Holding Islam to Account

Holding Islam to Account

Amil Imani

 

Islam has spawned many sects that are master practitioners of the art of double standards. As far as Muslims are concerned what is good for Muslims is not good for the non-Muslims; and, what is bad for Muslims is good for non-Muslims.

What complicates matters is that there is no way of knowing which of the dozens of at-each-other’s-throat sects is the legitimate Islam. As sooner as Muhammad died his religion of peace became a house of internal war: jockeying for power and leadership started, sects formed and splintered into sub-sects, and bloodletting began in earnest.

The internal infighting in Islam is presently playing in full color—in red—most dramatically, in the Iraqi theater. Shiite raid Sunni civilians, slaughter them like sheep, and toss their bodies like trash in the streets or the rivers. The Sunnis return the favor with just as much viciousness and savagery.

Question: if this is the way these Muslims treat each other, how would they deal with the infidels, when they have the chance?

 

Answer: these devoted followers of Muhammad would deal with the infidels exactly the way Muhammad did: behead the non-believers, take them as slaves to hold or sell, or make them pay back-breaking jazyyeh—pole taxes.

Some may object that writings like this are little more than hatemongering and fanning the fire that rages between Islam and the non-Islamic world. They may further flash the Islamic apologists’ few well-worn-out propaganda cards as evidence for their contention that Islam is not what its detractors claim.

Here are the few favorite cards:

* There is no compulsion in religion says the Quran—the full context is never shown.

* “Islam,” means “Peace,” so Islam is religion of peace.

* “For you, your religion, and for me, my religion,” Muhammad reportedly had said.

The Muslims and their apologists quickly run out of their few cards and the rest of the Islamic deck is all about intolerance, hatred, and violence toward the infidels and all others who are not true Muslims, even toward those who consider themselves as Muslims. Shiites, for instance, judge the Sunnis as traitors to Islam and Sunnis condemn the Shiites as heretics. Each side deems the other worthy of death and hellfire.

This internecine Islamic war of the religion of peace is not confined to the Shiite-Sunni divide. There are so many internal divisions within each side that listing and describing them comprehensively would be encyclopedic.

So, who is right? What are the facts about Islam and how does Islam impact the ever-shrinking village earth and its inhabitants? Admittedly, this is a huge question and cannot be answered satisfactorily in one article. However, some facts can be presented to help the reader decide.

There is no need to belabor the point that Islam is not and has never been a religion of peace. The word “Islam,” is derived from “taslim,” which means “submission,” while the term for “peace,” is “Solh.” Another derivation of the word “taslim,” is “salamat” which means “good health,” and so on.

Irrespective of what the term “Islam” may mean, the facts on the ground conclusively demonstrate Islam’s violent nature from its very inception. No need to go back to the time of Muhammad and examine the historical records. Just a few from contemporary events should make the point.

Here is a partial list: the savage Shiites-Sunnis bloodletting in Iraq; the barbarism of the resurging Taliban in Afghanistan; the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur; the Somalis’ killings; the Iranian mullahs’ murder of their own people and support of mischief abroad; the cross-border attack on Israel by Lebanese Hizbollah; the incessant terrorist acts of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatwa of the Palestinians against Israel; the bombing of Shiites mosques in Pakistan and the Shiites retaliation against easy innocent civilian targets.

Clearly, there is no place on the planet where Muslims reside that is in peace from the religion of peace. Spain, France, Holland, England Thailand, and Indonesia, have already been attacked while others such as Belgium have been threatened and sanctioned.

Stretching the benefit of the doubt beyond limits, one may believe that all these acts of horrors are committed by a small minority of thugs and radicals who happened to be Muslims.

Fine, let us ignore all those “fringes” for now: those who are giving Islam a bad reputation. And never mind Saudi Arabia, the cradle of barbarism fixed in formaldehyde since Islam’s inception. Also, let us overlook the dastardly Shiite fanatics presently ruling (ruining) the great nation of Iran. Iran Shiite Hitlerists are hell-bent on wiping Israel off the face of the planet while viciously devastating Iran’s own largest minority—the Baha’is; the people universally-recognized as law-abiding and peaceful.

Would someone account for what is happening in the “civilized” Islamic country of Egypt? The world owes Egypt a debt of gratitude for giving it the Muslim Brotherhood—the lead promoter of Sunni hatred toward the infidels with chapters and front organizations in much of the world. With typical Islamic hypocrisy, the Egyptian government claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed, when in actuality the Brotherhood holds twenty-five percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament. The same country that gave the world vicious American killers like Al Zawahiri is the recipient of huge largess from the American taxpayer.

And the latest shameful action of the Egyptian government is the issuance of identity cards that requires listing of one’s religion. In order to be issued an ID card which is essential for just about any and all exercises of the rights of citizenship, the individual must list his religion as one of the three sanctioned faiths: Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. No one is allowed to leave the religious affiliation blank or list any other religion. Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’is or agnostics and atheists have either to lie and fake a religious affiliation or run the serious risk of having to survive as non-entities in the “crown jewel” of modern and moderate Islamic society.

These are the conditions on the ground wherever Islam rules. Violence of all forms is endemic to Islam and is not confined to any fringes that are oppressive, hateful of others and violent to the core.

The world must confront Islam and demand that it mends its ways in conformity with the Bill of Rights, where every man, woman, and child is fully entitled to equal treatment under the law, irrespective of any and all considerations.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and an essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at http://amilimani.com

Pressure on Pope to rebuild ties with Islam

From correspondents in IstanbulNovember 05, 2006 11:29pmArticle from: Reuters 

PRESSURE is growing on Pope Benedict XVI to use a trip to Turkey this month to rebuild badly strained ties between the Vatican and the Muslim world. Two new developments last week – a shooting incident at the Italian consulate in Istanbul and news that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan would not meet him during his visit – have given an added edge to the visit from November 28 to December 1.The Muslim world was enraged in September when the Pope gave a lecture at a German university in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor in a passage which denounces Islam as violent.His repeated expressions of regret have failed to quell the anger in the Middle East which has also been keenly felt in politically secular but mostly Muslim Turkey.“The majority of Turkish society was very angry with his Regensburg (University) speech, but many of them will see this visit as a chance for the Pope to explain his own thoughts on Islam,” said Cemal Usak, a Muslim activist in Turkey who has long been involved in inter-religious debate.“I believe he can compensate for his faults on Islam during his visit.”On Thursday, a young Muslim Turk fired a gun in front of the Italian consulate in Istanbul to protest against the Pope’s visit and called on him to stay away.The Vatican played down the protest and the fact that Erdogan would be too busy to meet the Pontiff.“We think it (the Pope’s visit) is a good chance to develop good relations,” said Sheik Muhammad Dormuhammad, secretary general of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya, who was in Istanbul to attend a religious conference.The crisis – like controversies over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad or the death sentence for an Afghan convert to Christianity – reveals a deeper gulf between two world views that only sustained dialogue can overcome.Some even accuse Pope Benedict of undoing years of bridge-building by his predecessor.Father Francois Yakan in Istanbul, the former Byzantine Christian capital conquered by the Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453, said the visit would open up much-needed dialogue.“The Pope’s visit will calm things a bit and improve relations between Europe and Islam,” said the patriarchal vicar of the Chaldean Catholic Church.“Don’t expect miracles here.”It will be Pope Benedict’s first visit to a Muslim country since becoming Pontiff in April 2005.“Maybe he will learn something about Islam, because the things he has said in the past are not good about Islam,”said Mohammad El Amin Nibaruta, secretary general of the Council of Religious Organisations of Burundi.“We think he doesn’t have enough information about the religion,” he said at the religious conference.peTwo weeks ago, 38 Muslim scholars sent Benedict an open letter pointing out what they said were wrong or tendentious statements about Islam made in the Regensburg speech.Turkish nationalists and Islamist activists – both suspecting the Pope’s visit was aimed at boosting non-Muslim faiths – have called for his trip to be cancelled.Even before the Pope’s latest remarks on Islam, Turks were distrustful of Benedict, who before becoming Pope said Turkey as a non-Christian country would not fit into the European Union.“The Pope will be coming at a time when relations with the West are deteriorating and Turks feel the EU doesn’t want them,” said Hasan Unal, a nationalist-minded academic at Ankara’s Bilken University.The nationalist mood has strengthened following a barrage of criticism from EU leaders of Turkey’s failure to recognise Cyprus, improve human rights and bring the revered military firmly under civilian control.The Pope’s visit will also put a spotlight on religious freedom in Turkey.His main purpose in visiting the country which spans Europe and Asia, is to meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians.

 

Columnist in Egyptian Government Newspaper: I Am Happy at the Death of American and British Soldiers in Iraq

Columnist in Egyptian Government Newspaper: I Am Happy at the Death of American and British Soldiers in Iraq

In his October 27, 2006 column in the Egyptian government evening paper Al-Masa’, Muhammad Foda wrote that he was happy to know that American and British soldiers were being killed in Iraq.

The following are excerpts from the article:

“I Am Very Happy When I Learn That an American or British Soldier Has Been Killed”

“By my nature, I cannot stand the sight of blood spilling out of a bird or an animal, not to mention of a human. My heart does not let me watch a chicken being slaughtered or a knife being waved over a lamb’s or calf’s neck on the Festival of Sacrifice. If I see a predator on television, like a lion or a tiger, chasing after a deer, I flip to another channel so as not to see the weak prey becoming a tasty meal in the claws and teeth of this beast.

“Nonetheless, I am very happy when I learn that an American or British soldier has been killed by the resistance forces in Iraq. It is true that this soldier and his family have no choice but for him to be in Iraq, so I express my condolences to the family for [the death of] a person like ourselves. However, I am happy at the downfall of the American statesmen, and especially President Bush, his vice president Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who dragged their people into this quagmire in order to murder the Iraqi people and slaughter its children and women.

“In October 2006 alone, the Americans lost 101 soldiers in Iraq… This number is relatively large in comparison with the number of dead in past months, and this proves that the Iraqi resistance is growing stronger day by day, week by week, and month by month. Thus it is developing its methods and is focusing on occupation soldiers at their posts, in their lodgings, in their training [facilities], and in their military bases.”

“We Hope That the Resistance Forces Will Focus More on ‘Hunting’ American and British Soldiers”

“We hope that the resistance forces will focus more on ‘hunting’ American and British soldiers, and in this way will harm Bush and his people, who seem to be determined to stay in Iraq at any cost – even if over 50 soldiers are killed every hour. What matters to them is the implementation of their policy, even [if this be] over the remains of their soldiers’ corpses.

“When the American President George Bush, Jr. and his English partner Blair understand that there is a high price for their forces’ remaining in Iraq, and that Iraqi soil will be a graveyard for their invading soldiers, [only] then will [they] – this bloody man and his partner who walks in his footsteps – [understand] that they are guilty before their own countries, before they are guilty before Iraq and the Iraqi people.”

Muslim Propaganda at the University of Chicago

Diana Muir in History News Network points out some Islamic apologetic propaganda at The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago:

Visitors can see the sixteen foot tall human-headed, winged, guardian bull from the palace of Sargon II, the astonishing giant head of a bull made of polished black that guarded the entrance to the Hundred-Column Hall at Persepolis, and an almost equally remarkable bit of Islamic propaganda – written by the museum staff and posted in the section on ancient Megiddo – in which history is rewritten and Mohammed actually travels to Jerusalem.*The Muslim propaganda wall plaque is headed:

Land of the Bible 600 B.C. to the Present Three Major Religions Grew in the Southern Levant

Right in the headline, the curator misstates history to satisfy a political agenda. Judaism and Christianity “grew” in the southern Levant (defined by the museum as roughly the territory of modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories.) Islam did not. It “grew” in the Hijaz (Mecca and Medina,) nor did the scholars who defined the religion after the death of the Prophet live in the Levant.

The plaque continues:

Long after the Canaanites and the Israelites, the Southern Levant has continued to play an important role in the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.The golden days of Israel and Judah ended at the hands of the Babylonians with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 586 B.C. and subsequent mass exile of the Israelites. Although many returned to the Southern Levant under the rule of the Persians (529-332BC), they would not soon regain their autonomy.

But Israelite religion continued to develop. At the turn of the first millennium AD, several religious sects broke away in response to Roman rule and the local political climate. One of these lines led, ultimately, to the tradition of modern Jewish religion.

Did the curator slip that bit of anti-Jewish sovereignty propaganda under your radar?

The Israelites fail to “regain their autonomy” but continue to “develop” as a “religion.” This is a standard line of argumentation according to which the Jews cease to be a political community and transition to being a religious community with, consequently, no entitlement to sovereignty.

Written out of history by the Oriental Institute is not only all evidence that the proto-Jewish community in Judea under the Persians at times enjoyed a limited degree of political autonomy, but the entire history and existence of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms. Since one of the strongest arguments that can be made by a national liberation movement is that the group claiming a right to sovereignty has a history of sovereignty, eliminating ancient Jewish kingdoms from the historical narrative reduces the historically based claim to legitimacy of the modern Jewish state, with real political implications.

Having skipped right over two centuries of Jewish political sovereignty in favor of an anti-Zionist story line that has the Jews abandoning political life after the Babylonian exile in favor of developing exclusively as a religion, we come to the advent of Christianity.

Jesus was born into this context, and was hailed by his followers as the Messiah, Son of God.

Fair enough. Scholarly and objective. But when we come to Mohammed, scholarly objectivity disappears.

Six centuries later, the Prophet Mohammed would visit Jerusalem where he would experience his Night Flight and Ascension to heaven.

Only the pious believe that the visit and night flight are actual, historical events. Mohammed’s visit and Night Flight is a religious myth or dream, not an actual event. The Prophet never actually visited Jerusalem. The Quran speaks not of a visit to Jerusalem, but of a visit to the “farthest mosque.” Scholarly dispute over the event centers around the question of how early the Quranic reference to “the “farthest mosque” came to be interpreted as a reference to Jerusalem.

But note the wording of the plaque. Even a museum visitor who does not believe in night flights and ascensions to heaven, will read — and quite likely accept as fact — the notion that Mohammed’s visit to Jerusalem was an actual, historical event. After all, this is the faculty of the University of Chicago saying that he did.

The assertion that Muhammad actually visited Jerusalem is a political statement which has the effect of making the groundless assertion in the headline — that Islam grew in the Levant — appear to be true. If Mohammed did travel to Jerusalem, if he actually set foot on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem becomes one of the places where the religion of Islam “grew.” Because one of the arguments made by national liberation movements is that formative events in the history of the group claiming sovereignty took place on the land they are claiming, if we accept that the Prophet visited Jerusalem, the Muslim claim to Jerusalem is strengthened, with real political implications.

You can see just how baseless the plaque’s statement is, and get the real story of the Night Journey from Islamic tradition, in my book The Truth About Muhammad.

UK: The Dire Plans Of A Thwarted Muslim Terrorist

News from the BBC, the Guardian, Times, Daily Mail, Associated Press and Mainichi News reports that today, a court in south London heard full details of the plot masterminded by Dhiren Barot, a convert to Islam. On October 12, Barot had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder, involving a plot to attack targets in Britain and the United States, and reporting restrictions on his trial were relaxed.

34-year old Barot had been born in India to a Hindu family, and had been brought to Britain while a baby. He was schooled in north London, and became a convert to Islam in his twenties. He had been living in Kingsbury, north-west London, when he was arrested in August, 2004.

The court had already heard that the full extent of the plot had only come to light after his computer hard drive was examined after his arrest. Barot’s intended targets included the International Monetary Fund (IMF) building and the World Bank in Washington DC, the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup building in New York, and the Prudential buildings in Newark, New Jersey.

In Britain, he intended to use stretch limousines, packed with gas cylinders and explosives and having them parked in underground car parks, where they would be detonated. This plot was called the “Gas Limos” project. He also placed details on his computer of a “Rough Presentation for radiation or Dirty Bomb Project”. His plans had been to operate the “Gas Limos” and “Dirty Bomb” operations in synchronized attacks. The plan for the latter projects had only been schemes, and he had no access to the necessary materials for a radiological dispersion device.

Barot had been charged with 12 additional offences. These were one count of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven counts of making a record of information for terrorist purposes, and four counts of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes. Justice Butterfield, the judge in the case, ordered these to remain on file following the guilty plea on conspiracy to murder on October 12.

Seven other individuals, who had been arrested in the same operation which netted Barot, will be tried early next year.

This morning, further details emerged at Woolwich Crown Court. Barot, behind a glass wall and flanked by two court guards, took notes as the trial entered the phase of pre-sentence hearing. Outside the court, armed guards lined the streets.

The crown prosecutor, Edmund Lawson QC, stated today: “There were plans for the detonation of a radiation dispersal device, more commonly known as a dirty bomb, the use of a petrol tanker to cause an explosion, and an attack on London’s rail or Underground network, including the Heathrow Express, of an explosion on a Tube train while in a tunnel under the River Thames.”

Lawson quoted from notes on Barot’s computer, which read: “Imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here and actually rupture the river itself. That would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning etc that would occur.”

The prosecutor said that Barot had admired the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004, which had killed 191 people and injured 1,755. Lawson said that Barot called the Madrid train station attack as “the definitive accident” which deserves to be emulated more than any other”.

Edmund Lawson had opened his case against Barot by saying: “Barot, who was a member or close associate of the al Qaida terrorist organisation, led a conspiracy in this country to cause lethal explosions both here and in the USA. A conspiracy frustrated by the actions of police in arresting him in August 2004. The plan was to carry out massive explosions here and in the USA. The principal object being to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people without warning.”

The prosecutor said that it was only an “an outstanding counter-terrorism operation” which had prevented Barot from putting his ideas into action. Thisoperation had involved intelligence from Pakistan and the United States.

It emerged today that Barot had traveled to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, where he had attended a terror training camp. He had used false identities, and possessed at least one false passport, the court heard. He used various aliases, including Abu Eisa al-Hindi, Abu Musa al-Hindi and Issa al-Britani. Barot had also gone to the United States to carry out reconnaissance on his intended targets.

Lawson said: “Here he recruited his co-defendants to provide the support he needed to carry out the reconnaissance necessary in the US where he went himself to select the target buildings.”

Reconnaissance videos of US locations, which had been taken in August 2001, were found on Barot’s computer.

The prosecutor said: “Then in this country he conducted the research for the proposal and then for the preparation for the attack. This picture is consistent with the terms of a letter written by Barot himself, which has been recovered from computer equipment where he speaks of a ‘small unit’ that is operating ‘around the clock’ and a passage in the Gas Limos Project where he refers to his group as a ‘sleeper cell’.”

“The care he took in terms of his meetings with his co-defendants, the use of coded messages and the anti-surveillance tactics he employed to ensure that observation of his activity would be as difficult as possible lends further support to his role as the organiser of major terrorist activity designed to strike at the heart of both America and this country and to cause the loss of innocent human life on a massive scale,” the prosecutor said.

Barot is wanted by the United States, where a four-count indictment has been made against him. The trial is continuing.

World War Is Upon Us — I’m coming closer to this opinion daily

World War Is Upon Us Friday, November 03, 2006 12:49 PM                                                                                     Thailand will be going under Sharia law. Somalia will be suffering under the Janjaweed until they have total control. Indonesia is under Sharia. Turkey is moving away from secularism and towards Sharia. Europe is being held hostage to the Islamic immigrants it took in. World War is at the door. If we do not open it, it will knock the door down anyway.  Call me whatever you want to. Label me a hatemongering, xenophobic, racist. I DON”T CARE! Islam is violent and evil. It will continue to be spread by the sword just as it began. I am an infidel in the eyes of these people and they wish to kill me and mine. The butchering, raping, pillaging, and plundering that is occurring in the world today is all at the behest of Mohammed and his fake god allah. Allah is satan and Mohammed is his spawn. If there is a 12th Imam in hiding, awaiting that special moment, my bet is that it is one of Lucifer’s buddy’s. In reality I think the whole idea is another one of the Islamic lies written to keep the ignorant in control. Imam, if you can see this, I SPIT ON YOU! Unlike radio personalities or writers that are trying to keep an audience, I will not compromise my belief or faith. I do not care if my Islamic neighbor hates me. I do not care if some nutjob cleric issues a fatwa. I am sick and tired of this ilk getting their way because of the faithless and secularist cowards that wish to commit suicide as opposed to fight. Allah is not my god. It was not the God of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, and Israel. It was not the God that sent Jesus to sacrifice himself on my behalf. It is not the God that helped found and grow this nation by leading our forefathers. Allah is evil incarnate, if there is such a being after all. Mohammed was an epileptic pedophile with a megalomaniac bent. Allah was probably one of his visions during a seizure. If there is an Allah it is a murderous being that takes sick pleasure out of watching humans destroy themselves. The Koran offers nothing to eliminate this but convert, infidels are not humans. Here’s one for you, Islamists are not human. They’re ignorant, murderous, psychopaths with a sinful taste for death and destruction. They go around raping, beheading, blowing themselves up for what?! What gain do they expect? So the Democrats win and pull out, how does this change the fact that the murderous scum are still just that? Maybe we need the war to come here. Maybe the cowards will be forced to realize that they were deathly wrong. Maybe Ted Kennedy, Noam Chomsky and their fellow socialists can be the first victims of the Islamic revolt. Our revolution started in Massachusetts, maybe the second one can start there too. I’m tired of the cowards. I’m sick of Islamists and their double speak and the morons that believe them. The Islamic problem is NOT Israel, Not the US, NOT a hijacked religion. The problem with Islam IS Islam. The War is here. Who’s got the courage to fight it? http://bigasrants.townhall.com/

Bishop attacks ‘victim’ Muslims

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali dares to challenge the manipulative public stance of Muslims in the UK. By Christopher Morgan in the TimesOnline, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

THE Church of England’s only Asian bishop, whose father converted from Islam, has criticised many Muslims for their “dual psychology”, in which they desire both “victimhood and domination”.In the most outspoken critique of Muslims by a church leader, Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said that because of this view it would never be possible to satisfy all their demands.

“Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when the Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taliban or in Iraq,” said Nazir-Ali.

“Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made.”

The failure to counter such beliefs meant that radical Islam had flourished in Britain, spread by extremist imams indoctrinating children for up to four hours a day, he said.

Nazir-Ali added that rigorous checks, from which the government had retreated in face of Muslims’ protests, should be imposed to ensure that arriving clerics were committed to the British way of life.

“Characteristic British values have developed from the Christian faith and its vision of personal and common good,” said the bishop in an interview with The Sunday Times.

“After they were clarified by the enlightenment they became the bedrock of our modern political life. These values need to be recovered to help us to inculcate the virtues of generosity, loyalty, moderation and love.”

Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan and whose father converted from Islam to Catholicism, said radical Islam was being taught in mosque schools across Britain. “While radical teaching may not be happening everywhere, its presence is felt across the country. It affects all Muslims,” he said.

“The two main causes of the present situation [rising extremism] are fundamentalist imams and material on the internet.” He proposed to filter out imams who might whip up extremism: “They must be vetted for appropriate qualifications, they must have a reasonable knowledge of the English language and they must take part in a recognised process of learning about British life and culture.”

The government, after lobbying from Muslim groups, retreated from proposals to toughen entry requirements put forward by David Blunkett, the former home secretary, two years ago. Plans to require foreign clerics to sit a test on British civic values a year after arriving were cancelled along with the introduction of a requirement to speak English to conversational level….

Nazir-Ali, 57, was born a Catholic in Karachi, converted to Protestantism and was received into the Church of Pakistan at 20. He settled in Britain in the 1980s and became the youngest bishop in the world at 35.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said his comments were not “very helpful for community relationships”.

Right. Nazir-Ali should kowtow like a good dhimmi.

“We know that America never favours Islamic movements anywhere in the world and such statements are part of an incorrect Zionist-inherited ideology”

America is lying about the Somali jihadists, says Mukhtar Robow, and of course it is the Zionists’ fault. “Islamists reject US terrorism warning,” by Mustafa Haji Abdinur for IOL:

Mogadishu – Somalia’s powerful Islamic movement on Friday rejected as “baseless” United States allegations that its supreme leader had authorised suicide attacks in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia.The Islamists, some of whom are suspected of links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, said the “baseless warning” from Washington was part of pro-Zionist, Israeli propaganda aimed at destabilising the Muslim world.

“We know that America never favours Islamic movements anywhere in the world and such statements are part of an incorrect Zionist-inherited ideology,” said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Islamists’ deputy defense chief.

“Islam does not harm people,” he said. “The warnings issued by the American embassy issued are baseless and we never attack neighbouring countries.”

Except when we do — or prepare to.

Times Echoes

Times Echoes
November 4th, 2006

A distinct subculture, a belief system if not a religion, exists in the United States. Its members draw their instruction on what to believe and how to live from the New York Times. I call them the Times Echoes. They exist in urban social ecosystems all across American.

There are certain people you never forget.  One is a man I knew who was an anomaly in more ways than one.  He was a politically conservative Jewish septuagenarian living in Westchester County, NY, within the gravitational pull of the Den of Iniquity (that would be NYC).  Possessing a genius IQ and intrepidity to match, on more than one occasion he told me of a technique he used when debating liberals. 

He’d say, “I can tell you what you believe on any issue.  Name for me any issue, and I’ll tell you what your position is.”  Not that he claimed powers of divination.  He explained, “I can do this because I know they get their beliefs from the New York Times.  All I have to do is open the Times, and that’s what they believe.”

This came to mind when I read Clay Waters’ piece on Timeswatch, “Richard Berke Bashes Blogs that Criticize the Times.”  Reporting on an event called Times Talk, at the New York Historical Society in Manhattan, Waters writes,

 . . . what struck me was the condescending and sometimes paranoid liberalism of the audience questioners. Of the seven or eight audience members who addressed the panel, none said anything that could be remotely construed as Republican or even moderate. Instead, the panelists got foreboding questionings of whether Bush believed in democracy and whether Red State folk are as ignorant as they are because they don’t read the New York Times.

Don’t think this is unusual.  For instance, I remember another septuagenarian, a woman I engaged in a political debate.  She was an avid reader of the Times and when I asked her if she believed everything contained therein, her response was “yes.”  When I asked why, I was informed that it was because the people who write for them are “very intelligent.”

To Times Echoes, the Times isn’t merely an information source.  It isn’t even just the newspaper of record.  It is an oracle, an inerrant purveyor of wisdom, compared to which the Bible pales.  But the Times Echo is most certainly human.  Although, if Christian theology is correct that it’s intellect and free will that separate man from the animal kingdom, perhaps just barely so.

If you’re offended by the Times Echo’s query about ignorant Red Staters, don’t be.  Despite their delusion that they’re possessed of sophistication, Times Echoes are the most callow, provincial of creatures.  You see, they don’t actually interact with people from the hinterlands and consider sufficient study of the latter’s culture to be a screening of Deliverance.

Oh, it’s not that they don’t travel.  They like bucolic vistas and toasty winter climes as much as anyone, and they have plenty of money. But they tend toward places previously civilized by other Times Echoes. Thus, jaunts to the Hamptons, cozy Vermont Inns (Vermont is rural but acceptable, since Times Echo hegemony was achieved long ago.  Hello, Bernie Sanders?) and trips to Aspen, Boca Raton and the Carribean are definitely on the itinerary. The areas in-between are akin to the Planet of the Apes, inconvenient badlands that only make travel between the aforementioned venues more time consuming.

And Times Echoes’ habitat really is that insular.  For example, despite the fact that Times Echoes fiercely oppose erecting a wall along the southern border, you shouldn’t be fooled.  It’s not that they oppose such barriers in principle, it’s just the location with which they take issue.  Manhattan Island already has its own moat.

And it is this very insularity that enables the Times Echo to exist.  Much like the ground-dwelling birds of Madagascar, the Times Echo’s isolated original habitat on the narrow island of Manhattan is even narrower. Guns, big stick foreign policy, adequate punishment for criminals and forced interrogation of terrorists seem like antiquated tools of Cro-Magnons to the Times Echo, ensconced as it is on the thirty-first floor of its doorman-protected building.

It is life in this bubble that blinds the Times Echoes to the real world.  And, insofar as they are cognizant of the “quirks,” “oddities” and “prejudices” of the barbarians beyond the realm, they have the expectation that their grand mission should remain totally unfettered by them.  It is this attitude that explains the comments of Times Assistant Managing Editor Richard Berke.  Waters reports from memory Berke as stating,

There are some good blogs, like Dick’s [fellow panelist Dick Polman]. The bad blogs are the ones that take on the New York Times.  Some of the blogs take a toll on our reporters.  One question on our minds is, ‘What are the blogs going to say?’ . . . Reporters have to be careful not to pull their punches . . . There are people dedicated to analyzing and picking apart whatever we say and do, not always in a bad way, but sometimes it’s just mean-spirited . . . The bloggers are after us . . . we try not to be affected, but foremost in our mind, we know that everything we write will be picked apart . . . you have to ignore those people that go after you . . . I’m afraid that blogging . . . creates problems for people to do their job.  

Well, well, what a cross he has to bear.  No man should have to labor under such conditions. 

Retirement comes to mind. 

What really upsets Pinch and his minions is that bloggers harm their ability to spawn more Times Echoes. Declining circulation shows how serious a problem this is.

A Times Echo is a creature of human respect, although he doesn’t show it as much as he craves it.  He sees nothing above his caste, and when he casts his myopic eyes downward, is assaulted by the visage of the common man.  This explains his paternalism. He is also a creature of his age, being too disconnected from that which is ageless to transcend it.  He is trapped in time and place, the servant who fancies himself a king, the simpleton posing as a savant.

This would explain why publisher Pinch Sulzberger, waxing contemporary, once is reported to have said that the Times

“ . . . can no longer offer our readers a predominantly white, straight, male vision of events . . ..” 

Personally, I don’t remember such a practice, unless he meant the vision of a white, straight male named Pinch.  But what vision are we to expect?  A black, lesbian, female vision?  Is the paper to be known henceforth as the “Gay Lady”?  A green, reptilian, cold-blooded vision?  An orange, beta-carotene, vegetable vision?  A brown, sedimentary, mineral vision?    

This is why the times of the Times’ woes are times for hope.  The near-religion that is the Times dying, its Echoes are becoming fainter.  And this is perhaps why they hate the Internet media so.  They fear its ascendancy, for they know what fate befalls creatures that cannot or will not adapt to changing times.  The oblivion of extinction.

Contact Selwyn Duke.

Selwyn Duke

STOP LETTING ISLAM MAKE YOU LIVE DEFENSIVELY

STOP LETTING ISLAM  MAKE YOU LIVE DEFENSIVELY

The more I think about it, the madder I get.  The madder I get, the more I refuse to let it happen any more, and I hope this applies to you as well.

What I am talking about is how all of the West, including so many in America, have become self-consciously guilty and ashamed of our Western values and culture by accepting the ceaseless howling of militant Muslims who are always attacking us.  People are falling all over themselves not to “offend” Muslims, who in turn keep increasing their bad manners and braggadocio just to watch Western chickenshits dance to their tunes. 

It is international in scope.  Read this from Tashbih Sayyed’s Why Is The World Afraid Of Muslims? in Jihad Watch.

A number of recent apologies made to the Muslims by non-Muslim leaders clearly indicate that the world has grown increasingly fearful of Muslim rage. Political Islam, as is obvious by the reactions of the socio-cultural and political institutions in countries of Europe, Britain and the U.S. has come of age. It has been allowed to establish itself into a position from where it can manipulate the host country’s social and political systems to its advantage. The significance of this achievement cannot be denied. Political Islam’s disabling fear has already deprived the West of its ability to stand up and defend its values. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten apologized for publishing the Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures, next, Pope Benedict XVI felt compelled to repeatedly explain his comments, and now Germany’s leading opera house, the Deutsche Opera of Berlin has cancelled a production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, because it was determined that it would offend Muslim sensibilities.

A report on combating terrorism issued by the Netherlands Interior Minister Johan Remkes and Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner states that radical Muslims are gaining influence in the Netherlands. According to the report, the ultra-orthodox Salafism that seeks to return to the “pure Islam” of the days of Prophet Mohammed is making its presence felt in an increasing number of mosques. The adherents of Salafism shun western society and work against the moderate Muslims who want to integrate into Dutch society. The report pointed out that the followers of radical Islam have successfully used the internet and lectures to win over more followers in order to gain control of moderate mosques, Remkes said.

U.S. experts believe that radical Islam in France was responsible for Last year’s rioting in France that began in a poor, mostly Muslim, neighborhood near Paris and then spread to other suburbs and cities across France and parts of Europe. They claimed that despite the characterization by several media outlets that those perpetuating the violence were primarily disaffected youth upset with French economic and social policies, the reason the unrest spread so quickly and was virtually limited to Muslim neighborhoods signifies a deeper and more ideologically driven motive.

Great Britain, America’s closest ally in the war against terrorism is also a major base of operation for some of the most radical Islamic organizations, including some direct supporters of Osama bin Laden. Radical Islam has exploited the cultural and moral vacuum which has been emerging in Britain over the past 30 years. The London terrorist bombings last July, perpetrated by homegrown Islamist terrorists, shocked British society who until then thought radical Islam was confined to distant places of which British people knew little and cared less.

What has happened is that people have allowed militant Muslims with their 1400 year old rhetoric and behavior to change our way of life.  Put another way, very many people nationally and internationally have allowed them to make us live defensively, as though we in West have all the shame and evil and must atone for it because  Islam is the gold standard.

It has to stop and stop right now.  Fortunately, I find more and more bloggers, web owners, commentators, radio hosts, and citizens beginning to chafe about this.  Still, I want to hear something universal along the lines of “I’m mad as hell, and I won’t take it any more!”

Just to get some things crystal clear right now, I have never seen or met a so-called “moderate Muslim.”  I know nothing of their existence, although quite a few people, including some whom I trust and respect tell me they exist.  That there might be some seems only logical.  However, whatever “moderate Muslims” are there, they are silent, and their silence is their assent to all the verbal and physical attacks by overtly militant Muslims.  Both groups merit moral contempt.  I know there is no such thing as “moderate Islam,” so anyone not totally orthodox and consistent with Islam’s violent teachings is a “bad Muslim” in the eyes of the orthodox; that means any “moderate Muslims” are subject to aggression from the “good Muslims.”  I also know that “Muslim” does not designate any race–it is solely a term for adherents to the toxic ideology of Islam.  So, being anti-Islam is not the same as being racist any more than being anti-illegal immigrants is racist.  I have studied Islam in depth and continue to, so I know what the foundation documents actually say, and that constitutes the basis for my appraisals of Islam and its advocates.  There is no good Islam, not in part, nor in whole.  Muslims who buy into Islam do so just as Germans who bought into Nazism; there is no “cherry-picking” in Islam.  Many Muslims are said to want peace while having their Islam; that analogizes to Nazis wanting peace while having their Nazism.  The parallels between Islam and Nazism are overwhelmingly super-imposable.  And, I never forget that Islam demands conquest of all peoples who are not Muslim by Muslims, and that deception is central to Islam.  That means I have no way to tell if a “peaceable” Muslim is for real or is just being a dissimulating “sleeper.”  Finally, I am 100% American, and I expect all Americans to be the same (fundamentally allegiant to America), including naturalized Americans.  So-called “Muslim-Americans” clotting together to exclude non-Muslims, refusing to assimilate, and refusing to stand up for this country fully exceed my tolerance.  I have no such feelings about immigrants to America from anywhere who assimilate.  Muslims are the odd-man-out, and so far, since 11 September 2001, I have see NO EVIDENCE to the contrary, but I remain open to examine any such evidence should it become available.

What is emulative about Islam and its products, given its 1400 year history?  Answer:  Nothing.  Destruction of human potential is the hallmark of Islam, along with destruction of everyone and everything not Islamic.  Ignorance, poverty, backwardness, and all out war on human nature are not attractive, but Islam gives nothing more.  That does not make it superior.  Quite the opposite, it makes Islam and all that it touches totally inferior.

What is making the Islamic gambit work?  It is very, very simple.  Muslims have what Western intellectuals have taken away from us in the West:  MORAL CERTAINTY.  Yes, Islam is evil; Islam is intellectual detritus; Islam is small enough to fit the minds of Muslims.  Were Islam complicated in any way, it would hold no sway.  But, as we have been developing in this website, Islam mutates young minds to deform a normal child into a Muslim, always under sway of a simple-minded script and a huge mass of fellow “believers,” all of whom clot together to try to form one independent mind.  What results is the Muslim herd, stuffed with the sense of any true believer that his and her ideology is the ONLY TRUE PATH.  It is moral certainty, all right, but it is an edifice standing on nothing substantial.  That is why Islam is so afraid of questioners and doubters, and seeks to kill them.

Moral certainty coming from rationally perceiving and understanding reality by an independent mind is unbelievably powerful, but this is no description of Islam.  Seeing, metaphorically speaking, that the emperor has no clothes and announcing the same is the cardinal fear of Islam.

Moral certainty no longer characterizes so very many in the West.  That is a major reason why the moral abomination called the United Nations exists, why it stands on valuable property in New York City, and why America pays 22% of its bills PLUS endless other contributions.  What does the USA get in return?  Scorn.

The instances of moral uncertainty leading to retreating from Western values populate a vast list.  Take Christmas alone:  “Must not offend the Muslims.”  It goes on seemingly ad infinitum.

So, let’s make some morally certain statements.  The West is superior to the Middle East and all of Islamia in all things.  The West produces while Islamia only destroys what it does not consume parasitically.  Islam is completely evil and should be banned just as Nazism was banned, and for the same reasons.  Muslims are inferior because of Islam, and it does not matter to what race a Muslim belongs.  Islam deserves NO respect from anyone at any time.  It has proved itself too evil to merit any respect.

I am tired of their insisting that we give up our advances and our principles to join them in their intellectual and physical squalor.  They are wrong; we are right.  I do not care about their sensibilities.  I have had more than enough of their bad manners, bad temperaments, and hostility. 

The problem is Islam, and the solution for Muslims is for them to apostatize.  It is not for us to change, not in any way.  Barring their renouncing of Islam, they must engage in the policy of live and let live as opposed to forcing Islam on non-Muslims.  They are the ones with the bad manners and the moral turpitude, so they are the ones who must clean up their acts.  If they are unwilling, then get out and go to those countries under the yoke of Islam.

I will not kowtow in deed or in speech or in word before Muslims or Islam.  NO MORE LIVING DEFENSIVELY FOR ME, FOR YOU, FOR OUR COUNTRY!

So, I say to you and you and you:  Stop living defensively before Islam and its true believers.  Stand up straight.  Be proud of your freedoms and your culture.  Never again let Islam or Islamists ever get to you.

Go TO this site and look at the picture at the end Priceless

http://www.6thcolumnagainstjihad.com/editor.htm#stop