There’s a new development in the case of Sebastian Gregerson , who changed his name to Abdurrahman Bin Mikaayl after converting to Islam, and was arrested at the beginning of August for stockpiling an arsenal of weapons allegedly to carry out a terrorist attack.
The investigation has been widened to three states, with a Maryland imam suspected of involvement in what is thought to be an ISIS-linked plot to carry out a mass casualty attack.
The imam, Suleiman Bengharsa, stands accused of helping purchase two AK-47s, seven rifles, handguns and ammunition, according to court records.
“Based on the totality of the aforementioned information and evidence, there is reason to believe that Bengharsa and Gregerson are engaged in discussions and preparations for some violent act on behalf of (the Islamic State),” an FBI agent wrote in January on an application for search warrant.
There, he advocates positions that are so extreme he regards Muslim-Brotherhood-linked organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as apostates.
In June 2016, he issued a fatwa that “anyone who supports CAIR, ISNA, MAS, or ICNA, or any organization affiliated with them in any way, is a kafir (disbeliever) and a traitor to Allah and His Messenger.”
His fatwa blasted these groups for allegedly promoting “the secular, divisive, corrupt, and immoral democratic system of government and encouraging Muslims everywhere to believe in and implement such beliefs,” since they willing to engage in the democratic process.
In earlier statements Anwar/Bergharsa has gone further, saying, “We are not living under the Khilafah [caliphate],” he said in a 2010 lecture recorded on YouTube “There is a big fitna [i.e. social unrest] going on, if you haven’t noticed. And much of the fitna is happening because we don’t have Khilafah. And then there are many people who don’t want Khilafah, because they want to continue being criminals so that their hands don’t get cut off.”
Bengharsa denied supporting the Islamic State. “No, no, no, that is absolutely untrue,” Bengharsa told The Detroit News. “It might appear that way. I am an advocate of the United States and the West getting the hell out of the Middle East and the Muslim world.”
“It’s ridiculous. All I can say is it’s ridiculous,” he said. “If this was the case, why haven’t they come to arrest me?”
He has not yet been charged with a crime and the investigation is ongoing.
Clarion Project covered Bengharsa/Anwar in the past. In an article written by guest author Sebastian Flynn, Flynn wrote, “Anwar wants total sharia according to the Saudi model, where the hands of thieves are cut off.”
Anwar/Bergharsa subsequently wrote to Clarion as well as to Flynn to complain about our coverage of him:
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
However, the Department of Homeland Security does not provide the security the rest of us need and want; instead, it does its level best to diminish it. Providing a reasonable level of security would contradict Obama’s view of Islam, Life, the Universe and Everything.
Refugee Fraud
On September 22nd, members of the U.S. Congress made public an internal Department of Homeland Security memo in which it was acknowledged that Refugee fraud is easy to commit and much tougher to detect:
The U.S. has relaxed requirements for refugees to prove they are who they say they are, and at times may rely solely on testimony. That makes it easier for bogus applicants to conspire to get approved, according to the department memo, which was obtained by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. [Emphasis added.]
“Refugee fraud is easy to commit, yet not easy to investigate,” the undated memo says.
The memo said there are clear instances where “bad actors … have exploited this program,” gaining a foothold in the U.S. through bogus refugee claims.
The revelation comes just a week after the administration said it was boosting the number of refugees it wants to accept next year to 110,000, up from 85,000 this year. Officials also said they’ll take more Syrians than the 12,000 they’ve accepted so far this year — and they are on pace to resettle as many as 30,000 in 2017. [Emphasis added.]
The President’s decision to increase overall refugee resettlement – and specifically that of Syrian refugees – ignores warnings from his own national security officials that Syrians cannot be adequately vetted to ensure terrorists are not admitted. Revelations about fraud, security gaps, and lack of oversight have demonstrated that the program is creating national security risks,” Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Bob Goodlatte said in a letter to Homeland Security on Thursday. [Emphasis added.]
The Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that she had never seen the internal DHS memo. Why not? Isn’t ICE in charge of enforcing “our” immigration laws?
Countering Violent Extremism
The video provided above explains how CVE has been implemented thus far.
George Selim, director of the Office of Community Partnerships at DHS, was repeatedly asked by members of the House Homeland Security Thursday why he could not provide a document outlining the organization’s $10 million plans for countering the spread of terrorism.
. . . .
Selim finally admitted the plan is not finished, stating that a finalized version is “nearly ready.”
He added that he didn’t want to give the impression that the organization is without any strategy after being up and running for a year, and stressed that he takes the use of taxpayer dollars seriously.
Congress appropriated $10 million in funding to the Countering Violent Extremism initiative, which can issue grants to nonprofit organizations working in local communities to prevent radicalization. [Emphasis added.]
But when asked by Rep. Barry Loudermilk R-Ga., to provide evidence that the program was not a “black hole” for taxpayers, Selim could only answer that he has seen positive changes “anecodally” and could not provide any metrics for success.
“I can’t sit hear before you today and definitively say that person was going to commit an act of terrorism with a pressure cooker bomb, but we’re developing that prevention framework in a range of cities across the country,” said Selim.
When asked whether any of the funding provided to DHS for its “countering violent extremism” was being given to terror-linked groups, Mr. Selim responded that
there is no blacklist of non-governmental organizations prohibited from applying for federal funding in the government. He did not say whether their current vetting process has ever mistakenly funded groups that jeopardize national security when questioned, but argued there is always room for improvement when a program is in its infancy. [Emphasis added.]
Mr. Selim’s reply was not responsive; there may be no Federal blacklist, but that an NGO is not on one should not authorize DHS to fund it. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is, of course, one of the principal Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamist organizations upon which the “countering violent extremism” farce relies. Secretary Johnson recently delivered an address to the Islamic Society of North America, which is similarly linked. The countering violent extremism farce focuses, not on root problem of preventing Islamist terrorism, but on rooting out “Islamophobia.”
Here’s a video of Dr. Zuhid Jasser’s testimony before Congress on September 22nd
on Identifying the Enemy: Radical Islamist Terror. This hearing examines the threat of radical Islamist terrorism, the importance of identifying the threat for what it is, and ways to defeat it.
Former Congressman and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency of the House Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress. Congress must ask the Obama administration about PSD-11, which made official the US Government’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. [emphasis added.]
In His efforts to push the narrative that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam, Obama has (a) shared His erroneous perception of the Islamic State and (b) tried to suggest that the Islamic State is the only entity which diverges from “true” Islam. His argument as to (a)
is a strawman argument: the real question isn’t whether ISIS “represents” Islam, but whether ISIS is a byproduct of Islam. And this question can easily be answered by looking not to ISIS but Islam. One can point to Islamic doctrines that unequivocally justify ISIS behavior; one can point to the whole of Islamic history, nearly 14 centuries of ISIS precedents.
Or, if these two options are deemed too abstract, one can simply point to the fact that everyday Muslims all around the world are behaving just like ISIS. [Emphasis added.]
For example, Muslims—of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political and economic circumstances, in Arab, African, Central and East Asian nations—claim the lions’ share of Christian persecution; 41 of the 50 worst nations to be Christian in are Islamic. In these countries, Muslim individuals, mobs, clerics, politicians, police, soldiers, judges, even family members—none of whom are affiliated with ISIS (other than by religion)—abuse and sometimes slaughter Christians, abduct, enslave and rape their women and children, ban or bomb churches, and kill blasphemers and apostates.
. . . .
Or consider a Pew poll which found that, in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS. Similarly, 81% of respondents to an Arabic language Al Jazeera poll supported the Islamic State. [Emphasis added.]
Do all these hundreds of millions of Muslims support the Islamic State because they’ve been suckered into its “narrative”—or even more silly, because we have—or do they support ISIS because it reflects the same supremacist Islam that they know and practice, one that preaches hate and violence for all infidels, as America’s good friends and allies, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar—not ISIS—are on record proclaiming? [Emphasis added.]
It is this phenomenon, that Muslims the world over—and not just this or that terrorist group that “has nothing to do with Islam”—are exhibiting hostility for and terrorizing non-Muslims that the Obama administration and its mainstream media allies are committed to suppressing. Otherwise the unthinkable could happen: people might connect the dots and understand that ISIS isn’t mangling Islam but rather Islam is mangling the minds of Muslims all over the world. [Emphasis added.]
Hence why White House spokesman Josh Earnest can adamantly dismiss 14 centuries of Islamic history, doctrine, and behavior that mirrors ISIS: “That is mythology. That is falsehood. That is not true.” Hence why U.S. media coverage for one dead gorilla was six times greater than media coverage for 21 Christians whose heads were carved off for refusing to recant their faith.
As to (b),
The powers-that-be prefer that the debate—the “narrative”—be restricted to ISIS, so that the group appears as an aberration to Islam. Acknowledging that untold millions of Muslims are engaged in similar behavior leads to a much more troubling narrative with vast implications. [Emphasis added.]
Conclusions
Obama has what one might wish were a unique world view. However, as Obama has not yet discovered, wishing that something were true does not make it true. He elucidated His world view in His recent address to the United Nations.
U.S. President Barack Obama sang his swan song this week at the United Nations, and seemed baffled by the stubborn refusal of the world to reform itself in his image and on his say-so. [Emphasis added.]
How can there still be “deep fault lines in the international order,” Obama wondered aloud, with “societies filled with uncertainty and unease and strife?”
Shouldn’t his identity as a man “made up of flesh and blood and traditions and cultures and faiths from a lot of different parts of the world” have served as a shining and irresistible example of blended global peace? How can it be that, after eight years of his visionary leadership, peoples everywhere aren’t marching to his tune of self-declared superior “moral imagination”? [Emphasis added.]
It is indeed a “paradox,” Obama declared.
In his preachy, philosophical and snooty address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama expressed deep disappointment with the world. Alas, it seems peoples and nations are just not sophisticated enough to comprehend his sage sermonizing, smart enough to follow his enlightened example, or deep enough to understand his perfect policies. [Emphasis added.]
Why does the world not snap to order as he imperiously wishes and drool in his presence?
. . . .
The words “enemy, “threat” or “adversary” do not appear even once in Obama’s 5,600-word address. They are not part of his lexicon, nor are concepts like “victory” for the West or “beating” the bad guys. He won’t even names foes, such as “radical Islam” or “Islamist terror.”
All this high-minded intellectualizing, self-doubt and equivocation leave the U.S. with little ability to actually drive towards a more ordered world and provide a modicum of global security.
Instead, we have only Obama’s “belief” that Russia’s imperialist moves in Ukraine and Syria, China’s power grabs in Asia, and Iran’s hegemonic trouble-making in the Middle East (and by inference, Israel’s settlement policies in Judea and Samaria) will “ultimately backfire.”
Obama has many such unsubstantiated and illusory “beliefs.” It is very important for him to tell us what he “believes,” and he does so repeatedly. Clearly, he believes in the overwhelming potency of his own beliefs, despite the global security collapse. In fact, the U.N. speech reads like chapter one of the expected Obama memoirs, which surely will be filled with more inane “beliefs” and other ostentation. [Emphasis added.]
Fortunately, Obama will soon leave the presidency.
It falls to Congress and the next president to redirect U.S. policy and hopefully base it less on whimsical, wayward beliefs and more on a hard-nosed, forceful reassertion of Western interests.
Unfortunately, Hillary shares many of not most of Obama’s delusions.
Fortunately, Trump does not and seems to have a pretty good chance of becoming our President.
A Muslim stabbed ten non-Muslims in a Minnesota mall, and you know what that means as far as the mainstream media is concerned: Muslims are victims. Hamas-linked CAIR has been quick to claim victim status, whining about an anti-Muslim “backlash” that seldom, if ever, materializes after Islamic jihad attacks. And Minnesota’s governor is calling for “religious and racial tolerance,” which is always demanded of the victims and targets of jihad, never of its perpetrators.
And so we come to a particularly egregious example of this victimhood posturing from the Associated Press: “Minnesota Somalis recount racial tensions after mall attack.” We’re told that “the aftermath of Saturday’s attack at Crossroads Center Mall in St. Cloud also is testing longstanding efforts to improve strained relations between thousands of Somalis and other residents in the city. Several Somalis said they saw pickups driving through predominantly Somali neighborhoods the night after the attack, waving confederate flags and honking.”
Really? Did anyone report seeing these strange Confederate pickup trucks besides these “several” unnamed Somalis? Is Minnesota, the home of Keith Ellison and Al Franken, really full of racist, redneck, pickup-driving yahoos? Isn’t it a marvelous coincidence that these perfect central-casting racists just happen to confirm mainstream media myths about how opposition to jihad terror and the Muslim migrant inundation is nothing more or less than racism?
This kind of thing happens quite frequently. The New York Daily News reported that “a woman who told cops she was called a terrorist and slashed on her cheek in lower Manhattan on Thursday later admitted she made up the story, police said early Friday. The woman, who wore a headscarf, told authorities a blade-wielding wacko sliced open her face as she left a Manhattan cosmetology school, police sources said.”
And recently in Britain, the murder of a popular imam was spread far and wide as another “Islamophobic hate crime” – until his killer also was found to be a Muslim. The Mirror reported that the imam “was targeted because he had made efforts to turn youngsters away from radical Islam.”
According to The Detroit News, a Muslim woman, Saida Chatti, was “charged with making a false police report after she allegedly fabricated a plot to blow up Dearborn Fordson High School to retaliate against the November terrorist attacks in Paris….Police say Chatti called Dearborn investigators Nov. 19, six days after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris.”
And similarly in Britain, a Muslim woman was “fined for lying to police about being attacked for wearing a hijab. The 18-year-old student, known only as Miss Choudhury, said she was violently shoved from behind and punched in the face by a man in Birmingham city centre 10 days after the atrocities in the French capital on November 13.”
And so now Somali Muslims are living in fear of Minnesota Confederates? Pull my other leg. Meanwhile, AP isn’t finished with its tall tales. It says: “It’s still unclear what led 20-year-old Dahir Adan to stab several people with what appeared to be a kitchen knife before he was confronted and killed by an off-duty police officer.” No, it isn’t. According to an initial report, as he stabbed people, Adan was making “references to Allah,” and he asked at least one of his potential victims whether or not he was Muslim — which recalled jihad attacks in Kenya, Somalia, Mali, and Bangladesh where victims were quizzed about religion and Muslims were set free.
In any case, AP wants you to know that Muslims in Minnesota are afraid. It wants you to stop being a racist, bigoted Islamophobe who dares to get angry about jihad stabbings.
Meanwhile, what about the non-Muslims who are living in fear after Adan’s attack, and the New York and New Jersey jihad bombs, and Fort Hood and Boston and Garland and Chattanooga and Paris and Brussels and San Bernardino and Orlando and Nice and all the rest? They aren’t worthy of write-ups from the Associated Press.
As UTT has continually reported, there exists in the United States a significant jihadi movement led primarily by the Muslim Brotherhood whose organizations include the most prominent and influential Islamic groups in America.
The Islamic Movement in the U.S. continues their daily work of preparing for the coming battle at all levels of the society. From a military standpoint, the leaders of the American Muslim community are coalescing their forces and preparing strategically, operationally, and logistically for war.
Strategic Overlay
Going back to the early 1980’s, the jihadis set up an elaborate network of jihadi centers known in the U.S. as the Al Kifah Refugee Centers to recruit jihadis for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Some of these over three dozen offices were operated by only a couple jihadis with a phone or fax machine, and some had a more sizable presence in the community. Nevertheless, they created nodes across the United States for jihadis in many American cities, and became centers for possible Al Qaeda recruitment in the future.
For the last few decades the Pakistani terrorist organization known as Jamaat al Fuqra has been establishing jihaditraining camps in the United States primarily among black Muslims, many of whom were recruited in prison. Known in the U.S. as “Muslims of America” or “MOA,” approximately two dozen of the three dozen known camps appear to be operational today.
In the early 1990’s the Chief Investigator for the state of Colorado, with support from the Governor and Attorney General, launched a multi-jurisdictional raid of an MOA compound near Buena Vista (CO) and discovered weapons, explosives, lists of people to be assassinated, evidence that military/national guard bases had been under surveillance, and the like.
In one of the gems discovered in the 2004 FBI raid of the Annandale, Virginia home of a senior Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas leader, a recording of a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader speaking to a group of Muslim Brothers in Missouri revealed the MB has numerous training camps inside America and conducted regular firearms training.
To be clear, they are not planning on conducting violent actions in the immediate future, but are planning for “Zero Hour” – their term for when the violent jihad will begin when the time is right. They may wait until an outside influence from a foreign power or a major event initiates conflict, and then the Islamic Movement can begin the jihad and act independently or as an ally for a hostile foreign power such as Iran or China.
In the MB’s 5-Phase “World Underground Movement Plan” – discovered at the 2004 FBI raid in Annandale, Virginia – the Brotherhood states (Phase 2) they must “Establish a government (secret) within the government.” The purpose of this is to have jihadis on the inside of our government who will serve as the leadership for the Islamic Movement when they seize power in the United States. Until then, their role is to (1) gather intelligence and (2) conduct influence operations at all levels of the society, especially within the decision-making process.
As has previously been discussed, this is much more a counterintelligence and espionage issue than it is a “terrorism” matter. The enemy is preparing the battlefield now for the eventual battle to come.
The U.S. Network
The evidence in the largest terrorism financing and Hamas trial ever successfully prosecuted in American history (US v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Dallas 2008) reveals the most prominent Islamic organizations in the U.S. are a part of a massive jihadi network whose stated objective is to wage “Civilization Jihad” to destroy our system of government and establish an Islamic State (caliphate) under sharia here. The evidence also reveals the Muslim Brotherhood Islamic Centers/Mosques are the places at which jihadi train for battle and from which the jihad will be launched.
All of the mosques our military entered during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and mosques that European authorities have raided in the last two years have had weapons in them. The mosque is what Mohammad used a mosque for, and the launch point for jihad is one of those purposes.
There are over 2400 Islamic Centers/Mosques in America, most of which are a part of the MB’s jihadi network.
In the United States the “nucleus” for the Islamic Movement is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) whose subsidiary Islamic Societies number approximately 170. The Muslim Students Associations (MSA) serve as a recruiting arm for jihadis, and there are over 700 chapters on nearly every major college campus in America.
Reports from around the country from civilian and law enforcement sources reveal: Mosques and Islamic organizations are being built in strategic locations – near key infrastructure facilities, military bases, or some other key position in the community; taxi cab drivers at the largest airports in the U.S. are Muslim; and there is a noticeable increase in sharia-compliant Muslim TSA officers, baggage handlers and airline/airport employees at U.S. airports.
Additionally: Muslims are purchasing hotels, quick marts, and 7-11 type stores with gas stations, and a majority of major hotels in cities across the U.S. have a manager or assistant manager who is a Muslim, which is statistically impossible unless this activity is intentional.
Quick marts and gas stations provide their Movement with a logistics train that will be needed in a battle. Having people in leadership positions at major hotels in major cities, where law enforcement and intelligence groups and others hold conferences, serve as excellent intelligence gathering nodes.
Jihadis have penetrated U.S. federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies giving them access to sensitive intelligence systems, while simultaneously they have shut down real threat-based training inside these same agencies under the guise factual/truth-based training is “offensive to Muslims.”
Jihadis have themselves penetrated senior levels of the government (eg Suhail Khan working for two successive Secretaries of Transportation with access to classified critical infrastructure details), and have recruited senior U.S. government officials to promote and protect their interests which are hostile to the U.S. (most recent example – Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson promoting and defending leading MB organization ISNA and speaking at their annual convention expressly to open the door to more Cabinet officials to do the same).
Key jihadi organizations, like Hamas (doing business as the Council on American Islamic Relations/CAIR) work on Capitol Hill and inside government agencies to keep truthful discussions about the Islamic threat from ever happening, while plotting to work with Al Qaeda (as evidenced by UTT’s Chris Gaubatz discovery of a CAIR document dated 3/08/04 at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. stating, “Attempt to understand Islamic movements in the area, and start supporting Islamic groups including Mr. bin Laden and his associates”).
Now, the U.S. government is bringing tens of thousands of sharia adherent Muslims into our nation. From the Islamic perspective, these people are Muhajaroun – those who make the hijra into the non-Muslim lands in preparation for the “Final Stage,” which is armed conflict with the host country. This is all a part of their strategy, and is consistent with core Islamic doctrine.
Finally, we are currently observing the Marxist/Socialist Movement in the U.S. working directly with the Islamic Movement at the ground and strategic levels. Both have publicly declared their support for one another, they are both receiving funding from hard-left Marxists/socialists (eg George Soros) and foreign powers, and both are openly pushing for confrontation with and the overthrow of the U.S. government.
The Islamic Movement in the United States is deeply embedded in the U.S. decision-making process, has thousands of organizations and allies, possesses a logistics train of fuel and supplies, conducts weapons training programs, has access to U.S. intelligence systems, is well funded (primarily by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc), has strategic plans for North America (An Explanatory Memorandum) and has a plan to implement the strategy (Implementation Manual) which they are following.
The U.S. response is to say “Islam is a religion of peace” and work with the very Muslim leaders who are driving this hostile network.
Victory is not possible with this recipe.
Each year there are between 70 and 120 new Islamic non-profits being created in America, most of which appear to be working directly in line with the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to wage civilization jihad until “Zero Hour” when the war goes hot.
Until then, they continue to prep the battlefield because they are really at war with us because they are following sharia – core Islamic doctrine – as their blueprint for what they are doing.
Parliamentarians from Turkey’s AK Party meet with CAIR officials earlier this week.
Awad was interviewed by Turkey’s Andolu news agency after this week’s meeting, which he called important in expressing “the support of the Muslim community for democracy and the rule of law in Turkey,” an IPT translation of his remarks shows.
**********************
A delegation from Turkey’s parliament came to Washington this week to make the case for extraditing Fethullah Gülen, an opposition figure living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.
The Turkish government alleges Gülen was behind July’s failed coup attempt and President Tayyip Recep Erdoğan describes his extradition as a “priority.” Gülen denies any role in the coup and U.S. officials have said the Turkish evidence presented so far is not persuasive.
According to a Turkish press account, the delegation’s second meeting was with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its executive director, Nihad Awad.
CAIR is a tax-exempt charity which presents itself as an American Civil Liberties Union devoted to protecting American Muslims from discrimination in housing, employment and other civil rights.
The visit from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) delegation, however, shows CAIR’s significant emphasis on influencing American foreign policy. CAIR is not a registered lobbying organization and isn’t registered as a foreign agent. Federal law requires registration by people or groups “before performing any activities for the foreign principal.”
CAIR routinely inserts itself into political debates on behalf of foreign entities, including a full campaign aimed at criticizing Israel during the 2009 and 2014 Gaza wars while staying silent about Hamas. Its Detroit director told a rally that being “defenders of the Palestinian struggle” was part of CAIR’s mission.
Awad was interviewed by Turkey’s Andolu news agency after this week’s meeting, which he called important in expressing “the support of the Muslim community for democracy and the rule of law in Turkey,” an IPT translation of his remarks shows.
“We believe in the need for more Turkish visitors and delegations to come to the United States to talk about their experiences and explain their views,” Awad said, “because there is a view against them and a pathological fear of Turkey here. The Turkish government must be aware of the need to employ more efforts to explain what is happening (in) Turkey to American public opinion.”
In his comments, Awad publicly acknowledges what he advised an official Turkish government delegation in private to get the desired political outcome.
We previously reported on the immediate support American-Islamists organized for Erdoğan’s AKP immediately after the failed coup. While Erdoğan’s dedicated followers inside CAIR may be comfortable with his crackdown on dissent, a recent New York Times editorial hints many U.S. policy leaders are not.
They believe “that Mr. Erdogan’s roundup of coup plotters looks like an attempt to silence any opposition, that Turkey has behaved outrageously in failing to stop conspiracy theories depicting the United States as a co-conspirator in the coup attempt, that Turkey has produced little evidence to warrant Mr. Gulen’s extradition and that Mr. Erdogan’s autocratic behavior is making him an unreliable ally.”
He has proven unreliable in the fight against ISIS, too. He failed to stop the flow of foreign fighters using Turkey as a way-station to join ISIS and places his fight against pro-Western Kurds above the global threat posed by ISIS.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, addressed the Islamist Islamic Society of North America on September 3d. He told the assembled “American Patriots” — and reminded the rest of us — of the glories of Islam and how greatly it influences and therefore benefits Obama’s America. He did not suggest that only by the further recognition of Islamic supremacy and the further Islamisation of America will they achieve their goals. Today is Labor Day; the rest of us have much work to do to prevent it.
Here is the text of Secretary Johnson’s speech, with indented comments by ignorant Islamophobes Robert Spencer (RS) and your’s truly (DM).
[I]t’s a great privilege for me to be present in person here today, to speak to this full convention of the Islamic Society of North America. I’m told I am the highest ranking U.S. government official and the first sitting cabinet officer to ever speak in person before this convention. I welcome that, as you have welcomed me. I am proud to have broken that glass ceiling, and to have created the expectation, in the future, that government officials of my rank will attend your annual convention.
President Obama has made it a priority for his administration to build bridges to American Muslim communities.
DM: Obama has “built bridges” to “moderate” Islamist organizations such as the Islamist Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas-affiliated organizations. He has rejected organizations such as The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), which seek the reformation of Islam to respect and adhere to American values. AIFD and similar organizations are considered “Islamophobic” by CAIR, et al, who consider Islam perfect as it became when Mohammad left Mecca.
In 33 months as your Secretary of Homeland Security, I have personally visited American Muslim communities in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, rural Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Detroit, Dearborn, Chicago, Columbus, Houston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. I have come to know many of you, and I hope you know me.
DM: Indeed. They know him very well and like him. He and Obama have made great strides in furthering their notions of Islamic supremacy.
You have heard President Obama and me call out the discrimination and vilification you face in this current climate.
You have heard us say that the self-proclaimed Islamic State is neither Islam nor a state; that it is a group of terrorist[s] attempting to hijack your religion.
You have heard us, before multiple audiences of different political stripes, refuse to bend to the political pressure to call terrorism “Islamic” extremism. We know that ISIL, though it claims the banner of Islam, occupies no part of your religion, which is founded on peace.
DM: Do Secretary Johnson and Obama consider The Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s foremost sponsor of Islamic terrorism, not to be Islamic? They should spend a bit of time reading the post-Mecca parts of the Quran, the Hadith and other Islamist texts. Indeed, they should watch this video which explains them:
After I am gone as Secretary, I hope you will always regard us as your Department of Homeland Security, aligned in interest with you for peace, the safety of your family, and the protection of your homeland. I hope you will always regard our new Office of Community Partnerships as your partner. [Emphasis added.]
DM: for that to happen, Hillary Clinton must become our next President and Donald Trump must not. Mr. Johnson despises Trump’s views on Islamist terrorists and on keeping them out of the country. Johnson seeks to have our elections considered critical infrastructure for DHS to “monitor.”
Tonight, in this last and biggest opportunity I will have as your Secretary of Homeland Security to address an audience of some 10,000 Muslim Americans all at once, I want to take our conversation to a new level. [Emphasis added.]
DM: Under Obama, DHS — founded shortly after the September 11, 2001 Islamist attack on America — has indeed become the Islamists’ DHS. Hopefully, that will change after the November elections.
A leader of this organization reminded me that, we spend a lot of time telling young Muslims in this country what you should not become. A more effective message is to tell you what, in this great country, you can become. We must not simply curse the darkness, but offer a candle.
Tonight I will not look at the large group of Muslims before me in this room through a homeland security lens. Tonight I will not talk to you about counterterrorism. Tonight I will simply address you as who you are, “my fellow Americans.”
Tonight I speak especially to the young people in this audience, and to your parents worried about your future.
Many of the young people in this room worry that, because of the current climate, your religion, your skin color, and your attire, you will never win full acceptance in this country.
I come before you tonight to assure you this is not true. Your struggle for full acceptance in this country is one you will win.
DM: Wouldn’t they have a better chance of being accepted as Americans by Americans if they accepted America — her Constitution and her laws, for example — and rejected Sharia Law and all that comes with it? Mr. Johnson did not suggest that.
How do I know this? Because my African American ancestors and I have traveled a similar road.
I hear your stories of discrimination, vilification, and of the efforts to tar you with the broad brush of suspicion.
I hear about the bullying and physical attacks that Muslims (and those perceived as Muslim) are experiencing nationwide.
DM: Many of those stories are fabricated by Islamists to support their notions about the pervasive nature of “Islamophic” hate crimes.
They are familiar to me. I recognize them. I look out on this room of American Muslims and I see myself. I see a similar struggle that my African American ancestors have fought to win acceptance in this country.
Realize it or not, your story is the quintessential American story.
Your story is an American story, told over and over again, generation after generation, of waves of people who struggle for, seek, and will eventually win your share of the American dream. Know the history of this country and you will know that — whether it’s Catholic Americans, Jewish Americans, Mormon Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Japanese Americas, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, or Muslim Americans — this will be true.
RS: Yes, you remember when Catholic Americans, Jewish Americans, Mormon Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Japanese Americas, African Americans, Hispanic Americans flew those planes into the towers, and bombed the Boston Marathon, and murdered 13 Americans in cold blood at Fort Hood, and four in Chattanooga, 15 in San Bernardino, and 49 in Orlando, and tried to commit mass murder at Garland and so many other places. You remember those global terror organizations made up of Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Irish, etc. committing acts of violence around the world, and threatening the imminent conquest of the U.S. and the rest of the free world.
RS: The Obama administration’s solicitude is entirely one-way, toward Muslims as victims of discrimination, which is false and inaccurate in the U.S. anyway. Meanwhile, the jihad advances, as do Islamic supremacist attempts to assert Sharia norms over American norms. Johnson had nothing to say about such things, or about the unaccountable phenomenon of so many Muslims in the U.S. adhering to the version of Islam that he assures us is un-Islamic. [Emphasis added.]
The arc of the American story is long, it is bumpy and uncertain, but it always bends toward a more perfect union.
DM: The Obama administration has sought a “more perfect union” with Blacks by supporting Black Lives Matter. It has thereby helped to kill many Blacks.
Some of you are frustrated that you have been publicly denouncing violent extremism for years, sometimes at your own peril, and have not been recognized for it.
DM: But not Islamist terrorism.
Some of you are discouraged that you must continually point to the patriotism of American Muslims, by pointing to your military service, and to those American Muslims who have died in combat for our country….
DM: Only if Obama, as I suggested here in jest that He had just done, recognizes Sharia Law as supreme in His America, will ISNA, CAIR, as well as similar Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-affiliated Islamist groups be proud, patriotic “Americans.” It will take a village the total Islamisation of America. The rest of us? We don’t want it.
Conclusions
The notion of Islamic supremacy permeates the post-Mecca Quran and other Islamist writings, as explained in Dr. Warner’s Hijrah video provided above. When non-Muslim westerners go to Muslim countries, we are expected and required to adhere to their “superior” Islamic conventions: no booze, no “immodest” garb for females, and the like. If we don’t comply, we are jailed and/or expelled. We claim no superiority for western civilization and make no effort to demand that its norms be accepted or even to require their recognition. Perhaps we should.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
In an article posted on August 19th titled “Donald Trump and Islamists,” I stated that I do not use the term “moderate” when referring to Muslims because it is so grossly misused as to have become meaningless. Nevertheless, one commenter stated, “It’s dangerous to perpetuate the myth of moderate Islam,” which I had neither intended to do nor done. This post elaborates on the word “moderate” as it applies to Islam.
The term “moderate” Muslim is often applied to those who do not want to kill for Allah, but who want other Muslims to do it for them and for Allah. Many “moderate” Muslims also want Sharia law for themselves and others. The following video, presented by The Clarion Project, shows Obama and Hillary expressing their views on Islam as the religion of peace. It then rebuts their lies with facts.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and similar Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-affiliated Islamist organizations are viewed by the Obama administration as “moderate” Muslims. They are integral parts of the “countering violent extremism” scam perpetrated by Obama’s Department of Homeland Security.
Their goal is not to fight Islamic “extremism” but to defeat American constitutional principles by implementing Sharia law. Among their tools is their lamentation of the “Islamophobia” which Islamist terrorist activities generate. CAIR and other “moderate” Islamist groups are so intent upon combatting “Islamophobia” that when they can’t find any they solicit Muslims to engage in anti-Islamic “hate crimes” and then blame them on the “Islamophobia” of non-Muslims. Here are a few examples from Jihad Watch. The linked article provides more.
This kind of thing happens quite frequently. The New York Daily News reported just last week that “a woman who told cops she was called a terrorist and slashed on her cheek in lower Manhattan on Thursday later admitted she made up the story, police said early Friday. The woman, who wore a headscarf, told authorities a blade-wielding wacko sliced open her face as she left a Manhattan cosmetology school, police sources said.”
. . . .
In today’s politically correct environment, hate crimes are political capital. They foster the impression that resistance to Islamic terrorism equals hatred of Muslims, and results in the victimization of innocent people. Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist organizations want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they’re the currency they use to buy power and influence in our victimhood-oriented society, and to deflect attention away from jihad terror and onto Muslims as putative victims. Want power and influence? Be a victim! [Emphasis added.]
“OKC man charged in terrorism hoax after allegedly sending letter containing white powder to a mosque,” by Kyle Schwab by Kyle Schwab, NewsOK, August 26, 2016 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
An Oklahoma City man was charged Wednesday with a felony after he allegedly sent a threatening letter to a mosque containing a white powder meant to be mistaken for anthrax.
Justin William Bouma, 32, was charged in Oklahoma County District Court with the rarely filed felony count known as the crime of terrorist hoax. Bouma also was charged with one misdemeanor count of malicious injury and destruction of property.
Prosecutors allege Bouma sent the letter to the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City on June 1. The imam at the mosque, 3815 N St. Clair Ave., contacted the FBI after opening it.
After testing the powder, the Oklahoma City Fire Department determined it was harmless. Police reported the powder was potassium perchlorate.
Bouma admitted to police on Aug. 18 he sent the “anthrax” letter to the mosque, police reported in a court affidavit.
Bouma “purchased some cheap detergent and placed it in the envelope,” according to the affidavit. Police reported threats in the letter were cut out of a magazine and a newspaper.
On Aug. 11, OK Halal Meat & Grocery, a Muslim-owned store adjacent to the mosque, had anti-Muslim sentiments spray-painted on the back.
Bouma admitted he painted the store but said the imam told him to, the affidavit states. [Emphasis added.]
The graffiti referenced the Council on American- Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR. One statement said “CAIR not welcome.” Other remarks were crude and the terrorist group ISIS was mentioned.
Bouma reportedly attended the mosque in the past. Bouma became a suspect after authorities discovered threatening emails he had sent to mosque members, police reported….
Muslim reformers
Muslims who want to reform Islam are not “moderate” Muslims; neither was Martin Luther a “moderate” Roman Catholic. Both represent small minorities seeking material changes in their religions.
Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money, proposing an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
The changes sought by Martin Luther were feared by the Church leaders because they would disrupt its cash flow. The changes sought by Muslim reformers are feared by CAIR, et al, because they would disrupt governmental approval and patronage and eventually their power over Muslims. Perhaps Martin Luther was, and those who now seek the reformation of Islam are, “radical” — not, however, in the sense that the term “radical” is used with reference to Islam. Martin Luther did not murder those who did not believe as he did and neither do Muslim reformers.
Mecca and Medina Islam
We sometimes refer to those who adhere to the post-Mecca teachings of Mohammad, as they evolved in Medina and elsewhere later, as “radical” Muslims. It is apparently the view of Obama and His associates that they are not “radical” Muslims because they are not really Muslims. Hence, the Islamic State “has nothing to do with Islam.” The murderous activities directed by Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims and vice versa and, of course, against non-Muslims and Muslims who express “incorrect” views of Islam, are seen as not Islamic.
Please see Donald Trump and Islamists for a discussion of the substantial differences between Mecca Islam and Medina Islam.The article provides a lengthy quotation from Ayaan Hirsi Ali — a former Muslim now intent upon the reformation of Islam to coincide with Mohammad’s views as set forth in Mecca and to reject those as set forth in Medina. The differences are quite substantial and there appear to be substantially fewer Mecca Muslims than Medina Muslims.
Sharia law
Sharia law, sometimes referred to as Islamic law, focuses on human rights — as practiced in important Islamist countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia — where homosexuals, apostates and others whose words and deeds are seen as offending Mohammad and Allah are executed, often in the most painful ways possible. The Islamic State does the same and, as noted in the By the Numbers video presented above, millions of Muslims want Sharia law. Are they “radical” or “mainstream?”
Muslim reformers in America oppose Sharia law because it is grossly inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution and is also grossly evil per se. Here are the goals of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy as set forth at the adjacent link:
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy’s (AIFD) mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state.
AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization directly confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the common belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State (Islamism). Founded by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, AIFD looks to build the future of Islam through the concepts of liberty and freedom.
AIFD’s mission is derived from a love for America and a love of our faith of Islam. Dr. Jasser and the board of AIFD believe that Muslims can better practice Islam in an environment that protects the rights of an individual to practice their faith as they choose. The theocratic “Islamic” regimes of the Middle East and some Muslim majority nations use Islam as a way to control Muslim populations, not to glorify God as they portend. The purest practice of Islam is one in which Muslims have complete freedom to accept or reject any of the tenants or laws of the faith no different than we enjoy as Americans in this Constitutional republic.
AIFD believes that the root cause of Islamist terrorism is the ideology of political Islam and a belief in the preference for and supremacy of the Islamic state. Terrorism is but a means to that end. Most Islamist terror is driven by the desire of Islamists to drive the influence of the west (the ideas of liberty) out of the Muslim consciousness and Muslim majority societies. The underlying philosophy of Islamism is what western society should fear most.With almost a quarter of the world’s population Muslim, American security will never come without an understanding and winning out of the ideas of liberty by Muslims and an understanding of the harm of political Islam by non-Muslims. [Emphasis added.]
AIFD seeks to build and establish an institution that can provide an ideological infrastructure for the ideas of liberty and freedom to Muslims and our future generations. We seek to give Muslims a powerful intellectual alternative to political Islam (Islamism) ultimately seeking the defeat of political Islam as a theo-political ideology.
Can the Muslim reform movement succeed?
Under Obama, the Muslim reform movement has not had even a ghost of a chance to succeed. Obama supports such “moderate” Islamist groups as CAIR and has made no attempt to consider the contrasting views of Islamic reformers which CAIR — and perhaps Obama — deem “Islamophobic.” Perhaps the reform movement actually is “Islamophobic,” if one deems Islamism perfect and any reform harmful to the already perfect status quo.
How many have heard of “moderate” CAIR? How many have heard of “Islamophobic” reform movements such as Dr. Jasser’s American Islamic Forum for Democracy? Substantially fewer, I suspect, than have heard of CAIR, et al. Perhaps the lack of attention afforded the Islamic reform movement is among the reasons many adhere to the view that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. Perceptions of the views of Muslim reformers seem likely to change for the better under President Trump.
Conclusions
Insofar as Islam is concerned, we have been living on Obama’s Islamist plantation for nearly eight long years. Blacks have been living on the Democrat Party’s racist plantation for far longer.
Trump has tried to convince Black voters to leave the racist Democrat Plantation. As he recently asked rhetorically, “what do you have to lose?”
What do we have to lose by abandoning Obama’s Islamist plantation? Nothing, but we have much to gain. When we do, our relationship with Islam won’t get worse and seems very likely to get better as Islamic reform movements get a voice in our official policy toward Islam.
Would you prefer to have Islamist organizations such as CAIR, or Muslim reform organizations, speak to and for American Muslims? One or the other will do so.
This kind of thing happens quite frequently. The New York Daily News reported just last week that “a woman who told cops she was called a terrorist and slashed on her cheek in lower Manhattan on Thursday later admitted she made up the story, police said early Friday. The woman, who wore a headscarf, told authorities a blade-wielding wacko sliced open her face as she left a Manhattan cosmetology school, police sources said.”
And several weeks ago in Britain, the murder of a popular imam was spread far and wide as another “Islamophobic hate crime” – until his killer also was found to be a Muslim.
The Mirror reported that the imam “was targeted because he had made efforts to turn youngsters away from radical Islam.”
According to The Detroit News, a Muslim woman, Saida Chatti, was “charged with making a false police report after she allegedly fabricated a plot to blow up Dearborn Fordson High School to retaliate against the November terrorist attacks in Paris….Police say Chatti called Dearborn investigators Nov. 19, six days after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris.”
And similarly in Britain, a Muslim woman was “fined for lying to police about being attacked for wearing a hijab. The 18-year-old student, known only as Miss Choudhury, said she was violently shoved from behind and punched in the face by a man in Birmingham city centre 10 days after the atrocities in the French capital on November 13.”
In today’s politically correct environment, hate crimes are political capital. They foster the impression that resistance to Islamic terrorism equals hatred of Muslims, and results in the victimization of innocent people. Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist organizations want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they’re the currency they use to buy power and influence in our victimhood-oriented society, and to deflect attention away from jihad terror and onto Muslims as putative victims. Want power and influence? Be a victim!
“OKC man charged in terrorism hoax after allegedly sending letter containing white powder to a mosque,” by Kyle Schwab by Kyle Schwab, NewsOK, August 26, 2016 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
An Oklahoma City man was charged Wednesday with a felony after he allegedly sent a threatening letter to a mosque containing a white powder meant to be mistaken for anthrax.
Justin William Bouma, 32, was charged in Oklahoma County District Court with the rarely filed felony count known as the crime of terrorist hoax. Bouma also was charged with one misdemeanor count of malicious injury and destruction of property.
Prosecutors allege Bouma sent the letter to the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City on June 1. The imam at the mosque, 3815 N St. Clair Ave., contacted the FBI after opening it.
After testing the powder, the Oklahoma City Fire Department determined it was harmless. Police reported the powder was potassium perchlorate.
Bouma admitted to police on Aug. 18 he sent the “anthrax” letter to the mosque, police reported in a court affidavit.
Bouma “purchased some cheap detergent and placed it in the envelope,” according to the affidavit. Police reported threats in the letter were cut out of a magazine and a newspaper.
On Aug. 11, OK Halal Meat & Grocery, a Muslim-owned store adjacent to the mosque, had anti-Muslim sentiments spray-painted on the back.
Bouma admitted he painted the store but said the imam told him to, the affidavit states.
The graffiti referenced the Council on American- Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR. One statement said “CAIR not welcome.” Other remarks were crude and the terrorist group ISIS was mentioned.
Bouma reportedly attended the mosque in the past. Bouma became a suspect after authorities discovered threatening emails he had sent to mosque members, police reported….
(The views expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
An “Islamist” is a Muslim who seeks to impose Islamic (Sharia) law worldwide, including in America. There are Muslims in America who do not want that to happen, yet few of them seek actively to prevent it. I refer here to those who do try, not as “moderate Muslims” — an essentially badly used and hence meaningless term — but as “Muslim reformers.”
On August 15th, Donald Trump delivered an address, generally well-received in conservative circles, on the dangers of Islamist immigration and how he intends to guard against those who intend to have Sharia law imposed and/or to engage in terrorist activities.
In his foreign policy speech on Monday, Donald Trump stated that he would “amplify the voice” of moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, saying, “Our Administration will be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, and will amplify their voices.”
He also said that he would work with Egypt, Jordan and Israel in combating radical Islam, saying, “As President, I will call for an international conference focused on this goal. We will work side-by-side with our friends in the Middle East, including our greatest ally, Israel. We will partner with King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Sisi of Egypt, and all others who recognize this ideology of death that must be extinguished.” [Emphasis added.]
He said that, as President, he would establish a “Commission on Radical Islam,” saying, “That is why one of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam – which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us. We want to build bridges and erase divisions.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Under the Obama Administration, US policy has not been friendly towards our Muslim allies such as Egypt. Hillary Clinton recently said in a primary debate with Bernie Sanders that, in Egypt, you basically have an “army dictatorship”.
Egypt is one of the most catastrophic foreign policy failures of the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton’s State Department. President Obama started his outreach to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood when he delivered his 2009 Cairo speech. The US Embassy invited 10 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend the speech, undermining US ally Mubarak – who had rejected to previous U.S. efforts to reach out to the Brotherhood. [Emphasis added.]
Islamism
Islamism is a totalitarian vision to impose Sharia law worldwide:
Unfortunately, Obama’s “countering violent extremism” farce has chosen to ignore, if not to encourage and even adopt, Sharia law and its consequences:
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is a Muslim reformer of the type Trump hopes to recruit for his efforts. A video of an interview with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an American Muslim of Syrian descent and a proponent of an Islamic reformation, is provided below. However, first it will be useful to understand the goals of Dr. Jasser and his His organization, American Islamic Forum for Democracy:
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy’s (AIFD) mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state.
AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization directly confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the common belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State (Islamism). Founded by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, AIFD looks to build the future of Islam through the concepts of liberty and freedom.
AIFD’s mission is derived from a love for America and a love of our faith of Islam. Dr. Jasser and the board of AIFD believe that Muslims can better practice Islam in an environment that protects the rights of an individual to practice their faith as they choose. The theocratic “Islamic” regimes of the Middle East and some Muslim majority nations use Islam as a way to control Muslim populations, not to glorify God as they portend. The purest practice of Islam is one in which Muslims have complete freedom to accept or reject any of the tenants or laws of the faith no different than we enjoy as Americans in this Constitutional republic.
AIFD believes that the root cause of Islamist terrorism is the ideology of political Islam and a belief in the preference for and supremacy of the Islamic state. Terrorism is but a means to that end. Most Islamist terror is driven by the desire of Islamists to drive the influence of the west (the ideas of liberty) out of the Muslim consciousness and Muslim majority societies. The underlying philosophy of Islamism is what western society should fear most. With almost a quarter of the world’s population Muslim, American security will never come without an understanding and winning out of the ideas of liberty by Muslims and an understanding of the harm of political Islam by non-Muslims.
AIFD seeks to build and establish an institution that can provide an ideological infrastructure for the ideas of liberty and freedom to Muslims and our future generations. We seek to give Muslims a powerful intellectual alternative to political Islam (Islamism) ultimately seeking the defeat of political Islam as a theo-political ideology.
Some readers will likely think that Dr. Jasser’s efforts to reform Islam would, in the unlikely event that they prove successful, create something that is not Islam. I disagree. Mohamed (and hence Islam) changed quite radically when he was driven out of Mecca and settled in Medina, where he became a warlord. In Mecca, he had been relatively peaceful and tolerant of other religions. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali states here,
In the early days of Islam, when Muhammad was going from door to door in Mecca trying to persuade the polytheists to abandon their idols of worship, he was inviting them to accept that there was no god but Allah and that he was Allah’s messenger.
After 10 years of trying this kind of persuasion, however, he and his small band of believers went to Medina, and from that moment, Muhammad’s mission took on a political dimension. Unbelievers were still invited to submit to Allah, but after Medina, they were attacked if they refused. If defeated, they were given the option to convert or to die. (Jews and Christians could retain their faith if they submitted to paying a special tax.) [Emphasis added.]
No symbol represents the soul of Islam more than the Shahada. But today there is a contest within Islam for the ownership of that symbol. Who owns the Shahada? Is it those Muslims who want to emphasize Muhammad’s years in Mecca or those who are inspired by his conquests after Medina? On this basis, I believe that we can distinguish three different groups of Muslims.
The first group is the most problematic. These are the fundamentalists who, when they say the Shahada, mean: “We must live by the strict letter of our creed.” They envision a regime based on Shariah, Islamic religious law. They argue for an Islam largely or completely unchanged from its original seventh-century version. What is more, they take it as a requirement of their faith that they impose it on everyone else.
I shall call them Medina Muslims, in that they see the forcible imposition of Shariah as their religious duty. They aim not just to obey Muhammad’s teaching but also to emulate his warlike conduct after his move to Medina. Even if they do not themselves engage in violence, they do not hesitate to condone it. [Emphasis added.]
It is Medina Muslims who call Jews and Christians “pigs and monkeys.” It is Medina Muslims who prescribe death for the crime of apostasy, death by stoning for adultery and hanging for homosexuality. It is Medina Muslims who put women in burqas and beat them if they leave their homes alone or if they are improperly veiled.
The second group—and the clear majority throughout the Muslim world—consists of Muslims who are loyal to the core creed and worship devoutly but are not inclined to practice violence. I call them Mecca Muslims. Like devout Christians or Jews who attend religious services every day and abide by religious rules in what they eat and wear, Mecca Muslims focus on religious observance. I was born in Somalia and raised as a Mecca Muslim. So were the majority of Muslims from Casablanca to Jakarta. [Emphasis added.]
Yet the Mecca Muslims have a problem: Their religious beliefs exist in an uneasy tension with modernity—the complex of economic, cultural and political innovations that not only reshaped the Western world but also dramatically transformed the developing world as the West exported it. The rational, secular and individualistic values of modernity are fundamentally corrosive of traditional societies, especially hierarchies based on gender, age and inherited status.
Trapped between two worlds of belief and experience, these Muslims are engaged in a daily struggle to adhere to Islam in the context of a society that challenges their values and beliefs at every turn. Many are able to resolve this tension only by withdrawing into self-enclosed (and increasingly self-governing) enclaves. This is called cocooning, a practice whereby Muslim immigrants attempt to wall off outside influences, permitting only an Islamic education for their children and disengaging from the wider non-Muslim community.
It is my hope to engage this second group of Muslims—those closer to Mecca than to Medina—in a dialogue about the meaning and practice of their faith. I recognize that these Muslims are not likely to heed a call for doctrinal reformation from someone they regard as an apostate and infidel. But they may reconsider if I can persuade them to think of me not as an apostate but as a heretic: one of a growing number of people born into Islam who have sought to think critically about the faith we were raised in. It is with this third group—only a few of whom have left Islam altogether—that I would now identify myself. [Emphasis added.]
These are the Muslim dissidents. A few of us have been forced by experience to conclude that we could not continue to be believers; yet we remain deeply engaged in the debate about Islam’s future. The majority of dissidents are reforming believers—among them clerics who have come to realize that their religion must change if its followers are not to be condemned to an interminable cycle of political violence.
How many Muslims belong to each group? Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations estimates that only 3% of the world’s Muslims understand Islam in the militant terms I associate with Muhammad’s time in Medina. But out of well over 1.6 billion believers, or 23% of the globe’s population, that 48 million seems to be more than enough. (I would put the number significantly higher, based on survey data on attitudes toward Shariah in Muslim countries.)
In any case, regardless of the numbers, it is the Medina Muslims who have captured the world’s attention on the airwaves, over social media, in far too many mosques and, of course, on the battlefield.
The Medina Muslims pose a threat not just to non-Muslims. They also undermine the position of those Mecca Muslims attempting to lead a quiet life in their cultural cocoons throughout the Western world. But those under the greatest threat are the dissidents and reformers within Islam, who face ostracism and rejection, who must brave all manner of insults, who must deal with the death threats—or face death itself. [Emphasis added.]
For the world at large, the only viable strategy for containing the threat posed by the Medina Muslims is to side with the dissidents and reformers and to help them to do two things: first, identify and repudiate those parts of Muhammad’s legacy that summon Muslims to intolerance and war, and second, persuade the great majority of believers—the Mecca Muslims—to accept this change. [Emphasis added.]
Islam is at a crossroads. Muslims need to make a conscious decision to confront, debate and ultimately reject the violent elements within their religion. To some extent—not least because of widespread revulsion at the atrocities of Islamic State, al Qaeda and the rest—this process has already begun. But it needs leadership from the dissidents, and they in turn stand no chance without support from the West. [Emphasis added.]
Is Dr. Jasser a Mecca Muslim, who wants Islam to revert to the religion as practiced in Mecca? So it seems to me, and that is by no means what the Council on American Islamic relations (CAIR) wants. It has labeled Dr. Jasser and his organization “Islamophobic:”
Jasser was featured in that report as an enabler of anti-Muslim bigotry. The report noted that Jasser heads a group that “applauded” an amendment to Oklahoma’s state Constitution that would have implemented state-sponsored discrimination against Islam.
Jasser also narrated “The Third Jihad,” a propaganda film created by the Clarion Fund, which depicts Muslims as inherently violent and seeking world domination. Following revelations that the film was shown as part of training at the New York Police Department, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called it “wacky” and “objectionable.”
Here is the “propaganda film” referred to by CAIR:
Finally, here is Dr. Jasser’s video about Trump’s plan to evaluate the ideological views of Muslims who attempt to enter the United States with a view to keeping out those who favor Sharia law, terrorism and the Islamisation of America. Dr. Jasser favors it and also offers good advice.
If, as seems likely, President Trump replaces the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-linked organizations such as CAIR with non-Islamist, Muslim reform organizations such Dr. Jasser’s, the focus will shift from the Department of Homeland Security’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program of demonizing “Islamophobia” to excluding Islamists from American and preventing their domestic terror activities as well as defeating their efforts directed to the Islamisation of America and the imposition of Sharia law.
Dr. Jasser and his reformist colleagues have not been shy about how they view Islam and how they want it to change. As Hirsi Ali noted in the article quoted above,
[T]hose under the greatest threat are the dissidents and reformers within Islam, who face ostracism and rejection, who must brave all manner of insults, who must deal with the death threats—or face death itself.
I submit that it up to us, not to reject them on the notion that all Muslims are dangerous, but to accept them — as Donald Trump appears to have done — and to work with them in their efforts to change not only Islam but how it functions in America.
illustrative picture. (Photo: © ISIS Propaganda)
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