumors, Turkey is also planning to build a nuclear reactor, “for research and peaceful purposes.”

Sheikh Dr. Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islam, yesterday delivered a courageous, historic speech in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, urging reform in religious education to curb extremism in Islam. Al-Tayyeb’s address was the result of an even more courageous and historic speech, delivered a few weeks ago by Egypt’s devoutly Muslim President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, at Al-Azhar University.

El-Sisi’s monumental statement, truly worthy of a Nobel Prize, is having a seismic result. Al-Sisi directed his remarks, about the ills of Islam to Islamic clerics in Egypt and around the world. It was enormously brave of him. He did not single out radical Islam, but he did call on all Muslims to examine themselves, carry out a religious revolution and renew their faith.

El-Sisi, a man of monumental courage, urged Muslims not to behave according to the ancient, destructive interpretations of the Qur’an and Islam that make the rest of the world hate them, destroy Islam’s reputation and put Muslim immigrants to Western countries in the position of having to fight their hosts. He claimed that it is illogical for over a billion Muslims to aspire to conquer and subdue six billion non-Muslims.

949 (1)Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, delivered a historic speech to top Islamic scholars and clergy at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, December 28, 2014. (Image source: MEMRI)

Islam deals in depth with uniting the Muslim nation (umma) and mutual responsibility among Muslims, as though they were one entity. The Prophet Muhammad (S.A.A.W.) said that every drop of Muslim blood is more precious than the entire Kaaba. Thus the liberty ISIS took upon itself to burn alive a Jordanian pilot and 45 Egyptians, to spread terrorism throughout Syria, Iraq and Egypt and to kill other Muslims in various locations around the globe, claiming they were “infidels,” is heresy in and of itself.

The calls for the deaths of “a million shaheeds” and the killing of Jews for the sake of Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, as was done by Arafat in the past, and is being done now by his heirs in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, are a crime; they are extremist incitement that is opposed to the forgiving and compromising spirit of Islam. The murder and terrorism carried out by terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ] and other Islamist organizations against Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims is contrary to the modern Islam needed in the contemporary era.

El-Sisi was correct that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sunni ideology, which drives most of the extremist Islamist organizations around the world, preaches forced conversion of “infidels” to Islam at any price, or death. Some of the “infidels” are supposed to join Islam of their own accord(targ’ib), out of self-serving interest, and some not of their own accord (tarhib), out of fear and death threats. Such conversions are also contrary to the original Islam, which states that no one is to be forced to convert to Islam and that a calm religious dialogue should be held.

However, a few days after President el-Sisi’s speech, which attempted to unify Muslims and Christian Copts, the Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliated terrorist organizations increased their attacks on Egyptian civilians and security forces throughout Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, as well as murdering 21 Egyptian Christian Copts in Libya. The Muslim Brotherhood knows that behind the scenes, U.S. President Obama supports the movement, especially the branch in Egypt seeking to overthrow President Sisi. This approval from the U.S. encourages the Muslim Brotherhood to be even more determined to subvert and undermine Egypt’s stability, sabotage its economic rehabilitation and destroy the el-Sisi regime.

In this atmosphere of American support, the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis terrorist group in the Sinai Peninsula operates under Muslim Brotherhood protection. It recently changed its name to the “Sinai Province” of the Islamic State and swore allegiance to the “Caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It is currently working hand-in-hand with Hamas in the Gaza Strip to weaken el-Sisi’s Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula.

Other Islamist terrorist organizations also kill Egyptian civilians and security forces with bombs and assault rifles. In the name of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, they indiscriminately attack people on public transport, in airports and in public places, with the intent of retaking control of Egypt.

For this reason, an Egyptian court recently designated Hamas a terrorist organization, along with its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and outlawed both of them. In response, Qatar, a slippery agent in the service of America but also, treacherously, in the service of Iran, allowed armed Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operatives to be interviewed by its Al-Jazeera TV. The operatives called the Egyptian president a traitor to the Islamic-Arab cause and to those seeking to “liberate Palestine.”

At the same time, Qatar continues to use its Al-Jazeera TV to broadcast hate propaganda targeting the el-Sisi regime, to disseminate videos and to fabricate insulting quotes intended to cause friction between el-Sisi on one side and the leaders of the Arab world and the Gulf States on the other — and to keep them from giving hungry Egyptians economic aid.

As the date for the economic conference in Sharm el-Sheikh (in the Sinai Peninsula) nears, Al-Jazeera’s propaganda machine has moved into ever-higher gear. Apparently, some of the Sunni Arabs states have not yet realized that their own national security and ability to withstand Iran depend on how strong Egypt is.

The U.S. Administration could easily halt the subversion of Egypt, but not only does it turn a blind eye, it suffers from a peculiar form of ignorance that makes it fight ISIS while at the same time supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, the hothouse of most Islamic terrorist organizations, including ISIS. The damage done to Egypt and the cracks in the weak Sunni Muslim ranks in the Middle East will eventually harm American interests and expose the Gulf States to the increasing Iranian threat.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the current American administration’s great friend, is the poison tree whose fruit is the Islamist terrorism embodied by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram and others. This linkage has become obvious to all the Arab states, while the U.S. and Europe steadfastly ignore the danger to their own survival, and refuse to outlaw them.

It is possible, in fact, that U.S. policy is to weaken the Sunni world that is seeking to unite under el-Sisi’s flag of modernity. With European complicity, the U.S. Administration is trying to defraud the Arabs and turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a center of Middle Eastern chaos, in order to hide the nuclear deal they are concocting with Iran. That is why the West does not really want to rehabilitate the Palestinian refugees by settling them in the Arab states, and why the West continues to nourish false Palestinian hopes that perpetuate this conflict.

The treachery of the U.S. Administration is the reason why Egyptians’ faith in America, which is supposed to defend the Arabs against a nuclear Iran, has effectively evaporated.

In the meantime, Iran’s Houthi proxies have taken over Yemen, threatening the entire Persian Gulf from the south. The el-Sisi regime is currently in the market for new allies, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin recently paid a visit to Egypt to examine the possibilities of building a nuclear reactor, sounding the first chord of a regional nuclear arms race.

The problems of the Middle East begin in the United States: that was the claim of participants in the Al-Jazeera TV show, “From Washington.” They described American policy towards Egypt as hesitant, indecisive and undemocratic. They claimed that the U.S. Administration had not yet decided whether or not to support el-Sisi, who heralded change and the willingness to fight radical Islam (a fight America used to participate in) or to remain neutral and waffle, in view of Egypt’s presumed instability. The Americans seem to be putting their all money on the extreme Islamists, who they seem to think will eventually win the bloody conflict currently being waged in Egypt.

The Americans have forgotten that under Mubarak, the regime turned a blind eye to attacks against Israel that were carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood and their carefully fostered agents. Unfortunately, since el-Sisi was elected, Egypt itself has become a victim of radical Islamic terrorism. The U.S. Administration, however, appears clearly to hate el-Sisi, and seems to be doing its utmost to undermine him and see him thrown out.

Under ousted President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt was tolerant and patient toward the U.S. Administration’s best friends, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Islamist and Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Al-Qaeda, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, all of which set up camp in the Sinai Peninsula. These terrorist groups smuggled weapons in from Iran, Sudan, Libya and Lebanon; dug smuggling and attack tunnels; developed missiles and carried out terrorist attacks “only” against Israel, the current U.S. Administration’s other apparent enemy, even though so many American Jews foolishly voted for them.

Now those same Islamist and Palestinian terrorist organizations are striking a mortal blow to the security or Egypt, and killing its civilians and security personnel.

The Muslim Brotherhood, mindful of America’s pro-Islamist policy toward it, is deliberately indulging in a wave of terrorism in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. Muslim Brotherhood operatives there are targeting civilians, public transport, airports and natural gas pipelines, all to undermine Egypt’s internal security and bring down el-Sisi’s regime in favor of extremist Islamists and a nuclear-threshold Iran.

In the current international situation, the U.S. Administration has apparently finally cut a deal with Turkey — which will be flimsy and ethereal — that allows Turkey to do the only thing it really cares about: to bring down the regime of Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. is also trying to cut a deal with Qatar, which along with Turkey openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist proxies in Egypt, Gaza, Syria and Iraq, who in general work against Western interests.

The ironic result is that Turkey plays host to both NATO and senior Hamas figures, while it deliberately ignores the slaughter by ISIS of Kurds and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood, in effect, actually rules Turkey. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party make it easy for foreign fighters to cross the Turkish border into Syria and join the ranks of ISIS. Meanwhile, the Turkish government wages a diversionary propaganda war against Israel. According to recent rumors, Turkey is also planning to build a nuclear reactor, “for research and peaceful purposes.”

Another surreal result is that Qatar hosts the U.S. military bases, while it finances and encourages terrorist organizations operating against Israel and the Egypt. It also panders to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual mentor of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terrorist who issues fatwas permitting the murder of civilians and approves death sentences for apostasy.

And now the greatest American insanity of all time: the U.S. and Turkey are arming and training Islamist terrorist operatives in Turkey, on the grounds that they are “moderates” opposed to Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. They either ignore or are not aware that there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist terrorist.

The other name of the “moderates” opposing Bashar Assad is ISIS; Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah are now even saying that the U.S. is arming ISIS.

In the meantime, the Egyptian army continues its struggle against Islamist terrorist targets in the Sinai Peninsula and Libya, unaided, and even undermined, by the U.S.

In view of the U.S. Administration’s collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, I am persuaded that in the near future it will be possible to find a joint Egyptian-Israeli-Palestinian formula for eradicating the Hamas-PIJ enclave of terrorism, this time by Arabs.

Most ironically of all, in the shadow of American zigzagging, a joint Arab-Israeli front is developing against Sunni and Shi’ite radicalism, and the Palestinians can only profit from it. Thus el-Sisi, who, with towering vision and courage, dares to speak openly about the poison tree of radical Islam and its fruit, when others are afraid, is a truly great Islamic hero.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Free world, Funding terrorism, Hamas, Hezbollah, Human rights, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shia, Siani, Sisi, Sunni, Syria, Terrorism, Terrorists, Turkey
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Obama kept reform Muslims out of summit on extremism

February 21, 2015

Obama kept reform Muslims out of summit on extremism, Washington Examiner, Charles Hoskinson, February 21, 2015

Some of the most prominent reformers have argued for years that the ideological and theological roots of Islamist extremism must be addressed, but administration officials carefully avoided exactly that subject during Obama’s three-day summit.

The White House is also undermining its own efforts by working with people who sympathize with the goals of violent extremist groups, if not their methods, the reformers say.

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

The White House excluded members of a prominent group of reformist Muslims from its terror summit this week, apparently because President Obama rejects their argument that such groups as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are actually motivated by Islam.

A group of 23 prominent Muslim reformers signed a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times on Jan. 11 asking “What can Muslims do to reclaim their ‘beautiful religion’?”

But Obama and officials throughout his administration deny any connection between Islam and the terrorists beheading and burning their victims in a reign of terror in the Middle East.

Muslim reformers say the administration is ignoring them because they disagree with Obama’s refusal to acknowledge the Islamic roots of the extremists’ ideology.

Some of the most prominent reformers have argued for years that the ideological and theological roots of Islamist extremism must be addressed, but administration officials carefully avoided exactly that subject during Obama’s three-day summit.

The White House is also undermining its own efforts by working with people who sympathize with the goals of violent extremist groups, if not their methods, the reformers say.

“We have to own the issue of extremist Islamic theology in order to defeat it and remove it from our world. We have to name it to tame it,” Muslim journalists Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa wrote in an essay published Friday by the Daily Beast.

“Among Muslims, stuck in face-saving, shame-based cultures, we need to own up to our extremist theology instead of always reverting to a strategy of denial, deflection and demonization.”

Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, was close friends with her colleague Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded by Islamist extremists in Pakistan in 2002.

At the summit, Obama and other officials insisted there is no link between Islam and the Islamist extremist groups that have been at the forefront of a dramatic spike in terrorist violence worldwide.

“Al Qaeda and [the Islamic State] and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders — holy warriors in defense of Islam,” Obama said Wednesday.

“We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”

The summit aimed at empowering community leaders to help Muslims resist the extremists’ message and improved strategies to communicate a more moderate message. But the administration’s refusal to identify the threat — and the exclusion of those who do from the conversation — works against meeting those goals, reformers said.

Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist radical andone of those who signed the Times advertisement, is co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremist British think-tank. The refusal of Obama and his officials to name their real enemy is referred to among reformers as the “Voldemort effect,” after the villain in the Harry Potter books whose name could not be mentioned.

Nawaz told CNN on Wednesday that refusing to address the Islamist ideology directly puts all Muslims at risk of being blamed for the actions of a tiny minority — the exact opposite effect of what Obama intended by his approach.

“When the president said there’s a poisonous ideology that needs to be refuted by Muslim clerics, the average everyday non-Muslim, the only word they know for that is the religion of Islam and they will think that the ideology we are referring to is the faith of Islam itself and thereby they would end up blaming all Muslims,” Nawaz said.

“Islam is a religion like any other with all the various sects and denominations. Islamism is a desire to impose Islam over society. And that is a very theocratic extremist desire. It can manifest itself violently. When it does, I call it jihadism. But it can also manifest itself politically. It’s still a problematic ideology because any desire to impose anyone’s faith over anyone else is inherently flawed and must be challenged,” he said.

“Al Qaeda didn’t inspire extremism. It was this extremist Islamist ideology that inspired al Qaeda. And unless and until we recognize the problem isn’t these Mafiosi-style groups that we can just take out by taking out their leaderships, but it’s the ideology that inspires them, we’ll have a new [Islamic State] tomorrow.”

The ad, by the Gatestone Institute, states, “If Islam is a religion that stands for justice and peaceful coexistence, then the quest for an Islamic state cannot be justified as sanctioned by a just and merciful creator. It is the duty of us Muslims to actively and vigorously affirm and promote universal human rights, including gender equality and freedom of conscience.”

One of the 23 signatories, Tarek Fatah, is a columnist for the Toronto Sun in Canada, and has noted the lack of response from administration officials and journalists.

“Instead of engaging with these progressive Muslims and supporting their call for reform, not only did the White House ignore them, but every media outlet I saw other than Fox News did as well,” he wrote on Feb. 3.

Instead, the White House and many in the mainstream media work with Muslim leaders who sympathize with the extremists, says Zuhdi Jasser, a doctor and former Navy officer who leads the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy.

“This is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution,” he told the Washington Examiner in November. “You can’t just say it’s about violence. You need sermons that call upon America as the leading force for goodness in the world.”

Jasser’s activism against Islamist theocracy recently landed him a prominent role in what the left-wing Center for American Progress calls the “Islamophobia network.” In a report released Feb. 11, the group said Jasser “promotes conspiratorial claims that America is infiltrated by radical Muslims.”

But many so-called mainstream Muslim groups that Jasser has criticized have documented extremist ties. Sympathies with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist movement, landed two U.S. groups, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society, on the list of terrorist organizations banned by the United Arab Emirates.

Though both groups vigorously deny extremist sympathies or ties, there is ample evidence that CAIR was founded by supporters of Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch and a banned terrorist organization in the United States, and that the Muslim American Society is the Brotherhood’s U.S. branch.

Categories: Caliphate, Foreign policy, Freedom, Funding terrorism, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Jobs for jihadists, Koran, Multiculturalism, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Terrorism, Terrorists, Violent extremism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Obama Must Confront the Threat of Radical Islam

February 21, 2015

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Obama Must Confront the Threat of Radical Islam, Time, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, February 20, 2015

ISIS is recruiting young Muslims from around the globe to Jihad, and the White House apparently doesn’t understand why.

Categories: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Foreign policy, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Jobs for jihadists, Obama, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Why is Obama fixated on Iran?

February 20, 2015

Why is Obama fixated on Iran? Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, February 20, 2015

America is ready to legitimize a seismic shift in the global balance of power through a grand civilizational bargain with the ayatollahs of Iran.

It is ardor for Islam and sympathy for Islamic ambitions of global leadership, not just distaste for American overreach, that apparently fuels Obama’s secretive dash toward a deal with Iran.

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

Why does U.S. President Barack Obama so desperately want a deal with Iran? Why is he so fixated on a grand bargain with the Islamic republic, the world’s biggest killer of Americans? What explains the president’s passion to embrace the radical mullahs of Tehran, despite the fact that all America’s traditional allies in the region are calling for him to check Iran’s advances? Why the deferential approach that seeks Iran’s partnership, instead of its isolation?

The question becomes even sharper when you consider the fact that Iran is patently not seeking integration in the Middle East or reconciliation with the West, but rather obviously domination of the region and apocalyptic victory over the West.

After all, you don’t have to be an expert to discern the expansionist and threatening Iranian strategy. Tehran is seeking to create a land corridor under its domination from the Persian Gulf through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. The only missing link in this land bridge of Shiite supremacy is Anbar province in western Iraq, now under Islamic State control. Now you understand why Iranian troops are leading the fight against ISIS in this zone.

What is harder to understand are American airstrikes against ISIS in Anbar, which seem to be tailored to match the movements of Iranian ground advances. The clear U.S.-Iranian military coordination in this theater of operations gives lie to Washington’s denials that it has already entered into a tacit alliance with Iran.

While the defeat of ISIS is a rational American policy goal, acquiescence to Iranian ascendancy in ISIS’s stead is not. Nor is American acceptance of the Iranian takeover of Yemen, through its Zaydi/Houthi Shiite allies — which gives Iran choke-off control of the vital Bab el-Mandeb waterway at the opening the Red Sea. Obama’s Washington hasn’t even whimpered in protest or concern about this.

We also have no indication that in its current negotiations with Tehran the administration has tackled Iranian adventurism in Syria and Lebanon, and along Israel’s northern and southern borders. Just the opposite: The administration says that the talks with Iran have been narrowly focused on centrifuges and uranium stockpile limits. Iran’s regional subversion (plus its long-range missile capabilities and its human rights record, etc.) has not been on the agenda.

I don’t believe for a second that Obama truly thinks he can bring about substantial moderation of Iranian diplomatic and military behavior; that by giving Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the comprehensive sanctions relief and renewed international legitimacy that Iran seeks, the Islamic republic will stop being the expansionist and aggressive Islamic republic it is.

That’s just not believable. Iran has consistently cast its quest for regional power as a movement of “Islamic resistance” against the U.S. and its sidekick, Israel. There is no basis for the assumption that moving to a less polarized relationship with Iran will accelerate a transition toward a more democratic, less theocratic, and less expansionist regime within Iran. On the contrary: A nuclear deal that lifts sanctions without addressing Iran’s regional ambitions would have the effect of greatly strengthening Iran’s hand.

And indeed, an Iranian Islamic empire is emerging in vast swaths of territory, from Shiraz to Sanaa and from Tabriz to Tripoli, right under Obama’s nose.

So again, what could possibly explain Obama’s relentless pursuit of strategic partnership with Iran — a partnership that is so perceptibly detrimental and dangerous to the West and to Israel and other long-standing American allies in the region?

A spate of recent articles by American analysts (Anthony Cordesman, Bill Kristol, Colin Dueck, Eli Lake, Elliott Abrams, Eric Edelman, Jonathan Tobin, Josef Joffe, Michael Doran, Michael Ledeen, Raymond Ibrahim, Victor Davis Hanson, Walter Russell Mead) have sought to plumb the depths of Obama’s fervor for rapprochement with Iran.

They mostly conclude that the roots of Obama’s approach rest in the fairly widespread, basically liberal, and quintessentially leftist convictions that America has for decades been sinful and diplomatically domineering, and must atone for its arrogance through retrenchment and accommodation. Obama shares the progressive aversion to the use of American power. Hence his chronic need to apologize for it.

Thus, U.S. Cold War culpability — in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, South America and Cuba — is a burden on America that must be addressed by shrinking America’s global footprint, and allowing indigenous, revolutionary movements to legitimately emerge and stabilize.

As such, the rules of nuclear non-proliferation are an unfair Western construct and need not apply to Iran. China is an authentic power with vast continental rights. And Israel is an abnormality, a Western outpost of capitalism and privilege where it has never really belonged, an irritant that should be treated like any other country as much as politically possible — no more.

In short, Obama believes that he will be leaving the world a better place by cutting America down to size.

To me, this is an insufficient explanation of Obama’s symptoms. Nor does it help to call Obama messianic and self-absorbed — as in George Will’s delicious quip this week that “If narcissism were oil, this president would be Saudi Arabia.”

None of this explains the depth of commitment to a deal with Iran that Obama has evinced since his first day in office (and perhaps, even before taking office, as Michael Doran has sought to show in Mosaic magazine). Nor does it explain the administration’s commitment to keeping everybody in the dark about the extent of its apparent pact with Iran.

It seems to me that Obama’s fervor for Iran lies somewhere much more fundamental: In a deep-seated ideological belief that Islam has a rightful leadership place in the world.

Consider the fact that Obama’s inaugural address abroad was “A New Beginning,” delivered in Cairo in 2009 — a contrite appeal to the Muslim world for forgiveness and for partnership. Go back and listen to Obama wax eloquent about “hearing the call of the azaan” as a young man in Indonesia, and about the historical achievements of Islamic civilization in algebra and architecture. This is Obama speaking from the recesses of his soul.

Consider Obama’s refusal to acknowledge the Manichean and irreconcilable nature of the challenge posed to the West by radical Islam; his refusal to even mutter the words “Islamic extremism” or “jihadism”; and his absolute unwillingness to connect terrorism to Islam or even admit that Islamic terrorists deliberately target Jews (like those Jews in Paris’ Hyper Cacher grocery).

The terms radical Islam and Islamic terrorist aren’t in Obama’s lexicon because deep down Obama doesn’t believe that Western (or Judeo-Christian) civilization is any better than Islamic civilization.

No better, perhaps, than even the Islamic State group. Speaking to the National Prayer breakfast in Washington on February 5, Obama said: “Before we get on our high horse and think this [ISIS beheadings, sex slavery, crucifixion, roasting of humans, etc.] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

This is tantamount to saying that the West is rooted in immorality, and that it is time for other, no less moral, and possibly more moral, powers to emerge — specifically, Islamic powers. It is equivalent to saying that the denouement of America and rise of an Islamic superpower will elevate world politics to a better sphere.

It is like saying — actually this is exactly what Obama is saying! — that America is ready to legitimize a seismic shift in the global balance of power through a grand civilizational bargain with the ayatollahs of Iran.

It is ardor for Islam and sympathy for Islamic ambitions of global leadership, not just distaste for American overreach, that apparently fuels Obama’s secretive dash toward a deal with Iran.

Categories: Caliphate, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Middle East, Obama, P5+1, Supreme Leader, Terrorism, Violent extremism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama defends Islam at all cost

February 18, 2015

Obama defends Islam at all cost, American Thinker, Carol Brown, February 18, 2015

Think about it. Have you ever heard Obama criticize Islam? I never have.

[W]hen three individuals who were Muslim were recently shot in North Carolina in a crime that local police have not identified as a hate crime, Obama stated: “No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.”

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

How President Obama responds to events around him appears to be dictated by a highly specific set of rules, all of which fall within under broad umbrella of disdain for America. In this way, every word he speaks (and those he refuses to say) and every action he takes (as well as those he avoids) unfolds in a predictable, if not also menacing manner.

  • Demonize the wealthy. (Unless the wealthy person is a Democratic Party supporter.)
  • Blame white people and the United States for bad things that have happened, are happening, and may happen to black people. (Unless a black person is the victim of jihad, in which case Obama will not use the event to stoke racial hatred. Protecting Islam trumps the chip on his shoulder regarding black victimhood.)
  • Defend Islam while never defending any other religion. Toward that end, denigration of Christians and/or Jews is permitted.

It seems like a long time ago that Colleen Hufford was the victim of a savage jihadist attack when a devout Muslim sliced off her head. But it was just a few months ago. And if you recall, after the attack Obama had no comment. None.

At least not about Colleen Hufford. Or jihad. He did, however, have a comment that was so important the message was hand-delivered and read aloud to members of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City where Obama expressed his sympathy for what a rough month the Muslim community had following the attack while offering thanks to all of them.

Beyond that, Obama remained silent on the matter, deferring to the FBI.

Of course he did not follow that script after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson. Oh no. Obama, Eric Holder, and all the rest weighed in immediately and kept weighing for what seemed like forever.

Standard operating procedure for the Obama administration – something we saw on full display when earlier this month Jen Psaki would not say that the terror attack that killed four Jews at a kosher market in France was an act of anti-Semitism. Instead, the administration claimed the entire affair was random and deferred to French authorities to determine the pesky details of motive and truth.

Once again, just as the administration deferred to the FBI after Hufford was slain, they deferred to some other party – in this case the French authorities. And this may well sound official to those who lack critical thinking. It may even come across as sound, wise, appropriate, and even presidential.

But of course it’s all hogwash. The knee jerk over-reaction to certain things, the under-reaction to other things, and the distraction techniques they employ are all by design.

And the design was crystal clear when, earlier this month, as part of Obama’s desperate drive to absolve Islam of any responsibility for the murderous brutality that is unfolding around the world, he had the audacity to say that the media overstates the threat of terrorism. He accused the media of exploiting terrorism because “if it bleeds, it leads.”

He spoke as if referring to ambulance chasing coverage by a tabloid magazine. It was appalling to realize this man-child was talking about coverage of genocide. Of institutionalized kidnapping, rape, torture, and all manner of barbarity under the banner of the religion he seems to love so very dearly.

Depraved does not even begin to describe Obama’s words.

When reality does not fit his script, there is no depth to which he will not sink. We have seen this play out over and over again. His determination to turn the public eye away from the awful truth before us is relentless.

It is sick. And it feels sick to be exposed to it, to him, and the abject evil he seems to embody.

This sickness has been playing out for years, though with two years left to his presidency, Obama seems to be pulling out all the stops as he utilizes a variety of ways to defend Islam. Including when he does and does not jump to conclusions.

As Daniel Greenfield recently wrote in Front Page Magazine: “When Muslims kill Americans, then Obama is all about not jumping to conclusions.”

Greenfield noted that after the Boston Marathon bombing Obama stated: “We still do not know who did this or why and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before they have all the facts.” And after the Fort Hood massacre, Obama stated: “We don’t know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” And yet, when three individuals who were Muslim were recently shot in North Carolina in a crime that local police have not identified as a hate crime, Obama stated: “No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.”

Then, last week, ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. And just as Obama refused to acknowledge that four Jews who were murdered in the kosher market in Paris were targeted because they were Jews, Obama refused to identify the faith of the victims in Libya, as if they were targeted because they were Egyptian. The full statement put out by the White House reads:

The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens. ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.

This heinous act once again underscores the urgent need for a political resolution to the conflict in Libya, the continuation of which only benefits terrorist groups, including ISIL. We call on all Libyans to strongly reject this and all acts of terrorism and to unite in the face of this shared and growing threat. We continue to strongly support the efforts of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General Bernardino Leon to facilitate formation of a national unity government and help foster a political solution in Libya.

“Twenty-one Egyptian citizens.” Never mind that the video ISIS made of the barbaric murders identified the victims by their faith. Per a report at Reuters:

A caption on the five-minute video read: “The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church.” Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: “Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for.”

(“Crusaders.” Where have I heard that reference in the recent past?)

Obama’s omission of the victims’ religion was not the only glaring confirmation of the nature of the man-child in the oval office. His statement that ISIS “is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity” was also telling since ISIS is absolutely constrained by (and motivated by) faith: the Islamic faith.

Once again, Obama used words (those said and those not said) to suggest that the daily jihadist bloodbath is some mysterious, amorphous, inexplicable horror. And in this way, he defends Islam by not implicating it in any of the hell on earth we are bearing witness to.

Think about it. Have you ever heard Obama criticize Islam? I never have.

Col. Ralph Peters had a pointed comment on this very thing recently when he said: “Look at the facts. The only religion this president is willing to come out and defend is Islam.”

It’s so patently obvious. And yet the media scarcely raises the issue.

Meanwhile, when Chris Matthews interviewed State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf Monday, she went on record saying that we can’t win the war by killing ISIS.

Why not? And what, pray tell does she suggest? She suggests that we try to figure out the root cause for why people join ISIS.

OK. That shouldn’t be too hard. Except we’re dealing with the Obama administration, so of course the glaring truth will be avoided at all cost. And so the hypothesis for the root cause is: poverty, lack of jobs, and lack of opportunity.

I have an idea. How about we tell the truth? How about if we say what the root cause is? How about if we point to the Quran and read some relevant excerpts so everyone can connect the dots? And how about if, in addition to identifying the root cause, we also kill as many terrorists as we possibly can?

Every time there is a terror attack, every time the violent teachings of the Quran play out on the world stage, every time the media engages in malpractice by not doing their research and informing the public, and every time the president of the United States defends Islam, the entire world is that much more at risk – each and every one of our lives is put in increased danger.

Whoever would have imagined that the President of the United States would be facilitating terror? And whoever would have imagined that such a person would be elected not once. But twice.

None of this may be news to most readers. But it will likely be news to some. Please help others understand.

May the victims of jihad rest in peace and may their deaths not be in vain.

 

Categories: Christians, Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Middle East, Obama, Terrorism, Terrorists, Violent extremism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 3 Comments

Chris Matthews: America Being ‘Morally Humiliated’ by ISIS

February 17, 2015

Chris Matthews: America Being ‘Morally Humiliated’ by ISIS, MSNBC Hardball via You Tube, February 17, 2015

 

(Has the Obama “tingle” up Mr. Matthews’ leg been cured, or is it just in remission? How about others who voted for Obama twice?  — DM)

Categories: Christians, Free world, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Leftists, Media, Obama, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

“Extremist” Islam is not extreme.

February 13, 2015

“Extremist” Islam is not extreme, Dan Miller’s Blog, Dan Miller, February 13, 2015

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

“Extremist” Muslims believe that the Koran and the Hadith must be taken literally and that Sharia law, rather than “man made” law, must control everyone. Secular Muslims seem to disagree or not to be very interested. “Extremist” Roman Catholics believe that birth control, abortion and pre-marital sex are sinful and oppose governmental support for them. Secular Roman Catholics seem to disagree or not to be very interested. 

“Extremist” Muslims are “literalist,” because they believe that the Koran is the word of Allah as faithfully transcribed by Mohamed, his messenger, and that there is no room for interpretation. The many conflicting verses in the Koran present a problem.

Rather than explain away inconsistencies in passages regulating the Muslim community, many jurists acknowledge the differences but accept that latter verses trump earlier verses. Most scholars divide the Qur’an into verses revealed by Muhammad in Mecca when his community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed in Medina, where Muhammad’s strength grew. [Emphasis added, footnotes omitted.]

Classical scholars argued that anyone who studied the Qur’an without having mastered the doctrine of abrogation would be “deficient.” Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside the mainstream and, perhaps, even the religion itself.  [Emphasis added.]

Islamist literalism coupled with abrogation now has temporal, and often fatal, consequences for non-Muslims as well as for “apostate” Muslims because, as Mohammad grew stronger, his words became stronger and more violent toward apostates and other non-believers.

According to an article titled “What is Islam?” Revisited by Father James V. Schall, S.J., posted at Catholic World Report on January 8th,

Islam considers itself the only true religion. It has a “narrative” of itself that all branches of Islam hold, although they differ somewhat on how it is to be achieved. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

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

It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates.  [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

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

Similarly, “extremist” Christians can be characterized as “literalist” because they believe, for example, that Jesus was literally conceived immaculately and literally ascended bodily into Heaven. These views now have no deadly temporal consequences for Christians or anyone else.

As for the crusades and the inquisition, which Obama used to try to divert our attention from Islam,

Obama - crusades

Islam is the only religion the textual core of which actively and unequivocally defames other religions.

Blasphemy

Soon after Muslim gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo offices, which published satirical caricatures of Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)—the “collective voice of the Muslim world” and second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations—is again renewing calls for the United Nations to criminalize “blasphemy” against Islam, or what it more ecumenically calls, the “defamation of religions.”

To ban “defamation” of Islam —  in reality to ban accurate factual analyses of its core tenets — is to engage in jihad via lawfare with the help of non-Islamic nations, including Obama’s America, while violent Islamic jihad against all religions except “true” versions of Islam continues apace.

Yet the OIC seems to miss one grand irony: if international laws would ban cartoons, books, and films on the basis that they defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the entire religion of Islam itself—the only religion whose core texts actively and unequivocally defame other religions, including by name. [Emphasis added.]

For example,

Consider Christianity alone: Koran 5:73 declares that “Infidels are they who say God is one of three,” a reference to the Christian Trinity; Koran 5:72 says “Infidels are they who say God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary”; and Koran 9:30 complains that “the Christians say the Christ is the son of God … may God’s curse be upon them!”

. . . .

[T]he Christian Cross, venerated among millions, is depicted—is defamed—in Islam: according to canonical hadiths, when he returns, Jesus (“Prophet Isa”) will destroy all crosses; and Muhammad, who never allowed the cross in his presence, once ordered someone wearing a cross to “throw away this piece of idol from yourself.” Unsurprisingly, the cross is banned and often destroyed whenever visible in many Muslim countries.

Reforming Islam

Egyptian President al-Sisi — who appears to be a fairly secular Muslim — told Muslim clerics in Cairo on New Years Day (on or about the date when Mohamed’s birthday is celebrated) that Islam needs to be reformed, substantially. He “accused Islamic thinking of being the scourge of humanity—in words that no Western leader would dare utter.” Following his address,

Sisi went to the St. Mark Coptic Cathedral during Christmas Eve Mass to offer Egypt’s Christian minority his congratulations and well wishing. Here again he made history as the first Egyptian president to enter a church during Christmas mass—a thing vehemently criticized by the nation’s Islamists, including the Salafi party (Islamic law bans well wishing to non-Muslims on their religious celebrations, which is why earlier presidents—Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and of course Morsi—never attended Christmas mass). [Emphasis added.]

(Under the Coptic calendar, Christmas falls on January 7th.)

Obama, who continues to oppose al-Sisi and recently met with supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, ignored al-Sisi’s words and deeds. So did a spokesperson for His State Department which, in January

met with a delegation aligned with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . . . . It is understood that the group, which included a leading Brotherhood-aligned judge and a Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian, discussed their ongoing efforts against the current Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. [Emphasis added.]

El-Sisi came to power after he deposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist government in a popularly backed coup. After only one year of Muslim Brotherhood rule, 15 million people came out onto the streets demanding an end to their rule.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated goal is the recreation of an Islamic caliphate, although they follow a policy of the gradual implementation of sharia law. [Emphasis added.]

The Muslim Brotherhood, and “extremist” Islam in general, are Obama’s friends and advisers. They are also now the largest and most destructive enemies of western civilization; Obama assists them at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, Hamas, is busily training thousands of youth to attack Israel, the only free and democratic nation, as well as the only outpost of western civilization, in the Middle East.

On February 10th, a Jordanian columnist wrote, consistently with President al-Sisi’s remarks, that

“The escapism that mainstream Islam has nothing to do with those atrocities does not hold water anymore because Wahabism and Islam have become indistinguishable. To understand the crisis of Muslims today, one has to remember that Wahabism exists in several textbooks containing the alleged sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, or books of  ‘Hadith,’ revered by so many. What we must confront is the undeniable fact that it is from many stories found in these books that the unprecedented cruelty of groups such as the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra emanates. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

“There is obviously a propensity towards eliminating ‘the other’ imbedded deep within Wahabist ideology. It is not only foolish to deny this fact, it is also dangerous, for we would be covering the cancerous tumour with a bandage. What we cannot deny is that many of the Wahabist textbooks are the same operating manuals that Islamist butchers use to justify their savagery. For example, very few people know that while [the Jordanian pilot] Muath was being set on fire in that macabre video, the voiceover was a recitation of an Ibn Taymiyah fatwa deeming the incineration of unbelievers a legitimate act of jihad. Ibn Taymiyah is not some obscure scholar on the fringe of Sunni Islam. In the Sunni world, he is universally venerated with the title ‘Sheikh of Islam,’ elevating him to an almost infallible clerical status. [Emphasis added.]

“If we really want to defend Islam as a religion of mercy, if we really want to be believed when we proclaim the innocence of this religion, we need to do more than just repeat this meaningless mantra about us having nothing to do with [ISIS]. We have to muster the courage to identify the specific texts that actually defame Islam, denounce them and permanently cleanse Islamic tradition of them.” [Emphasis added.]

Until “extremist” Islam reforms itself, as al-Sisi (and a few other Muslims) contend that it  must, Islam in all of its manifestations will remain an existential threat to what’s left of western civilization. If Islam manages to reform itself Obama — who considers Islam to be just peachy now — will, once again, be shown to have been on the wrong side of history.

Nuclear Iran

Unfortunately, Obama’s place on the wrong side of history may become apparent long before Islam is reformed, when Iran gets (or is permitted to keep) and uses “the bomb.” Iran, and perhaps Obama, have availed themselves of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya, which

allows Muslims to have a declared agenda, and a secret agenda (Jihad, slaughter, and mayhem) during time of weakness, this is called Taqiyya.” To put it in simpler words, it is the “art” of deception, or more correctly, of deceiving non-Muslim infidels. [Emphasis added.]

Barack Mitsvah

As noted in a Gatestone Institute article titled Iran speeding to nuclear weapons breakout, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

[H]e is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama  Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination. [Emphasis added.]

It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite. [Emphasis added.]

Iran seems likely to get and use, or to keep and use, nuclear weapons by virtue of the essentially bilateral Iran – US nuclear negotiations. Please see also The Iran scam continues, which I wrote in January of last year. The situation has worsened since then, with substantial concessions to, and few if any of significance by, Iran.

Obama and Netanyahu

The U.S. concessions have, in part, been in exchange for Iran’s “help” in defeating the Islamic State and hence becoming the major power in the Middle East.

Iran would be the hegemon of the Middle East. Some states would ‎accept Tehran’s authority, striking deals and kowtowing in order to survive. Europeans would ‎accommodate Iran, based on its control of the flow of Gulf oil. Israel and Saudi Arabia, nations ‎that Iran’s rulers have threatened to wipe from the map, would be left to fend for themselves.‎ [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Doran cites evidence that in the first year of Obama’s first term, there were more ‎White House meetings on Iran than any other national security concern. Detente with Iran was ‎seen as “an urgent priority,” but the president “consistently wrapped his approach to that priority ‎in exceptional layers of secrecy” because he was convinced that neither Congress nor the ‎American public would support him.‎ [Emphasis added.]

A year ago, Doran further reports, Benjamin Rhodes, a member of the president’s inner ‎circle, told a group of Democratic activists (unaware that he was being recorded) that a deal with ‎Iran would prove to be “probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term ‎on foreign policy.” He made clear that there would be no treaty requiring the Senate’s advice and ‎consent.‎ [Emphasis added.]

The president believes that “the less we know about his Iran plans, the better,” Doran ‎concludes. “Yet those plans, as Rhodes stressed, are not a minor or incidental component of his ‎foreign policy. To the contrary, they are central to his administration’s strategic thinking about ‎the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.” ‎ [Emphasis added.]

Obama’s plans may well blow up in His face and, of greater importance, ours. Iran, particularly with the help of Russia and North Korea, will be able to do it. Here is a

short animated film being aired across Iran, [which] shows the nuclear destruction of Israel and opens with the word ‘Holocaust’ appearing on the screen, underneath which a Star of David is shown, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Tuesday.

Don’t worry; be happy

Obama what me worry kid

Here’s the Revolting Truth from Andrew Klavan, which debunks everything bad ever said about Obama. Sort of.

Oh. And He’s not a narcissistic jerk either.

ALL of My policies are the best ever

ALL of My policies are the best ever

Categories: Andrew Klavan, Blasphemy, Christianity, Egypt, Foreign policy, Freedom, Hamas, Human rights, Humor, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Lies, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sharia law, Sisi, Terrorism, Terrorist training
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 6 Comments

Pentagon spokesman portrays Guantanamo recidivism as a good thing

February 12, 2015

Pentagon spokesman portrays Guantanamo recidivism as a good thing, Long War Journal, Bill Roggio, February 11, 2015

Rear Admiral Kirby is not trying to be satirical. Or is he?– DM)

Yesterday, Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby cast a positive light on jihadists from the Taliban and al Qaeda who have been released from Guantanamo and have returned to wage jihad. The topic came up in the discussion of an airstrike that killed Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, a senior Taliban commander who was detained at Guantanamo from 2001 to 2007, released to Afghan custody and freed in 2009, and returned to the Taliban shortly afterward to assume the role of a senior military commander up until his defection to the Islamic State earlier this year. Below is the exchange, from the Pentagon’s transcript:

Q: Why was he released?REAR ADM. KIRBY: Joe, I don’t have the records on this guy from — from Guantanamo Bay.

Yes, he was a detainee. He was released in 2007. He was released to Kabul.

The other thing that we’ve said — and this is another great example, because we had a long, you know, discussion not too long ago about the — the recidivism and particularly the issue of this — this one individual who reengaged there in Qatar, and we said that they return to the battlefield and to the fight at their own peril. Mr. Kadim is proof of that.

Kirby’s statement that Khadim’s death should be viewed as a positive is cold comfort to the hundreds of Afghans, Americans, and Coalition personnel who were killed while Khadim commanded forces in southern Afghanistan. The jihadist was able to operate for more than six years as a top level Taliban commander and has the blood of thousands on his hands.

Khadim and Mullah Zakir, another Guantanamo alum (who is still alive; he “resigned due to ill health,” according to the Taliban) were responsible for implementing the Taliban’s counter-surge strategy. While the the jihadist group failed to halt Coalition and Afghan forces’ gains in the south from 2009 to 2011 (gains which are now melting away), at least 875 Coalition members were killed during the fighting in Kandahar (273 killed) and Helmand (602 killed) during that time period, according to iCasualties (note, data on Coalition members killed by province after 2011 is not available on the iCasualties website). The number of Afghan security personnel and civilians killed in Kandahar and Helmand by the Taliban during that timeframe is not available, but is likely in the thousands.

Despite this, Kirby doubles down and says Guantanamo should be closed, which means even more jihadists will be freed.

Q: After seeing such example, like former Guantanamo detainee who was released and went back to the — to work with the Taliban, is the Pentagon still convinced that Guantanamo should be closed?REAR ADM. KIRBY: Yes. The Pentagon’s position is that the detainee facility should be closed. Secretary Hagel has made that clear on any number of occasions. There’s no change to that.

 

Categories: Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, GITMO, Hagel, Human rights, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Obama, Obama administration, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S. Military
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »