Richard Perle offers common sense about monitoring mosques, and silliness about working with moderate Muslims, in "We should not tolerate the preachers of jihad," in the Telegraph:
Omar Sheikh was a promising LSE student from a comfortably middle-class Anglo-Pakistani family. On a humanitarian mission to Bosnia in 1992, he was recruited into a life of terror. In July 2002, he was sentenced to death in Pakistan for his role in the beheading of an American journalist, Daniel Pearl.In his book Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, Bernard-Henri Levy recounts young Omar's reaction to the suggestion that he go to Afghanistan for training. He imagines him thinking "…he has to finish his studies… and his father is still the one who decides everything." "We'll talk to your father," he is told by the Islamist he meets in Bosnia. "I'll organise a meeting for him with Maulana Ismail, imam of the Clifton mosque, a holy man, who is experienced at guiding young English Muslims to our places in Afghanistan and who will find the words to convince him, I'm sure. It's an honour for a family to have a son who abandons his useless studies to consecrate himself to the life of jihad."
Thus was a bright student from a good family lured into a holy war that aims to impose Islamist fundamentalism on the world.
It is a war fought with planes crashed into buildings or blown up in mid-air, roadside bombs, kidnappings, beheadings and other unspeakable instruments of terror. It is decentralised but global in scope, from madrassas in Pakistan, to mosques in London, to "charities" in America, to banks and boardrooms in the Middle East.
It is a war with a cultural and ideological component that is lavishly financed by easy oil money from states like Saudi Arabia that we have long (and foolishly) regarded as "moderates" and "friends". It is a war utilising sophisticated technology for destruction and communications, and equally sophisticated techniques for inculcating lethal extremism.
The warriors in this jihad are identified, indoctrinated and recruited by men who manipulate the power of faith to induce a fanaticism whose ultimate expression is the martyrdom of suicide missions. Among them are clerics who have rewarded their welcome into our liberal, open societies by preaching our destruction.
How many acts of holy war - how many recruitments? - were performed by the imam who carried out his assigned task of facilitating Omar Sheikh's training at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan? By what concept of liberal democracy must we allow these clerics who are out to destroy us the opportunity to reach impressionable young people with their message of holy war?
It has always been difficult to draw the fine line between protected speech, which is fundamental to our individual liberty, and incitement to prohibited criminal activity. In the United States, that line has long been defined by the concept of a "clear and present" danger. You don't claim the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre as a matter of free speech. In the UK, too, advocacy that falls short of incitement to immediate violence has been widely tolerated.
But combating Islamist extremism may require rethinking the idea of imminence in judging the dangers, and the appropriate response to them, of the insidious process leading ultimately to acts of mass murder. It is the act of recruitment into the swamp of a world divided into believers and infidels that may well be the more appropriate line dividing acceptable from unacceptable advocacy.
Yet in both the UK and the US we have been reluctant - dangerously so - to restrict, and in many cases even to monitor, what is said in the mosques and social centres of Islamist extremists.
In both our countries, there is great resistance to the effective surveillance of extremist Islamist groups. Opposed by most Muslim and civil liberty organisations, which fear that official scrutiny will lead to harassment and discrimination, police authorities have found it difficult to gather essential intelligence that could give timely warning of the formation of cells and networks destined to plan and execute acts of terror.
There was a (largely partisan) outcry in the US when it was learned that telephone conversations and bank transfer records were being scrutinised for terrorist connections, even though not a single aggrieved individual could be found. The occasional, inevitable mistakes by over-worked police and security organisations have further inhibited aggressive surveillance.
After 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Bali and the rest, all carried out in the name of jihad, and after the chilling discovery of the successfully foiled plot to destroy thousands of air travellers last week, it is obvious we need to know what is going on in those parts of the Muslim community where Islamist extremists have made inroads. At the same time, we need to encourage the vast majority of Muslims who do not share jihadist views to join in opposing them.
Of course, Western officials have been doing all they can to encourage them, but have failed to do so. Perle thinks this is because they have chosen to work with "extremists" rather than "moderates":
To gain the trust and confidence of the American and British Muslim communities, officials in both countries have "outreach" programmes to work with mainstream community leaders. Sadly, these programmes have often left the silent majority of moderate, tolerant Muslims on the sidelines while courting organisations and leaders who are doing more for the disease than the cure.In an important study released by the British think tank Policy Exchange, "When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries", Martin Bright has described what he calls "the Government's bizarre dalliance with the Islamists".
Based on leaked official documents, Bright demonstrates convincingly the Foreign Office's eagerness to work with, and inevitably enhance the standing of, representatives of the Muslim Brother-hood, an organisation committed to holy war ("Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope"), as well as individuals who have openly supported suicide bombing.
Inexplicably, the British Government has accepted as its main partner on Muslim issues the Muslim Council of Britain despite "the clear Islamist sympathies of its leaders".
Something similar has happened in the US, where extremist leaders claiming to speak for America's tolerant Muslim community have been received at official events. On both sides of the Atlantic we need to abandon the illusion that extremist leaders are authentic and less voluble moderates are not. Talk to the latter - and keep a close watch on the former.
But of course, there is no such illusion. No Western officials have chosen to work with "extremists" rather than "moderates." Perle is correct that the British government has courted the Muslim Brotherhood, and there are other examples of this sort of thing, but that has not been at the expense of their consuming desire to find moderate Muslim leaders with whom they could work.
European and American government and law enforcement officials have generally been proceeding upon the assumption that, as Perle puts it, they "need to encourage the vast majority of Muslims who do not share jihadist views to join in opposing them." To this end they have been engaged for quite some time in a search for reliable spokesmen for that vast majority. But to their repeated surprise, they have found again and again that the "moderates" with whom they have engaged, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, are not as moderate as they thought they were.
I have heard Western officials affirm the existence of this vast majority and then in practically the same breath lament the difficulty of finding moderate leaders with whom they could work, without ever noticing their self-contradiction. Perle assumes here that they can't find such leaders because they haven't tried, which is just absurd. The other possibility -- that the vast majority of moderates they assume exists actually doesn't -- is much more likely to be true, but is apparently too frightening for Perle and other Western analysts to contemplate.
Conservative MP Michael Gove, one of the few MPs in Britain in any of the three main parties to have spoken much against the jihad, seems to be labouring under the same delusion.
They haven't drunk the bitter cup to the dregs yet, have they? They, the political class, have not woken up to the full horror of what they have foisted on us, the citizens.
See also this article at the American Thinker.
A long time yet before these delusions are dispelled perhaps.
Richard Perle is much cleverer than Paul Wolfowitz, with whom, for antisemitic rhetorical purposes, he is often linked in a litany of
suppposed "neo-cons" (which is to say, those who are Jewish among a much larger group of people who share certain assumptions and attitudes). He was, with Dorothy "Dickie" Fosdick, a very important Senatorial aide to the most admirable American Senator in the last half-century, Henry Jackson of Washington. But he was a child of the Cold War, and he never bothered to study Islam. That's okay. That's acceptable, up to a point. The point was 9/11/2001. At that point, he should have set himself to school. The same man who once told friends that he was ready to jettison official work and wanted to open a creperie, apparently not in jest, should have known that the systems-analyst Wolfowitz was, as Richard Pipes pointed out, unaware of the influence of what is now called, broadly, "culture" and oblivious to most history. Wolfowitz believed, for example, that his experience as the American Ambassador in Jakarta, and the phoniness in every conceivable way of his encounters with smiling and eager-to-please Muslims ("Yes, I personally hope we can establish relations with Israel quite soon" etc.) as the all-powerful American ambassador, told him something, gave him insight, into the world of Islam. I doubt if Wolfowitz has read even today a single intelligent book on Islam, something by Bat Ye'or, by Spencer, by Ibn Warraq, or that anthology compiled by Andrew Bostom. He's too busy, too busy to think, too busy to engage in quiet study.
But what's Richard Perle's excuse? He has a mind. He should use it a bit better than lately, he has been. Surely he knows that the messianic project in Iraq was based on a false view, a view of Islam as essentially benign and only bad when "poverty" or lords of misrule got in the way, and so we, the Americans, would remove those lords of misrule where and when we could, and end that poverty, and give that "freedom" that, in Bush's words, everyone longs for, everyone desires, everyone deserves.
What nonsense. There's still time for Perle to recover. He need not be obstinate. He is not and was not in the government. He could recognize that the enemy is Islam, or let us say the Jihad, that it is a world-wide phenomenon, and that Infidels have a joint stake in halting the power of that Jihad by checking, and reversing, any gains made by the forces of Jihad, whether through open warfare, through the use of the money weapon, through campaigns of Da'wa, or through demographic conquest. Yes, very different from Suslov and Bulgarian and Malenkov, very different from Khrushchev ("we will bury you" is different from "you will all become Muslims" and "Islam will dominate everywhere"), very different in its appeal though not in its totalitaian nature (far more totalitarian than any version of Communism save perhaps that in North Korea has managed to be).
Fais un petit effort, Richard. If you do, I will whisper to you the name of the best creperie, in a small town, deep in the heart of Bretagne. Surely you can spare a month to study up on Islam -- hmm?
Western governments have created a volatile environment that will require decades of a delicate balancing act, susceptible to collapse at any given time. Only time will reveal how they will manage the bellicose muslim populations, protect muslims from angry, frightened non-muslims, and uncover the terrorists hiding within Western muslim communities before they strike. Distrust and resentment of muslims will inevitably increase in all Western countries.
As long as significant numbers of muslims continue to live in and travel in the West, our normal, ordinary way of living is history. The draconian security measures in airports, where we are all viewed as potential terrorists, will now intensify to intolerable levels. Many people were willing to pay the price for the convenience of air travel, despite the embarrassing searches, long lines, and ridiculous banned items. But now, even the most mundane items like lipstick, eyedrops, kleenex, books, and magazines are prohibited, not to mention laptops and other electronic devices. Who can sit through a three or four hour flight and stare out the window, or straight ahead if you happen to get stuck in the middle of three seats? Who caused these deplorable travel conditions? Our incompetent, ignorant, multiculturalist governments are responsible for allowing the influx of millions of muslims into our societies, yet we are expected to respect and tolerate these people as if they were just like any other disparate ethnic group. We the people are being punished for our government's ineptitude and to add insult to injury, we are expected to accept it without complaint.
George Bush has two more years in office and there is a strong possibility that in less than six months, he will be completely disabled, depending on the outcome of the November elections. He has four months of guaranteed power left and he has nothing to lose by calling the enemy "Islamic fascists", or any other apt epithet. The last four months of this year might be the final opportunity for years to come to deal some severe blows to our jihadist enemies. I hope he uses this time wisely.
Time and time again we hear about the so called “moderate majority”. More political correctness at work, I’m afraid. One can only roll their eyes and shake their heads when the predictable chastisements of not painting all muslims with the same brush, or that it’s only a “tiny minority that are the radicals”, is regurgitated by politicos and the left. Lets be honest here, that kind of commentary is a way to continue to court the muslim vote with non alienation and placating words of double speak. Or even in the case of some “truth” speaking tv/radio hosts, it’s a way to soften the message and make sure they don’t get their butts punted off the airwaves. What we do know is that politicians and bureaucrats will never admit that their vote getting swiss cheese immigration policies and pluralistic multicultural non integration policies have been a dismal failure.
One only has to look at the endless video footage of anti-jew, anti-American, anti-Western, anti-everything-not-muslim marches in the Middle Eastern countries to see just how Muslims define “moderation”. Follow it up with marches and rioting in places in Paris, and England and Montreal and Denmark: all sporting flags of various jihad supporters – Hezbollah, Osama, and calls for death to infidels because of drawings and the like. It isn’t hard to see (at least to people who BOTHER to look) that it’s insanity to expect people who come from the most of the Middle East and other muslim nations to just magically leave all their indoctrinated hatred of the infidels behind on the tarmac of whatever country they originated from. It’s even further insanity to try to lull the West into thinking that these people have the capacity to actually BE moderate.
Hopefully we’ll finally poke holes in this ridiculous myth of most muslims being so called moderates, because it just isn’t so.
More trouble from Pakis. Naseem, you might want to invest in a lead lined burkah. One day the West will tire of your games and put an end to you murderers and liars.
More trouble from Pakis. Naseem, you might want to invest in a lead lined burkah. One day the West will tire of your games and put an end to you murderers and liars.
I must dissent from this. I believe that the moderates do exist. Otherwise there would be lots more terrorism and jihadist violence than there is.
The problem is that Western governments keep looking for moderate Muslim political leaders and community activists. And I argue that almost by definition, you won't find "moderate" activists. People become community leaders when they feel strongly about something. If they're moderates, they find something else to do with their time.
How many times have you ever seen a huge demonstration in the streets of an American city, with thousands of people marching down the street chanting "Moderation! Moderation! We Demand Moderation!"???
Of course not. "Moderate" Muslims are very likely less political. What makes them "moderate" is they have other priorities: getting married, raising a family, having a career, etc. So they're not political leaders. They are what Nixon, long ago, referred to as the "silent majority."
So if Western governments want to find "moderate" Muslims as role models, they should look outside of politics altogether: Show business actors and singers and dancers, sports athletes, world-class scientists. For example, I just read an article in the New York Times about just such a moderate Muslim who is a star player for the British soccer team. He could speak out.
And it can make a difference. When Bill Cosby, an actor beloved by all Americans, admonished the black community here in America to pay more attention to family values, it got attention.
"that the vast majority of moderates they assume exists actually doesn't -- is much more likely to be true, but is apparently too frightening for Perle and other Western analysts to contemplate."
I don't think fright is the operative factor here. It is not so much that it is too frightening for Perle and other Western analysts to contemplate that the vast majority of moderates don't really exist -- it is more basically, simply unthinkable, according to the deeply ingrained PC multiculturalist template that governs their worldview.
I maintain that PC multiculturalism is so dominant in the West, it has crept into and infected even the mind of a Richard Perle (let alone a Bush and a Rice and a Blair).
posted by Steven L.
"I must dissent from this. I believe that the moderates do exist. Otherwise there would be lots more terrorism and jihadist violence than there is."
The problem is their definition and “our/the west’s” expectation of what is an actual “moderate”.
Sure, not all muslims are sending their kids to jihad school and strapping bombs to their waists. I suppose relatively speaking, when you compare those two then,… then yes, compared to those people, they’re moderate. I contend however that rabid cultists are still cultists, no matter which way you slice them. Degrees of relentless, are still relentless.
Let’s not forget also what this cult teaches. They’re the chosen ones. The rest of us are infidels, scum. The inability to be the Western’s version of moderate comes from the very belief structure that makes them muslim followers. It’s inherent to the culture and the religion to which drives it.
Do these people dislike, distrust, or outright hate infidels, jews, others? Much in the same way that no one will always agree with another person’s point of view 100%, all the time,… I suggest that if there’s a commonality that speaks to their particular leanings, they become sympathizers and/or supporters of the actions which they themselves may not have the guts to do, but at some gut level, they agree with. Look at their hate for Western democracy, etc, anything that speaks to that aspect will easily persuade them in that direction of any issue. There’s a common thread of anti-west, anti-democracy that seems to pull through all that culture no matter which country the muslim originates from. In their eyes, the fact that there’s over a billion of them world wide, lends itself to legitimacy, lends itself to it’s teaching being acceptable and thus normal. Ergo… in their minds, moderate.
Just what is a moderate Muslim? One who has rejected part of the Quran? One who picks and choses those tenets that he or she likes? How can a Christian reject part of Christ's teachings and call themselves a Christian? I do admit to not liking some of what Paul wrote. Could a Christian reject the notion that Jesus was resurrected? Can Christians or Jews reject three, or four, or nine of the Ten Commandments?
A Muslim who adheres to the "Five Pillars" and rejects jihad and accepts tolerance of other religions might still be a Muslim, in name only. A Muslim man who plays bass in a rock band and allows his wife to go shopping alone and wear western clothing is not a Muslim.
Mr T. Haidon who has posted in other articles claims to be moderate. What influence does he have? I presume that if he takes a more public stance, his life will be rather short.
There may be many, many moderates, but they keep it quiet out of fear, I'll bet.
I do believe that there are no moderate Muslims who attend regular prayers. The moderate Muslims go to the Mall when the real Muslims go to the Mosque. These Mall Muslims have no influence and can not change the course of events. They are useless, and will become losers along with the rest of us.
A moderate Muslim - Just what the hell is one?
Let me add: Any influential Muslim or Imam who preaches "moderation" as in rejection of jihad or acceptance of apostacy will have a very short career as an Imam. He will be forced out and might possibly have an unnatural death.
Therefore, there ain't no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
Pelayo, you are right.
SickofitALL writes:
But you seem to forget how revolutionary a society America is. Go read Jefferson's Declaration of Independence again.
If Muslim-Americans want to peacefully agitate and campaign for changes to U.S. foreign policy--even for amendments to the U.S. Constitution--it is not only their right, but their duty as U.S. citizens to do so.
If Muslim-Americans can get candidates elected to high office who favor sharia, or even replacing the Bill of Rights with sharia, they have every right to do so. American government, according to Jefferson, rests on the consent of the governed--and if "the governed" includes a large proportion of Muslim citizens, then so be it.
Muslims have no right to violate the Constitution. But they have every right to try to change it peacefully.
As American citizens, that is what we signed up for--an experimental revolutionary society.
Steven,
While American citizens organizing and agitating for Constitutional changes is Constitutional, if the platform of those citizens is treasonous, then we have every Constitutional right to suppress it. The platform of authentic Islam is treasonous not only to the American Constitution but to the polities of every non-Muslim country.
Thomas Jefferson's only other recourse -- should there be a body public whose desires are treasonous yet also somehow good (that's not inconceivable) -- was specifically revolution, not Constitutional change. (Needless to say, there can be no authentic Islamic revolution that would also be good.)
I think there's an assumption by at least one poster above that if there is a doubt in Robert's mind whether "the vast majority of moderates they assume exists actually doesn't" that means Robert has concluded that the majority of Muslims are violent. Robert can speak for himself, but I'd say that is a huge logical jump for anybody to make.
In my view, it is much more likely that "non-violent Muslims" are not so much "moderate Muslims" as fairly nominal Muslims. Again we seem to have the assumption lurking in the background that there is no problem with Islam - that somehow it must itself be "moderate". We are so often told this by people who have no acquaintance with the texts or the history or current events (at any more than a superficial level). And it's rather sad that it needs to be pointed out here, yet again, that better acquaintanceship with all three areas inexorably leads to a different conclusion.
Besides, there is not a binary division here moderate/violent - there never is in life. Furthermore, terrorism is primarily an activity for young males not for all. What we certainly have are large numbers of people who are sufficiently sympathetic to jihad not to seriously impede those among them who are concerned to undertake it. And virtually no one in any Muslim community in Europe, North America, or Australasia speaks out against jihadism.
Have the young women with bombs undergone sex change operations? And are they promised 70 virgins? Male or female?
From Yojimbo: "In my view, it is much more likely that "non-violent Muslims" are not so much "moderate Muslims" as fairly nominal Muslims."
Let me add: A "fairly nominal Muslim" is one who hasn't been to Friday prayers in twenty years. A moderate Muslim is one who attends "The Mosque of What's Happening Now." An obvious reference to the old Flip Wilson TV show.
Pelayo's Corollary: "Influential Muslims are not moderate, and fairly nominal Muslims are not influential.
My guess is that playing Zorro or Robin Hood with real guns and bombs is probably a lot more fun than climbing the corporate ladder or minding Daddy's curry shop. A combination of the rhetoric of Islamic radicalism in the mosque with the prevalence of the Marxist kind in the discourse of education and the mainstream culture makes such fantasizing seem workable. John Walker Lindh, Patty Hearst, Paula Olson are a few other examples of people who heard the siren song of revolutionary chatharsis.
There is a sign called American dhimmitude. Just read this letter to the editor to Dawn (a newspaper published from Pakistan - epicenter of Islamic Terrorism). This is what Ruth A Gibson from Akron had to say.
Mohammed bin Kafir Abu Jahal
Steven; I think its fair to say that Jefferson did not envision an America in which followers of a religion, whose teachings are contrary of the intent of the Constitution, were effectively organizing forces in an attempt to influence public policy.
Provisions were made to deal with unforeseen circumstances though.
I’ll speculate that if he could weigh in on this one, he would advocate an Amendment, weakening the Freedom of Religion clause, forbidding religious groups from supporting efforts to undermine our government. He would include some mechanism for deportation of individuals supporting such efforts.
LMAO,Richard Perle is a neo con, since when are neo cons multicultaralists?
Let me back up, per your rant the entire Republican Party is multiculturalist. Come to think of it, yes.
Faith based initiatives with Imam's in the White House, and offices in all government Departments. An Imam Chaplain program for military and prisons..
yep the RNC, Bush, et al are knee deep in multiculturalism..thanks for pointing that out.
If anybody wants to read AOL's sob story about an Algerian Air Force officer, who was detained for 5 years after fleeing an American fight school, attempting to desert into Canada with a fake ID a week before 9/11:
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/911-detainee-released-after-nearly-five/20060813130409990006?ncid=NWS00010000000001
The good news: Canada has granted him asylum
Hugh your criticism of Wolfowitz is apt and well deserved, this is the same man that donated millions of his own, and then ran around Europe trying to get guarantees of millions (annually) for the Muslims of Gaza, so they could continue production and productivity of the farms that the Jews so nicely left them, and of course we know what the Muslims did with those gifts..they looted and trashed them and haven't despite the millions in gifts been able to get them running again.
I do not believe the United States and other Western non-Islamic governments will address the problem of Islam unti the media and government officials start identifying the problem as Islam rather than extremist Islam, facist Islam, Islamist Islam. It's Islam...period.
Nariz,
"Richard Perle is a neo con, since when are neo cons multicultaralists?"
Your question reveals a grievous underestimation of the power and influence of PC multiculturalism: that is precisely how deeply and broadly it has permeated our sociopolitical culture: so much so, that even neo-cons have been infected with its template by which Islam is whitewashed and sanitized, while all problems emanating from Islam are surgically disengaged and marginalized.
Your grievous underestimation is, unfortunately, shared by the majority of "jihad watchers" (which I define as anyone who has broken out of the PC multiculturalist box with respect to the Problem of Islam).
yep the RNC, Bush, et al are knee deep in multiculturalism..thanks for pointing that out.
Posted by: Nariz at August 13, 2006 10:59 PM
That's not exactly a startling revelation to anyone here, which you would know if you paid attention to what people write. The putative "neo-cons" are globalists, multiculturalists, open-borders advocates, and the surreptitious North American Union project has Bush's and his fellow neo-cons' full support. He has dozens of dedicated, internationalist bureaucrats hard at work drawing up the constitution for the future North American superstate, which will supersede our own Constitution and negate the sovereignty of the United States so it can be merged with Canada and Mexico. He has also pledged to finance and create a U.N. army and police force.
The quest for an eventual one world government marches forward, beneath the radar of the public to avoid the inevitable outcries of protest. If the CFR and the neo-cons have their way, America will be history in less than four years. We will be governed by unelected bureaucrats, just like the E.U. Should they succeed, the Bush legacy will be one of unprecedented infamy.
Well, Spencer, IT IS FRIGHTENING. It's frightening to us, who are made of sterner stuff, so it's naturally immensely MORE frightening to those who idea of global interaction is hitting the cocktail party at Davos.
The elites are scared. Their post "enlightenment" "education" has left them woefully incapable of handling such a nightmarish perdicament, as that which presently obtains with islam.
They were told that a great interaction of the nations, and a great meeting of the minds was ripe. And low and behold, they find themselves in the midst of a religious war. When they were assured by their professors that such wars are a thing of the past. And as dated as the dinosaur.
These people, the elites, will squalidly scramble for any shred of hope to avoid a showdown with genuine islam, which they hopefully brand "radical," but which for all their attempts to so brand, does not seem to be any the less MAINSTREAM.
They can't bring themselves to inflict upon the enemy the same brutal tutorial we inflicted upon the boche, the Japanese and the Italian.
They can't bring themselves to seal off their societies from such demographic poision, because to do so might, just might be liable to being branded racists. AND NOTHING, nothing so frightens them as the prospect of being remotely considered racists.
They can't champion their own civilization, and articulate the flaws of their opponent. Because to do so would be to JUDGE BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS. Such a course might be construed as cultural and civilizational triumphalism. Moreover, if men can judge between societies, between the relative merits, that would mean there is something called "the good," and the proximity to which would be the barometer between the societies.
BUT THAT WOULD ALSO LEAD TO SIMILAR conclusions among men. If we can judge merits and demerits amongst societies, then we can likewise judge them within individuals.
The entire schemata of non-judgementalism, which certain lifestyles have an invested interest in seeing maintained and propogated, would fall, de facto, inexorably, under logical attack.
EVERYTHING the left has told us about over the last several decades must be eradicated from our minds, before we can grapple to the death with jihadism.
There is honour.
There is courage.
There is right reason.
WE CAN KNOW OBJECTIVELY the difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, good and evil.
Conscience exists.
Natural Law likewise exists.
AND we can make judgements about nations, and we can also make them about men.
Recall Henry V, "all things be ready IF OUR MINDS BE SO...."
VanBohemond
I suggest that you stop with the death threats. Naseem might be an idiot, but no one deserves comments like that, no one. Grow up. I think she also has children, I wonder if you consider her children to be murderers and liars too.
Greetings Pelayo
You wrote "Mr T. Haidon who has posted in other articles claims to be moderate. What influence does he have? I presume that if he takes a more public stance, his life will be rather short.
There may be many, many moderates, but they keep it quiet out of fear, I'll bet.
I live in a moderate comunity with moderate leaders. No one is threatening them with death. What is happening however, is that jihadists have stopped coming to the mosque and have formed their own Islamic Centres, like the Muslim Association of Canterbury (www.mac.net.nz). Our ulaema engage in itjihad (independent legal reasoning) and have rejected the traditional penalty of death for apostasy, condemned terror and criticised traditions that lead to it. But it is only one community. Not exactly evidence of an explosion of moderate Islam, so I wopn't rattle on anymore.
Thomas
Assalamau Laikum all,
I would consider myself a moderate "muslim". Ofcourse other muslims consider me a heretic while westerners would ask me "why bother?"
It is a question that I have increasingly asked myself...why bother?...why associate with something that will ultimately squeeze me from both directions…especially as a widow.
The problem though is that I don't ask myself any of these question when I am in the Masjid. There it is a matter of routine, meetings and most of all "sakoun" (i.e. peace of mind). All doubts about who you are, why you are here, your reasons for living....all are dispelled and there is only you and Allah SWT.
Upon leaving the masjid, you are one with Allah and Islam, your faith is renewed and all is well....that is until you put the TV on or listen to the radio or hear that yet more Ahmadis or (sometimes) infedels have been unfairly targatted.
Looking at the deplorable pictures of muslims and especially muslimas and childrens killed in Lebonan, Afghanistan, Iraq, or the deplorable tent cities of PaK, Syria, Pals etc doesn't help.
I'm afraid you simply, "take your pick of the muslim bad news of the day". You cannot imagine the hurt that this causes to Allah's chosen.
The one thing I do take from all this is that there are very few success stories regarding Islam...all that happenz is Islam bashing, so peoples are easily influenced when for example Hizbollah manage to inflict a few civilian causalities or kill some soldiers… "see how they like it?" is a common sentence often heard.
So what happens from this picture onwards…lets roll the footage….
Foreign terror groups (to the West) find it difficult to enter the west...so they do the opposite. Choose able well read students (mostly) from the West and train them to do the work.
Them thar Maddrassa (many of which the Amekerie helped fund while fighting a proxy war with the USSR), teachers explain to them that they are a son of Islam...that this life is only a conduit to ultimate paradise....that it is fard, and they start to see a sense of purpose and a beautiful end goal too....a win-win situation if you will....what is in a life anyway?...everybody who has ever come to Allah's earth has never stayed...all have gone...some early… some late...but YOU may as well go to a worthwhile place.
Wear your identity with pride…this means wear a beard, spending time reading the Koran which guarantees you instant paradise of gorgeous virgins with swelling breasts (78.33: damsels with swelling breasts, their peers in age) :
They read further:
Qur'an:3:169
"Think not of those who are slain in Allah's Cause as dead. Nay, they live, finding their provision from their Lord. Jubilant in the bounty provided by Allah:
Qur'an:3:156
"If you are slain, or die, in Allah's Cause [as a martyr], pardon from Allah and mercy are far better than all they could amass."
Qur'an:4:74
"Let those who fight in the Cause of Allah sell the life of this world for the hereafter. To him who fights in the Cause of Allah, whether he is slain or gets victory—soon shall We give him a great reward."
Qur'an:9:111
"Allah has purchased the believers, their lives and their goods. For them (in return) is the Garden (of Paradise). They fight in Allah's Cause, and slay others and are slain, they kill and are killed. It is a promise binding on Him Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded. It is the achievement supreme.
When these suras are read with gusto in Urdu or Arabic to them, much emotion is generated, a strange feeling of excitement, chill and fear envelopes them.
Ancestral blood fuels their cheeks crimson red and each recruit’s lund is standing to attention…never before have they been so excited….oh they feel like bursting now…some may even ask for the loo…only they need it for a number 3.
You have to give it to them…they learn the Koran diligently, get their training, record their martyrdom video, and off they go.
All the panic and alarm, police time and money spent amuse them. I am certain they read all the newspaper leaders and they enjoy the fear they smell in the writing, the foolish infidel want to talk to moderates….ha ha they really need to talk to us…only “we ain’t talking….we are gonna be doing”…this fills them with intense pride….they can now see Allah’s justice.
Probably everyday they masturbate…thinking about the 72 lying in wait …imagining those perfect features ….the busty breasts…and some of them may be blond too…or the girl next door.
I have heard stories that some wrap their privates in cling film on their mission…keep it altogether…won’t do to have a lund that won’t function for eternity….Jesus surely, Allah wouldn’t be that cruel….but just in case…no point in taking silly chances…use some of that western technology…ha ha the infidel has some pathetic uses.
Yes, peoples the above tells you there is little point in talking to the moderates…as they are so removed and the jihadist is too busy buying cling film.
Do you now doubt that the Ahmadi must be supported?
We've been hearing the voice of moderate Muslims all day on the UK media as the government has been holding discussions with them on how to combat radicalism among Muslim young men. They all say the same thing: foreign policy, foreign policy, foreign policy (one imam also added that Islam is the religion of peace and universal brotherhood!).
Many British people feel they were duped over WMD's into supporting the Iraq adventure, are irritated by what they see as Blair acting as Bush's poodle and don't like what they perceive to be Israeli excesses. This gives these moderate Muslims an opening and a feeling that they are on to a PR winner here: they can divert any odium that the Muslim community might attract because of the uniquely violent behaviour of some of its members by exploiting and exacerbating rifts in the ranks of the infidel at the same time as doing their bit for the international umma.Luckily there are enough Brits around to realise the enormity of what they are saying : if you want to stop our young men from trying to blow you up, then you must change your foreign policy.
A good definition of a moderate muslim miight be: an idiot who doesn't understand the implications of what he believes.
How is it that Muslims are unable to see that their condition is the result of consequences of their actions and belief system? They send rockets into Israel and think what will happen? They kidnap, torture and murder people and think what will happen? They strap bombs onto their bodies and blow themselves up in front of baby carriages and think what will happen? They get on planes full of people just going about their daily activities, fly them into buildings where moms and dads are working, and think what will happen? They take a journalist who is going to report their side of the story, kidnap him and saw his head off and Muslims think what will happen?
Muslims reap violence and misery from what their founder and all subsequent Muslims have sown for centuries. If Muslims spent their time and ingenity inventing things like the light bulb, vaccines to help all peoples, etc. instead of more inventive ways to make war and blow up airlines, they would be reaping benefits rather than violence. But rather than let's say, working to find the cure to cancer, they are working to figure out how to store explosives in a baby's bottle and then blow up the baby also. And Muslims think there will be no consequence to those actions?
Even if the Muslims wiped out every non-Muslim from the face of the earth, they would still be in the same condition because they sow violence and injustice. E.g. Palestinians, given...I repeat given...working greenhouses destroyed them. They have been given enough money to build a beautiful area, but instead have chosen to use the money to make better rockets, bomb belts, etc. The Muslims would continue to fight and blow up each other. Their misery would continue. The women would continue to be abused and killed to preserve Muslims so called "honor". Kidnappings would continue. Lies would continue. Children would continue to be trafficked as slaves.
The Muslims get so much revenue from oil that each Muslim country should be a showcase...but it is not. Why? Because Muslims are unable to live at peace and use resources for peaceful purposes due to the teachings of Islam and the actions of the followers of Islam...not the actions of non-Muslims. They have no basis in their belief system for the common good so there is none. Yet, they view the consequences of their violent actions as something that came out of the blue...something unfair and unjust as if the whole world should just take all the violence they dish out without responding...like Muslims expect their slaves who they beat to just take the beatings and grovel and respect them. Wrong.
No one will give Muslims respect because they are "Muslim"; respect must be earned. And so far, Muslims have chosen to do actions that rightfully earn condemnation and reprisal rather than respect from the people of the world...all this because they worship a god who cannot save them...but rather demands blood sacrifices from them and of other humans like babies, and moms and dads to get into their so called Paradise. What Muslims do is what dishonors, defiles and brings harm to them...but they are unable to see that...and so their condition continues.
Muslims call things that are evil as something good and honor what is evil as worthy. So they will never prosper and will reap the consequences of their evil actions.
I posted this on another thread, I took it from another blog:
"If this were WW2, we wouldn’t be worrying about the feelings of Muslims, or castigating ourselves as racists for attempting to defend ourselves. We’d be girding our loins to defeat the Ragheads just as we battled the Nips and the Krauts to an unconditional surrender.
Admit it — you winced at my last sentence, didn’t you? That illustrates the depth and breadth of the problem we now face."
Steven, all large shifts in any countries’ history is/was done by aggressive pushing of one sort or another.
Yojimbo posted:
What we certainly have are large numbers of people who are sufficiently sympathetic to jihad not to seriously impede those among them who are concerned to undertake it.
Yojimbo makes the point far better than I can. “sufficiently sympathetic” is either a notion that you accept or you don’t. Those that don’t instantly dismiss anything that is contrary to the politically correct “peace loving religion” mantra. When you actually pay attention to what's happening within the streets of the Middle East and delve further into it’s belief structure,… it’s virtually impossible to conclude that it’s NOW a religion that preaches peace.
Much in the same way that the US’s history took twists and turns before it ended up where it is today,… so has Islam. That’s the whole point. Perhaps at some point in it’s history, it preached it’s version of “peace” perhaps peace, once everyone was of one Islam. We have to look at what we see today… and compare it to other aggressive pushes forward in world history.
When you do that, it reeks of a militant form of religious nazi’ism, instead of some moderate, peaceful co-existence.
naseem wrote:
"Probably everyday they masturbate…thinking about the 72 lying in wait …imagining those perfect features ….the busty breasts…and some of them may be blond too…or the girl next door.
I have heard stories that some wrap their privates in cling film on their mission…keep it altogether…won’t do to have a lund that won’t function for eternity"
Not this blonde, never ever, never ever, no thank you.
And may I say, it is largely because of these sort of attitudes that they can't get laid on earth. We don't want to sleep with screwed up terrorists, or any kind of terrorist thank you. Never ever.
No thank you.
I think they will be disappointed - there may be no blondes there. I won't be going.
No thank you.
The "voices of moderation" within islamic communities arise only AFTER foiled terrorist plots, or after events of utter carnage like 9/11. BUT THEN TIME PASSES, and those same communities, and especially those same "community leaders" inexorably return to America bashing, Western resistance bashing, and assertions of cultural and religious supremacism.
Their statements are tailored to time and place. But they always return to their baseline position, which is muslim supremacism. And we know they can't do otherwise, for as Mohammad said "I have been commanded by Allah to fight the unbeliever UNTIL ALL MEN profess there is no God but Allah...." He's their model, and thus to jihad they will always return, UNLESS we inflict so ferocious a thrashing upon them, that they will experience a psychic/spiritual shock, which will lead them to converting to Christianity, or jettisoning islam. Our war aim has to encompass the goal for widespread conversion of hundreds of millions of muslims.
Wars in the past have often triggered conversion. Hell, the entire history of islam is one of forced conversions. So this war aim isn't ahistorical, NOR IS IT IMPRACTICAL. It's a time and tested recipe for solving such apparently intractible problems.
English Blondie, yea I winced at the remark. But the underlying idea didn't make me blink. The reason that our forefathers came to call the boche "the boche," "the hun," etc., was because of the true grueling nature of the war effort. It summoned reserves of deep aggressivity.
In a football game which means nothing, men can get angered. How much more so their passions will become inflamed by war.
Our war effort needn't take cognizance of a person's skin colour, save to the extent that profiling is necessary, such as at airports, railway hubs, etc. This isn't a racial thing, it's a jihad thing.
Look at it this way. Islam is predicated upon a threefold inequity, between male and female, between free and slave, and lastly between muslim and unbeliever. THE MOMENT that our forefathers said that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights....," from that very moment, WE WERE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH ISLAM. For those two positions are clearly contradictory.
Islam cannot be reconciled to the Declaration of Independence. One of those two creeds is true. But they can't BOTH be true.
EITHER islam is truly predicated within human nature, and divinely ordained. Or the Natural Law finds it's highest expression in the Declaration. BUT THEY BOTH can't claim divine inspiration.
It's really that simple. OUR VERY founding statements WAR against every foundation of islam. AND THEY KNOW IT. Which is why they keep calling us "arrogant."
"Arrogant" for them means refusing islam.
So let us be "arrogant" then, and let us ram that arrogance right down their throats.
Assalamau Laikum EnglishBlondie,
We have never "spoken" before so let this muslims say "hello and welcome to the subject of Islam and the 72 chosen by Allah".
You say "Not this blonde, never ever, never ever, no thank you". Never ever.
Never is forever my dear and that is a long time, Allah chooses and pleases many in that time..including the womens he chooses...
never say never my dear.
English Blondie: If you live past child-bearing age (or already are) you will probably have 'no worries, mate' about having to sleep with "screwed up terrorists" in Islamic heaven.
Islamic 'heaven' such as it is written of apparently is limited to terrorists, little boys, and virginal, nubile young females. The 'angel' or whatever-the-hell-it-was that supposedly dictated the Kuran to Muhammed evidently didn't mention older females being in Islamic heaven. Possibly because there are none up there.
This could be your lucky day! (Only kidding).
Assalamau Laikum Englishblondie,
Looks like Pythagoras just made a pass at you...R U gonna take him up...or take your chances with muslims
Steven L. wrote: "Muslims have no right to violate the Constitution. But they have every right to try to change it peacefully."
Steven L.,
I disagree with the second part of your statement. I think you have touched on a fundamental contradiction. And I think that contradiction could be the basis of a Constitutional amendment to remove Islam from our territories (in the USA, at least).
Here is the contradiction: The Constitution, as you suggest, is indeed founded on the basis of the "consent of the governed." Islam, and sharia law, denies this concept absolutely. No consent, or even opinion, is permitted under Islamic law--only "submission" to the authority of the Koran. So after implementation of a "sharia amendment," there would no longer be consent of the governed, not even for non-Muslims.
Therefore, even if they were the majority of the population, for the Muslims to amend the Constitution in this way would simply be to destroy it utterly.
Of course, there are plenty of other serious problems with Islam, like no equal protection under the law, no separation of church and state, intolerance of religious minorities and beliefs, and genocide (on the explicitly called-out-by-name Jews) as official policy.
But underneath it all, the absense of the "consent of the governed" is the key flaw.
If any true-believer multi-culturalists out there are reading this, you should respect the "Muslim culture" by recognizing and accepting that the Islamic belief system requires the destruction of the U.S. Constitution--not only the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but the whole conceptual basis of that document itself. Then, if you care about the survival of our nation, if you are a patriot, you will call for an amendment to ban Islam everywhere within U.S. borders. No matter what your political persuasion, it is the correct, proper, and essential thing to do.
Pythagorus and Naseem:
I don't think that Pythagorus did make a pass, but if the question is one of choice (Pythagorus or Muslim), with verses 4:34 and 2:282 ringing in my blonde head, and then there's the 'fashion' issues (burkas and all that), I do like driving too, and going out and having fun (yes, fun!), I enjoy dancing, well, there are lots of things really, I just don't see it working with me and a Muslim chap, so if the choice is Muslim or Pythagorus then really it has to be Pythagorus, no competition there, and I will avoid Muslim heaven at all costs.
"need to encourage the vast majority of Muslims who do not share jihadist views to join in opposing them."
Vast majority of Moslems? Then we have the biggest simultaneous en masse apostasy in the history of religions. What a load of bullcrap this supposition is. And how dangerous to supppose such ridiculous things.
There will be no blondes in islamic heaven. Nor any redheads. Moslems don't deserve such heavenly grace. Take it from this Irish Catholic.
Assalamau Laikum all,
The pig says "There will be no blondes in islamic heaven. Nor any redheads".
Yes you are probably right...all blondes & redheads will have burkas on won't they!...how silly of me to think otherwise.
Alarmed Pig Farmer:
"There will be no blondes in islamic heaven"
I hope you are right!
And I will never wear a burka!
English Blondie: A pass? Not at all!
It's utterly weird how people see things in writing that plainly aren't there!
For all I know, you --or anyone else here really-- coule be a government decoy, or could be over 100 years old, have 40 great grandchildren, and be on a respirator! You could be a male pretending to be a female. Notice I didn't even ask for an e-mail address!
Apologies if anything sounded less than respectful.