September 2006 Archives

Multiple suicide car bombings were to occur inside the Green Zone, hence today's lockdown of Baghdad. From AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bodyguard detained at the home of a leading Sunni Arab politician is suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, thought to be involved in planning a major suicide car bombing assault inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the U.S. command said Saturday.

Guard Khudhir Farhan was taken into custody Friday at the home of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

"The detained individual is suspected of involvement in the planning of a multi-vehicle suicide operation inside Baghdad's International Zone," the U.S. military said in a statement without identifying the suspect.

The zone in downtown Baghdad is home to the Iraqi government, parliament and the U.S. and other western embassies.

"Credible intelligence indicates the individual, a member of Dr. Dulaimi's personal security detachment, and seven members of the detained individual's cell were in the final stages of launching a series of (car bomb) attacks inside the International Zone, possibly involving suicide vests," the military said.

The man is suspected of having links to a car bomb network operating in the southern area of Baghdad, the military said.

"He is believed to be a member of the Al Qaeda in Iraq group," the military said.

Immediately after the arrest Friday afternoon, al-Dulaimi denied the guard had any terrorist links, but when contacted Saturday he seemed to be retreating slightly from his previous comments.

"That individual joined my residence as a guard no more than a month ago, therefore I haven't got complete data about his background," al-Dulaimi said. "Anyhow, they are only suspicions about his involvement, which have not been proved."

The military later issued another statement saying al-Dulaimi cooperated with the soldiers when they showed up to apprehend the guard.

"This operation in no way implies Dr. al-Dulaimi was associated with any illegal activity; he was not the target in this operation," the U.S. command said.

Following the arrest, the Iraqi government ordered a complete lockdown of Baghdad to pedestrian and vehicular traffic through Sunday morning. The curfew was put into place on the advice of U.S. forces, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Kaim Khalaf told the AP.

"They have information terrorists entered Baghdad," Khalaf said. "The prime minister agreed to (the curfew) to give our security forces the freedom of movement to raid certain places."

Here is the first of a multi-part series from the great European essayist Fjordman, in which he tests whether he can find any evidence of whether the thesis Bat Ye'or put forward in her book "Eurabia" is accurate.

I decided to write this essay after a comment from a journalist, not a Leftist by my country's standards, who dismissed Eurabia as merely a conspiracy theory, one on a par with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I do not disagree with the fact that conspiracy theories exist, nor that they can be dangerous. After all, the Protocols and the Dolchstosslegende, or "stab in the back myth" - the idea that Germany didn't lose WW1 but was betrayed by Socialists, intellectuals and Jews - helped pave the way for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis before WW2.

However, what puzzles me is that it is a widely-held belief of many (not just in the Islamic world but in Europe and even in the United States) that the terror attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11th 2001 were really a controlled demolition staged by the American government and then blamed on Muslims. I have seen this thesis talked about many times in Western media. While it is frequently (though not always) dismissed and mocked, it is least mentioned.

In contrast, Eurabia – which asserts that the Islamicization of Europe didn't happen merely by accident but with the active participation of European political leaders - is hardly ever referred to at all, despite the fact that it is easier to document. Does the notion of Eurabia hit too close to home? Perhaps it doesn't fit with the anti-American disposition of many journalists? Curiously enough, even those left-leaning journalists who are otherwise critical of the European Union because of its free market elements never write about Eurabia.

Because of this, I am going to test whether the Eurabia thesis is correct, or at least plausible. I have called this project The Eurabia Code, alluding to author Dan Brown's massive bestseller The Da Vinci Code. Brown's fictional account "documents" a conspiracy by the Church to cover up the truth about Jesus. I'm not sure my work will become equally popular, but I'm pretty sure it's closer to reality.

The next time Mr. Brown wants to write about massive conspiracies in Europe, he would be well-advised to set his eyes at Brussels rather than Rome. It would be a whole lot more interesting. What follows is a brief outline of the thesis put forward by writer Bat Ye'or in her book "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis." My information is based on her book (which should be read in full). In addition I have drawn from some of her articles and interviews. I republish the information with her blessing, but this summary is completely my own.

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bat Ye'or explained how French President Charles de Gaulle, disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East as well as with France's waning influence in the international arena, decided in the 1960's to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union.

"This is a matter of a total transformation of Europe, which is the result of an intentional policy," said Bat Ye'or. "We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicized and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world. The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. This is not only with respect to foreign policy, but also on issues engaging European society from within, such as immigration, the integration of the immigrants and the idea that Islam is part of Europe."

"Europe is under a constant threat of terror. Terror is a way of applying pressure on the European countries to surrender constantly to the Arab representatives' demands. They demand, for example, that Europe always speak out for the Palestinians and against Israel."

Thus, the Eurabian project became an enlarged vision of the anti-American Gaullist policy dependent upon the formation of a Euro-Arab entity hostile to American influence. It facilitated European ambitions to maintain important spheres of influence in the former European colonies, while opening huge markets for European products in the Arab world, especially in oil-producing countries, in order to secure supplies of petroleum and natural gas to Europe. In addition, it would make the Mediterranean a Euro-Arab inland sea by favoring Muslim immigration and promoting Multiculturalism with a strong Islamic presence in Europe.

The use of the term "Eurabia" was first introduced in the mid-1970s, as the title of a journal edited by the President of the Association for Franco-Arab Solidarity, Lucien Bitterlein, and published collaboratively by the Groupe d'Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva), France-Pays Arabes (Paris), and the Middle East International (London). Their articles called for common Euro-Arab positions at every level. These concrete proposals were not the musings of isolated theorists; instead they put forth concrete policy decisions conceived in conjunction with, and actualized by, European state leaders and European Parliamentarians.

During a November 27, 1967 press conference, Charles de Gaulle stated openly that French cooperation with the Arab world had become "the fundamental basis of our foreign policy." By January 1969, the Second International Conference in Support of the Arab Peoples, held in Cairo, in its resolution 15, decided "…to form special parliamentary groups, where they did not exist, and to use the parliamentary platform support of the Arab people and the Palestinian resistance." Five years later in Paris, July 1974, the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation was created, under the Euro-Arab Dialogue rubric.

Bat Ye'or has highlighted this shared Euro-Arab political agenda. The first step was the construction of a common foreign policy. France was the driving force in this unification, which had already been envisaged by General de Gaulle's inner circle and Arab politicians. The Arab states demanded from Europe access to Western science and technology, European political independence from the United States, European pressure on the United States to align with their Arab policy and demonization of Israel as a threat to world peace, as well as measures favorable to Arab immigration and dissemination of Islamic culture in Europe. This cooperation would also included recognition of the Palestinians as a distinct people and the PLO and its leader Arafat as their representative. Up to 1973 they had been known only as Arab refugees, even by other Arabs. The concept of a Palestinian "nation" simply did not exist.

During the 1973 oil crisis, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced that, due to the ongoing Yom Kippur War between Israel and its Arab neighbors Egypt and Syria, OPEC would no longer ship petroleum to Western nations that supported Israel. The sudden increase in oil prices was had lasting effects. Not only did it create a strong influx of petrodollars to countries such as Saudi Arabia, which permitted the Saudis to fund a worldwide Islamic resurgence, but it also had an impact in the West, especially in Europe.

However, Arab leaders had to sell their oil. Their people are very dependent on European economic and technological aid. The Americans made this point during the oil embargo in 1973. According to Bat Ye'or, although the oil factor certainly helped cement the Euro-Arab Dialogue, it was primarily a pretext to cover up a policy that emerged in France before that crisis occurred. The policy, conceived in the 1960s, had strong antecedents in the French 19th-century dream of governing an Arab empire.

This political agenda has been reinforced by the deliberate cultural transformation of Europe. Euro-Arab Dialogue Symposia conducted in Venice (1977) and Hamburg (1983) included recommendations that have been successfully implemented. These recommendations were accompanied by a deliberate, privileged influx of Arab and other Muslim immigrants into Europe in enormous numbers.

The recommendations included:

1. Coordination of the efforts made by the Arab countries to spread the Arabic language and culture in Europe,
2. Creation of joint Euro-Arab Cultural Centers in European capitals,
3. The necessity of supplying European institutions and universities with Arab teachers specialized in teaching Arabic to Europeans, and
4. The necessity of cooperation between European and Arab specialists in order to present a positive picture of Arab-Islamic civilization and contemporary Arab issues to the educated public in Europe.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Iran, via Compass Direct:

September 29 (Compass Direct News) – Iranian secret police arrested a Christian couple in the northeastern city of Mashhad three days ago, forcing them to leave behind their 6-year-old daughter and holding them incommunicado ever since.

Plainclothes policemen who declined to identify themselves demanded entrance into the apartment home of Reza Montazami, 35, and his wife Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday (September 26).

Claiming they had “permission” from the proper authorities, the men conducted a complete search of the family’s home. The couple’s computers and various other personal items were confiscated, along with all the Christian literature in the house.

When it became clear that both he and his wife were going to be physically detained, Montazami managed to telephone his mother, asking her to come quickly to pick up their daughter Christine.

Shortly after the grandmother arrived, Montazami and his wife were taken away in an unmarked car. When the grandmother went into the apartment to get Christine, she found two men still searching the premises.

Asked where Christine’s parents were being taken, the men named a local police station. But when Montazami’s relatives went to the designated place, the police on duty declared they knew nothing about any such detention.

So the family continued to search and inquire, going from one office to another around the city. Finally near the end of the day, authorities at a local intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) admitted that they were holding the couple there for questioning....

Despite repeated inquiries, officials would only say that interrogations were continuing, with documents being prepared on the “exact charges” against them....

“They are just lying to them,” said one Iranian Christian who himself fled persecution in Iran several years ago for abandoning Islam and becoming a Christian. “It is psychological warfare, to keep their families uncertain and try to make them afraid.”

From a well-known Mashhad family, Montazami converted to Christianity in his 20s. He now goes by the first name Amir among his friends and family.

His wife Fereshteh is the youngest daughter of the Rev. Mehdi Dibaj, an Assemblies of God minister who was martyred for his faith 12 years ago. A Christian for 45 years, Dibaj spent more than nine years in prison, where he was given the death penalty for committing apostasy. A few months after international protests prompted his release, he was abducted and assassinated on the way to his teenage daughter Fereshteh’s birthday party.

Montazami and his wife lead an independent house church in Mashhad, the only known remnant of two active Protestant Christian congregations worshipping in the city before Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1976.

Both churches were closed by government order in the 1980s. Then in December 1990, the government executed a Mashhad pastor, the Rev. Hussein Soodmand. A former Muslim who had become a Christian 24 years earlier, Soodmand refused to recant his faith after four months under extreme physical and psychological mistreatment in prison....

An extraordinary column in the Toronto Sun (thanks to Nooze):

In a recent column, Michael Coren, my colleague here at the Sun, demanded Muslims apologize for wrongs too numerous to list.

Coren is right. I, as a Muslim, apologize without equivocation or reservation for the terrible crimes -- small and big -- committed by Muslims against non-Muslims and against Muslims, as in Darfur, who are weak and easy prey to those who hold power in the name of Islam.

I imagine, however, Coren is not seeking an apology from a person of Muslim faith such as I, who maintains no rank and cannot speak on behalf of the institutionalized world of Islam.

Like many others who share his frustration and legitimate anger, Coren is asking to hear a contrite voice from within institutionalized Islam -- to repent for Muslim misconduct, past and present, that is indefensible by any standard of civility and decency, and seek forgiveness.

But Coren and others might well wait indefinitely for such an apology from those representatives of institutionalized Islam convinced of their own righteousness, even as they are engineers of a civilization's wreckage and prosper in it by the art of bullying.

Muslims and non-Muslims often point to the fact there is no Vatican in contemporary Islam -- no figure like the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury who authoritatively represents the Muslim world....

And here comes a point with extraordinary implications:

Within the Arab Sunni world the Egyptian-born Sheikh Qaradawi, 80, of Qatar, is the face of institutionalized Islam. He is the closest to what might pass for a titular head of Muslims akin to the Pope. Qaradawi's words, now broadcast by television network al-Jazeerah, are taken as authoritative pronouncements of Islam. He is the "spiritual" leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement formed to repudiate freedom and democracy, and a defender of Islam's war against the West by any means, including suicide bombings.

For such representatives of institutionalized Islam, all things are political. They are the authoritative guardians of the ideology that in Islam religion and politics are inseparable, and jihad -- holy war -- is its defining aspect.

Hence, since this institutionalized Islam is at war with the West, for Coren or anyone else to expect an apology from its generals is rather naive.

Well, not naive at all really, given the repeated insistence from Muslim and non-Muslim authorities alike that the overwhelming majority of Muslims abhor jihad violence. But in any case, search for Qaradawi at Jihad Watch and at Dhimmi Watch. Find out what he has said about jihad, about martyrdom-suicide bombings, and about a host of other issues. And reflect for a moment on the implications, if Mansur is correct that he is "the face of institutionalized Islam."

Data emerging in Morocco puts another dent in the frequently encountered notion of poverty as the principal catalyst for turning seemingly "normal" people into jihadists. From AP: "Extremist Islam may be rising in Morocco"

RABAT, Morocco - Little would seem to connect a soldier, a shopkeeper, airline pilots' wives and a woman known for helping people in need. But all have been named as suspects in a purported Islamic terrorist plot, suggesting extremism may be leaping Morocco's class divides.

In all, Moroccan authorities arrested 56 people last month for allegedly being part of a network that was planning attacks on military and tourist sites in hopes of bringing down the government of this North African monarchy.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and suicide bombings two years later that killed 33 people in Casablanca, this country's economic capital, Moroccans have grown accustomed to police crackdowns on Islamic militants.

[...]

What's new in the latest case is the wide range of people accused. Middle-class women and security force members allegedly formed the core of a group that authorities say called itself Ansar al-Mehdi, or Supporters of the Mehdi -- a divine figure in Islamic tradition who will establish justice on Earth before Judgment Day.

While the Mahdi is more commonly associated in the media with Shi'ite Islam, it is worth noting here that Sunni Islam -- to which Moroccans are adherents -- also teaches the coming of a Mahdi, though of a different identity from the hidden twelfth imam in the Shi'ite tradition.

Previously, Islamic extremism was most evident in Morocco's urban slums like Sidi Moumen, the cinderblock jungle in Casablanca where many of the 2003 suicide bombers lived. If the charges are true, the new case would suggest Muslim militancy is spreading into the middle class.

Penetration of the army would be a particular blow because the Western-equipped force has traditionally stood as a pillar of state power. After the sweep, King Mohammed VI fired the head of military intelligence and the head of Morocco's general security forces.

Morocco ended compulsory military service this month, but officials said it had nothing to do with the Ansar al-Mehdi revelations.

Officials have released little information about the Mehdi suspects and their alleged targets, divulging just a few names. The Justice Ministry says judges are preparing for public hearings originally planned for mid-September but now delayed until late October.

Two of the four female suspects are wives of Royal Air Maroc pilots, and Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa alleged they were recruited by alleged Ansar al-Mehdi chief Hassan Khattab to carry out suicide attacks in Morocco.

Khattab spent two years in jail for involvement in the May 2003 suicide bombings.

Another woman in custody, Fatima Zahra Rehioui, 51, is described by authorities as a central figure in the alleged plot. In a rare news conference in August, Benmoussa said Rehioui was a confidant of Khattab and knowingly gave him $17,280 for terrorist activities.

As always, someone steps up to say what a swell person the accused is:

Rehioui's lawyer tells a different story, describing her as someone who helps people. Attorney Khalid Idrissi said Khattab asked Rehioui for the money so he could see a doctor about a heart condition and she gave the money freely, with no questions asked.

"She's known as a very charitable woman who helps poor families in her area, especially during Ramadan and at other religious festivals," Idrissi said.

Moroccan authorities say that Badr Bouziki, a 27-year-old shopkeeper, also was deeply involved with Ansar al-Mehdi and that he helped test explosives in forests near Sale, just outside the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

[...]

Mohamed Khalouki, 27, whose family lives in an outlying village of Sale, is one of five soldiers arrested in the terror sweep.

[...]

Drawn early to music, he became a drummer in the army band, traveling to Europe for concerts and shifting his ambitions to a musical career. Denied permission to quit the army, he deserted in 2005 and was captured this year, serving three months in jail, the family said.

"On the day he was supposed to get out, I went to pick him up, but he wasn't there," a brother said. Khalouki had been transferred into police custody for alleged involvement with four fellow band members in Ansar al-Mehdi.

More jihadists claiming the carrying out of sentences for serious crimes as a pretext for committing more crimes. From AFP:

SRINAGAR, India - Islamic rebels warned on Friday of "dire consequences" if India executes a Kashmiri Muslim convicted over a 2001 attack on parliament, amid a paralysing protest strike in Indian Kashmir’s main city and a third day of clashes between demonstrators and police.

The turmoil erupted in the Muslim-majority state after a New Delhi judge ordered that Mohammed Afzal, found guilty last month of helping to mastermind the attack, should be hanged on October 20.

"We warn of dire consequences if the death sentence is carried out," said Sadaqat Hussain, a spokesman for the United Jihad Council, Indian Kashmir’s main militant alliance which is battling New Delhi’s rule here.

Hussain, who said Afzal was innocent, did not make any specific threats in the statement published in local Indian Kashmiri newspapers.

Shops, businesses and schools were closed in Srinagar to protest the planned execution of Afzal.

Say we're peaceful, or we'll kill you. Robert Redeker Update: "Teacher forced into hiding after attacking Islam," from the TimesOnline, :

A philosophy teacher today described how he was forced into hiding after a newspaper article in which he attacked Islam provoked death threats against himself and his family.

Robert Redeker, 52, from Toulouse in south-west France, is receiving round-the-clock police protection and changing addresses every two days, after publishing an article describing the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as "a religion which ... exalts violence and hate".

He told French media today that he had no regrets about writing the article and that it was part of his job as a philosophy teacher to ask difficult questions.

In an interview with i-TV he said that he had received several e-mail threats targeting himself and his wife and three children and that his photograph and address were available on several Islamist internet sites.

"There is a very clear map of how to get to my home, with the words: ’This pig must have his head cut off’," he said.

Another e-mail says: "You will never again be safe on this earth. One billion, 300 million Muslims are ready to kill you."

And interviewed over the telephone from a safe house by Europe 1 radio, he complained that the education ministry had left him alone and abandoned. He said the ministry "has not even contacted me, has not deigned to get in touch to see if I need any help."

He accepted that his detractors had "already won a victory of sorts."

"I cannot do my job. I have no freedom of movement. I am in hiding. Already they have succeeded in punishing me ... as if I was guilty of holding the wrong opinions."

Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, said that the threats were "unacceptable".

He said: "We are in a democracy, everyone has the right to express his views freely -- of course while respecting others. That is the only restriction that is acceptable on this freedom.

"This shows to what extent we live in a dangerous world... and how vigilant we must be to ensure people fully respect one another in our society."

The Paris state prosecutor’s office today launched a preliminary inquiry for "criminal conspiracy in relation with a terrorist enterprise", asking the intelligence agency to look into the death threats.

Gilles de Robien, the Education Minister, yesterday expressed "solidarity" with M Redeker, but also warned that "a state employee must show prudence and moderation in all circumstances".

Even when "one billion, 300 million Muslims are ready to kill" him.

Michelle Malkin has the text of Redeker's article, along with the one by German historian Egon Flaig that was banned in Egypt.

Friend and Ally Update: "ISI backs al-Qaeda: British report," from Associated Press, with thanks to F.:

London, September 28: A leaked British document accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency of indirectly supporting terrorist groups including al-Qaeda, and it calls on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to disband the agency.

Musharraf, who is scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on Thursday, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he rejected the assessment and would raise the matter with his counterpart.

"ISI is a disciplined force, breaking the back of al-Qaeda," Musharraf told the broadcaster, claiming his intelligence service had secured the arrests of 680 suspected terrorists.

Sure, Pervez. They started breaking the back of al-Qaeda right after Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age, right?

Ramadan mubarak! Abu Hamza al-Muhajir adds to the love note just received from Al-Zawahiri. More on this tape from China Daily:

Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq called for the kidnapping of Westerners to swap for a Muslim cleric jailed in the United States, according to an Internet audio tape issued yesterday.

"I call on every holy fighter in Iraq to strive during this holy month (Ramadan)... to capture some dogs of the Christians so that we can liberate our imprisoned sheikh," said the speaker, identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

He accused US jailers of "torturing" Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, held over links to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

The speaker also called for attacks on US military camps in Iraq using "unconventional bombs such as biological and dirty bombs."

The tape's authenticity could not be verified but it was posted on major websites used by militants....

But it is the holy month, after all, and so he offers clemency for those who collaborated with the enemies of Islam:

"As for those who supported the occupiers and their agents, becoming their eyes and ears, and who betrayed their religion, honour and land for material or social gains ... I declare a general amnesty during this month of generosity and forgiveness," the speaker on the tape said.

"We waive the right to (avenge) the blood that was shed by your hands and your betrayal," he said.

Bjørn Stærk is one of the most famous bloggers in Norway. He has also come out in favor of suicide rather than political incorrectness. A Will The Last Free Person Leaving Europe Turn Out The Lights Update from Stærk's weblog (thanks to Fjordman):

Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip. Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane. Brave is not watching the news anxiously for hours whenever there's been an attack, or a new plot has been uncovered.

Let the jihadists do whatever they want. Don't lift a finger to resist them. This is what they're calling "bravery" in Norway.

Sharia Alert and Somali Jihad Update from News.com.au: "Somali Islamists close down media"

ISLAMIST gunmen who captured the Somali port of Kismayo have forcibly closed a private media network there which they accuse of distorting news about protests against the takeover, journalists said today.

Islamist fighters on battle-wagons turned up at HornAfrik Radio's Kismayo offices late yesterday, ordering staff to stop operations, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.

"We are strongly bothered by this show of aggression against this media house, which is a conscious attack on the freedom of the press and fundamental freedom of expression," said union secretary general Omar Faruk Osman.

[...]

... there have been anti-Islamist protests this week in Kismayo, and Somalis in general are becoming increasingly worried about signs of hardline practices by the movement, which was born out of sharia courts.

The Islamists' rise has challenged the aspirations of Somalia's western-backed interim government - based in the provincial town of Baidoa - to restore central rule to the Horn of Africa nation for the first time since 1991.

Islamist sources said HornAfrik had made false broadcasts about this week's protests in Kismayo, including reports that a boy had died and women were mistreated in the violence.

The Islamists say they are simply restoring law and order to Somalia after 15 years of anarchy since the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. They are also openly calling for mainly Muslim Somalia to be ruled by a sharia system.

The above paragraph seems to separate the aims of the jihadists to "restore law and order" and to establish Sharia law. But a decline in crime rates is only part of their larger agenda, which would impose the entirety of the Islamic social order, including the governance of minute details of individual behavior.

In a new video from the boys at Al-Qaedawood, ol' Doc Zawahiri, like his boy Adam Gadahn, prescribes conversion to Islam as the cure for what ails ya -- or else, of course. Sounds as if the Good Doctor has been reading off Howard Dean's teleprompter.

"A Video Speech from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri: Bush, the Pope of the Vatican, Darfur, and the Crusader Wars, by as-Sahab Productions," from the SITE Institute, with thanks to Schoolraider:

As-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s multimedia production arm, issued today, Friday, September 29, 2006, a 17:51 minute video speech featuring Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and titled: “Bush, the Pope of the Vatican, Darfur, and the Crusader Wars”. He appears in two scenes: one, subtitled in English, with an office-setup background with a lamp, flag bearing “No God, but Allah”, and a cannon; the other is without a background, and depicts Zawahiri dressed entirely in white, without subtitles.

To U.S. President George W. Bush, Zawahiri brands him a "deceitful charlation" and liar, and questions: “why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and it's allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people’s sons in order to increase your profits?” He questions his motives for initating the War in Iraq, ridiculing the false prexets under which it was conducted. To this end he cites the purported links of Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda, and the presence of weapons of mass destruction. He also addresses the capture of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad and questions that if it helped in the "war on terror" then “why are your troops retreating in secrete from the south and east of Afghanistan?... Bush...be aware that the liberation of our captives is a debt on our shoulders which we must fulfill”. Other individuals who have been captured, such as Ramzi Yusef, Omar Abdul Rahman (the "Blind Sheikh") and Abu al-Faraj al-Libi are also cited.

That, I trust you understand, is a threat of violent actions to free these jailed jihadists.

Then al-Zawahiri retails some jihad recruitment pretexts:

In the Arabic portion, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri discusses the issue of the Pope Benedict XVI's slanderous comments to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, by prefacing such attacks as beginning with the Satanic Verses of Salmon Rushdie, followed by desecration of the Qur'an at Guantanamo Bay, and banning of the hijab in French schools. He states that the current pope is reminiscent of Pope Urban II, who "provoked the people of Europe to fight the Muslims" in the Crusades. Zawahiri disregards Christinaity due to its "supersitions" and alleged irrationality, but avers that Muslims are not enemies of Jesus as Pope Urban II claimed. On the pope's comments directly, Zawahiri adds: "if Benedict attacked us, we will respond to his insults with good things. We will call upon him, and all of the Christians to become Muslims who do not recognize the Trinity or the crucifixion, and say that Allah united with the human."

What a generous offer!

SITE has made available a one-minute clip of this masterpiece.

This is, of course, a consequence of the failure to consider the nature and implications of the jihad ideology and the Sharia imperative. Democracy On The March Update from AP:

WASHINGTON - About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, according to a poll in that country.

The Iraqis also have negative views of Osama bin Laden, according to the early September poll of 1,150.

The poll, done for University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, found:

_Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in
Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents.

_About 61 percent approved of the attacks — up from 47 percent in January. A solid majority of Shiite and Sunni Arabs approved of the attacks, according to the poll. The increase came mostly among Shiite Iraqis.

_An overwhelmingly negative opinion of terror chief bin Laden and more than half, 57 percent, disapproving of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

_Three-fourths say they think the United States plans to keep military bases in Iraq permanently.

_A majority of Iraqis, 72 percent, say they think Iraq will be one state five years from now. Shiite Iraqis were most likely to feel that way, though a majority of Sunnis and Kurds also believed that would be the case.

The PIPA poll, which included an oversample of 150 Sunni Iraqis, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The State Department, meanwhile, has also conducted its own poll, something it does periodically, spokesman Sean McCormack said. The State Department poll found that two-thirds of Iraqis in Baghdad favor an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to The Washington Post. McCormack declined to discuss details of the department's Iraq poll.

This just in from the British dhimmis who are paving the way for the Islamic Republic of Britain: "Met backs off over Muslim protests," from the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

No criminal offences were committed in a Muslim protest over the Pope outside Westminster Cathedral, police have decided.

The Metropolitan Police has also decided not to take action against the controversial Muslim figure, Anjem Choudary, who allegedly said in a television interview about the row over the Pope that anyone who insulted the Muslim faith would be "subject to capital punishment".

Police received about 25 complaints from members of the public about the protest, which was said to have left worshippers attending the cathedral on September 17 feeling "upset" and "intimidated"....

However, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, told a meeting of his force's police authority yesterday that, after reviewing the evidence, Scotland Yard officers had concluded that "no substantive offences" were committed during the cathedral demonstration.

Sir Ian said that the cathedral authorities had expressed satisfaction with the policing of the event and added: "We are in an angry time and it is our job in the Met to hold the line on free speech."

David Davies, the shadow home secretary, who called for action to be taken against Mr Choudary, said: "It is quite disgraceful. It sends out a message to Muslim extremists that we, as a country, do not have the moral courage to stand up to them."

Right you are, Davies.

Holding-Political-Power-Will-Exert-A-Moderating-Influence-On-Hamas Update: "Hamas rally in Gaza draws tens of thousands, denounces Israel," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters held a peaceful rally in Gaza on Friday to denounce the state of Israel and declare that they would never recognize its right to exist.

"We ask God to punish the so-called Israel and the allies of Israel and to punish those who recognize Israel and those who called on us to recognize Israel," Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri told the crowd that thronged the Jabalya refugee camp.

"We vow to God that we will never recognise Israel even if we would be all killed," Masri told the cheering audience of men, women and children, many of whom were wearing green Hamas baseball caps and held aloft Hamas banners.

Masri, a popular young lawmaker, also aimed criticism at Fatah, a rival movement headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, saying it was trying to pressure Hamas, which now runs the Palestinian government, into recognizing Israel.

"Those people are demanding us openly to recognize the occupation and that will never happen," Masri said.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Compass Direct:

September 28 (Compass Direct News) – Born on June 18 to a Christian family in northern Azerbaijan, three-month-old Ilya Eyvazov still has no official name.

Local authorities in the town of Aliabad at first refused to issue a birth certificate when the baby’s father, Novruz Eyvazov, tried to register his son’s birth on June 21.

“Impossible,” city administration officials told Novruz Eyvazov when they saw his son’s name was the Russian form of Elijah.

“They said it was because it was a Christian name,” said the Baptist church member....

But an official in the regional registration office in Zaqatala said that Baptists in Aliabad were facing difficulties because their attempt to take non-Azeri names was part of a plot to cede Zaqatala to neighboring Georgia.

“I have a letter here with the signatures of 3,000 residents of Aliabad, sent to the president and the European Council, complaining that they [Baptists] want to make [Aliabad’s residents] Georgians,” Aybeniz Kalashova told Compass.

“The letter says, ‘They [Baptists] want to change our names, make us Georgian and then claim that this area is part of southern Georgia.’ Why have they become Christians and started serving a foreign country?”...

The majority of Aliabad’s residents belong to the ethnically Georgian Ingilo minority who converted to Islam several centuries ago....

Without a birth certificate it is impossible for an Azeri to receive medical care, go to school or travel abroad. It is not yet clear what practical problems Ilya Eyvazov will face if his official I.D. carries no name....

Soltanov, who had been instrumental in securing a birth certificate for Luka Eyvazov, was skeptical of the Eyvazovs’ motives for giving their children foreign names.

“Why is it that Novruz wants to give his sons foreign names?” Soltanov asked Compass, continuing speculations, initially made to Forum 18, that the Christian family was being forced to choose the foreign names by “some religious sect.”

Zaur Balayev, pastor of Aliabad’s first Baptist church formed in 1993, told Compass that he knows at least five families from his congregation that have faced opposition from local officials in giving their children Christian names....

Pastor Shabanov told Compass that members of his congregation are constantly being called in to the police station to answer questions about their worship activities.

“They can’t actually keep us from worshipping, but they do everything they can to scare away people who are interested in attending our services,” Shabanov said. He told Compass that new converts to Christianity were often told to return to Islam or their relatives would lose their jobs....

“No one in the whole world recognizes the Baptists,” Kalashova of Zaqatala’s registration office commented to Compass. “They are Muslims who converted to Christianity and received help from foreigners. They don’t intermarry or have relations with [people outside their group].”

Azeri churches outside of the capital city of Baku have found it difficult to register with the government, a move that would in theory allow them to worship with minimal government interference.

Warith Deen Umar Update from AP, :

NEW YORK (AP) -- The former head Islamic chaplain for the state prison system was sentenced Thursday to a year of home detention by a judge who said he deserved leniency on a gun charge after decades of achievements that followed childhood poverty.

Warith Deen Umar will be permitted to leave home for work, medical care and religious services, Judge Robert P. Patterson said.

Earlier this year, Umar, 62, pleaded guilty to a gun charge after admitting he waved an empty shotgun at an angry tenant who struck him at a Bronx building he owns. He also owned a .22-caliber rifle and four shotgun shells.

The government charged Umar with gun possession, saying he was not allowed to have one because he had been convicted in 1971 of possession of a dangerous weapon.

The judge rejected efforts by the government to get him to take into consideration a published report that quoted Umar as saying in an unpublished memoir that even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud the Sept. 11 hijackers.

That would be this Wall Street Journal piece (subscribers only). Prison officials took it seriously enough to ban him from the prison system:

Umar was banned from state prisons shortly after the article was published in 2003 despite his assertion that his comments were taken out of context and that he never said the terrorists were martyrs or honored them.

The judge said he considered the article and two others cited by prosecutors "unreliable for sentencing purposes."...

He said he was shunned by many in his religious community after a false report that he had sympathized with Sept. 11 hijackers. He said one New York mosque has permanently banned him.

Good for them.

He said he had been comforted by neighbors around his home in Glenmont, N.Y., near Albany, where he said a mostly white group of people including Christians, Jews and gays came to his defense.

"These are Americans," he said....

Yes, probably. And besotted dhimmi fellow travelers also, probably.

Umar has said he believes "they are persecuting me because I'm Muslim and I'm black and I speak out and because I was the Muslim chaplain in the state prison system for 25 years."...

Get real, Umar. Being Muslim and black, if you were an outspoken anti-jihadist, would get you front-page, above the fold coverage, plus seats on all the pseudo-fearless conservative talking head shows. There is nothing that American officials and media want to find more than an outspoken, passionate, articulate moderate Muslim. If you were one, you'd be everyone's hero.

The judge told Umar that some Christians and others in the United States had trouble understanding how some Muslims could interpret the Quran in a way to permit people to blow themselves up in Afghanistan and Iraq in an effort to kill others.

"I happen to be Christian," the judge said. "That's very difficult for me to understand."

Well, judge, why don't you explain to us how you think Muslims should interpret the Qur'an? Here is another non-Muslim lecturing a Muslim about how to understand a book that he probably hasn't actually even read.

Jihad in Israel continues. From Reuters, :

A SUSPECTED car bomb exploded in a town south of the coastal city of Tel Aviv today, killing at least one person and wounding up to six others, Israeli rescue and ambulance services said.

And from AFP: Israel seals Palestinian territories for Yom Kippur

As Yom Kippur falls during Ramadan this year, that is a prudent move.

Apparently not all Somalis are thrilled with the Talibanization of Somalia, even if the mujahedin do make the trains run on time. From the Mail & Guardian, with thanks to DFS:

Islamic fighters opened fire on stone-throwing demonstrators in a key Somali seaport on Thursday, in a third day of protests over their seizure of the town. No casualties were reported.

Seven women were arrested by the Islamic militia after they joined demonstrations that have erupted in Kismayo, Somalia's third largest town, residents told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The stone-throwing crowds chanted that the fighters "are not Muslims" and "use Islam as a cover".

The Islamic militia has swept through southern Somalia since taking over the capital in June. Its strict and often severe interpretation of Islam raises the spectre of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia, and contrasts with the moderate Islam that has dominated Somali culture for centuries. Some Somalis, though, have welcomed the order the militia have brought after years of anarchic clan rule.

In Kismayo on Thursday, demonstrators, most of them women and children, blocked roads with trees and rocks to prevent Islamic militia using their armoured trucks, many of which were flying the black flags associated with Islamic extremism, to break up the protests.

Iran's "long-term influence is bound to wane." Among Iraqi Shi'ites? Really? Why?

And of course they don't want a "destabilized Iraq." They want a Shi'ite client state in Iraq, and they're doing all they can to establish one.

From DefenseNews.com, with thanks to DFS:

Iran is funneling weapons and cash to buy the loyalty of armed groups in Iraq, but its long- term influence is bound to wane as Iraqis focus more on their own interests, a senior U.S. military official said.

The United States and Britain have in the past accused Iran of fostering violence in Iraq. The Islamic Republic denies it.

But the official gave far more detail, and said the latest weapons finds -- including explosives bearing factory stamps indicating they come from Iran -- show that the policy of arming Iraqi militia is supported at high levels in Iran and not the work of rogue Iranian operatives.

"You see them enabling all comers," he said. "And by the way, nobody in this country stays bought. You’re rented."

The senior military official was discussing intelligence issues under condition he not be named, in a briefing with journalists in Baghdad on Sept. 27, the transcript of which was made available on Sept. 28.
He estimated that Iran has sent "millions of dollars" to the Mehdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, including rogue elements that had slipped out of Sadr’s direct control.

Iranian weapons found in Iraq include surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank rockets like those used by Hizbollah in Lebanon against Israel, as well as tank-destroying Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs) that have become common in roadside bombs used to attack U.S. and British troops....

But the official said parties seen as pro-Iranian were already falling behind in Iraq, losing ground to groups like Sadr’s who portray themselves more as Iraqi nationalists.

"For them to function effectively inside Iraq, they have to make a decision to be Iraqi," he said.

"Iran only has a window of opportunity to influence Iraq before Iraq -- and its natural tendencies as both an Arab state and one who’s got a whole series of friction points with the Islamic Republic -- will start to take over."

He said Iran had fomented violence in Iraq, especially places like Basra in the south, but this could be counter productive because of mainly ethnic-Persian Iran’s own worries about unrest among its Arab and Kurdish minorities.

"It’s not in their best interest to have a destabilized Iraq, because guess what? There are Arabs in the south (of Iran) and Kurds in the north that pose significant challenges to Iranian internal stability," he said.

"But nonetheless, they’re not sure who is going to come out on top. And so basically they fund everybody."

Pakistan's "peace agreement" with the Taliban is quickly yielding predictable results. From AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan - American troops on Afghanistan's eastern frontier have seen a tripling of attacks since a truce between the Pakistani army and pro-Taliban tribesmen that was supposed to stop cross-border raids by militants, a U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry rejected the U.S. claim and said home-based insurgents were behind the violence in Afghanistan, where at least 25 militants were reported killed in fighting Wednesday.

Raising further questions about the cease-fire, a Pakistani political leader maintained Taliban leader Mullah Omar approved the deal. A government official denied that.

The developments could add to the feuding between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who were having dinner Wednesday night with President Bush at the White House to try to patch up their dispute over how to quell Islamic extremists.

The U.S. officer said the cease-fire that began June 25, cemented by the signing of a peace accord Sept. 5, contributed to the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan. He said ethnic Pashtun insurgents are no longer fighting Pakistani troops and are using Pakistan's North Waziristan border area as a command-and-control hub for attacks in Afghanistan.

Pakistani tribal elders brokered the truce between Musharraf's government and militants, which ended years of unrest in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

But the agreement appears to have bolstered Taliban infiltrators, with the number of attacks in eastern Afghan provinces rising threefold since July 31, said the U.S. officer, who agreed to discuss the situation only if not quoted by name due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"That's why they had the chance to rest and refit, because they were in a sanctuary," he said, referring to a surge in Taliban attacks over the last several months without giving specific numbers for incidents before or after the truce.

[...]

Meanwhile, Latif Afridi, a top official in Pakistan's Awami National Party, said he received a letter containing Taliban leader Mullah Omar's approval of the North Waziristan peace deal.

He said the letter also claimed Pakistani militants who back the Taliban in North Waziristan would fall under the command of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a front-line Taliban commander.

[...]

The U.S. officer said the Taliban's connections with Pakistan run so deep that wounded fighters seek treatment on the Pakistani side of the border and even carry their dead to Pakistan for burial.

Some of the suicide bombers in Afghanistan have been recruited in Pakistan, including a 17-year-old boy who blew himself up in front of a U.S. military convoy in Kabul this month, killing a bystander and wounding three American soldiers, Afghan police say.

Better dying through chemistry. From AP: "Iraq terrorist calls scientists to jihad"

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al-Qaida in Iraq's leader, in a chilling audiotape released Thursday, called for nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war and urged insurgents to kidnap Westerners so they could be traded for a blind Egyptian sheik who is in a U.S. prison.

The fugitive terror chief said experts in the fields of "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences -- especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" should join his group's jihad, or holy war, against the West.

"We are in dire need of you," said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir -- also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. "The field of jihad can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them."

The 20-minute audio was posted to a Web site that frequently airs al-Qaida messages. The voice could not be independently identified, but it was thought to be al-Masri's. He is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June, as head of the al-Qaida-linked organization.

Thursday's message focused attention on Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy for his advisory role in a plot to blow up five New York City landmarks, including the United Nations.

Barghouti isn't the only one scheming about prisoner swaps:

"I appeal to every holy warrior in the land of Iraq to exert all efforts in this holy month so that God may enable us to capture some of the Western dogs to swap them with our sheik and get him out of his dark prison," said al-Masri, who is also Egyptian.

He also said more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 -- the first known statement from the insurgents about their death toll.

It was unclear why al-Masri would advertise the loss of the group's foreign fighters, but martyrdom is revered among Islamic fundamentalists, and could be used as a recruiting tool. Analysts said the announcement was likely a boast aimed at drumming up support.

"It's showing the level of dedication to their cause, the level of sacrifice jihadists are making," said Ben N. Venzke, director of the Washington-based IntelCenter, which monitors terrorism communications.

"In a strange kind of way, it's almost showing a sense of strength and purpose in their cause to other people around world who might be thinking about joining the fight," Venzke said in a telephone interview.

The statement followed the release of a U.N. report Wednesday that said fewer foreign fighters have been killed or captured in Iraq in the last few months, "suggesting that the flow has slackened." The report also said some fighters had expressed dissatisfaction they were asked to kill fellow Muslims rather than Western soldiers and that the only role for them was to be suicide bombers.

Still, the report said al-Qaida "has gained by continuing to play a central role in the fighting and in encouraging the growth of sectarian violence; and Iraq has provided many recruits and an excellent training ground."

Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal has kindly alerted us to some alarming developments in Belgium: "Third Night of Ramadan Rioting in Capital of Europe" (many news links in the original):

It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fires at the hospital, but youths managed to steal the keys of the fire engine.

During the month of ramadan Muslims are required to fast during the day and are only allowed to eat after sunset. As Esther pointed out “What should be noticed about the riots is that they start after sunset. Besides the fact that they start after dark, it also gives the rioters enough time to break their fast and enjoy the traditional family meal. Sunset is around 7:30pm.” Tuesday’s and Monday’s riots began around 8:30pm.

He "accused Islam of 'exalting violence,'" and they threaten to kill him. Doesn't anyone notice the irony here?

From AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

SAINT-ORENS-DE-GAMEVILLE, France, Sept 28, 2006 (AFP) — A French philosophy teacher was under police protection Thursday after receiving death threats over an article he wrote in a national newspaper that accused Islam of "exalting violence", school and police officials said.

Robert Redeker has not attended classes at his secondary school near Toulouse in southern France since September 19, when his opinion column appeared in the right-wing daily Le Figaro.

"He received written death threats in the form of emails. On the face of it they were pretty serious," said the lycée's headmaster Pierre Donnadieu.

Police confirmed the threat but refused to comment on the protection Redeker is receiving.

Under the heading "In the face of Islamist intimidation, what must the free world do?", Redeker described the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as "a religion which ... exalts violence and hate".

Likening Islam to Communism, he said that "violence and intimidation are the methods used by an expansionist ideology ... to impose its leaden cloak on the world".

"In the face of Islamist intimidation, what must the free world do?" Above all, not give in. Not stop speaking the truth. The fact that for all too many Muslims "violence and intimidation" are indeed the methods by which they impose their will has been proven again by the threats to Redeker. The way to respond to intimidation is not to allow oneself to be intimidated.

And Muslims who proclaim their moderation should make it clear that they reject all this, whether directed against the Pope, or Redeker, or Salman Rushdie, or anyone else. They should work against the beliefs and assumptions within the Islamic community that lead to this kind of intimidation. Or if they don't, then rational observers will have every reason to suspect the sincerity of their moderation.

After retailing nonsense since 9/11 about how all this jihad terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, someone in the Pentagon actually took a look at the Qur'an itself, and -- lo and behold! -- discovered what I have been trying to tell people for years now: that the jihadists have a broad justification within the Qur'an and Islamic theology and law, and that fact has to be confronted by both Muslims and non-Muslims if anything effective is ever going to be done about it. "Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing: Tasked with pinpointing motivation, analysts find terrorists 'rational actors' following 'holy book,'" from WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:

With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.

Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.

In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.

"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.

But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.

"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."

Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'

"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.

"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."

The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).

Particularly 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah.

At Hot Air today I am talking about Pope Rage on a new videoblog.

Jihad Watch will henceforth be a weekly feature at Hot Air.

Dean Esmay is at it again, ranting and raving in yet another Ralph-Peters-esque (credit Michelle Malkin with the phrase) substanceless hit-and-run attack, this time on Michelle herself -- plus a few swipes at Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs and the Jawa Report in his comments fields.

I wouldn't have noted it at all except that his initial sally was linked at Instapundit, which demonstrates that despite all of Esmay's frothing hysteria and foaming-at-the-mouth slanders and distortions, some people evidently still take him seriously. How anyone could possibly do so after his foul-mouthed raging in the comments that Michelle Malkin links to is a mystery to me.

Bryan Preston and Michelle Malkin respond cogently.

You can read the whole sorry history of Esmay's frenzied attacks on me and my responses here, here, here, here, here, and here.

From Memri a two-fer: not only Jack Sparrow but also Tom and Jerry. Who knew?

"In any event, Zionism is not restricted to the capitalistic weapons companies, such as Lockheed and the banks that support it. Cinema is considered another, subtle, weapon in the hands of those who support this corrupt ideology. In Hollywood, Disney is the manufacturer of this weapon, and Pirates of the Caribbean is its newest ammunition.

"Watch Schindler's List. Every Jew was forced to wear a yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'

"I'd like to tell you that... It should be noted that mice are very cunning...and dirty."

[...]

"No ethnic group or people operates in such a clandestine manner as the Jews."

[...]

"Read the history of the Jews in Europe. This ultimately led to Hitler's hatred and resentment. As it turns out, Hitler had behind-the-scene connections with the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]."

"Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.

Last night some one sent in this and this.

For people who are not very prominent, Wikipedia biographies can be an "attractive nuisance". It says, to every troll, vandal, and score-settler: "Here's an article about a person where you can, with no accountability whatsoever, write any libel, defamation, or smear. It won't be a marginal comment with the social status of an inconsequential rant, but rather will be made prominent about the person, and reputation-laundered with the institutional status of an encyclopedia."

Where living people are concerned, there is a cost-shifting aspect: instead of falling on Wikipedia's poor quality control, any negative effects are usually borne by the aggrieved party, except in the very rare case where he or she has enough power to publicise Wikipedia's failings.

It also allows those who don't like history to rewrite it. Look at the link above on "Khaybar, Khaybar!" Wouldn't it be useful to know what Khaybar means?

An update on this story from the Washington Times:

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian Christians, deeply troubled by the executions of three Christians last week, say they are watching closely to see whether the government will be equally firm in dealing with three Muslims facing the ultimate sanction for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings.

[...]

The three executed men had participated in a May 2000 attack on a Muslim school that left 191 persons dead, propelling a slumbering conflict between Christians and Muslims on the lush spice island of Sulawesi into open war.

But Christians, who make up about 8 percent of the population, say the courts have been less aggressive in prosecuting Muslims for similar attacks, noting that only a handful have been convicted and none has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

"Another question is why these three farmers were sentenced to death and were executed, while the real culprits responsible are still alive," said Regina Astuti, a lawyer with the Legal Aid and Human Rights Association.

"Mr. Tibo named 16 former military and police officers he considered responsible for killing Muslims. These people were never called to the witness stand."

Christian pressure groups now are focusing their attention on three Muslims -- Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Mukhlas Samudra and Imam Samudra -- who have been sentenced to death for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings in Bali, which killed 202 persons.

The last deadline for their execution passed without comment, and a new date is unlikely to be set while a defense request for a new trial is pending.

"The first question is trying to find an answer about the death penalty in Indonesia in general terms, and more broadly, about justice in this country," said Dewi Sularca, a consultant with a European nongovernmental organization.

Dozens of men were arrested and tried for the Bali bombings, most receiving sentences of up to 30 years. But some received amnesties on the national holiday six weeks ago, causing anger in Australia, home to 88 of the victims.

Canberra was also upset because the pardons and reduced sentences did not extend to Australians and other foreigners in Indonesia's prisons. Four young Australian drug dealers have been sentenced to face a firing squad.

Azyumardi Azra, rector of the Islamic University of Jakarta, argues that the Sulawesi and Bali cases should not be linked.

"In the case of the Christians executed in Sulawesi, religious sentiments were very strong," he said. "That was not and is not the case in the Bali trials. There are no Islamic groups defending the authors of the Bali slaughter."

Azra's comments bring to mind Abu Bakar Bashir, who called the attacks "Allah's will," and was allowed to walk free after serving a ridiculously short sentence for his role in the conspiracy.

In a television interview, Vice President Jusuf Kalla also said last week's executions had no religious dimension. "They were the result of our judicial system," he said. "This is the way we work in Indonesia."

Yes. That's the problem.

Blaming the victim, Barghouti claims the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers -- which sparked the month-long war with Hizballah and escalated operations in the Gaza Strip -- is Israel's fault for not releasing its Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. Of course, Barghouti has a vested interest in this, as he sits in an Israeli prison serving five life sentences for the deaths of four Israelis and a Greek monk. From YNet News: "Barghouti: More kidnappings if top prisoners not freed"

If senior Palestinian security prisoners are not released as part of the prisoner swap deal to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, more kidnappings will likely ensue, jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti said.

Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, expressed this view during a one-and-a-half hour meeting Wednesday with MK Taleb El-Sana at the prison's visiting quarters. In addition to Shalit’s release, the two discussed the pending PA unity government and the implications of the war in Lebanon.

El-Sana said he came away with the impression that Barghouti was in heightened spirits and that he was familiar with the smallest details of the political realities in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

According to El-Sana, during their conversation Barghouti charged Israel with responsibility for the kidnappings. If Israel had agreed to free Samir Kuntar, the kidnappings in Lebanon could have been avoided, and Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners would have not only prevented the snatching of Shalit, but also strengthened Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' leadership.

Samir Kuntar (whom Palestinian Authority media has called a "beacon of light") is serving multiple life sentences for killing an Israeli father and his two daughters in 1979. Barghouti would like this, and his own crimes, swept under the rug, lest the Palestinians kidnap more Israelis to use as bargaining chips for their release.

Barghouti added, "Just as Gilad Shalit is important to his family and country, so is every Palestinian prisoner."

It has already been proven that the prisoners are the true leaders of the Palestinian people, he declared, as only they could draft the list of principles which became a basis of unity for the Palestinians, and came to be known as the ‘Prisoners’ Document.’

He noted that any step towards a prisoner swap deal must be approved by the prisoners themselves, and therefore if the deal doesn’t include senior detainees -- it will only invite additional kidnappings.

Not content with simply buying influence in world media, which could take a while, the Organization of the Islamic Conference has decided to reconstitute two of its news outlets, which will no doubt bring you the human interest stories behind the effigy burnings, showcase the latest fashion in niqabs, and, yes, blame Israel and the West for all the world's problems. One question remains: Will they lure away the in-house talent at Hizballah's al-Manar? From AP:

KUALA LUMPUR - The world’s largest Islamic grouping would revive two Saudi Arabia-based news organisations to counter Western media’s "skewered view" of Islam, a Malaysian official said on Wednesday.

The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, would restart the International Islamic News Agency and the Islamic States Broadcasting Organization -- both set up in the 1970s, Malaysia’s deputy Information Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamid said.

Malaysia is the current chairman of the OIC.

"We want to revive it," Zahid said, adding the Saudi information minister has asked Malaysia to head the task.

It wasn’t clear how long or why the two organizations -- which would provide text and video -- have been dormant. Zahid didn’t provide details.

"The negative view of Islamic countries must change. The foreign media often has a bias against us," he said. "They have a skewered view."

No starting date or costs were provided.

Muslim nations, including Malaysia, have said media coverage by Western news organizations, particularly in the Middle East, is lopsided and portrays a negative view of Islam.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, after a tour of Lebanon, recently complained images and stories displayed a bias toward Israel.

Zahid said Malaysia has offered to set up a center for journalists from Islamic countries, which would be funded by the OIC, the world’s largest political grouping of Muslim nations.

No doubt because of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.
From NEWS.com.au:

In one attack, two teenagers in Islamic students' dress and riding a motorcycle, shot and killed three Buddhists in Yala, the capital of a province of the same name.

“The militants exploited the fact that the men were shopping at a grocery store and could not defend themselves, even though they had a gun,” police Colonel Somsak Wannawak said.

The fourth man was shot while riding a bus.
Do you think we will hear that the attackers suffer from Buddhiphobia?

Anti-dhimmitude in Germany. The idea of needing to censor Mozart may well be a breaking point in German tolerance of the creeping Islamicization of their country. From Reuters:

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

"I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practice violence in the name of Islam," she told reporters. "It makes no sense to retreat."

Merkel's comments, which echoed those of other senior German politicians, fueled a row over the cancellation of Mozart's "Idomeneo" which overshadowed a government-sponsored conference to promote dialogue with the country's 3.2 million Muslims.

Berlin's Deutsche Oper said on Monday it had pulled performances of the opera, which shows the severed heads of the Prophet Mohammad, Buddha and Jesus, after police warned that it could pose an "incalculable" security risk.

Why did Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, only give Muhammad an honorific title?

The row comes two weeks after Pope Benedict enraged some Muslims by quoting from a medieval text linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence. Last year's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper triggered violent Muslim protests.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters after the conference the participants were united in their call for the opera to restart performances of "Idomeneo."

"I am glad that we all agreed we would like the production to resume," Schaeuble, who has no authority over the opera house, told reporters after the conference. "To send a signal, we could all go to the performance together," he said.

While both items from Palestinian media mentioned below occurred before Pope Benedict's meeting with Muslim envoys, no one seems to be in a hurry to apologize either for the cartoon or the content of the sermon following that meeting, which was clearly not enough for those who would demand the Pope grovel for forgiveness like a proper dhimmi, or convert to Islam. From YNet News:

Pope Benedict XVI is "arrogant," "stupid," and "criminal," and will be judged by Allah on the day "when eyes will stare in terror," declared a sermon delivered this past weekend on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' state-run television station.

The sermon coincided with a cartoon also published this weekend in an official Hamas-run daily newspaper in which the pontiff is depicted holding a swastika while wearing a scarf of American and Danish flags.

The cartoon, published by the Hamas paper Al-Risala ("the message"), can be found here at Palestinian Media Watch. Will Al-Risala's publishers be disappointed when Catholics don't riot, engage in shootings and bombings, and call for the conversion or death of Ismail Haniyeh?

"To this arrogant Pope -- criminal and arrogant -- this message is from Allah the Elevated and the Exalted, as it was said: 'Think not that Allah is unaware of what the wicked do. He but gives them a respite until a day when eyes will stare (in terror),'" stated Gaza preacher Osama Al-Mazini in a sermon broadcast by the official television station of Abbas' Fatah party.

"For this ignorant and stupid pope, who has no one to attack besides Islam and the prophet (Muhammad) ... (the pope) characterized Islam as a cruel religion and characterized Muhammad, may the Creator have mercy on him and protect him, as a cruel man, spilling blood, who strove to kill," Al-Mazini said in the sermon, which was translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

An answer from Sheik Abu Saqer, "leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement," to the Pope's invitation to Muslims to dialogue: "Pope in 'Crusader conspiracy' with Bush," from WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's meeting this week with a delegation of Muslim leaders and his calls for interfaith dialogue following earlier remarks about Islam are really "Crusader conspiracies" to subjugate the Islamic faith and force "Christian-Zionist" worldviews upon Muslims, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily in an interview.

Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called the pope a "puppet" for "that Crusader George Bush."

The Gaza imam said the only Christian-Muslim dialogue that is acceptable is one in which "all religions agree to convert to Islam."

"The call for so-called dialogue by this little racist pope is a Trojan horse with the main goal of reaching a new system in which the ideals [of Christianity] are a new ideology that will rule relations between nations and people. The dialogue he wants is dangerous," said Abu Saqer, speaking to WND from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

"The pope is the spiritual and religious wing of the Crusader ideology," Abu Saqer said. "He is totally coordinated with Bush. Through this dialogue he hopes to break the lines of unity between Muslims and polarize the Muslim world, which has some partisans who will accept this new dialogue. But true believers know Islam must rule all relations. The only dialogue we will accept is when all other religions agree to convert to Islam."...

In an interview with WND last week, Abu Saqer called for holy war against the pope. He declared the "green flag of Muhammad" would soon be raised over the Vatican.

"We did not need the words of the pope in order to understand that this is a Crusader war against Islam and it is our holy duty to fight all those who support the pope, who follow him and who did not condemn what this small racist had to say," said Abu Saqer.

Pakistan has a nuclear program based on the thefts of secrets by "Dr." A. Q. Khan, national hero of Pakistan, and willing sharer -- a Secret Sharer -- of such secrets with Iran and North Korea. Pakistan has been the incubator and promoter and supporter of the Taliban, the same Pakistan that has just announced plans to make 40-50 nuclear weapons a year.

Pakistan is a land of impoverished masses who find their solace in Islam and only Islam, while the anglophone families of zamindars and generals are hardly Muslims in their own lives. Their children enjoy English and American universities. Some of those children -- such as the son of the untrustworthy, but bearing-the-allure-of-rectitude Musharraf -- choose to remain (and why not? You would too), making their permanent lives in the Infidel West. (Did Musharraf himself pass out from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurt, like so many of those "trustworthy" and "pro-Western" Terry-Thomas-mustachioed Pakistani generals who for decades won the heart of American geneals and civilian policymakers?) It is understandable that military men stay in Pakistan, for if you are not a zamindar, it is the best way to obtain power and money, but your children may head geographically Infidel-wards. English is not a problem. Musharraf’s son, when last he was in the news, was working as an accountant in Massachusetts.

Tariq Ramadan has once again been disallowed entry into the United States.

Who will translate into English "Frere Tariq" by Catherine Fourest, which tells you all you need to know? Now that Ramadan has been exposed in France, both through his televised debates and through articles and books by no-nonsense people who set out his sinister taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, he had to get out of the French-speaking arena. His contract was not renewed at the University of Geneva. It was time to head to the English-speaking-world, where Fourest and others were not read, and he could start anew.

Some American TV channel would do well to obtain footage of Tariq Ramadan's two televised debates, one with Nicolas Sarkozy, and the other with Alain Finkielkraut. It would be well worth dubbing and showing both, and showing them again. Sarkozy dismembered him; Finkielkraut made mincemeat of what remained. A sight to see. It does not take much; he is such an obvious, even if soft-spoken and sly practitioner of taqiyya (he told a radio questioner once who dared to mention "taqiyya" -- Ramadan was startled at hearing the word, but knew he could not deny the practice outright -- that "taqiyya" is limited to Shi'a; we were given to understand that, therefore, Sunnis never ever lie about Islam, they just don't have it in them, and Ramadan is Sunni, so no need to worry). He is also a master of tu-quoque, omission, and stony silence. One has to be as willing to be fooled, as are the Scott Applebys (of the Kroc Center, would-be eager benefactor of Tariq Ramadan) of this world, to fall for a Tariq-Ramadan. That doesn't mean that various NPR talk-show hosts and others won't do so, for foolishness is in fashion. But it takes some doing.

Illuminating information from Rachel Ehrenfeld, who provides more information here:

The Department of Homeland Security had revoked Ramadan's visa on July 28, 2004 under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna was barred entry to the U.S. amid press speculation that the action involved a clause covering persons with a "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity," or who have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." Indeed, Ramadan who claims to be a moderate Muslim and a reformer, added his voice to Pope Benedict XVI's critics for "inviting the peoples of the continent [Europe] to become aware of the central, inescapable Christian character of their identity, which they risk losing." Ramadan sees the Pope's message "deeply troubling and potentially dangerous in its reductionism."

The U.S. gave no specifics for its 2004 revocation, but Ramadan's activities, lectures and writings in support of the Islamist agenda were presumed the obvious cause. ..........

On December 8, 2005, the French prosecution of Chechen terror network chief Menad Benchellali revealed evidence of Ramadan's links to terrorists in Europe. Benchellali had traveled to Switzerland "one or two times in 2000, to attend conferences on Islam provided by Tariq Ramadan." Benchellali, who later planned chemical attacks in France "under the supervision of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi," in June 2006 was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Earlier, in March 2005, Algerian al Qaeda member Djamel Beghal received 10 years in prison in Paris for participating in a foiled terror attack on the U.S. embassy there. Beghal testified in September 2001, that "his religious engagement started in 1994" when "he was in charge of writing the statements of Tariq Ramadan." That October, Beghal added that he had also taken "courses given by Tariq Ramadan."

Moreover, a 2001 Swiss intelligence memo said: "brothers Hani and Tariq Ramadan coordinated a meeting held in 1991 in Geneva attended by [al Qaeda leader] Ayman Al Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman," the imprisoned planner of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

Spanish judge Balatasar Garzon, meanwhile, reported Ramadan's "routine contacts" with Algerian Ahmed Brahim, the alleged financial chief of Al Qaeda and financier of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

In 1995, when the Algerian Armed Islamist Movement, (AIM) perpetrated several terrorist attacks in Paris, French interior minister, Jean Louis Debre, barred Ramadan from France based on his links to AIM."

In FrontPage this morning I examine the CAIR connection of the Muslim candidate for Congress, Keith Ellison (news links in the original):

Keith Ellison (D-MN) is shaping up to be the first-ever Muslim member of Congress, and the mainstream media is treating his candidacy as a huge human-interest story and a triumph of multiculturalism. The Christian Science Monitor gushed that “when Keith Ellison arrives at the Karmel Square, one of Minneapolis’s Somali malls, a rock star might as well be walking by the bustling stalls of bright fabrics, jewelry, phone cards, and videos.” It quoted Larry Jacobs of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota exulting: “You think of the stereotype of Minnesota -- Garrison Keillor and white Norwegian farmers. The first Muslim congressman coming from Minnesota? It says a lot about the changing face of the United States and Minnesota.”

Of course, not all is rosy: the Monitor notes that “conservative bloggers” and Ellison’s Republican opponent, Alan Fine, have raised questions about Ellison’s alleged ties to the Nation of Islam, as well as about a number of unpaid parking tickets that led to the suspension of his drivers’ license. But the Monitor doesn’t mention the most troubling aspect of Ellison’s record: the support he has received from the Council on American Islamic Relations.

And the the EU has expressed objections to this, remaining all too eager to extend the rights and privileges of membership to a country where jihadists can -- and will, if allowed -- exploit the democratic process to achieve their goals. From AP:

A top Turkish general said Monday that increasingly powerful Islamist forces threatened Turkey's secular system and that the army would play its role in defending the country against them, the state-run news agency reported.

General Ilker Basbug's comments appeared aimed at both the Islamic-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and at EU officials who have repeatedly called on the Turkish military to limit its role in state affairs.

The military views itself as the protector of Turkey's secular identity. Fiercely secular generals have directly led three coups since 1961 and ousted a government from power in 1997 for what they saw as an excessive Islamist bent.

The Pope respects them and is committed to dialogue? So what? He must kowtow. Nothing less than full submission will be acceptable. Pope Rage Update from Reuters, with thanks to Rudi:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An organization of 56 Islamic nations pressed Pope Benedict on Tuesday to apologize for his comments linking Muslims and violence, keeping alive a two-week-old controversy.

Foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, approved a statement urging the Vatican to "retract or redress" the comments, in which the pope cited quotes saying the Muslim faith was spread by violence.

The group issued its statement a day after Pope Benedict assured diplomats from some 20 Muslim nations and the leaders of Italy's Muslim community that he respected them and was committed to dialogue.

It was the fourth time he had tried to make amends, without actually apologizing directly, for his September 12 speech at a university in his native Germany....

The OIC statement said Islamic nations' foreign ministers "believe that it is befitting to the Vatican to retract or redress the said statement, in demonstration of the correct spirit of Christianity in dealing with Islamic issues."

That "correct spirit" is to the OIC apparently utter deference and submission, in line with dhimmi status.

"I was dreaming a beautiful dream..." From MEMRITV, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi, which aired on Dream2 TV on August 26, 2006:

[...]

When I said what I said, I was dreaming a beautiful dream, which I hope will come true, and that we all agree upon it. I dreamt that we are the Arab Islamic States, not just Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. I was truly dreaming that we are the Arab Islamic States. Get a map of the Arab homeland, and erase the borders... Or maybe these can be borders between counties or states, like the USA, in which 49 states were united into one country. I had a dream that we were one country, called the Arab Islamic States. The capital of this country is Egypt, and the president of Egypt and its government head this country. This is the dream I dreamt.

[...]

I said that these Israelis... I specified the Israeli Jew, not just any Jew. I said, word for word, that these are American Jews, Dutch Jews, and Jews from all other nationalities - and to them this does not apply. He must be a Jew and an Israeli, and not just any Israeli, because there are Israeli Arabs, there are Muslim Israelis from the 1948 Arabs, there are Christian Israelis... He must be an Israeli Jew, and, in parentheses - a Zionist. This was the first condition to my fatwa. The second condition is that he must be a combatant - in other words, a reserves soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces.

[...]

The third condition was that this action must cause no damage. I even said that it was entirely forbidden for someone to wear an explosives belt and blow himself up, and destroy a car in the street, just in order to kill an Israeli.

[...]

The fourth condition I mentioned was that no innocent person be killed. If we apply these four conditions of the fatwa in order to kill an Israeli, one must make sure that he is a Jew, an Israeli, and that he is between 21 and 54, the age of the reserves, and if she is a woman, she must be between 21 and 34, which is the age of the reserves [for women], and even then, he must make sure that she has no children, because a woman of this age with children is no longer a soldier in the IDF.

[...]

In an unusual display, someone spoke up against this madness:

Salah Issa, Al-Qahira editor-in-chief: He said: "I was imagining that this has become the Arab Islamic States, and that is why I said this." No. Excuse me, but you live here, in Egypt. Egypt has a peace agreement with Israel. Whether or not we accept it, this agreement exists. According to this agreement, any Israeli who comes here enjoys our protection, as Muslims.

Ceasefire Update from YNet News: "Hizbullah moving rockets to Palestinian camps"

Hizbullah has been transporting rockets and heavy weaponry to Palestinian camps in south Lebanon just a few miles from the Israeli border, according to Lebanese officials.

The officials told WND the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Faud Sinora sent a letter last week to Abbas Zakir, the Palestinian Authority's most senior representative in Lebanon, outlining the alleged Hizbullah weapons transfers into Palestinian camps. The letter noted "unusual activity" in and near the Palestinian camps, including the coming and going of trucks suspected of carrying weapons.

Palestinian groups, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, maintain armed bases in Lebanon, mostly in the al-Naemeh province just south of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley, near Lebanon's border with Syria and Israel. Fatah is the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The reports follow a WND article last month quoting Lebanese officials claiming Hizbullah, with the help of Iran, started building underground war bunkers in Lebanon's Palestinian camps.

During its 34-day confrontation with Hizbullah in Lebanon that began July 12, Israel destroyed scores of complex Hizbullah bunkers that snaked along the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border. Military officials said they were surprised by the scale of the Hizbullah bunkers, in which Israeli troops reportedly found war rooms with advanced eavesdropping and surveillance equipment they noted were made by Iran.

[...]

A senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND Hizbullah started building a new set of bunker systems, this time in Palestinian refugee camps.

"The Lebanese Army doesn't have the authority to patrol inside the camps," said the official. "Hizbullah knows it is safe there to rebuild their war bunkers, and they began doing so with Iranian help." Israeli security officials did not deny Nasrallah's claims of continuing to maintain a large rocket arsenal.

[...]

"The message sent is that Hizbullah absolutely maintains the capability of firing hundreds of rockets per day into Israel," commented the official. "Wasn't one of the (Israeli) military campaign's main goals to eliminate the rocket threat?"

Indeed. Where is the political will to secure Israel from those who would wipe it off the map?

Daniel Pipes has a terrific piece in today's New York Sun (there entitled "A Look at Islamic Violence," but it bears the title above at his website.) In it, he notes that "the violence by Muslims responding to comments by the pope fit a pattern that has been building and accelerating since 1989. Six times since then, Westerners did or said something that triggered death threats and violence in the Muslim world."

Those six are the Rushdie incident; the refusal of the Supreme Court in 1997 to remove a statue of Muhammad from the main court chamber; Jerry Falwell's calling Muhammad a terrorist in 2002; the Qur'an-flushing affair; Cartoon Rage; and now Pope Rage.

Pipes notes how these displays of outrage are orchestrated from above, and concludes:

No conspiracy lies behind these six rounds of inflammation and aggression, but examined in retrospect, they coalesce and form a single, prolonged campaign of intimidation, with surely more to come. The basic message – "You Westerners no longer have the privilege to say what you will about Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, Islamic law rules you too" – will return again and again until Westerners either do submit or Muslims realize their effort has failed.

Precisely. Diana West and Cliff May have also noted the same thing.

Instrumental music is automatically an issue under sharia law due to the dictates of Muhammad. For example:

Narrated Abu 'Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash'ari:

that he heard the Prophet saying, "From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, 'Return to us tomorrow.' Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection." (Bukhari 007.069.494v)

In addition, if the subject of Western music is to arise at all at Punjab University, its early history is inextricably linked to the Catholic liturgy and clergy, including at the time of the Crusades. Not to mention the time spent on Lutheran chorales in the instruction of music theory. Clearly, this could pose a problem.

Sharia Alert from The Daily Times: "Punjab University hires British music professor"

LAHORE: Punjab University has hired a British professor, Cambridge-graduate William Keith Timmney, and other international musicians to teach at the Department of Musicology despite threats by conservative elements, officials told Daily Times.

[...]

The department has received hundreds of admission applications for the two-year Master’s programme in Music and classes for the maiden batch will begin on October 6. Theory classes will be held at the old campus of Punjab University (PU) and practical classes will be held at Alhamra.

PU Registrar Professor Dr Naeem Khan has said the faculty was hired despite threats and pressure put by "anti-education elements" such as Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT).

"We have initiated the academic programme strictly for promotion of culture of our region," he said, "and will not let anyone impose their opinion over the majority." He said the university was "prepared to deal with miscreants".

He said the administration and the vice chancellor had envisioned the Musicology Department in response to demands by students and to promote the legacy of Muslim mystics such as Ameer Khusro, Khawaja Moeenuddin Chishti, Khushhal Khan Khatak and folksinger Pathanay Khan.

"We have started a Master’s programme initially, and Bachelor’s classes will follow soon," the registrar said. The programme was not meant to promote vulgarity, he said, "but to promote our culture internationally." The department will be part of the Institute of Art and Design (IAD) in the beginning, he said, but would become independent later. The IJT has already threatened to "physically resist" music classes on campus and threatened the administration with dire consequences against programmes for performing arts.

Somali Jihad Update from AP: "Demonstrations turn violent in Somalia"

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Fears of regional conflict soared as angry demonstrations against Somalia's radical Islamic militia grew Monday into deadly violence in a southern port city, and the militia for the first time acknowledged getting help from foreign Muslims.

[...]

As it has established authority in the capital and across much of the south starting in June, the Islamic group's strict interpretation of Islam has sparked comparisons with Afghanistan's ousted Taliban. The United States has accused the Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden has portrayed Somalia as a battleground in his war on the U.S.

Islamic militiamen wearing white headbands opened fire on several thousand people demonstrating against them in the port of Kismayo, 260 miles southwest of Mogadishu, killing a 13-year-old boy, said resident Abdiqadir Filibin.

Two other children were injured, witnesses said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Sporadic gunfire could also be heard in other parts of the town.

The militia had seized Kismayo, one of the last remaining ports outside their control and Somalia's third-largest city, on Sunday without a fight.

[...]

Hassan Turki, leader of the Islamic militia, told a demonstration in support of his group in Kismayo earlier Monday that foreign militants were helping his fighters.

"They are your brothers in Islam," Turki said.

"U.S. Rejects Visa for Muslim Scholar," from AP, with thanks to Morgaan Sinclair:

NEW YORK - The government has rejected a prominent Muslim scholar's application to enter the country, contending that he gave support to a terrorist group, but his attorneys allege the U.S. is using charitable donations he made as a pretext for stifling his views.

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who teaches at Oxford University, was denied a temporary business and tourism visa Thursday "based solely on his actions, which constituted providing material support to a terrorist organization," said Janelle Hironimus, a State Department spokeswoman.

Hironimus said she could not reveal specifics about Ramadan's case due to confidentiality rules regarding visa applications.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the U.S. government notified Ramadan he was being excluded because he donated $765 to French and Swiss organizations that provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The ACLU said the organizations are legitimate charities in France, but the Bush administration contends the groups gave funds to the Islamic militant group Hamas, and has invoked a law allowing it to exclude individuals whom it believes have supported terrorism.

The ACLU said the decision to bar Ramadan amounts to censorship.

"This case is really about speech," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer. "The government is using the immigration laws as a means of silencing and stigmatizing a prominent cleric."

No, this case is about terror-financing charities and dissimulation.

More depredations of Pakistan's blasphemy laws. From Compass Direct:

A Pakistani Christian jailed last week on suspicion of ripping book pages containing Quranic verses appealed to Punjabi police through his lawyer yesterday (September 21) for his case to be cancelled for lack of evidence.

Lawyer Khalil Tahir Sindhu asked Faisalabad city police to throw out the case against his client, Shahid Masih. According to Sindhu, the sole evidence against the young Christian was the testimony of a Muslim man previously accused of the same crime.

Masih, 17, is implicated for breaking article 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, one of the country’s notorious blasphemy laws that criminalizes desecration of the Quran.

If convicted, Masih will serve a life sentence.

The young man allegedly tore pages from a tafseer, a book explaining Quranic verses, while stealing several books from a medical clinic in the Madina Town district of Faisalabad last week.

The charges are based on the testimony of Muhammad Ghaffar, who claimed he had carried out the crime with Masih.

Ghaffar was detained after Dr. Mohammad Arshed Masood arrived at his Madina Town clinic on September 10 to find several books missing and pages ripped from his tafseer, lawyer Sindhu said.

The doctor lodged a complaint with police against Ghaffar, 19, who he suspected of committing the robbery. According to Sindhu, Ghaffar told police that he and Masih had ripped pages from the tafseer when the two broke into the clinic planning to steal and then resell books.

Both suspects are being held in Faisalabad’s District Jail while police conclude their investigation.

A key jihadist who had escaped from the Americans in Afghanistan. From Reuters:

BRITISH troops in Iraq said they killed one of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top global lieutenants, who escaped from a US prison in Afghanistan last year.

Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest during a raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq's second biggest city, Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

US leaders have described Faruq as the top al-Qaeda operative in South-East Asia. He was caught in Indonesia in 2002 and held at a high-security detention centre at Bagram airbase, north of the Afghani capital Kabul, until his escape last year.

“The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra,” Major Burbridge said, calling him a “very, very significant man”.

Faruq, once believed to be the main link between bin Laden's followers and the Jemaah Islamiah militant group blamed for bombings in Indonesia, was one of four men who escaped from Bagram in July last year.

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani misrepresents the Pope's words and speaks of jihad as "effort to save mankind from idolatry" -- whether mankind likes it or not, of course. From Iran's Mehr News Agency, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TEHRAN, Sept. 25 (MNA) -- Most Western jurists know that reason and wisdom are the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence, Imam Sadiq Institute Director Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani said on Monday in an open letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI.

“Normally, monarchs and tyrants refer to clergymen to legitimize their rule over the people. But now the opposite has happened, in that a religious leader has referred to the words of a medieval emperor to legitimize his own ideas, and thus accused a great community of ignorance and irrationalism,” the senior member of the Qom Seminary’s Council of Mujtahids stated.

Sobhani added, “You have in fact defied the text of the Bible, in which Jesus (AS) says: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’

“You shouldn’t have based your words on a medieval emperor’s sayings.”

He explained, “Islam uses the appealing term of jihad, not massacre. Jihad means effort to save mankind from idolatry… Before, some tyrants did not allow preachers to promulgate their divine religion and used to kill the believers. Islamic jihad was meant to pave the way for the divine religion to be genuinely presented to the people...."

Musharraf Meltdown Update: "M16 'didn't tell us that 7/7 bombers were in Pakistan,'" from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF of Pakistan says he is angered by the failure of British police and intelligence services to stop young British militants such as the 7/7 suicide bombers visiting his country before staging their terror attacks.

He claims that British security services did not tell him until three weeks after the 7/7 bombs that Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the suicide bombers, and another of the gang, Shehzad Tanweer, had slipped into Pakistan only months before the attacks, which killed 52 innocent people.

He claims that British Intelligence kept secret its information about the two Yorkshire-born bombers for 17 months and their links with known Pakistani terror suspects. His disclosure will again raise questions about whether Scotland Yard, MI5 and MI6 have told all they know about the British bombers, three of whom were of Pakistani origin.

Calls by survivors of the attacks for an independent inquiry to determine what the authorities knew about the bombers will be given fresh weight by the allegations.

General Musharraf revealed this apparently serious breakdown in Pakistan’s dealings with MI6 in a TV interview in the US to promote his memoir, In the Line of Fire, which is being serialised in The Times. He told 60 Minutes on CBS News: “It disappoints me, yes. But at the same time it annoys us also. They are not Pakistani. They are born and bred in Britain and they are British.” He did not say why the 7/7 bombers and other convicted British-born terrorists visited Pakistan and denied that their attacks were planned there.

I have received this email from a "Charles B. Hoff," revoking my citizenship as well as that of Jihad Watch Board Vice President "Huge" Fitzgerald:

I as than born amererican want you and Huge to leave America as you are criminality racist for being hateful toward Islam so back to the homeland anster came from I revoke your citzship since you and Huge are so anti-muslim immigment to America I also than removeing federal court power from the federal court as they are failing to protect muslim cival right 100% from criminal bigot racist like you and Huge so leave America as america like me donot want your criminal kind here anymore.

Hear that, Huge? You and I better start packing. And here I didn't even know Islam was a race at all, and it turns out I've been "criminality racist" according to a "than born amererican."

This guy is about as convincing as those "University Educators" and "graduate students" "reviewing" my new book at Amazon, but never quite getting around to specifying any actual inaccuracy in it. It seems, you see, that "even the leader of Constantine made writings attesting to [Muhammad's] character and strength"; funny thing, when I was in college I never did learn where "Constantine" was. Of course, given the level of discourse that comes from real university educators (such as Carl Ernst and Omid Safi) these days, maybe those reviews are authentic.

In the course of an article about the Muslim Congressional candidate, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, CAIR's Nihad Awad declares his support for Ellison -- and his rejection of Hamas.

"Muslims rally around congressional candidate," from AP, with thanks to Mike:

Republicans are trying to make an issue of a contribution from another Council on American-Islamic Relations official - executive director Nihad Awad, who gave Ellison $2,000.

In a fundraising letter last week, state GOP Chairman Ron Carey said Ellison has received "financial support from a self-identified supporter of Hamas."

That was a reference to Awad's 1994 statement that he preferred Hamas to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In an interview, Awad said that was before the group engaged in suicide bombings and was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Actually, Awad said flatly: "I am in support of the Hamas movement." He said this in 1994. It just so happens that I have preserved the old Hamas website's "glory record" of attacks against Israelis here. Here are some of Hamas' self-described exploits from before 1994:

3. Boureen Operation: The militant Hamdan Hussein Al:najar, a member of Hamas, killed the Israeli settler Ya'coub Berey using a big rock as his weapon. The militant was shot down as a martyr after he had ambushed an Israeli patrol using the dead settler's weapon....

6. Bus No. 405 Operation: Militant Ahmed Hussein Shukry, a member of Hamas, was able to lead an Israeli soldier to a secluded place in Tel Aviv where the militant hit the soldier with a chisel and killed him on 8 September 1989. The following day, the militant got on bus No. 405 and stabbed the driver to take over the bus; however, the passengers were able to stop the militant....

12. Keryat Youval Operation: The militant Mohammed Mustafa Abu Jalala stabbed four Israelis and injured another at a bus station in Keryat Youval in Jerusalem before he was arrested by the Israeli forces.

13. Askalan Road Operation: While driving a taxi, the militant Jameel Ismail Al:baz, a member of Hamas, ran over a group of Israelis waiting on this road on 19 July 1991....

15. Shailou Operation: A military group belonging to Al Qassam Brigades attacked an Israeli bus carrying some settlers on their way to Tel Aviv to participate in demonstrations organized by the extremist party Likud against the peace process. The bus was completely destroyed; two Israelis were killed and five more were injured....

17. Eid Al-maskhara Operation: The militant Ra'ed Al:reefy attacked an Israeli crowd in Jaffa on 17 March 1992. He was able to kill 2 and injure 21 Israelis who gathered to celebrate Eid Al:maskhara, also known as Al:boureem.

18. Beit Lahya Operation: On the third anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's arrest, a group belonging to Al Qassam Brigades attacked an Israeli settler at Beit Lahya and shot him down then withdrew safely....

21. Carlo Factory Operation: Four militants belonging to Al Qassam Brigades broke into a citrus packing factory (Carlo) near Nahal Oaz at 2:30 p.m. on 25 June 1992. Three militants stabbed two Israelis while the other was guarding....

Suicide bombings? No. Terrorist attacks on civilians? Sure. And there are many, many more on the list dating from before 1994. So are we to understand that Awad supported such operations, and only stopped supporting Hamas later, although these was no change in its ideology and no change in its taste for victimizing civilians?

Now Awad says:

"I don't support Hamas today," Awad said. "My position and CAIR's position is extremely clear - we condemn suicide bombings. We are mainstream American Muslims."

Is that so? It wasn't very long ago that Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin was killed by Israel. CAIR condemned his killing, without ever mentioning that Yassin was the mastermind and director of suicide killings for Hamas. At that time -- March 2004 -- CAIR said:

"We condemn this violation of international law as an act of state terrorism by Ariel Sharon's out-of-control government. Israel's extra-judicial killing of an Islamic religious leader can only serve to perpetuate the cycle of violence throughout the region. The international community must now take concrete steps to help protect the Palestinian people against such wanton Israeli violence."

See also here for more on the CAIR/Hamas ties.

When did CAIR stop supporting Hamas? I searched the CAIR website for "Hamas." There are three possible searches: News Briefs, Action Alerts, and Press Releases. Only News Briefs turned up anything at all: an old article from Haaretz attacking Ariel Sharon.

So if CAIR now condemns Hamas, where is it saying so? Just in the lower paragraphs of articles about other subjects? We can't even get one press release about it? Not one Action Alert calling on Muslims everywhere to condemn Hamas?

Because it might offend Muslims, of course: who wants to get blown up for an opera? From the Violent-Intimidation-Works Department: "German opera house dumps Mozart opera depicting Mohammed," from DPA, with thanks to Sugiero:

Berlin- One of Germany's leading opera houses, Deutsche Oper Berlin, announced Monday that it was cancelling a controversial production because of the likelihood that it might offend Muslims. The original opera, Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, makes no reference to Islam, but director Hans Neuenfels introduced a scene to his production that depicts the decapitated heads of the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, the Buddha and the Greek god Poseidon.

It caused outrage at the premiere in 2003. The opera company said it was cancelling plans to revive the show next month after advice from security authorities in Berlin that the performances posed an "incalculable" security risk.

CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper: would you buy a used car from this man?

I have canceled my trip to Columbus, Ohio, where I had planned to buy a new car. Dennis Mitsubishi is now kowtowing to the good folks over at the Council on American Islamic Relations, no doubt not realizing the record and lingering questions about that organization. An update to this story: "Car Dealer Drops 'Jihad' Radio Ad: Dealership Draws Fire For Ad Declaring Jihad," from NBC4i.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A car dealership's tongue-in-cheek radio advertisement declaring "a jihad on the automotive market," will not be aired, according to a press release issued on Monday from the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Several stations rejected the spot from Dennis Mitsubishi, which boasts that sales representatives wearing "burqas" -- head-to-toe traditional dress for Islamic women -- will sell vehicles that can "comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back."

An official with Dennis Mitsubishi told CAIR-Ohio that the dealership has issued an apology for any misunderstanding caused by "an attempt at humor that fell short."

In a statement, Dennis Mitsubishi owner Keith Dennis said his company ultimately decided not to air the spots.

"The public reaction to this story has been significant," Dennis said in the statement. "A large number of people have contacted us. Lots of them have seen the humor we were trying to convey, but far too many were clearly bothered by it. This was simply an attempt at humor that fell short.

"I wish to offer my sincere apology to anyone who was offended. We do not wish to alienate anyone in our community -- all of whom are potential customers."

While Dennis on Saturday defended the ad as a harmless attempt to bring levity to a serious situation, the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations decried it as disrespectful.

"We appreciate the dealership's constructive reaction to feedback about the proposed advertisements," said Adnan Mirza, director of CAIR-Ohio's Columbus office. "We accept the apology from Mr. Dennis and hope that it and the decision not to air the spots will bring this incident to a close."

I am scheduled to be on the Mike Reagan Show this afternoon at 4PM PDT with guest host Jed Babbin. We are scheduled to be discussing Pope Rage.

Imagine a report from 1944: "This just in: the invasion of Normandy has led to increased Nazi activity in Europe." Leaving aside the question of whether or not the attempt to democratize Iraq is the best way to defeat the jihad, the idea that resisting the jihadists is inadvisable because it causes them to fight back is beyond asinine. What do these "spies" expect? That the jihadists would crumble at the first sign of resistance?

"Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight," from the Bandar Beacon, aka the Washington Post, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.

"It's a very candid assessment," one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. "It's stating the obvious."

Obvious. Is that what it is? If the report had argued that Iraq has weakened the U.S. position because we are effectively abetting an Iranian-backed Shi'ite takeover of the country, and thus aiding rather than weakening the global jihad, that would be a defensible, indeed a cogent, position. But instead, the report just seems to be noting that Iraq has become the latest pretext for jihad recruitment, and buys into the false assumption that if we just address the pretext, the jihad will end. It won't, however. It will just find another pretext, because ultimately the jihad is not being waged because of Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Abu Ghraib, or Israel, or any other commonly-retailed pretext. It is being waged to extend Sharia over the world, in accord with imperatives spelled out in the Qur'an and other core Islamic sources.

A report on the Pope's meeting with Muslims from Reuters:

CASTELGANDOLFO, Italy (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that Christians and Muslims must reject violence, in an unprecedented meeting with Islamic envoys to defuse anger at his use of quotes saying their faith was spread by the sword.

The Pope expressed his "esteem and profound respect" for members of the Islamic faith in a speech to diplomatic envoys from some 20 Muslim countries plus the leaders of Italy's own Muslim community at his summer residence south of Rome.

He did not specifically mention the quote that angered Muslims, saying the circumstances that made the meeting necessary "are well known." But he called for greater dialogue between the two religions.

"Christians and Muslims must learn to work together ... in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence," the 79-year-old Pope said at the meeting in a frescoed hall of the papal summer palace.

It was the fourth time he has tried to make amends to Muslims, without actually apologizing directly, for a speech at a university in his native Germany on September 12.

The Pope is facing the toughest international crisis since his election in April, 2005, and the severity of some reactions has raised doubts about a planned trip to Turkey in November.

Mario Scialoja, an adviser to the Italian section of the World Muslim League who attended the audience, told Reuters afterwards he thought it was a "very good and warm speech."

"He recalled the differences but expressed his willingness to continue in a cordial and fruitful dialogue, said Scialoja, who added that he "had not been expecting another apology."

The atmosphere at the 30-minute meeting, which was broadcast live on
Vatican television and radio, appeared cordial. After delivering his speech the Pope greeted each of the envoys personally and chatted with them briefly.

The leader of more than one billion Catholics has expressed regret at the response to his quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said the Prophet Mohammad commanded "to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

LEARN FROM THE PAST

The Pope said Christians and Muslims had to learn from the past and work for a better future.

"I sincerely pray that the relations of trust which have developed between Christians and Muslims over several years, will not only continue, but will develop further in a spirit of sincere and respectful dialogue ...," he said.

Iraqi ambassador Albert Edward Ismail Yelda also said he was satisfied with the speech.

"I pray to almighty God the crisis will be behind us," he told reporters. "We need to sit together -- Muslims, Christians, Jews and the rest of the world, the rest of religions, in order to find common ground for peaceful coexistence."

The Pope has said his intention in using the quote in Germany two weeks ago was to explain that religion and violence do not go together but that religion and reason do.

His speech to Muslim envoys, delivered in French but which the Vatican also made available in Arabic, made repeated references to the need for dialogue between faiths.

"I am profoundly convinced that in the current world situation it is imperative that Christians and Muslims engage with one another in order to address the numerous challenges that present themselves to humanity ...," he said.

The envoys invited included those from the major Muslim countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, among others, plus the League of Arab States.

At this website, the part of the world least discussed is Latin America. A few things are alluded to: one knows about the triangle between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, a supposed no man's land full of Muslim Arabs, engaged in all kinds of louche activities, and where support for Hizballah is high. Is it beyond the wit of those whose duty it is to make us secure to clean out, using whatever local forces may be able and willing to help, the entire area? There are a number of local militaries that could do the job.

One knows that there are "Palestinians" who have achieved high office in Central America (e.g., Shafik Handal). One has read that among those who control the Chilean fruit trade -- all those off-season raspberries and kiwis -- are some "Palestinian" families, and one naturally wonders about how easy it is to use large shipments of fruit to smuggle in other things.

If this is true, it shows that Russia is continuing its short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating policy of accommodation with Iran. From
MosNews, :

Russia, pledging to complete the Bushehr reactor, has offered to sell a range of surface-to-air missile systems to protect Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Middle East Newsline reports.

Russian diplomatic and industry sources said Moscow has been negotiating to sell Iran a range of anti-aircraft systems to protect Bushehr from Israeli or U.S. air strikes. The sources said contracts could be signed when Bushehr was ready to begin operations in a move expected to take place in late 2007.

“Russia has already installed and manned SAM systems around Bushehr,” a diplomatic source said. “The current talks regard an air defense umbrella that would protect all strategic sites in Iran.”

In November 2005, Russia reached agreement for the sale of 29 TOR-M1 short-range anti-aircraft systems to Iran in a deal valued at more than $700 million. The sources said Iran has also sought the strategic S-300PMU SAM system, capable of detecting and intercepting enemy aircraft at a distance of 300 and 150 kilometers, respectively.

Laws like this, carefully defined and stringently enforced to prevent propagation of the idea of Islamic supremacism and attendant ideas, are needed all over. From AP, :

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's parliament moved Sunday to tighten state control over mosque preachers, amending legislation that aims to prevent the kingdom's mosques from being used to propagate extremist ideas.

Jordanian lawmakers have approved several pieces of legislation in recent weeks that aim to weaken extremists and prevent terror attacks.

The parliament added a provision to a bill to require prior written approval from the government before someone enters the pulpit. The changes came just three weeks after members of the lower house of parliament approved the law.

The latest changes require that the religious affairs minister approve in writing any new mosque preachers and anyone teaching the Quran, the Islamic holy book, in mosques.

King Abdullah II, the ultimate authority in Jordan, is expected to sign the bill into law soon, replacing legislation enacted in 1986.

Islamic opposition legislators argued Sunday that the law curbed religious freedoms and that the government pressed for the changes to appease the United States and Israel by cracking down on Muslim hard-liners.

Great idea, Karzai! (What made you think of it? Have you by any chance been reading Jihad Watch?) But one question: how will you prevent those who take your advice from being branded as apostates by the authors and supporters of these "hate texts," who can quote Qur'an and Sunnah to support their positions? This is a serious question, for such intimidation stymies Muslim reformers everywhere.

From the Herald Sun, :

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has urged the world to put an end to Islamic schools that teach hatred and produce suicide bombers.

Madrassas, or Islamic schools, are "teaching hatred rather than religion, (teaching) that some people we must hate, that some people we must destroy," Mr Karzai said on the eve of summits with the US and Pakistan.

He said it "will take a lot of sacrifice from Afghans, and from the rest of the world . . . to get rid of those places who . . . in the name of religious schools . . . are actually training suicide bombers against us".

Mr Karzai also said neighbouring Pakistan must find the political will to eliminate terrorist breeding grounds if Afghanistan is to know peace. He said other nations had to pressure them to do so.

"We have to convince them that it is not in their interest, that it is going to hurt all of us eventually," he was quoted as saying.

"The people know we are returning to power." From a Newsweek report on the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan:

Oct. 2, 2006 issue - You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village.

In a parched clearing a few hundred yards on, more than 100 Taliban fighters ranging in age from teenagers to a grandfatherly 55-year-old have assembled to meet their provincial commander, Muhammad Sabir. An imposing man with a long, bushy beard, wearing a brown and green turban and a beige shawl over his shoulders, Sabir inspects his troops, all of them armed with AKs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. He claims to have some 900 fighters, and says the military and psychological tide is turning in their favor. "One year ago we couldn't have had such a meeting at midnight," says Sabir, who is in his mid-40s and looks forward to living out his life as an anti-American jihadist. "Now we gather in broad daylight. The people know we are returning to power."

Read it all.

Jihad against women's rights in Afghanistan. From Reuters, :

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Gunmen riding motorcycles shot dead the head of a women's department in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Monday, a security official and a relative said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting of Safia Ama Jan. Taliban insurgents have killed numerous government officials as part of their war against the government and foreign forces supporting it.

Ama Jan was on her way to work, getting into a car outside her house, when the gunmen struck, said her nephew, who identified himself as just Farhad.

"She died on the spot," he told reporters.

Farhad declined to speculate on the identity or motive of the gunmen, except to say: "We had no personal enmity with anyone."

Ama Jan had served as the head of the province's women's affairs department since shortly after U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

What? You mean they didn't do it readily, out of their own righteous indignation that these terrorists were hijacking their peaceful religion? Musharraf continues courting the jihadists who would remove him from power: "'America paid us to hand over al-Qaeda suspects,'" from the TimesOnline, :

PRESIDENT Musharraf of Pakistan says that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to America.

The US government has strict rules banning such reward payments to foreign powers involved in the war on terror. General Musharraf does not say how much the CIA gave in return for the 369 al-Qaeda figures that he ordered should be passed to the US.

The US Department of Justice said: “We didn’t know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI’s most wanted list, not foreign governments.”

The revelation comes from General Musharraf’s memoir, In the Line of Fire, which begins serialisation in The Times today and will further embarrass the White House at a time when relations between the US and Pakistan are already strained.

General Musharraf claimed last week that the Bush Administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” if did not co-operate with the US after the 9/11 attacks.

The latest revelation will embarrass the White House days before General Musharraf is due to meet President Bush and President Karzai of Afghanistan to discuss how to combat a resurgent Taleban.

The disclosures are also causing consternation in Pakistan. Members of General Musharraf’s Cabinet and senior diplomats apparently did not know he was writing a book and are worried that relations with its allies and Western intelligence agencies will be damaged by the revelations.

The CIA refused to divulge the size of its bounty payments, saying: “Our relationships with international leaders is not something we are prepared to talk about.” One senior CIA figure added: “Nor do we expect these leaders to do so.”

Among the suspects surrendered to the US was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 operation and many other terror plots in the UK, including a planned attack on Heathrow airport, the plot never came to fruition.

A step toward anti-dhimmitude from Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, analyzed by Federico Bordonaro in IPS (thanks to Designnut):

ROME, Sep 25 (IPS) - Interior Minister Giuliano Amato proposed in August that Muslim organisations in Italy will need to subscribe to a Charter of Values to signal their readiness to be fully integrated into Italian society and its political culture.

Rome is facing a huge challenge: it cannot fail to integrate its increasingly numerous Muslim immigrant population, but since integration policies in Europe are regarded as less than successful, it is forced to seek new solutions....

Less than successful? They've been non-existent, due to demands from Muslim leaders that they not be undertaken. Cf. Eurabia by Bat Ye'or; Abou Jahjah's notorious statement that "assimilation is cultural rape," etc.

After the Madrid and London terror attacks in 2004 and 2005, the Danish cartoon controversy, and last summer's so-called honour killing in northern Italy where a Pakistani immigrant killed his daughter, worries about Muslim integration in Italy have increased.

In particular, public debate among Italian intellectuals and specialists highlights the worry that in Muslim countries only a minority of intellectuals have criticised the call for retaliation issued by religious and extremist political leaders, while conciliatory words pronounced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the Pope explained that his speech was "not intended to hurt Muslim feelings" have been cautiously received.

"...only a minority of intellectuals..." Indeed: funny how the Tiny Minority of Extremists never seems to behave like a minority at all.

One thing is sure, though, and it is the heart of the matter: Rome cannot afford to fail to integrate Italian Muslims and to enhance their attachment to national democratic and constitutional values if it is to avoid a bitter political and social conflict..

Since both assimilation-oriented policies and multiculturalism are considered unsatisfying models for effective integration strategies, Italy faces inner divisions among policy-makers and within the public about the right way to address the question. Muslim communities are rapidly becoming necessary interlocutors for shaping new political courses.

Compared with Britain, the Netherlands or Germany, Italy still has a relatively small Muslim population (less than one million in a total of 57 million) and, furthermore, its Muslim communities are politically less integrated than in these other European countries.

In late August, after an anti-Israel advertisement by the Union of Italian Islamic Communities (UCOII), which was widely condemned for being anti-Semitic (it compared Israel's military actions to Nazi brutalities), Amato proposed the draft of a Charter of Values whose details are now being studied. The Charter would set out Italy's basic democratic, constitutional rights and obligations, and provide for acceptance among Muslim communities of republican, liberal-democratic values.

Members of the right-of-centre opposition have sharply criticised the government for "too soft" an approach, and vociferously called for the ban of UCOII. Former ministers like Maurizio Gasparri and Roberto Castelli said Rome should disband and outlaw UCOII, or at least suspend it from the recognised Muslim organisations. The government has said such a move would be unrealistic since UCOII is by far the most important Muslim association, although it is rapidly becoming the most controversial as well.

More importantly, UCOII leaders themselves have adopted a flexible approach to the government's proposal. "Our organisation unanimously recognised the mistake made in the communication form (chosen for the advertisement), which was used by many to lambaste us", UCOII said in a statement Sep. 3. "Our religion forbids us to express any racial discrimination and obliges us to respect Christians and Jews alike."

In past centuries, UCOII added, "Islamic jurisprudence provided the framework for religious tolerance and harmony in the East, in Sicily, in North Africa and Turkey."

Sure, plenty of tolerance and harmony as long as Christians and Jews knew their place.

UCOII then agreed to openly discuss Amato's proposal. Such a choice appears in line with recent attempts made both by Rome and by Muslim communities to define a broad framework for the creation of an Italian Islam, an issue considered particularly delicate and important....

The biggest challenge for Rome is to rapidly find a just and effective solution, combining adequate education offers, political participation, and rules to be respected -- a goal that will be reached only if extremist factions on both sides are successfully marginalised.

...which will not happen as long as no one, Muslim or non-Muslim, confronts the jihad ideology.

Moshe Segal, we need you. From Israel National News, with thanks to Cindy:

Shades of the 1920's: A Jewish man was hauled off to the Old City police station in the middle of prayer for sounding the shofar during Rosh HaShanah services at the area known as the Kotel HaKatan.

The incident occurred around 7:30 in the morning, at the northern-most section of the accessible Western Wall - a little-known area called the Kotel HaKatan, the Small Wall. It is considered to have extra sanctity, as it stands opposite the presumed spot of the Holy of Holies of the Beit HaMikdash.

Yesterday morning (Sunday), a group of some 10 men and two women gathered at the site, as they have done for several years on Rosh HaShanah, for early-morning prayers. The holiday prayers feature the blowing of the shofar (ram's horn) at several different times. Towards the end of the first shofar sounding, a Border Guard policeman came in, made an unclear motion with his hand as if to ask what was going on, and then left. He said nothing.

Shortly afterwards, Eliyahu K., the 20-year-old prayer leader, blew the shofar a second time, in the midst of his silent prayer (in accordance with Sephardic custom). Policemen came in once again and began trying to pull him away. However, Eliyahu was in the midst of reciting the Amidah - a long passage during which one must stand in one place without moving - and he therefore did not move.

The policemen informed their supervisors by radio that he was praying and refused to move, and reinforcements were soon sent - no fewer than 20 policemen, according to several witnesses.

They then started dragging him out, and when they stopped for a moment, he got up and resumed his prayers. They then began to drag him away again, and shortly afterwards again stopped for a moment - and again he resumed his prayers. At this point, the policemen allowed him to complete his prayers.

In the meanwhile, the other members of the prayer group came out and tried to prevent the policemen from taking Eliyahu away. At this point, the policemen started swinging their clubs violently; no one was hospitalized, but "it was a big brawl," in the words of one witness, with many people being dragged around and beaten while wearing their prayer-shawls and Sabbath suits.

Meanwhile, Eliyahu was taken to the small police station at the Western Wall plaza, and several of his friends followed him there. They wanted to go up the steps into the police station, and demanded that at least the shofar be returned, but the police again came down with their clubs.

They finally took Eliyahu by foot, accompanied by his fiancיe, all the way around the Old City, past Mt. Zion and through Jaffa Gate, to the Kishle police station inside Jaffa Gate. At this point, there was no longer any violence, and Eliyahu was released around 11:30 - after being charged with attacking a policeman, disturbing a policeman in the line of duty, and disturbing the public order.

One witness related, "It's not only that they stopped him from blowing the shofar, but rather the fact that the police beat us up very harshly. I was on my way to the Wall for prayers when I saw 5-7 policemen going with Eliyahu and protecting him very closely. I walked after them, and then a few of his friends came, and then the violence started. We asked the policemen to return the shofar, and they started kicking us and punching us."

The worshipers said that the police had apparently been called by an Arab woman who said the sound of the ram's horn disturbed her children.

A Jewish resident of the Old City told Arutz-7, "How ironic. The loud Arab weddings and nightly prayers by the muazzin [over a powerful loudspeaker] at 4:30 AM disturb our sleep every night." Similar complaints are heard from Jews living near Arab villages in Judea and Samaria....

The rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, told Arutz-7, "This is a very grave incident, and I have asked the local police commander, Yossi Priente, to check into it - both the violence and the prevention of the shofar blowing. It reminds us of the days of the British Mandate when Jews [had to make] super-human efforts to blow the shofar at the Western Wall."

He was referring to the 1ate 1920's, when the British, in an attempt to appease the Arabs, and following violence at the Wall, forbade shofar-blowing at the Wall. In one famous incident in 1929, a man named Moshe Segal blew the shofar at the conclusion of Yom Kippur - and was immediately arrested by the British. Though he had fasted for the previous 25 hours, the British detained him without food until midnight, when he was released. It was later reported that the release came about when then-Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook informed the commander that he himself would not eat until Segal was released.

Nearly 40 years later, following the first Yom Kippur service at the Wall under Israeli sovereignty, shortly after the Six Day War, the shofar was again sounded - by Moshe Segal.

No mention is made of any offense connected to this building, other than its being a church. Islamic Tolerance Alert from UPI: "Muslim mob kept from destroying church"

JAKARTA, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Police in Indonesia prevented Muslim extremists from demolishing a building they claimed was a Christian house of worship.

Police told the mob of 50 people in a hamlet 10 miles south of the West Java capital of Bandung that no group was allowed to shut any house of worship.

The mob dispersed but its members insisted they would return if the church continued its activities, The Jakarta Post reported.

Dozens of churches and other places of worship in the province have been forcibly closed by alleged Muslim extremists.

Apparently authorities aren't ruling out a possible band of irate Unitarians.

The Saturday incident in the world's most populous Muslim nation took place a day before many Muslims began observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Another intolerable insult: Fatwa Friday via Fox with thanks to all who sent this in.

A car dealership's planned radio advertisement that declared "a jihad on the automotive market"has drawn sharp criticism for its content but will not be changed, the business said Saturday.

Several stations rejected the Dennis Mitsubishi spot, which says sales representatives wearing"burqas"_ head-to-toe traditional dress for Islamic women _ will sell vehicles that can"comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back."

"Our prices are lower than the evildoers'every day. Just ask the pope!"the ad says."Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies." A fatwa is a religious edict.

Dealership president Keith Dennis said the ad does not disrespect any religion or culture. He said it was"fair game"to poke"a little fun at radical extremists."

CAIR, predictably, is not amused:

It exploits or promotes misunderstanding in terms already misunderstood or misused.

CAIR is over and over again in the absurd position of asking us, "Who are you going to believe about Islam, us, or your own lyin' eyes?" Whether CAIR likes it or not, there is an Islamic element to Islamic terror.

The jihad against Iraqi Christians continues. From DPA, :

BAGHDAD - A car bomb blast near a Christian church in Baghdad on early Sunday killed four civilians and wounded 14 others including four Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.

The explosion, apparently detonated via remote control, occurred while worshippers in the Church of the Virgin Mary attended Sunday mass.

The policemen who were killed were members of a security patrol, employed to guard the church. No information was available as to the condition of the wounded, or whether the church was the primary target of the attack.

How will the police be sure that the Muslim leaders to whom they are giving this information will not do anything to compromise their raid? "Police to brief Muslims before terror raids," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Oh, good, they'll promise.

The first panel, expected to consist of four people, will be set up initially in London. Tomorrow representatives from police forces across England and Wales will decide whether to make the scheme national.

Muslim groups have welcomed the move, which is understood to be backed by Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner.

This week the Association of Chief Police Officers will discuss with MI5 and the Home Office whether to reveal to the panel intelligence information from the security service....

Common sense amid Pope Rage from the last non-dhimmi Prime Minister of Spain. From EITB, with thanks to DRK:

Muslims should apologize for occupying Spain for 800 years and a U.N.-backed program to encourage dialogue between them and West is stupid, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar has said. Aznar made his comments Friday night in a speech at the Hudson Institute, a thinktank in Washington, D.C., as he discussed Pope Benedict XVI's recent remarks on Islam and violence.

Aznar, a firm ally of U.S. President George W. Bush and his war on terror, said the West is under attack from radical Islam and must defend itself. “It is them or it is us,” Aznar said. “There is no middle ground.” He did not elaborate. Aznar said he found it surprising that Muslims have demanded an apology from the pope over his Sept. 12 remarks.

Aznar noted the nearly 800-year Moorish occupation of Spain that began in the year 711 with an invasion from North Africa. He said Muslims had never apologized for this but still demand apologies whenever they feel offended by remarks by non-Muslims. “It's absurd,” Aznar said.

He also criticized an initiative launched last year by his Socialist successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to encourage dialogue between the West and Muslim countries.

Sharia Alert from the Kashmir jihadists. From the PTI, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Jammu: In a move that will once again create a fear psychosis among womenfolk in Rajouri district, a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen area commander on Saturday threatened them to follow the Islamic dress code of wearing a burka and a veil while moving in public places and warned that they would be killed if they failed to comply, officials said.

They said a poster of ultra Alamgeer Hafiz Gazali had come up in Chokiya village of Darhal tehsil in this regard.

Giving them one week to comply, Gazali, said the throats of those defying the order would be slit. Women not wearing burkas were un-Islamic, he said in the poster.

Tens of thousands turn out in defiance of Hizballah and its Syrian and Iranian sponsors. From Haaretz: "Lebanese Christian leader: War was disaster, Hezbollah must disarm"

BEIRUT - A Lebanese Christian leader said Sunday that Hezbollah's war with Israel was a disaster for Lebanon and rapped the Shi'ite Muslim group for rejecting calls to lay down its arms.

"We don't feel [there was a] victory because the majority of the Lebanese people doesn't feel victory," Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces militia-turned-political party, said at a rally attended by thousands of supporters north of Beirut.

"The majority of the Lebanese people feel that a major catastrophe has befallen them, throwing their present and future up in the air," he said.

His speech was a response to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's vow, made at a rally Friday in Beirut's southern suburbs, not to disarm despite international pressure. Some 800,000 Hezbollah supporters cheered Nasrallah at the gathering.

[...]

Geagea said a strong state could only emerge after Hezbollah surrenders its weapons.

"Betting on maintaining weapons through force is a wrong bet... No weapons will make us surrender to this de facto reality," he said referring to Hezbollah keeping it arms.

Tens of thousands turn out

Tens of thousands of right-wing Christians turned out at the tumultuous rally north of Beirut, in a show of strength two days after a massive gathering by the rival Muslim Shiite Hezbollah.

[...]

The guerrillas' fight with Israel sent their support soaring among Shiites. But a large sector - particularly among Christians and Sunni Muslims - opposes Hezbollah and resents it for provoking the fighting by capturing two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

After all, an insulted populace couldn't possibly exercise self-control, once offended. From Reuters:

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has banned editions of two French and German newspapers, Le Figaro and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, because of articles deemed insulting to Islam, the state news agency MENA said on Sunday.

Under a decree issued by Information Minister Anas el-Feki, the two editions will not be able to enter the country, it said.

"They published articles which disparaged Islam and claimed that the Islamic religion was spread by the sword and that the prophet ... was the prophet of evil," it added.

The edition of the German newspaper, dated September 16, contains an article by German historian Egon Flaig looking at how the Prophet Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a successful military leader during his lifetime.

Flaig presents other arguments supporting the view that Islam has had a violent history.

The Egyptian agency said: "The minister of information said that he would not allow any publication that insults the Islamic religion or calls for hatred or contempt of any religion to be distributed inside Egypt."

It did not link the articles to Pope Benedict's speech in Germany on September 12, in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor as making similar remarks about Islam and the [Islamic] Prophet Mohammad.

The Egyptian government rarely bans mainstream European newspapers or magazines.

"We should also encourage the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority -- to distance themselves from this extremism..." -- from Jose Manuel Barroso's comment

Four Questions and No Answer:

1. Define "moderate leaders."
2. Tell us how you know they are in "the majority."
3. Tell us why the attacks on the Pope can be described, without more, as "extremism."
4. Tell us why you think that "the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority" -- have not once been capable of denouncing those who riot and agitate and utter death threats, not only now against the Pope, but in other incidents, such as those worldwide Muslim protests, presumably from those Muslims not in "the majority," over Danes daring to exercise in Denmark their right of free speech.

This is a result of Muhammad's exoneration of his favorite wife, Aisha, who was suspected of adultery. Allah gave him a revelation requiring four male witnesses to establish such a crime: "And those who accuse honourable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them (with) eighty stripes and never (afterward) accept their testimony - They indeed are evil-doers" (Qur'an 24:4). The problem with this is that women who accuse men of rape but cannot produce four male witnesses are often accused themselves of zina -- unlawful sexual intercourse -- and jailed as a result.

"Fareeda's fate: rape, prison and 25 lashes: Up to 80 per cent of women in Pakistan's jails are charged under rules that penalise rape victims. But hardliners have vetoed an end to the Islamic laws," from The Guardian, with thanks to PVB:

In the blinding white desert sunlight in a farm courtyard on the outskirts of the ancient town of Shekhupura, Fareeda nervously passes a green silk hijab between her fingers. Unusually for a young Pakistani woman, her fingernails are not pristine and carefully painted but chewed, cracked and grubby.

Fareeda says she feels safe here - a safe house for rape victims run by a local NGO. Littered with rusting motorcycle carcases and parts of discarded fridges and cookers, it feels like a scrapyard.

The story of this 19-year-old's journey here is horrifying. In spring 2005 she was raped by her family's neighbour, a postman, and his teenage son. She fell pregnant - and later miscarried - as a result. Her mistake was to tell her parents. With their consent, under Pakistan's orthodox Islamic laws, she was charged with fornication outside marriage and sentenced to 100 lashes, later reduced to 50 and then 25 because of her age, and sent to jail. After four months her prison ordeal ended when a family friend secretly paid a bribe. Her plight is not unique.

According to a recent report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a woman is gang-raped every eight hours in the country. However, because of social taboos, discriminatory laws and the treatment of victims by police, campaigners believe the real figure is far higher. Women who report their rapists remain more likely to go to prison themselves than see justice, so most cases are never reported. Women who are raped can face legal difficulties anywhere in the world, but human rights groups remain particularly concerned over Pakistan's record. Their alarm is centred on enforcement of the 'Hudood ordinances', a complex set of Koranic laws whose name is derived from hud meaning 'punishment'. Similar sharia laws have existed in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan for centuries, but Pakistan's were enacted by former President Zia ul-Haq only in 1979, as part of his radical attempt to 'Islamicise' the country.

The legislation has always been full of legal ambiguities, and none more so than the Zina ordinance which deals with adultery, premarital sex and rape. The maximum punishment for adultery is stoning to death for married people and 100 lashes for the unwed.

For a rape trial to go ahead in Pakistan, four adult Muslim men, 'all of a pious and trustworthy nature', must have witnessed the attack and be willing to testify. Evidence from female and non-Muslim witnesses is considered worthless. A woman who can't produce those witnesses can be prosecuted for fornication and alleging a false crime, the penalties for which are stoning, lashings or prison.

Read it all.

Why does this sort of thing happen? Because the question of whether or not these officers adhered to the ideology of jihad and the subjugation of infidels is something that the Americans wouldn't care, and the Afghans wouldn't dare, to ask about.

From the PakTribune, :

KABUL: Several Afghan officers were detained for trafficking weapons and ammunition to Taliban militants, a local newspaper reported.

"The National Security Directorate arrested some Afghan military personnel in Charasiab district of the central Kabul province 28 days ago when they were trafficking arms and ammunition to Taliban rebels in the neighboring Logar province," Arman-e-Millie said.

The traffickers were carrying 150 boxes of Kalashnikov rounds and other arms by a truck, which was marked with UN emblem and escorted by a military Ranger vehicle.

Several Afghan officers, including Brigadier Abdul Faqir, chief of weapon depots in Khirabad, south of Kabul, have been arrested for being involved in the smuggling case, the newspaper said.

There are two noteworthy components to this story. One is that the US government has expressed particular concern about home-grown jihadists in the West. The other is how the notion of al Qaeda as the source of jihad ideology puts blinders on the policymakers overseeing the "War on Terror." In fact, Rep. Hoekstra appears to use the name of al Qaeda and "Islamic extremism" interchangeably in his assessment below, and the result is confusion over where all these "self-radicalized terrorists from Europe, with no criminal records and no formal links to al Qaeda" are coming from.

From the Washington Times: "Hoekstra warns of European terrorists"

The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is warning that "self-radicalized" terrorists from Europe, with no criminal records and no formal links to al Qaeda, are quietly infiltrating the United States to proselytize, raise money and possibly plan attacks.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, [Michigan] Republican, said that the United States has to quickly adapt to the ever-changing threat if it is going to win the global war against Islamic extremism.

Terrorists coming to the United States from Western Europe "are difficult to identify because they are self-radicalized," Mr. Hoekstra told the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) at a breakfast meeting with reporters Wednesday.

"They may have no formal association with al Qaeda, no criminal record. There's nothing in their past to draw the attention of law-enforcement officials to the individuals," he said.

He released a committee report titled, "Al Qaeda: The Many Faces of an Islamist Extremist Threat," which described how the nature of the threat has changed against the United States since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The war is now one against entities inspired by al Qaeda, including homegrown terrorist cells composed of second- and third-generation radicalized Muslims in the United States, the report says.

"Radical Islam has changed the way that it operates," Mr. Hoekstra said. "Al Qaeda has moved into a decentralized entrepreneurial organization."

He said that by setting out a clear vision, objectives and providing resources, al Qaeda has empowered its appendages "to carry out actions independent of centralized control and then get out of the way."

"They develop a very simple message [that] is appealing to the young generation of Muslims," Mr. Hoekstra said. "They keep their message simple and they keep it consistent."

The intelligence committee chairman insisted that the United States has to overhaul its approach on the war against Islamic terrorists and learn to be as nimble and adaptable as its enemies.

AEI foreign policy analyst Michael Ledeen argued that al Qaeda is not as all-powerful as Mr. Hoekstra suggested.

"They are not 10-feet tall, and they are not that terrific," Mr. Ledeen said.

The question of al Qaeda's relative strength is immaterial when the subject at hand is how the current crop of jihadists planning and executing attacks in the West has little or no association with al Qaeda. But on the basis of Ledeen's assertion that al Qaeda is "not that terrific," there must be something else motivating "self-radicalized terrorists": The ideology of jihad, rooted in the Qur'an, ahadith, and Sunnah.

But you can't say that out loud in D.C.

Nine out of then would contact police. That's good news. It's also good to see that two-thirds note the British Muslim community's failure to root out "extremists" as one factor involved in the continuing threat of jihad terror attacks.

Now what are those nine out of ten doing about the tenth?

From The Guardian, with thanks to John Doe:

Almost one in 10 British Muslims would not inform police if they suspected that someone of the same faith was involved in a terror attack, a poll suggested.

The ICM poll for the News of the World found 9% of the 502 questioned would not tell police if they had such suspicions about a fellow Muslim.

With a Muslim population aged over 16 in Britain of around one million, that would translate to 90,000 "turning a blind eye", the newspaper said.

However, almost nine out of every 10 (86%) would contact police, according to the survey.

Among young Muslims, the figures for keeping quiet were higher with 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds saying they would not tell police and 81% saying they would.

The poll also found that one in 20 Muslims thought attacks like the July 7 bombings were justified. And more than half (56%) said they did not believe a police warning that there are thousands of extremist British Muslims willing to carry out attacks here....

More than eight in 10 (86%) said the Prime Minister should shoulder some of the blame and 72% blamed non-Muslims for racist and "Islamophobic" behaviour.

However, two thirds (66%) said the Muslim community's failure to root out extremists was a factor. Meanwhile, 83% accepted that the terrorists themselves were to blame although one in 10 said they were not.

Update to this story: "Spies reject ‘Bin Laden is dead’ claim," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

PRESIDENT Jacques Chirac ordered an investigation last night into the leaking of a French intelligence report that suggested Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, may have died from typhoid in Pakistan last month.

The eight-line document, which was published yesterday in a French provincial newspaper, L’Est Républicain, was greeted with scepticism by security and government officials from the United States to Pakistan itself.

Yet the DGSE, the French secret service, had judged the report significant enough to send it on September 21 to the offices of Chirac and the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin. The report claimed that “a usually trustworthy source“ had persuaded the Saudi secret service Bin Laden was dead.

“The head of Al-Qaeda, while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, reportedly suffered a very strong case of typhoid which led to a partial paralysis of his lower limbs. His geographical isolation, caused by a permanent flight, reportedly made any medical assistance impossible,“ the report said.

Intelligence of Bin Laden’s supposed death apparently reached Saudi security services on September 4. “They are said to be awaiting additional details, and in particular the exact location of his final resting place, to announce the news officially," the report said.

Chirac said after a summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, that Bin Laden’s death had not been confirmed in any way. “I was a bit surprised to see a confidential note from the DGSE had been published,” he added. He told his defence minister to find out how it had happened.

Aftab Khan Sherpao, Pakistan’s interior minister, responded to questions about Bin Laden last night by saying: “We have no such information. I have never heard anything about this.”

Intelligence officials in America and Asia insisted they would have known about the report if it had been true, and said no such information had crossed their desks in recent days. One Washington-based official said: “I don’t think this is a piece of information that would remain secret for long — no one would have any interest in keeping it quiet.”

A source with indirect links to Al-Qaeda claimed Bin Laden had been seen alive by one of his commanders earlier this month.

This guy is getting to be like Sasquatch.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update from Reuters: "Ramadan bomb kills 34 in Iraq"

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed.

The bomb -- most likely a car bomb, according to police -- struck near a tanker distributing kerosene for stoves in Sadr City, whose poor residents are the power base of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia.

In addition to the 34 people killed, 35 were injured, many badly burned.

Sunni militants claimed responsibility, declaring the attack revenge for killings by Shi'ite militia.

"This operation comes in reaction to the crimes of the Mehdi Army against our Sunni kin in Baghdad," the Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba -- Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions -- said in a claim posted on the Internet. "Our swords can reach the depth of your areas, so stop killing unarmed Sunnis."

U.S. commanders had warned for weeks that they expected a surge of violence to accompany the holy month, having observed similar patterns in previous years.

"The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists." It's amazing that this simple bit of common sense has dawned on so few people, and even more amazing that one of them is the European Commission President. Surprising anti-dhimmitude from Jose Manuel Barroso: "Barroso disappointed at lack of EU support for Pope," from Reuters:

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying on Saturday that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made his disputed comments on Islam.

"I was disappointed there were not more European leaders who said 'naturally the Pope has the right to express his views'," Barroso was quoted as saying to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists," the paper quoted him as saying in a preview of an article to appear on Sunday....

"We have to defend our values," he said. "We should also encourage the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority -- to distance themselves from this extremism," Barroso was quoted as saying.

How strange that that doesn't seem to have occurred to most of them as a possibility.

More fallout of the politicizing of the resistance to jihad. Courtroom Jihad Update from AP:

PORTLAND, Ore. - U.S. Justice Department lawyers filed an appeal Friday aimed at blocking a lawsuit by a former Islamic charity that has challenged a Bush administration secret surveillance program.

U.S. District Judge Garr M. King ruled earlier this month that a lawsuit by the defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation chapter in Ashland could go forward without damaging national security.

But government lawyers argue that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed.

The case hinges on a classified document that U.S. Treasury officials inadvertently turned over to Al-Haramain lawyers after the charity was declared a global terrorist organization.

The charity's attorneys say the document shows that two U.S. lawyers for Al-Haramain and at least one of its officials were under electronic surveillance in 2004.

Justice Department lawyers have argued the document falls under the "state secrets privilege," allowing a judge to dismiss a lawsuit if it could damage national security by revealing state secrets.

The appeal filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said "the district court is wrongly attempting to create some form of secret adversarial proceedings, and, in doing so, is raising a serious danger of disclosure of important national security information."

Jihad registration. If this catches on worldwide, it will give Western officials something new to do: just as now they assure us that this or that incident had nothing to do with terrorism on the basis of the perpetrator not being a known member of Al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group, so then they will assure the public that the latest incident of violence and terror wasn't really jihad, since the perpetrator was unregistered.

From Garowe Online News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Islamic Courts officials told hundreds of supporters at a rally in Mogadishu that an office would be opened for would-be fighters to register.

The Islamist officials, who were speaking to supporters at Friday's anti-foreign peacekeepers rally in Mogadishu, said the office would be used to register fighters for a jihad against foreign troops.

The Islamists have repeatedly threatened to wage jihad against a proposed plan to deploy African Union peacekeepers to reinforce the Baidoa-based interim Somali government.

Every year now since Jihad Watch began in October 2003 we have chronicled how jihad violence increases during Ramadan, which was characterized last year by the jihadist site Jihad Unspun as a time of "battles of glory and victories over the unbelievers." Ramadan this year, for all too many, offers similar glories -- particularly since it comes during Pope Rage.

From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

DUBAI - Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan began on Saturday in most of the Middle East, with bloodshed in Iraq, threats of violence across the region and many Muslims still incensed over remarks by the pope.

In the first reported bloodshed of the holy month, at least 31 people were killed by a bomb in a Shiite stronghold of Iraq where calls for “jihad’, or holy war, echoed earlier threats of attacks in the Gulf and on Israel.

A day of protests on the eve of Ramadan saw no let-up in demands for Pope Benedict XVI to apologise for quoting a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teaching of the Prophet Mohammed as ”evil and inhuman”.

The pope has invited ambassadors of Muslim countries to the Vatican for a meeting on Monday as part of a diplomatic offensive to repair rifts caused by his remarks.

But Jordan’s Islamic Action Front derided the pope’s call.

“The pope committed a great wrong against Islam and a meeting with Muslim countries’ ambassadors is not sufficient. There must be a clear apology,” said Zaki Saad Beni Rsheid, the front’s secretary general.

As the religious row rumbled on, the shadow of more violence during Ramadan hung over security forces.

US military commanders in Iraq warned of an upsurge in violence while several other countries were fingered as Ramadan targets in a message to Western leaders from Ayman Al Zawahiri, the number two in Al Qaeda.

Marking the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, Zawahiri threatened Israel and countries in the Gulf.

Zawahiri’s message came three days after the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza Al Muhajer, urged the country’s Sunni minority to rise up and kill at least one American in the next 15 days, in a video on an Islamist website.

“These multiple messages could be a prelude to a series of attacks by Al Qaeda or by its supporters, especially during Ramadan, the month of jihad and martyrdom,” said Yasser Sirri, who heads the Islamic Observatory in London.

More violence in service of the proposition that Islam is peaceful. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Palestinian police guarding a church in Nablus exchanged fire with assailants and chased them away early Saturday, witnesses said.

Shortly after midnight, the sound of heavy gun fire was heard outside the Roman Catholic Church in the West Bank city .

Resident Abdel Salam Abu Rob said police guarding the church were exchanging fire with wouldbe assailants. Police guards were posted at churches in the West Bank and Gaza last weekend, after a first spate of attacks.

Residents said they heard intensive fire for about 20 minutes. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage to the church.

Ealier Friday evening, three small pipe bombs were thrown at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza city , a church official and police said.

A church official in Gaza City, Nabil Ayad, said one bomb was thrown at the facade of the church, shattering glass windows of a nearby van. The main entrance was blackened.

Two other small bombs were thrown inside the church compound, Ayad said. The extent of damage was not clear yet, Ayad, the caretaker of the church said.

Pakistani protesters shout slogans to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. Placard on right reads 'Enemy of Islam, down with the illiterate Pope.' – the caption to this photo

Would Americans marching in Washington hold up signs in Arabic? Would French people in Paris hold up signs in Chinese? Would Chinese in Tienanmen Square hold up signs in Spanish?

Of course not. But all over the Muslim world, there have been signs, often badly spelled, but often as well carefully printed in many copies, and all too often in English.

Why?

Just as the "Palestinians" always hold up signs in English when they wish to denounce Israel or the United States, the Muslim protestors want to be on the world-wide television news programs, want to make sure that their slogans are seen by the Western -- i.e., English-speaking -- public.

This too has nothing to do with terrorism -- by which authorities mean that Joseph Bagley has no known ties to Al-Qaeda. And no doubt he doesn't -- if he was indeed up to no good, it looks as if he was most likely a lone (and probably non-Muslim) nut who admired Al-Qaeda for its destructiveness. That in itself, however, is noteworthy: bin Laden's boys have become the idols of homicidal nutjobs everywhere.

"Police find chemicals, al-Qaida literature in north side apartment," from WTHR.com, with thanks to JDH:

Indianapolis - The FBI says it does not suspect a terror plot on the city's northside, but police want to know why a man stored and mixed chemicals in his apartment and had al-Qaida literature.

At the suspect's apartment near 96th and College crews pack the stores of cleaning and other chemicals found inside.

And the sheriff has moved the suspect from court to jail

They're holding Joseph Bagley for 72 hours, that could give police more time to check the computer the took from his apartment.

Capt. Phil Burton of the Marion County Sheriff's Deptartment says police also found, "A lot of hazardous chemicals, a gas mask, some literature about al-Qaida, about Saddam Hussein and how to make bombs. He admitted to mixing several chemicals and in so doing used his gas mask and exhaust fan."

At the lock up, a released prisoner who talked to Bagley told us, "He said he wasn't making bombs, he said there was carpet cleaner out. He said that whosever was cleaning his apartment was just terrified of everything laying out. (It) Didn't really look dangerous at all."

"This doesn't sound like any kind of international criminal conspiracy, it sounds like a lone operation involving one person," said Professor Douglad Woodwell of the University of Indianapolis. "There is definitely an inspiration al-Qaida offers to a lot of people around the world these days. They can perhaps play their own role in an epic battle."

And professor Woodwell says he could very well be a guy who just likes mixing chemicals.

A plot to obtain commercial licenses to haul hazardous materials. Hmmm.

"15 charged in driver’s license conspiracy," from The Kansas City Star, with thanks to DL:

Operators of truck driving schools in Kansas City and southern Missouri conspired to help more than 70 Somali and Bosnian nationals illegally obtain commercial licenses, federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.

Many of those students went on to obtain certification to haul hazardous materials on the nation’s highways, authorities said in announcing the 62-count grand jury indictment. Fifteen defendants face charges of mail fraud, making a false writing and illegally causing identification documents to be produced....

Then comes the by-now pro-forma assurance that, although this involves Muslims plotting to do something with potentially catastrophic results, this has nothing to do with terrorism. The possibility -- and it is just that and only that, a possibility -- that this was part of a freelance jihad, a la Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, is not even on their radar screen -- although this time a U. S. attorney does make a partial acknowledgment:

Although the Heart of America Joint Terrorism Task Force handled the investigation, Bradley Schlozman, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, emphasized that the indictment did not allege that any of the defendants were involved in terrorism.

“That having been said, I would think it obvious that commercial driver’s licenses are an extraordinarily powerful tool, and a potential weapon, in the hands of someone seeking to do large-scale harm,” Schlozman said at a news conference Thursday.

Schlozman said the key defendants in the case showed a “flagrant and reckless disregard for our national security.”

Although the indictment referred to dozens of test applicants by name, investigators think between 200 and 300 students got their licenses through the conspiracy.

Of those, 150 to 200 later obtained certification to haul hazardous materials.

“I’m not saying we stopped a terrorist act from occurring,” Debby Stafford, an FBI official, said at the news conference. “But this is a clear example of our preventive efforts and of what we do to make our territory safer.”...

The defendants included Ernest A. “Mustafa” White, 49, of Kansas City, who owned the Muslim Brothers and Sisters trucking company in Kansas City, Kan., and Howard E. Schneider, 39, of Overland Park, owner of H.E. Schneider Trucking Co. and co-operator of Muslim Brothers, officials said....

Also charged were Dean P. Proffitt, 71, superintendent of the South Central Career Center Truck Driver Training School in West Plains, Mo., and Orbin Dale May, 63, a truck-driving tester from West Plains....

After a search warrant was served in February, West Plains School District Superintendent Karla Eslinger said that Proffitt had contacted troopers in 2003 to report that a large number of people taking the test had names that sounded Middle Eastern in origin....

Information obtained by The Associated Press under Missouri’s open records law indicated that more than 300 of about 520 people who took the test at the school between May 2004 and December 2005 but did not train there had names that might be Middle Eastern in origin.

FBI agent Mark Wagoner said White converted to Islam while in prison.

“Many of the people he came in contact with were Somali nationals,” he said.

Schlozman said that the awarding of licenses to individuals “from an area as dangerous as Somalia was a matter of particular concern to the community.”

Prosecutors said the others who were indicted generally helped in the conspiracy by driving students to West Plains for testing or helping to arrange the fake tests.

Those other defendants are:

Hiram C. Oliver, 33, Raytown; Osman Abdullahi, 30, a Somali citizen living in San Diego; Elias Mohamed, 25, Ahmed Muhidin Sharif, 27, Abdulfatah Osman Farah, 24, Abdirizak Abdi Mohamed, age unknown, and Yusuf Kalmole, 34, all citizens of Somalia living in Kansas City; Abdiwahab Mohamud Mohamed, 37, a Somali citizen living in Minneapolis; Adil Majlovic, 19, and Mersud Kajtazovic, 31, both citizens of Bosnia living in Kansas City; and Samir Hasanovic, 22, of Arnold, Mo.

More murderous Pope Rage. From AINA, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Baghdad (AINA) -- Sources at Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital announced on Saturday the death of a second Assyrian Christian who fell victim to multiple stab wounds at the Assyrian market in the Doura District. His murder comes a day after the attack on Syriac Catholic Church in the Ashar district of central Basra where another man was murdered.

Christian Leaders in Iraq have asked their parishioners to be extremely cautious and not to leave their homes as a new group called the young Brigades of Fundamental Islam ' has distributed papers announcing the slaying of all Iraqi Christians in three days if the Pope does not Apologize.

Oh, by all that is holy -- it's racist revving now! Will it never end? Muslims continue to suffer in the racist, hateful Sceptered Isle, where even car mechanics now target them with menacing revved engines. Oh, how long, how long must that innocent, spotless lamb, the Muslim community in Britain, have to endure the virulent, violent, unholy, racist, bigoted, Islamophobic, hate-filled, senseless attacks of infidels? What will they come up with next -- racist tea? Racist bowler hats? Racist fish and chips? Oh, how long, how long will this go on?

"Racist Rev Row," from the Sunday Mail, with thanks to Twostellas:

A DRIVER spent two nights in jail after being accused of "revving his car in a racist manner".

Mechanic Ronnie Hutton, 49, yesterday described his court ordeal which finally ended when prosecutors dropped the allegation of racism.

But he was still convicted of a breach of the peace for revving the engine of his £25,000 Lotus.

Witnesses claimed he had been trying to intimidate a Libyan couple on the pavement. Ronnie, of Stirling, claims he was only revving the powerful V8 engine to avoid another £15,000 repair bill.

But off-duty Chief Inspector Eoin Jenkins thought he was targeting Muslim Isam Maigel and his wife Hana Saad.

And when Jenkins, now retired, confronted Ronnie he was told to "f*** off".

On Thursday, at Stirling Sheriff court, the Crown ditched the racist part of the charge but Sheriff Andrew Cubie convicted Ronnie of breach of the peace and fined him £150.

Last night, he said: "To be convicted for revving my car in a busy street is hard to take. Does this mean anyone driving a noisy car in Scotland is now a criminal?"

[...]

In court, Mr Maigel, 28, then a student at Stirling Uni, said: "The driver came alongside and was trying to annoy us by revving his engine very, very loudly."

Using an interpreter, Hana Saad, 23, said he had degraded them "maybe because we are Muslim".

Ronnie claims he was only trying to prevent the repeat of a engine problem had had suffered earlier with the Esprit.

He said: "I've had problems with the Lotus since I bought it. I paid £15,000 for a new engine in 2003.

"As soon as I started the car the oil pressure light wouldn't go out. I accept I revved the engine - it's a V8 twin turbo and is noisy and frightening.

"I would openly apologise to this couple. I am not a racist."

"Creed of the sword: Islam has to accept that its militants find support for violence in their faith's teachings and should pursue reform, writes Mark Durie." Durie in The Australian (thanks to all who sent this in) makes some pointed observations and shows the hollowness of the moral and theological equivalence arguments that are so common, and not just from Rosie O'Donnell:

THE world has witnessed a flood of reaction this week to Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture, a reaction that has gone well beyond words, with attacks on churches in Gaza, the West Bank and Basra, and apparently the killing of an elderly Italian nun in Mogadishu, together with her guard. Some have called for the Pope to be executed....

On the other hand, no less a figure than the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, issued a statement on the official Saudi news service, defending Muslims' divine right to resort to violence: "The spread of Islam has gone through several phases, secret and then public, in Mecca and Medina. God then authorised the faithful to defend themselves and to fight against those fighting them, which amounts to a right legitimised by God. This ... is quite reasonable, and God will not hate it."

Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric also explained that war was never Islam's ancient founder, the prophet Mohammed's, first choice: "He gave three options: either accept Islam, or surrender and pay tax, and they will be allowed to remain in their land, observing their religion under the protection of Muslims." Thus, according to the Grand Mufti, the third option of violence against non-Muslims was only a last resort, if they refused to convert or surrender peacefully to the armies of Islam.

Funny thing: when I point out Muhammad's three options, which are amply attested in Islamic tradition (see, for example, Sahih Muslim 4294), Islamic apologists call me an ignorant Islamophobe. Will they call Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh an ignorant Islamophobe also? Ah, but you see, Spencer (I can hear them saying now), that's just it: Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh is a Wahhabi leader, and you're just playing into the hands of the extremist Wahhabis by validating their twisted interpretations of Islam.

However, I did not write Sahih Muslim 4294. If a Wahhabi works from a sahih hadith, an Islamic tradition generally considered reliable by Muslims, and I note that it is indeed considered a sahih hadith, I am not helping the Wahhabi -- I'm just reporting. If Muslim reformers sincerely desire to mitigate the aspects of Islam that give rise to violence, they need to try to convince people like Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh and his followers that such ahadith should not be considered sahih (reliable), or that they should be set aside in the modern age. But they will not and cannot accomplish simply by denying that such traditions exist, or that any significant body of Muslims pays attention to them.

Abdel went on to urge people to read the Koran and Sunnah (the record of Mohammed's teaching and example) for themselves, pointing out that the Koran, Islam's equivalent of scripture, has been translated into many of the world's languages: "Those who read the Koran and the Sunnah can understand the facts."

On this at least the Archbishop of Sydney and the Saudi Grand Mufti do agree, for in an address earlier this year, Pell also urged people to read the Koran.

Accessing the facts: So what are these facts contained in the Koran and Sunnah that the Grand Mufti would have us read? As it happens, reading the Koran is not without its difficulties. There is, for a start, the thorny problem of context. The Koran gives little help with this: it does not mark off specific passages one from another and its 114 chapters (suras) are not laid out in chronological order.

The keys to unlocking the context for individual passages of the Koran can be found in the life of Mohammed, the Sunnah. The sources for the Sunnah are the traditions (hadiths), of which Sunnis recognise six canonical collections, and biographies of Mohammed (sira literature). Although the volume of this material is considerable, it is now largely available in English translation, much of it on the internet.

In addition to the inherent difficulty of the sources, many secular Westerners rely on certain crippling preconceptions. One is the often-heard mantra that "all religions are the same". Another is the claim that "anyone can justify violence from any religious text". This idea stretches back at least to Rousseau, who considered any and all forms of religion to be pernicious.

Either of these views, if firmly held, would tend to sabotage anyone's ability to investigate the Koran's distinctive take on violence.

There is another obstacle, and that is Western culture's own sense of guilt and suspicion of what it regards as Christian hypocrisy.

Any attempt to critique some of Islam's teachings is likely to be met with loud and vociferous denunciations of the church's moral failings, such as its appalling track record of anti-Semitism. And did I mention the crusades? Finally, the reality is that Muslims adhere to widely varying beliefs and practices. Most people are understandably afraid to come to their own conclusions about violent passages in the Koran, lest they find themselves demonising Muslims.

But does the Koran incite violence, and how does its message compare with the Bible?

The Koran: It is self-evident that some Koranic verses encourage violence. Consider for example a verse which implies that fighting is "good for you": "Fighting is prescribed upon you, and you dislike it. But it may happen that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you. And Allah knows and you know not." (2:216)

On the other hand, it is equally clear that there are peaceful verses as well, including the famous "no compulsion in religion" (2:256).

Yes, but jihadists and proponents of Sharia in general have never had any trouble reconciling this verse with aggressive warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims. After all, those subjugated were not (in most cases) forced to become Muslims, were they?

Resolving apparently contradictory messages presents one of the central interpretative challenges of the Koran. Muslims do not agree today on how best to address this. For this reason alone it could be regarded as unreasonable to claim that any one interpretation of the Koran is the correct one.

Nevertheless, a consensus developed very early in the history of Islam about this problem. This method relies on a theory of stages in the development of Mohammed's prophetic career. It also appeals to a doctrine known as abrogation, which states that verses revealed later can cancel out or qualify verses revealed earlier.

The classical approach to violence in the Koran was neatly summed up in an essay on jihad in the Koran by Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Hamid [actually, Humaid], former chief justice of Saudi Arabia: "So at first 'the fighting' was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory: (1) against those who start 'the fighting' against you (Muslims) ... (2) And against all those who worship others along with Allah."

At the beginning, in Mohammed's Meccan period, when he was weaker and his followers few, passages of the Koran encouraged peaceful relations and avoidance of conflict: "Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious." (16:125)

Later, after persecution and emigration to Medina in the first year of the Islamic calendar, authority was given to engage in warfare for defensive purposes only: "Fight in the path of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for God does not love transgressors." (2:190)

As the Muslim community grew stronger and conflict with its neighbours did not abate, further revelations expanded the licence for waging war, until in Sura 9, regarded as one of the last chapters to be revealed, it is concluded that war against non-Muslims could be waged more or less at any time and in any place to extend the dominance of Islam. Sura 9 distinguished idolators, who were to be fought until they converted - "When the sacred months are past, kill the idolators wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every place of ambush" (Sura 9:5) - from "People of the Book" (Christians and Jews), who were to be given a further option of surrendering and living under Islamic rule while keeping their religion: "Fight ... the People of the Book until they pay the poll tax out of hand, having been humbled." (Sura 9:29)

The resulting doctrine of war was described by the great medieval philosopher Ibn Khaldun: "In the Muslim community, the holy war (jihad) is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and the (obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force." (The Muqaddimah)

The popular Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and al-Jazeera television personality, in July 2003 invoked the classical dogma of the Dar al-Harb or "domain of war" that encompasses all the regions of the world in which Islam is not yet dominant. In the Dar al-Harb the lives and possessions of non-Muslims are muba'a, or "licit", making them a legitimate target for military action: "It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar al-Harb is not protected ... in modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilised to participate in the war, to aid its continuation and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies."

All this explains Sheikh Abdel Aziz's response to the Pope's speech.

Alluding to the distinction between the Meccan and Medinan periods of revelation, the Grand Mufti invoked the doctrine of Sura 9:29 (cited above), that fighting against People of the Book continues until non-Muslims convert or surrender.

Today most Muslims acknowledge the religious legitimacy of "defensive jihad" - including the Palestinian struggle - but many appear to reject the idea of offensive, expansionist jihad. Most would emphasise the defensive aspects of Mohammed's numerous military campaigns, claiming that his attacks on others were only to pre-empt future aggression against Muslims. It is also often asserted that Mohammed's military exploits were context-specific responses to the unique situations he encountered in his lifetime, and not binding on later generations of Muslims.

However the idea of a purely defensive jihad is hard to reconcile with the phenomenal military expansion of Islam in its first 100 years. For centuries the validity of the doctrine of expansionist jihad just seemed self-evident to Muslim scholars, as it was validated by the military victories it had delivered across the greater part of the Christian world, as well as Zoroastrian Persia and Hindu India.

The New Testament: It is not difficult to find examples of religious violence in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. When Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, he was instructed by God to destroy all who dwelled within its walls.

The New Testament takes a completely different approach.

Throughout the New Testament there is a systematic rejection of religious violence. The key to this is Jesus' message that his kingdom was spiritual and not political. Jesus explicitly and repeatedly condemns the use of force to achieve his goals: "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." (Matthew 26:52)...

Durie then goes on to explain how the New Testament's message is quite different from that of the Qur'an. Read it all.

And one final word from Durie for the moral-equivalencers:

The New Testament's teachings on the state continue to sustain the more than 300 million believers who live in more than 60 countries where Christians are persecuted. In none of these countries has persecution resulted in Christian terrorism or violent Christian insurgencies aimed at overthrowing civil authorities.

Pakistani protesters shout slogans to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. Placard on right reads 'Enemy of Islam, down with the illiterate Pope.' (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update from AP, :

JERUSALEM (AP) - Thousands of Muslim worshippers staged marches against Pope Benedict XVI in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza on Friday, waving green Hamas banners and denouncing him as a "coward" and an "agent of the Americans."

The demonstrations in the Middle East, as well as smaller rallies in Pakistan and Malaysia, came as Benedict invited representatives of Muslim countries to meet Monday at his summer residence, the Vatican said....

At Islam's third-holiest shrine, the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, hundreds of worshippers hoisted black flags and banners that read, "Conquering Rome is the answer." Protesters chanted, "The army of Islam will return." The march dispersed peacefully.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Hamas supporters took to the streets after prayers, shouting slogans against the pope and waving Hamas flags. Raising their hands to the sky, the more than 2,000 protesters chanted: "We put up with hunger, detention and occupation, but we won't put up with the offending the prophet. We sacrifice our lives for you prophet."

Marching in the streets of Nablus, the protesters called the pope a "coward and agent of the Americans."

In northern Gaza, more than 1,000 Islamic Jihad supporters shouted in praise of the prophet, and waved black flags. Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader, told the crowd that the pope's comments "indicate that this pope doesn't understand Islam or the prophet."

Actually, the murderous violence, threats and intimidation of Pope Rage suggests that he, or Manuel II Paleologos at least, understands Islam and the prophet quite well.

In Ramallah, hundreds of Hamas supporters marched around the city center.

Hundreds of radical Islamists chanting "Down with the pope" rallied in several Pakistani cities.

More than 500 supporters of a coalition of six Islamic parties, called Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA, demanded the pope's removal and accused him of supporting the policies of President Bush.

"If I get hold of the pope, I will hang him," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior MMA leader, told protesters in Islamabad, who carried placards reading "Terrorist, extremist Pope be hanged!" and "Down with Muslims' enemies!"

Strange that "...on the cross," the second part of Hafiz Hussain Ahmed's threat, seems to have vanished.

In Karachi, another MMA leader, Ghafoor Ahmed, accused the pope of wanting to force "Christians and Muslims against each other."

"We condemn the pope. We will not tolerate insulting remarks against Islam or our Prophet Muhammad," Ahmed said at a protest that drew about 300 people.

Another 200 rallied in the eastern city of Lahore, while several dozen protested in Multan.

The demonstrations came a day after 1,000 clerics and religious leaders met in Lahore and called for the pope's removal and warned the West of consequences if it didn't change its stance regarding Islam.

Thursday's meeting was organized by radical Islamic Jamaat al-Dawat group, which runs schools, colleges and medical clinics. In April, Washington put the group on a list of terrorist organizations for its alleged links with militants fighting in the Indian part of Kashmir.

After the meeting, a statement was issued demanding the West "change its stance regarding Islam (or) it will face severe consequences." It did not elaborate.

It also said that jihad was not terrorism and that "Islam was not propagated with the sword."

Malaysia's opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party staged demonstrations outside mosques nationwide, calling for the pope to fully retract his remarks. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city, some 150 party members chanted "Stop the insults" and held a banner that read "We Muslims are peace-loving people."

Of course. Just pay no attention to that nun-shooting, or to the thousands upon thousands of acts of violence perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam since 9/11.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Defiant Hezbollah chief returns for 'victory' rally," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

HEZBOLLAH held a huge “victory” rally in southern Beirut yesterday, drawing more than 500,000 people in a display of strength aimed at domestic and foreign critics who want to see the disarming of the Iran-backed Shia group.

Greeted by an ecstatic crowd of supporters cheering and waving yellow party flags, a smiling Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, made his first public appearance since going into hiding on July 12 at the beginning of the month-long war with Israel.

“We are not frightened of death. We have God on our side,” the cleric said. “Our presence here is not without any danger. However, my heart and soul would not allow me to address you from a distance.” The rally passed peacefully despite intense speculation that Israel might take advantage of Sheikh Nasrallah’s presence to fulfil its pledge to kill the Hezbollah leader.

More anti-dhimmitude from Australia, where it is getting to be quite a common sight. From Australia's ABC News, with thanks to Rosie:

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has called on Islamic societies to disconnect church from state.

Mr Costello has said Islamic states should adopt a secular view free of all religion, in an address to the Australian Christian Lobby at a Christian Conference in Canberra today.

He also says Muslim societies should allow robust debate, after reaction to comments made last week by Pope Benedict XVI that sparked outrage across the Islamic world.

"How can one religion exercise the freedom to speak on its values, its faith, without prompting a violent response from other religions?" Mr Costello said.

"It can only happen where we all accept a set of rules, the right to freedom of speech without receiving violence in return."

Mr Costello says separating religion from government allows religious freedom.

"Now, I have argued that separation of church and state is good for both and further consistent with Christ's teaching," he said.

"I believe that a secular, national state can be adopted by Muslim societies and what is more, in doing so, will lead to greater technological and economic progress."

You may recall that he was widely believed to be dead for several years after 9/11. I therefore take this report with reserve. In any case, if he is dead, the jihad will continue. It is not based on the charismatic power of any single leader, but on an ideology.

"Bin Laden believed dead: report," from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A newspaper has quoted a French secret service report as saying Saudi Arabia is convinced Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

The French regional newspaper, L'Est Republicain, has printed what it says is a copy of the report, dated September 21.

It says the report was shown to French President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and France's Interior and Defence Ministers on the same day.

"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama Bin Laden is dead," the document said.

"The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of Al Qaeda was a victim while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, of a very serious case of typhoid, which led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs."

The report, stamped with a "confidential defence" label and the initials of the French secret service, says Saudi Arabia first heard the information on September 4 and is waiting for more details before making an official announcement.

And also from Reuters (thanks to Sr. Soph): France orders probe into bin Laden death report leak

Four jihadists (including one Norwegian national) who were arrested on charges of shooting at an Oslo synagogue this past Sunday were found to have plans and equipment to carry out much worse. Oslo Jihad Update from the Jerusalem Post: "Oslo terrorists targeted ambassador"

The terrorists who shot at an Oslo synagogue on Sunday also planned to kidnap Israeli ambassador to Norway Miriam Shomrat and cut off her head, Norwegian press reported on Friday.

According to Army Radio, Norwegian security services had been tracking the four suspects who, when apprehended, were found in possession of equipment necessary to implement their plan. Two of the suspects were reported to be Pakistani nationals, one was Turkish, and the fourth Norwegian.

Sunday's shooting caused damage to the synagogue but wounded no one. Police who arrived on the scene after the incident identified at least ten bullet holes in the shul's windows and exterior wall.

[...]

Sunday's shooting came less than a week after an Al Qaida plot targeting the site was uncovered. Following the exposure of an Italian cell's intention to attack the synagogue, police had said that they would take steps to secure the synagogue, but did not detail what they intended to do.

Somali Jihad Update from AFP: "Islamist movement tightens Sharia law"

SOMALIA'S powerful Islamist movement says it will tighten Sharia law on its territory and has vowed to fight the proposed deployment of foreign peacekeepers.

Already in control of the capital Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia, the Islamists said they would seize the port of Kismayo and close the nation's border with Kenya to prevent an east African peacekeeping force entering the country to shore up the Government's limited authority.

[...]

Sheikh Mohamed Nur Duale, a top SICS member in the Lower Juba Valley, said the Islamists had surrounded Kismayo, about 500km south of Mogadishu, and would soon take it from a local militia.

"We will not attack our Muslim brothers in Kismayo or any other place in the region. Our objective is to defend the country from the enemies of Allah," he told AFP.

"No-one should dare stand in front of this holy objective."

Kismayo is currently held by the Juba Valley Alliance, a militia led by the defence minister in the government. But it has been encircled for several days by Muslim forces, who are negotiating what they say will be a peaceful handover.

Duale said the Islamists were intent on taking Kismayo because African Union-backed plans for the regional peacekeeping mission called for troops to land there.

Meanwhile, witnesses and Muslim militia commanders said the Islamists had boosted their presence along Somalia's remote and largely unpatrolled frontier with Kenya, where the vanguard of the 8000-strong peacekeeping force from the seven-nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is to gather.

"We will close our border with Kenya before foreign troops can set foot on our soil," said one commander from the town of Dhobley, close to the Kenyan border.

[...]

SICS Sharia law enforcers also arrested a karate instructor and six female students at a training facility in Mogadishu, alleging they had violated Koranic precepts on the mixing of the sexes and dress, officials said.

"The detainees were involved in un-Islamic behaviour," said Sheikh Kadar Abdirahman Keyse, who runs the Islamic court in the capital's southern Hamarweine district.

More Peace and Tolerance on the Day of Rage from those who would never, ever insult or disparage a religious figure. Note the "Zionist" pendant. From AP:

A Palestinian protester holds an unflattering picture showing Pope Benedict XVI during a demonstration against his recent speech about Islam, following prayers in front of the Dome of the Rock mosque in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006. Thousands of Muslim worshippers staged anti-pope marches in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza on Friday, waving green Hamas banners and denouncing the pontiff as a coward. The Arabic writing on the poster reads, 'There are many lies that go out of their mouths. ' (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Words of peace and tolerance from a Muslim cleric in Pakistan on the Day of Rage.

Why crucified? Because it's in the Qur'an, of course -- immediately following the oft-quoted verse about how killing an innocent person is like killing the whole world. That's Qur'an 5:32. 5:33 says: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."

"Pakistanis protest, cleric says Pope should be crucified," from AFP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Hundreds of Pakistani Islamists held street protests to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for remarks they regard as anti-Islamic, with one leader saying the pontiff should be crucified.

Demonstrators Friday poured out of mosques after the main weekly Muslim prayers in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore, the capital Islamabad and other urban centres.

"If the pope comes here we will hang him on the Cross," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior leader of Pakistan's main alliance of radical parties, told around 200 noisy demonstrators in Islamabad.

The alliance, called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Front, forms part of the parliamentary opposition and is often heavily involved in street protests in mostly Muslim Pakistan.

Ahmed also said the pope had joined US President George W. Bush's "crusade" against Muslims, referring to Christians who fought against Muslims from the 11th through the 13th centuries.

...who no doubt wish to treat him, once he is "handed over," with the gentleness and civility for which they have become justly renowned.

Note also the paucity of calls from any Muslim groups for Osama bin Laden to be "handed over."

From AP:

Pakistani protesters shout slogans to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. Placard on left reads 'Illiterate Pope should be handed over to Muslims.' (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

Now if only Christians and Jews (and Hindus and Buddhists and atheists and what have you) would indeed get the bright idea to stand together against the global jihad. From the Pope Is A Zionist Department, via Reuters:

Palestinian supporters from Hamas burn an Israeli flag during a demonstration against Pope Benedict's remarks in the West Bank city of Ramallah September 22, 2006. REUTERS/Loay Abu Haykel

More Pope Rage, this time from Karachi, from Reuters:

Supporters of opposition Islamic alliance Muthidda Majlis-e-Amal hold a banner to protest against Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam during a demonstration in Karachi September 22, 2006. (Akbar Baloch/Reuters)

Palestinian Muslims express their rage -- and thirst for conquest -- on the Day of Rage. From Reuters:

Palestinian Muslims hold up a portrait reading 'Conquering Rome is the answer' during a demonstration against Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam, after Friday prayers in the Al Aqsa compound, a mosque at a holy site sacred to both Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem, September 22, 2006. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (ISRAEL)

More Day of Rage rage, from WND, with thanks to Davy:

JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's apologies for worldwide reaction to his remarks about Islam and his invitation today for Muslim leaders to meet with him next week are "mere diplomatic acts" and prove the pontiff does not really regret his words, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily.

Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called for holy war against the pope.

He said Christian leaders such as Benedict are "afraid" because they realize Islam is Allah's favorite religion and they are going to hell unless they convert. The Gaza preacher declared the "green flag of Muhammad" would soon be raised over the Vatican.

"We did not need the words of the pope in order to understand that this is a Crusader war against Islam and it is our holy duty to fight all those who support the pope, who follow him and who did not condemn what this small racist had to say," said Abu Saqer, speaking to WND from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

"The day will soon come when the green flag of La Illah Illah Allah (There is no god but Allah) and Muhammad Rasul Allah (Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah) will be raised upon the Vatican and all around the world and on the fortresses of those who want to destroy Islam, because they know that this religion obliges them to face the truth that Islam is Allah's favorite religion. And until they join Islam, hell is their last station," Abu Saqer said.

The Day of Rage is in full swing, and we are certain to see more, now that Friday prayers are wrapping up. From Iran comes this gem: Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli informs the Pope that without the Qur'an, "American Christianity and the Zionists would not left anything of the divine Christianity and Judaism." Amoli, of course, is working from some core Muslim assumptions: that Judaism and Christianity as we know them today are corrupted versions of the original messages of Moses and Jesus, and that Moses and Jesus were actually Muslim prophets who taught Islam. Thus only the Qur'an preserves true Christianity and Judaism.

It is noteworthy that he would casually reassert this theological supremacism, which leaves no room for Christians and Jews as anything other than renegades from Islam, over against the Pope's alleged insult.

"Major cleric condemns Pope's vilifying claims against Islam," from the Islamic Republic News Agency, with thanks to Arc:

Qom's Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli, condemned recent vilifying and anti-Islamic claims of the world Catholic church leader Pope Benedict XVI.

"Pope should know that had it not been for Islam and its divine book, nothing would have been left of Christianity and Judaism," said Ayatollah Amoli in his Friday prayers sermons.

Amoli noted that had the brilliant and refreshing Quranic verses on the life of such great prophets as Jesus (AS), Moses (AS) as well as Saint Mary (SA) not been revealed to holy Prophet of Islam Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH), the American Christianity and the Zionists would not left anything of the divine Christianity and Judaism.

Javadi Amoli emphasised that Christianity is not in need of Pope and Bush today, but of an honest leader.

Qom Friday prayers leader called as "double-standards" the stance taken by Pope against Muslims' protests and said the world Catholic church leader should specify what he meant by "I am sorry." He further said, "Mr. Pope should make it clear whether he is sorry for his unfounded and baseless claims or why Muslims have not understood his intention?"

The cleric said that regarding Pope's stance, one should be watchful against enemies of Islam and Christianity that are bent on waging another crusade war.

He invited specialized organizations and communities to conduct research and collect Quranic reasons and justifications on all subjects and put them at the disposal of the religious figures and followers of other divine religions, including Pope, so that they get to know that Islam is the religion of reason and logic.

And supremacism and rage.

This just in from the Islamic Republic of Britain: all graves in this multi-faith cemetery must face Mecca, because otherwise, you see, you'd have Christian graves facing one way and Muslim graves facing another, and that wouldn't be...tidy. And of course we mustn't risk offending You Know Who.

"A Question of Faith...Or Tidiness?," from the Nottingham Evening Post, with thanks to Twostellas:

In today's secular society you could be forgiven for not knowing which direction Christian graves face.

Ancient tradition shows they should look east in anticipation of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But all headstones at the new £2.5m High Wood Cemetery in Bulwell will be plotted to face north-east, in line with Islamic faith.

Muslims believe the dead look over their shoulder towards Mecca, towards the south-east.

Despite there being separate sections at the cemetery in Low Wood Road for different faiths, the council wanted to give a tidy, linear appearance.

Only on special request can families have graves with headstones facing in a different direction.

The controversial decision was taken after consultation with the city's Cemeteries Consultative Committee.

And it has sparked huge debate among city faith leaders.

The Rev David Gray, from St John's Church, Bulwell, said: "All faiths should have their beliefs respected.

"It would be wrong to stipulate one over the other, especially in our climate of trying to be sensitive of other people's beliefs.

"It is an evolving cemetery and should be made for people of all faiths and certainly people of Christian faiths.

"For some people it doesn't matter, but for those who prefer that they are facing east it is important."...

The local imam also opposes this preposterous bit of dhimmitude:

Raza Ul Haq, Imam at the Madni Masjid Mosque, in Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, said: "It is part of our religion for dead bodies to face Mecca. It is very important.

"If for the Christians, this is part of their religion that they should be facing towards somewhere else, then we are 200% in support of them. It is our job to help and support them. If that is their requirement, then we will be supporting the Christians."

In traditional Islamic law, Muslims may only agree to a truce (hudna) for up to a 10-year-period, and only when they are at a disadvantage and need to gather strength to fight again more effectively. Thus the offer of a truce is an acknowledgement of weakness by the forces of jihad, and the most unwise move Israel could possibly make would be to accept the offer.

From AP, with thanks to Sara:

Palestinian PM's aide says Hamas will not join unity government if recognizing Israel is a condition, adds group prepared to agree to 'long term truce' with Jewish state until it withdraws from territories

The Palestinians' ruling Hamas group will not join a planned coalition government if recognizing Israel is a condition, a close aide to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Friday. At the United Nations on Thursday, the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the planned national unity government between his Fatah Party and Hamas would recognize the Jewish state.

But Haniyeh's political adviser, Ahmed Yousef, told The Associated Press on Friday that "there won't be a national unity government if Hamas is asked to recognize Israel." The two parties announced last week that they would team up to govern, in an effort to ease crushing international sanctions imposed on the Hamas government to pressure it to soften its violent anti-Israel ideology.

Their preliminary agreement says the new government would strive to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel - implying recognition of the Jewish state. But coalition talks have faltered because the West and Israel want Hamas to clearly state its willingness to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

5 to 10 year truce

Yousef said instead of recognizing Israel, Hamas was prepared to agree to a "long-term truce for five or 10 years, until the occupation withdraws." He was unclear on what Hamas would do if coalition talks break down.

"...the CIA program's former director, Emile Nakhleh, played down the problem and estimated only two to three percent of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims were politically active."

"'Political Islam is not a threat,' Nakhleh, who retired from the CIA in June, said in an interview posted on the web site of Harper's magazine. 'The threat is if the people become disenchanted with the political process and democracy, and opt for violence.'" -- from this article

There is a good deal to note in the paragraphs above.

Let's stat with that figure of "1.4 billion Muslims" given with such suave assurance by Emile Nakhleh, the "CIA program's former director," and left unchallenged, or even uncommented on, by the reporter for Reuters. By now we are all familiar with the way in which Muslim spokesmen constantly exaggerate the figures for Muslims; we have all seen how, in the last few years, the figures suddenly have pushed up, in increments of 100 million -- 1 billion, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and even, the other day, 1.6 billion. Any figure given that is over 1.2 billion (which, I think, is also exaggerated, and have written about here) is part of that campaign, part of the same campaign designed to scare non-Muslims, or overawe them, with the theme of "Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion."

Yet how many people, reading these remarks by Emile Nakhleh, "retired since June" from the C.I.A., would even stop to note that "1.4 billion" figure that is just tossed off?

And then there is the estimate, by Emile Nakhleh, that of these "1.4 billion" Muslims, only "two to three percent" are "politically active." What does that mean? What could it conceivably mean when in Islam there is no division between politics and religion? Is "politically active" a term for those who are engaged directly in terrorist acts? Is it a term meaning those who engage directly in terrorist acts and those who support them with money, with guns, with ardent approval? Is it a term that means those who actively take an interest in terrorism and also running for Town Meeting in a New England village? What does it mean? It means nothing. It is simply one more bit of nonsense and blague. Or could he mean, rather, that it his unsupported view, very few Muslims wish to become suicide bombers -- even if very many Muslims proudly named their sons Osama after the attack of 9/11/2001, and very many Muslims, in the Muslim-ruled countries and in the Lands of the Infidels, have expressed their approval of Osama Bin Laden, of Hizballah, and of other terrorists and terrorist groups?

Ignore those burning Pope effigies -- no one is really angry

Consistent with the prevailing assumption among most Western analysts that when Islamic jihadists tell us they are waging a jihad, they are in fact mistaken, and what they are doing has nothing really to do with jihad at all, so now in this ABC story about today's "Day of Rage" against the Pope we are told, with Orwellian aplomb, that rage isn't really rage. It's just Islamic culture, doncha know.

As long as this unreality continues to pervade virtually every aspect of analysis of the problem of Islamic jihad, we will never get anywhere in defending ourselves against it.

"'Day of Rage': Anger Not Jihad," from ABC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

LONDON, Sept. 18, 2006 — - Three words suddenly have a lot of Westerners worried and, it must be said, likely making some wrong assumptions about modern Islam. "Yaum al Ghadab" is Arabic for "Day of Rage."

When the Qatari Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for a Day of Rage this Friday in response to Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about Muslims, it might have sounded like a call for street violence.

But if there is trouble Friday, and there could well be, it will not be because of language but because of what some people choose to do after they have answered the call for "Yaum al Ghadab."...

But why do Islamic leaders use what many Westerners regard as inflammatory language?

Because it is not inflammatory, at least not in the context of Islamic culture. "We must not try to interpret Islamic terms and cultural signals by using our Western ideas," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor in the department of international affairs and Middle Eastern studies at Sarah Lawrence College, and an ABC News consultant. Gerges pointed out that in Islamic culture "ghadab" means anger or frustration. A day of rage does not mean a day of jihad (war), added Gerges.

Mimi Daher, a Muslim woman working in the ABC Jerusalem bureau, explained that the Grand Multi [sic] in Jerusalem reflected this cultural mindset today when he said, "Muslims have to express their anger. Was the pope expecting Muslims to clap their hands to him while hurting their faith and prophet? Of course not. We call on Muslims throughout the world to react in a disciplined manner, according to our Islamic faith."

"Disciplined manner" is a repeated theme among Islamic moderate leaders who encourage people to protest. As Gerges reminded me, when the cleric al-Qaradawi called for a day of rage, he stressed repeatedly that it should be civilized, urging Muslims to behave with civility and dignity. "We must show the world that we are still civilized even when we are aggrieved," he said.

Even so, shouldn't Westerners be worried about the use of words like "rage"? As an ABC News Muslim colleague of mine in Egypt, Hala Abukhatwa, put it, "'Yaum al Ghadab' means 'come to the streets,' 'protest,' maybe 'burn a flag.' But it doesn't mean hurt someone. In our culture, expressions are usually in black and white, not nuanced like in the West," she continued. "We are either happy or we are sad, glad or angry. We don't say 'come to the streets and be ambivalent.'"...

So a day of rage, as a term, is deeply rooted. Freedom of expression, freedom to protest peacefully, has improved in parts of the Islamic world, but the old words, the old terms of reference, are so deeply rooted in the language that "Yaum al Ghadab" is still used.

And what about the brittleness of Muslims over criticism of the Prophet Mohammed? Many in the West have a hard time getting their head around the idea that any leader is above ridicule.

There are at least two important reasons why Muslims react with such passion when the Prophet is called into question. First, to Muslims, Mohammed represents an absolutism. His is the absolute prophecy. To question that is to challenge the foundation of their belief system. As for Westerners making jokes about Christ, or movies that question the teachings of the church, many devout Muslims will ask, "Why don't the Christians defend their prophet more vigorously? Just because some of you Christians don't stick up for your Christ, don't ridicule us for sticking up for Mohammed."

Fine. The question is how.

This story contends that the U.S. still lacks understanding of Al-Qaeda, but it reveals a much larger problem. Not only does the intelligence community have "only a single office devoted to understanding political Islam," but the director of that one, Emile Nakhleh, says: "Political Islam is not a threat. The threat is if the people become disenchanted with the political process and democracy, and opt for violence."

Political Islam is not a threat, but Al-Qaeda is? All right. So evidently the attempt to accomplish by peaceful means what Osama bin Laden wants to do by violent means is perfectly fine. Only the means matter, not the end. It's perfectly all right if we all end up living under Sharia, with its institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims, as long as nobody gets hurt on our road to Islamization.

The implications of this wrongheadedness are massive. This explains why there is no official notice taken of the Islamization of Europe, or of the necessity to revise immigration procedures to screen applicants for attachment to Sharia. This explains why a group like CAIR, whose spokesman Ibrahim Hooper has expressed a desire to see the U.S. become an Islamic state, is considered moderate: after all, they're not setting off any bombs, and this struggle is all about "terrorism" and only "terrorism."

Imagine if there had been a group in the U.S. in 1940 that declared that it wanted to see a National Socialist America, but intended to accomplish our Nazification through education, not violence. What would authorities of the day have thought of such a group? What might they have done about it? Ah, you will say, but Sharia isn't Nazism. Of course it isn't. But it is nevertheless inimical to Western values and Western civilization, and harmful to all non-Muslims, in a host of ways. And it is Sharia that is the goal of those we fight. The manner in which they are advancing it is simply a question of their tactics, not of whether or not they are enemies of our way of life.

"US still lacks understanding of al Qaeda - report," from Reuters, :

WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration still does not fully understand the threat from al Qaeda, a congressional report released on Wednesday said.

"(Al Qaeda) still remains the single greatest threat ... Unfortunately, there are still gaps in our understanding of Islamist extremist groups, which leaves America vulnerable," the report said.

The document, "Al-Qaeda: The Many Faces of an Islamist Extremist Threat," was part of a series of reports released by the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on threats facing the United States.

Democrat members distanced themselves from them and accused the Republican majority of trying to frighten voters about such threats in advance of elections in November.

The latest report found "significant shortfalls" in the government's knowledge of both Islamist militancy abroad and the potential extremist threat at home and said it had failed to counter the rhetoric of anti-American Islamist extremists.

The intelligence community has only a single office devoted to understanding political Islam -- the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, created in 2004 to study the issue, advise policymakers and engage academics worldwide, it said.

It said the effort should be expanded, and called on U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte to create similar operations at other agencies.

The CIA had no immediate comment on the report.

But the CIA program's former director, Emile Nakhleh, played down the problem and estimated only two to three percent of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims were politically active.

"Political Islam is not a threat," Nakhleh, who retired from the CIA in June, said in an interview posted on the web site of Harper's magazine. "The threat is if the people become disenchanted with the political process and democracy, and opt for violence."

Hugo Chávez behaves as one who is looking to enhance his credentials as a "revolutionary" by associating himself with more famous leaders of rogue states; in doing so, he continues to sell out his country and his people, and to grant Hizballah an ever stronger foothold in the Western Hemisphere. From AFP: "Hezbollah adopts Chavez as hero"

BEIRUT - Venezuela’s outspoken President Hugo Chavez, who lashed out at his US counterpart George W. Bush from the podium of the UN General Assembly, has scored a big hit with Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

"Gracias Chavez," proclaimed large posters hurriedly put up on Thursday by Hezbollah activists in their Shia stronghold of Beirut’s southern suburbs on the eve of a "victory" rally following the group’s war with Israel.

The portrait, showing Chavez in a red shirt and punching the air with a fist, also calls for Israel "to be taken to court for its crimes" during the 34-day war which ended in mid-August after more than 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon alone.

Caracas pulled the Venezuelan charge d’affaires out of Israel in early August to protest its operations inside Lebanon, with Chavez charging that Israel "had lost its mind".

Another poster, next to a road bridge destroyed in an Israeli air raid, shows Chavez and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and announces the launch of a petition of thanks for the Venezuelan leader.

It also hails "our coalition from Gaza to Beirut, to Damascus, to Tehran, and with our brother Chavez", quoting Nasrallah.

[...]

Earlier this week, Chavez hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and renewed his support for Tehran’s disputed uranium enrichment programme, which the United States and other Western countries fear would be used for the development of a nuclear bomb.

After a pattern of harrassment lasting several years, Bangladesh has found a pretext on which to try Salah Uddin Shoaid Choudhury for a crime punishable by death: Sedition, for advocating ties between his country and Israel. Sharia Alert from the Jerusalem Post: "Bangladeshi Muslim editor faces death penalty for moderate views"

A Bangladeshi Muslim journalist arrested in the past for advocating ties with Israel now faces charges of sedition, a crime punishable by death in Bangladesh, and will likely be put on trial by the end of the month, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

In a court session on Tuesday in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, a state-appointed judge ruled that the government's case against Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury could proceed to trial and that the hearings would commence within 15 days.

As editor of The Weekly Blitz, an English-language newspaper published in Dhaka, Choudhury aroused the ire of Bangladeshi authorities after he printed articles favorable to Israel and critical of Muslim extremism.

Bangladesh does not recognize Israel's existence and refuses to establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

In November 2003, Choudhury was arrested at Dhaka's international airport just prior to boarding a flight on his way to Israel, where he was scheduled to deliver an address on promoting understanding between Muslims and Jews. His visit to Israel would have been the first by a Bangladeshi journalist.

Choudhury was charged with sedition, held in prison for 17 months and was reportedly tortured before being freed in April 2005. But the authorities in Bangladesh, which is ruled by a coalition government that includes Islamic extremists, decided to continue pursuing charges against him.

Dr. Richard Benkin, an American Jew who led the fight to win Choudhury's release, told the Post that the situation facing the beleaguered journalist was dire.

"Choudhury has angered the Islamists, who both engineered his arrest and continue to see this as an important case," Benkin said. "He is a pro-Israeli, anti-terrorist Muslim who will not be cowed into silence."

After his release from prison last year, Choudhury proceeded to reopen his weekly newspaper, continuing to publish articles calling for greater interfaith understanding and warning of the dangers posed by fundamentalist Islamic terror.

Last month, unknown assailants set off explosives outside the newspaper's offices and planted a bomb in the press room that failed to detonate.

According to Benkin, Choudhury's family has been subjected to various forms of what appear to be orchestrated harassment. These have included pressure from the Bangladeshi authorities to denounce Choudhury, angry crowds gathering outside their home and even physical attacks. The intimidation has stopped "for the moment," he said.

In a May 20, 2005 opinion piece published in the Post, Choudhury wrote: "As a journalist, I counteracted the biased 'news' that promoted hatred of Israel and Jews, condemned terrorism, promoted the free exchange of ideas and urged Bangladesh to recognize Israel."

Describing the moments immediately before his 2003 arrest, he wrote: "Though physically still in Dhaka, my heart ached to kiss Israel's holy soil."

Maher Hathout is going to get his award from the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, despite everything. After all, as Commission President Adrian Dove put it the other day: "I challenge you to find another party in Los Angeles who is a practicing Muslim leader who would be less controversial." Aye, there's the rub. But why reward it?

"Controversial Muslim leader Mathout [sic] gets award despite opposition," from the Jewish Journal, :

At a meeting that featured catcalls, standing ovations and the ejection of a disruptive audience member, Los Angeles' County Human Relations Commission voted again Monday to give an award to Dr. Maher Hathout, a local Muslim leader whose harsh rhetoric on Israel generated accusations of anti-Semitism and extremism.

The four commissioners who voted in favor were outnumbered by five who abstained and four who were absent.

Hathout's victory marks the first time a Muslim-American has received the commission's award.

In what Commission President Adrian Dove called a "tough hearing," the public body ended weeks of uncertainty by reaffirming its vote to confer the John Allen Buggs Award for excellence in human relations on Hathout, despite opposition from much of the organized Jewish community. Detractors had portrayed the chairman of the Islamic Center and senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) as an apologist for terror and called his past criticism of Israel veiled anti-Semitism. Hathout and his supporters have countered that he supports a two-state solution, has long renounced terrorism on theological grounds and for years has worked closely with local Jewish groups to bridge the chasm between Muslims and Jews.

Five commissioners -- Donna Bojarsky, Vito Cannella, Rebecca Isaacs, Eleanor Montano and Mario Ceballos, abstained. Bojarsky, public policy consultant and founder of L.A. Works, a volunteer-service organization, is the child of a Holocaust survivor; she suggested that the honor had been tainted by the process and the controversy and that the commission should recognize Hathout's contributions by making him the keynote speaker at its Oct. 5 awards banquet.

She said she abstained because she believes to do so "was the best thing for human relations."

In a reflection of the highly charged emotions, Allyson Rowen Taylor, associate director of the American Jewish Congress Western Region, said she believes commissioners lacked the courage to vote against Hathout.

"They're afraid of the Muslim community burning cars, burning effigies and burning synagogues," Taylor said after the meeting.

Read it all.

"The general noted that the enemy has no such values." From the American Forces Press Service, :

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2006 – Much has been made in recent days of an aerial photograph taken in Afghanistan that reportedly shows hundreds of Taliban fighters attending a funeral and the decision to refrain from wiping out the gathering militarily.

At a Pentagon news conference today, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan said the rules of engagement provide all the flexibility needed to take the fight to the enemy and to protect coalition forces, but the decision in this case was not as simple as it might appear to be.

Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry said the intelligence available to the coalition commander on the ground did, indeed, support the belief that the gathering was for the funeral of a mid-level Taliban operative. “It was also reasonable to believe that, as he looked down at that photograph or looked down at the video, that a number of the people that were standing there at that funeral were Taliban fighters,” the general added.

But it’s what the picture didn’t show that ultimately led to the decision not to strike, Eikenberry said. Just outside the frame, he said, was an Afghan village.

“And it also was reasonable for the commander to conclude from that village that there were probably innocents -- maybe sympathetic to Taliban, but innocents, noncombatants -- that had moved to participate in that funeral,” the general said. And the photo couldn’t rule out the possible presence of women and children, he added.

“So that commander made a decision, based upon our values as a people, based upon our values as a nation, that he would not strike,” Eikenberry said.

The general noted that the enemy has no such values.

“I would point out to everybody that (the coalition commander’s decision not to strike the funeral gathering) stands in very sharp contrast to an enemy that will kill religious leaders wantonly, that will kill teachers in order to intimidate parents to keep their children out of school houses, that will -- as they proved themselves last week -- throw a suicide-bomber at a patriotic governor of Afghanistan who came from his home in Australia to serve his nation. That's what distinguishes us from the enemy,” he said.

Sunni/Shi'ite Jihad Update. From AKI, :

Islamabad, 21 Sept. (AKI) - A Shiite Muslim religious leader was killed by unidentified gunman in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab on Thursday, according to a report on the Chinese Xinhua news agency. Men on motorcycles opened fire on Syed Bashir Hussain Bukhari, 85, in the main market in Sargodha, 175 kilometres north-west of Lahore, Punjab's capital. Bukhari was seriously injured in the attack and died later in hospital, local sources said. No one has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Xinhua reported that as news spread of the assassination, people demonstrated in the streets to protest the killing. Tyres were reportedly burnt and roads blocked.

Local police believe that the attack may have been caused by sectarianism. The Shiite religious leaders surivived an attempt on his life in 1994. He was a witness in a case in which two prominent Shiite leaders were killed in a terrorist attack in 1994.

Honor killing comes to the North American continent. Alas, there will be many more. "Brother suspect in killing," from the Ottawa Sun, with thanks to Steve:

DISBELIEF FELL over an Ottawa intensive care unit yesterday when police announced they were hunting the brother of a young woman who was shot to death at an east-end mall.

Ottawa police said last night they considered Khatera Sadiqi's 20-year-old brother, Hasibullah Sadiqi, a suspect in the shooting that killed the 20-year-old woman early Tuesday morning.

Police said Hasibullah Sadiqi should be considered armed and dangerous. Along with a picture, they released a description of the type of car the suspect drives -- a grey, two-door 1992 Mazda 323.

This morning police said they are trying to reach out to Afghan communities outside the Ottawa area in an effort to find Sadiqi.

The shocked and tired look on Hameed Mangal's face yesterday spoke volumes for the dozens of family and friends who poured into the Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital to comfort him and his family. His brother, 23-year-old Feroz Mangal, was in a coma after being shot with the same gun that killed Khatera Sadiqi.

Feroz Mangal and Khatera Sadiqi had been engaged for about six months before a shooter pulled up to Mangal's Honda just before 1 a.m. Tuesday at Elmvale Acres Shopping Centre and riddled the inside with bullets.

MULTIPLE SHOTS

Sadiqi, who was in the driver's seat, was killed when a bullet struck her head. Despite taking multiple shots to his body, including his neck, Mangal survived but was still in critical condition last night.

Const. Steve Desjourdy said detectives have been conducting numerous interviews and investigators were able to identify a suspect.

Detectives are "looking at everything" when it comes to possible motives for wanting to kill the young couple, Desjourdy said. Police are also awaiting official results from ballistics and an autopsy, he said.

Speculation about why police consider Hasibullah Sadiqi a suspect began to snowball yesterday, but some people said the local Afghan community has been talking about the couple's upcoming marriage.

Hameed Mangal said he heard Hasibullah Sadiqi had issues with the relationship.

"He wasn't happy because they were engaged," Hameed, 24, said.

The possibility of Khatera Sadiqi's death being related to an honour killing baffled Hameed as he tried to relax in the hospital's emergency room last night.

A few days ago we switched to a new server and blocked traffic from some friendly places from which the recent attacks on Jihad Watch were launched.

That seems to have taken care of a number of problems. Unfortunately, the Daily Digest has not been sent out to subscribers since then. I apologize for the inconvenience. Please be assured that I am aware of the problem, and there is no need to resubscribe. Thanks for your patience.

Check out the sign the woman is holding at the top of the photo. From Reuters:

Supporters of the Pakistan Muslim League party burn an effigy of Pope Benedict to protest against his remarks about Islam, during a demonstration in Multan September 21, 2006. European Union countries should take 'very seriously' the threat to Pope Benedict after his comments on Islam sparked outrage in the Muslim world, the EU's top security official said on Thursday. REUTERS/Asim Tanveer (PAKISTAN)

Pop Culture Jihad Update from YNet News:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' state-run television the past few weeks has broadcast a music video in which viewers are encouraged to "martyr" themselves in exchange for eternal paradise and beautiful "maidens."

The video can be viewed here at Palestinian Media Watch.

The Israeli-based monitor Palestinian Media Watch reports the video, airing on television controlled by Abbas' Fatah party, depicts a Palestinian woman who is shot in the back by Israeli soldiers. The woman then is transported to "paradise" where she joins white-robed "maidens" dancing in water while waiting to marry a male Palestinian who "martyrs" himself.

In the next scene, according to PMW, a grieving Palestinian man is shot in the back by Israeli troops while visiting the grave of the woman killed at the start of the video. The man immediately is brought to "heaven" where he is rewarded with several white-robed "maidens," including the original woman he was mourning.

A suicide bomber's prayer

"This recurring image of the martyr being rewarded by receiving the Maidens (is) part of the multifaceted Palestinian Authority campaign glorifying and encouraging terror, and promoting suicide terror as idyllic," states a PMW report.

PMW cites other recent instances in which Palestinian television encouraged suicide terrorism for the reward of paradise ripe with beautiful women.

In one recent video, a Palestinian about to blow himself up among Jewish civilians is depicted reciting a prayer hoping for "paradise."

"Angels of mercy, escort our souls to Heaven after we fulfill this duty of crushing the descendents of monkeys and pigs. Dear father and mother, blessings of honor and respect to you, while you escort me to the Maidens of Paradise as a Martyr," states the soon-to-be suicide bomber.

'All sins are forgiven'

In a sermon broadcast on PA television, Ismail al-Radouan, a prominent Palestinian sheikh, declares, "When the Shahid meets his maker, all his sins are forgiven from the first gush of blood. He is exempted from the torments of the grave; he sees his place in paradise, he is shielded from the great shock, and marries 72 Dark Eyed (Virgins)."

While the first report of a jihadist training camp emphasized the presence of foreign fighters, these are more domestically oriented, focusing on indoctrinating Somali youth. From AP: "Islamic militia to open 'holy war' camps in Somalia"

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- The hard-line Islamic militia that controls much of southern Somalia said Tuesday it will open training camps in schools to prepare students for holy war, an ominous development amid fears that a Taliban-style regime is emerging in eastern Africa.

[...]

Tuesday's announcement of holy war training camps was the militants' latest attempt to discourage foreign interference in the country. Last month, seven African countries, known by the acronym IGAD, endorsed a plan to send 3,500 Ugandan and Sudanese soldiers here.

"Our policy is to fight against countries in IGAD who are our foes," said Fuad Mohammed Kalaf, the Islamic group's education official. He said the training camps in high schools will be established soon but officials were still working out the details.

"There is nothing wrong with our plan to train students," he said. "There are a lot of countries in the world that carry out such exercises."

A few days ago Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations was on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show to discuss Pope Rage, and Carlson did a fairly good job pressing him on some points -- although Hooper was so combative that Carlson twice had to calm him down and reassure him that he agreed with him.

At the end of the segment, however, after he got Hooper to tell the Saudi government that execution for apostasy was wrong, Carlson challenged Hooper on CAIR's receiving money from the Saudi government. Hooper declared: "To my knowledge we don't take money from the government of Saudi Arabia."

Well, I know that Ibrahim Hooper words his statements as carefully as the Pope does, as in the memorable incident when Hooper told Rachel Neuwirth about allegations that CAIR supported Hamas and Hizballah: "CAIR does not support these groups publicly." So I'm not quite sure how to take this new statement. Does he mean that they don't take money from the Saudi government, but from individual Saudis? Or that CAIR may take money from the Saudi government, but if it does, no one is telling Ibrahim?

Your guess is as good as mine, but here is some information about the connections between CAIR and Saudi Wahhabis.

According to Frank Gaffney:

The Saudis have been key financiers of CAIR activities and projects for years. For example, the Weekly Standard reported in June 2003 that the construction of the Council’s Washington, D.C. headquarters was subsidized by a $250,000 grant from the Islamic Development Bank, an international financing organization based in Jeddah and run by a Saudi national, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali.

American Libraries gratefully reported in February 2003 that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $500,000 to a CAIR project that aims to put Wahhabi Islamic reading materials in public libraries across the United States. Given the January 2005 Freedom House report that documented the placement by Saudi Arabia in American mosques of officially published and disseminated materials that are rabidly anti-semitic, anti-Christian and pro-jihadist, we would be foolish to view the CAIR/Saudi library initiative as a gift-horse.

Finally, no less a source than the Saudi Gazette declared in November 2002 that the World Association for Muslim Youth (WAMY) – a government-funded organization responsible for radical, Wahhabi proselytizing and recruitment – gave financial support for a 2002 CAIR weekly advertising campaign in American publications. This gift to CAIR alone was valued at $1.04 million.

And from Daniel Pipes:

A couple of items from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington concerning its support for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are worth noting and pondering. The first dates from August 15, 1999, and is listed under "IDB Approves New Projects Worldwide":

President of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Dr. Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ali announced today that the bank has approved a number of new grants for Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries worldwide. These include U.S. $395,000 to build a school in Tanzania, $250,000 as a contribution to the purchase of land in Washington DC to be the headquarters for an education and research center under the aegis of the Council for American Islamic Relations, and $30 million for Islamic associations in India.

For those not familiar with the Islamic Development Bank, it appears to be an international institution but is in fact an arm of Saudi foreign policy.

Pipes has more info at the link.

Remember, as Warith Deen Muhammad put it: "In Saudi Arabia it's the Wahabi school of thought...and they say, 'We're gonna give you our money, then we want you to...prefer our school of thought.' That's in there whether they say it or not. So there is a problem receiving gifts that seem to have no attachment, no strings attached."

An update on this story from The Daily Telegraph, with thanks to TD:

THREE Indonesian Christians who were on death row for inciting violence against Muslims in 2000 were executed by firing squad, their lawyer said.

"They have been executed. Their bodies are now undergoing an autopsy at the police hospital," lawyer Roy Rening said.

Mr Rening said he was informed of the executions of Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marianus Riwu by the prosecutors office in Palu, the capital of religiously-divided Central Sulawesi province, where the men were being held....

A spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI said the executions were a "defeat for humanity".

Yes.

And there have been several occasions since then when the threat might have been profitably renewed, given the widespread support in Pakistan for the jihad, even at the highest levels of the Musharraf government. "CORRECTED: U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9/11: Musharraf," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said that after the September 11 attacks the United States threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with America's war campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday, said the threat came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and was given to Musharraf's intelligence director.

"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf said.

"I think it was a very rude remark."

Rude, eh? Well, Pervez, you'll have to pardon Armitage. He may have been a bit wrought up after 3,000 office workers went to work one morning and ended up meeting a horrible death at the hands of believers in an ideology that you have done little or nothing to eradicate.

Enraged over the Pope's suggestion that Islam might be violent, Islamic clerics and scholars demand his removal and threaten jihad violence if their demand goes unheeded. Pope Rage Update from AP:

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — About 1,000 Muslim clerics and religious scholars meeting Thursday in eastern Pakistan demanded the removal of Pope Benedict XVI for making what they called "insulting remarks" against Islam.

Benedict "should be removed from his position immediately for encouraging war and fanning hostility between various faiths" and "making insulting remarks" against Islam, said a joint statement issued by the clerics and scholars at the end of their one-day convention.

The "pope, and all infidels, should know that no Muslim, under any circumstances, can tolerate an insult to the Prophet (Muhammad). ... If the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences," it said.

The meeting was organized by the radical Islamic group Jamaat al-Dawat, which runs schools, colleges and medical clinics. In April, Washington put the group on a list of terrorist organizations for its alleged links with militants fighting in the Indian part of Kashmir....

The clerics and religious scholars said they did not regard Benedict's latest comments as an apology.

"The pope has neither accepted his mistake, nor apologized for his words," it said.

The statement also said jihad was not terrorism and that "Islam was not propagated with the sword, but it became popular and was accepted by the oppressed peoples of the world because of its universal values and teachings."

"Jihad is waged to rid an area, state, or the world of oppression, violence, cruelty, and terrorism, and bring peace and relief to the people. History is full of incidents where Muslims waged jihad to provide relief to people of many faiths, especially Jews and Christians," it said.

For this relief, no thanks.

But he didn't mention that the Mahdi will make war against Islam's enemies and Islamize the world. "Iran leader's U.N. finale reveals apocalyptic view: Ahmadinejad evokes return of messianic Islamic 'madhi,'" from WND:

WASHINGTON – While most of the reporting and analysis of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the U.N. focused on what he had to say about the West and specifically the U.S., his chilling closing remarks were lost on most listeners – and apparently all reporters.

The last two paragraphs of his remarks revealed his steadfast and driving conviction, as previously reported in WND ,that a messianic figure, known as the "Mahdi" to Muslims, is poised to reveal himself after an apocalyptic holocaust on Earth that leaves most of the world's population dead.

"I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet," Ahmadinejad said. "Oh, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause."

With Iran on the verge of producing nuclear weapons and already in possession of sophisticated medium-range missiles, mystical pre-occupation with the coming of a Shiite Islamic messiah is of particular concern because of Iran's potential for triggering the kind of global conflagration Ahmadinejad envisions will set the stage for the end of the world.

Ahmadinejad is on record as stating he believes he is to have a personal role in ushering in the age of the Mahdi. In a Nov. 16, 2005, speech in Tehran, he said he sees his main mission in life as to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance."

According to Shiites, the 12th imam disappeared as a child in the year 941. When he returns, they believe, he will reign on earth for seven years, before bringing about a final judgment and the end of the world....

Ahmadinejad and others in Iran are deadly serious about the imminent return of the 12th imam, who will prompt a global battle between good and evil (with striking parallels to biblical accounts of "Armageddon"). Some interpretations of the events that precede his coming include a war that wipes out most of the world's population....

Ahmadinejad made reference to the Mahdi in his first speech to the U.N., too. He called on the "mighty Lord" to hasten the emergence of "the promised one," the one who "will fill this world with justice and peace."

Read it all.

Abu Bakar Bashir, whose outrageous utterances we have covered here since the beginning, didn't specify which naked women he meant. "Alleged Indonesian terror chief says naked women worse than Bali bombings," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Alleged terror leader Abu Bakar Bashir said TV shows featuring scantily clad women were more harmful than the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, the state news agency reported.

The remarks were likely to anger Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the attacks on two crowded nightclubs.

Likely, but not certain to anger Australia, because Australia is a civilized country that doesn't erupt into violent rage at the slightest imagined provocation.

Bashir, recently released from jail after serving 26 months for conspiracy in the bombings, said images of naked or semi-naked woman on television were sinful and chipped away at the moral fiber of Muslim believers.

"So, if I am asked which is more dangerous, naked women or the Bali bombs, then my reply is of course those women in skimpy clothes," Antara quoted him as saying at a public rally calling for the imposition of Islamic law in Indonesia.

A few observations on Brian Williams' fawning interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Brian Williams: Mr. President, thank you so much. I was interested. You wanted to be able to gesture with your hands while you spoke. What else should Americans know about you as a person, sir?

For pete's sake, what kind of a leadoff question is that? "What is your favorite motion picture, Herr Hitler?"

Ahmadinejad: About me? I'm an individual amongst the many of the Iranian people.

Yes sir, just a humble man of the people.

Williams: You are traveling with your wife on this trip.

Ahmadinejad: Yes.

Williams: May we know anything about her?

Ahmadinejad: She is an Iranian woman. And just as I am an Iranian too.

Williams: All right.

Ahmadinejad: And she is my friend and my companion. And I am her companion.

But not, evidently, her friend.

Williams: Mr. President, you're here as a guest of the United Nations. Under the protection of the United States. What is your message to the American people?

Ahmadinejad: I have talked about this in the past. In the letter I sent to Mr. Bush, I also addressed the American people. We think that the American people are like our people. They're good people. They support peace, equality and brotherhood. They like to see the world in peace. We think that, together, nations can uphold the peace and justice around the world.

Ahmadinejad said in Jakarta in May, but not to Brian Williams in September, that his letter to Bush was an invitation to Islam. Then he confirmed that this was an invitation coupled with a threat, in the Islamic tradition going back to Muhammad (see Sahih Muslim 4294), in his interview with Mike Wallace in August, when he gave Wallace a veiled threat for Bush: "We are all free to choose. But please give him this message, sir: Those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate...."

So Williams could have asked him: does your vision of nations together upholding peace and justice require that they accept Islam? Was your letter to Bush coupled with a threat of violence if the invitation was not accepted? But instead, Williams asked him if he'd like to See Rock City And Beautiful Ruby Falls:

Williams: On that point, sir, you've expressed a desire to perhaps tour and see more of the United States. Do you think that day could ever come?

Ahmadinejad: It might.

Williams: Where would you like to go?

Ahmadinejad: I don't really know that if I am here it's possible to see different parts of America. Right now the time pressures are immense, and I, there's really no time.

Williams: Is there any city or attraction you've...

Ahmadinejad: No. It's the entire country... American people are good people.

Williams: The president of the United States, speaking to the United Nations today, said to the people of Iran, "The United States respects you." But he said, "Your government is using resources to fund terrorists. And pursue nuclear weapons." He said he looks forward to the day when America and Iran can be good friends. And close partners in the cause of peace. How do you react to the statement of the American president today?

Ahmadinejad: We have the same desire, to be together for the cause of world peace. But we have to — see what the impediments are. Is it Iranian forces that have occupied countries neighboring the United States, or is it American forces that are occupying countries neighboring Iran? If Mr. Bush is saying that he can (unintelligible) the distance between the Iranian nation and the Iranian government, he is wrong. I am a normal person. A very average, regular person in Iran. The nation decided that I become the head of the state. The nation and the government are one and single. And together, we share everything. But we too like to rise at a point where we can pursue the cause of world peace. But we have to remove the barrier. That's where the question lies.

So the impediment to world peace, or at least peace between the U.S. and the Islamic world, is America's presence in Iraq. But this of course couldn't be true, since jihad violence predates that presence. But Williams asks him nothing about that either.

Ahmadinejad goes on to excoriate the U.S. for supporting the Iranian revolution, and makes outlandish assertions to the effect that life was worse for Iranians under the Shah than it is now. Williams lets it go by. Even when Ahmadinejad asserts that "from the day one, the U.S. government has been against our nation," Williams doesn't ask him about Carter's enabling of the Khomeini regime, which of course was reciprocated by the hostage crisis of 1979.

Later on the Thug-In-Chief utters a howler for the ages:

Williams: Do you believe the pope is a decent man? And do you accept his words of apology?

Ahmadinejad: I think that he actually takes back his statement. And there is no problem. He should be careful that those who want war do not take advantage of his statements and use it for their own causes. People in important positions should be careful about what they say. What he said may give an excuse to another group to start a war. Where the religion should support peace and brotherhood. Christ was a prophet for peace, as was Moses. And as was the prophet Muhammad.

Speaking of people in important positions being careful about what they say, and not giving anyone an excuse to start a war, how about this one? "I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible." -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, October 2005

But while bypassing all sorts of important questions, Williams makes sure to get in this one:

Williams: Mr. President, this is not a matter of great concern, this next question, but we have gotten used to seeing you in the tan jacket with the zipper. Today, you are dressed differently. Is that jacket a symbol of your standing or upbringing in Iran?

Ahmadinejad: No. It depends on which one I'm more comfortable wearing. And it of course depends on my colleagues and friends, too. I knew that you were going to wear a suit, so I decided to wear this jacket.

A little later comes this:

Ahmadinejad: [...] The time for world empires has ended.

"The world will be in the hands of Islam over the next few years." -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, March 2006

[Ahmadinejad:] ...We never speak of war.

Oh, no. Not war. Just surrender: "If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender."

After retailing Palestinian propaganda, Ahmadinejad defends jihad-martyrdom suicide bombing:

Williams: And you talk about children. You and I are both fathers. Recently in your country, thousands of people have signed up to be part of suicide brigades. How would you feel if your own children chose to do such a thing?

Ahmadinejad: Well, what is your feeling about that? Think if America is attacked. What would you like your son to do? Do you want him to defend America or not? I think you would like your son to defend America. It's the same with our son. When you don't have arms, when you don't have power, what can you do? You will sacrifice yourself for your country. It's not a bad thing. Although we are against war. We hate it.

Oh, I'm sure he does.

Paul Belien makes some interesting observations in the Brussels Journal (thanks to Mackie):

Dr Koenraad Elst, one of Belgium’s best orientalists and an occasional contributor to this website (if I had time I would translate more of his Dutch-language contributions into English), told me last week that he thinks “Islam is in decline, despite its impressive demographic and military surge” – which according to Dr Elst is merely a “last upheaval.” He acknowledges, however, that this decline can take some time (at least in terms of the individual human life span) and that it is possible that Islam will succeed in becoming the majority religion in Europe before collapsing.

I am not a specialist of Islam. Hence, I do not know what to think of this analysis. Perhaps it can be argued that Islam is in agony, and that this is precisely the reason why Muslims reacted so sensitively to twelve, mostly inoffensive, Danish cartoons earlier this year and why they respond in a fury beyond all reason to the words of a 14th century Byzantine Emperor quoted last week by Pope Benedict XVI. The Pope emphasized that he did not approve of the quote, but the reactions of Muslims to the Emperor’s words “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman,” only lends credibility to what the Emperor said.

If a person is incapable of tolerating criticism, including mild criticism, and especially if he perceives criticism where there is none, this is often a sign of this person’s deep psychological insecurity. Rude aggression and wild rage, too, are usually not the normal behaviour of a self-confident person, but rather of someone who knows that he will lose an argument unless he can bully others into silence. Last Sunday, Catholics going to Holy Mass in London’s Westminster Cathedral were confronted by Christophobic Muslims, carrying hate posters such as “Pope go to hell,” “Benedict watch your back,” “May Allah curse the Pope,” “Jesus is the slave of Allah, “Islam will conquer Rome,” and the like. An English blogger has some photos here. What must one make of these Muslim protestors? Do they look like self-assured people?

It looks as if Muslims cannot cope with an open society and the modern globalized world. Should we interpret their aggression – the result of their inability to cope with the world – as a token of strenght, or rather as a sign of inherent weakness – a sign, as Dr Elst says, that the decline of Islam has visibly begun?

Read it all.

Eurabia Alert from the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Two men murdered a six-year-old girl by setting fire to her house to warn her brother off a relationship he was having, a court heard yesterday.

Alisha Begum suffered 95 per cent burns and died after a masked man burst into her home, sprayed petrol around and set it alight. The fire spread so quickly that members of her family had to jump out of upstairs windows to escape.

Birmingham Crown Court heard the attack was planned by Hussain Ahmed, a 26-year-old dentist, and Daryll Tuzzio, 18, after Ahmed found out his 15-year-old sister was seeing Alisha's brother, Abdul Hamid, 21. Yesterday the two men went on trial accused of murder and the attempted murder of nine of the girl's relatives who escaped from the blazing house in Aston, Birmingham.
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Adrian Redgrave, prosecuting, said: "One hears of so-called honour killings though one may wonder how by any stretch of the imagination there can be any honour in what happened here, resulting in the death of a six-year-old child...."

Indeed.

No, not me. Karen Armstrong is the guardian of Islamic extremism, so called because of her recent attack on the Pope and justification of Pope Rage in The Guardian. Here is my response, from this morning's FrontPage (links in the original):

As the global Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent remarks on Islam threaten to eclipse last winter’s Cartoon Rage in irrationality and violence, there has been the usual and by now predictable undercurrent of sympathy on the Left for those breathing threats and murder against the Pope and the West. Notable among the spokesmen for appeasement and accommodation of violent Islamic intimidation was Karen Armstrong, author of the popular books Islam: A Short History and Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.

Armstrong on Monday published a piece in The Guardian entitled “We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam: The Pope’s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.” It is exquisitely ironic that she would term the Pope’s remarks, rather than the Muslim reaction to them, “dangerous” – particularly after a nun in Somalia and a lay Christian in Iraq were murdered in apparent expressions of anger against the Pope. The Pope’s words didn’t kill these people, violent Muslims did; but that fact, and the inappropriate violence of their reaction, forms no part of Armstrong’s calculus. As far as she is concerned, violent Islamic rage against the West, including the rage against the Pope, is all the fault of the West.

From Brian Fairrington (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair)

From Mike Lane (thanks for this and all the rest to Mark)

From Chuck Asay

From Gary Brookins

From J. D. Crowe

This story is very carefully worded, so that it is not clear that the "religious rioters" who set ten "worship centres" ablaze are Muslims torching churches until we are informed that those fleeing the wrath of the "irate youths" were Christians. Apparently the situation in Nigeria is so delicate that even the facts of the case, simply stated, might enflame murderous passions anew.

"Religious rioters torch 10 buildings in Jigawa," from Nigeria's The Guardian, with thanks to Sky:

NIGERIA once again relapsed into sectarian violence yesterday as a band of irate youths went on rampage in Dutse, Jigawa State capital. They looted and set ablaze 10 worship centres.

Although no life was lost, the Police appeared helpless in stopping the rampaging youths.

The anger was said to have been sparked off by an alleged blasphemous comment on Prophet Muhammed by a Christian woman, who reportedly spoke in reaction to a similarly irreverent statement about Jesus Christ by a male Moslem.

As the state capital was thrown into turmoil, Christians and other non-indigenes fled to Police Barracks to escape the wrath of the rampaging youths.

The North-West Zone Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Joseph Hayab, in a telephone call to The Guardian, gave the name of the female Christian as Jummai, a resident of Kaduna.

Hayab expressed surprise that a mere altercation between two people could lead to such wanton destruction in the name of religions.

He said: "This is a heinous crime in the name of religion. Why should some people always think that they have monopoly of violence? At this critical moment in the chequered history of the nation, we need to preach peace and not violence under the guise of defending a religion."....

The Sultan of Sokoto and the spiritual head of Nigerian Moslems, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, also decried the use of religion as a tool for violence. He said: "No religion will support violence, harassment, victimisation and all vices, let alone murdering of innocent people. No religion will encourage segregation, discrimination and suppression."

Roger that.

The Reid incident is giving us a glimpse into the mindset of all too many British Muslims. This kind of story then comes as no surprise.

It is to this case that we owe the memorable and telling phrase, "Keep up the dawah and the psychological warfare."

From the UK's Life Style Extra, with thanks to DFS:

A British Muslim accused of plotting terror attacks against the US Navy appeared in court today facing extradition to the United States.

Syed Talha Ahsan, who turns 27 tomorrow, is also alleged to have been recruiting and raising money for the Taliban and of having US Navy battle plans detailing American warships' vulnerability to terrorist attacks.

He is also alleged to have been in touch with a US Navy enlistee sympathetic to his views and urged him to "keep up the psychological warfare"....

Ahsan was arrested at his Tooting home in July after a court in Connecticut returned a three count indictment alleging terror offences spanning seven years. This followed a long investigation by FBI and customs agents and naval and anti-terror investigators.

US authorities say Ahsan ran websites with another Briton, Babar Ahmad, in an organisation called Azzam Publications, which supported terror groups.

The alleged conspirators, through websites hosted in the US, are said to have provided expert advice for terrorists and helped raise money and recruit personnel for guerrilla groups in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

More Pope Rage. From CNSNews.com, with thanks to DFS:

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - A previously unknown Palestinian Muslim group has threatened to bring destruction and physical harm to the Gaza Strip's small Christian community if Pope Benedict XVI does not issue a detailed apology for remarks he cited linking Islam and violence....

In the disputed West Bank, a total of six churches -- Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Anglican -- were either firebombed or doused with gasoline and set alight. In Gaza City, gunmen fired on a Greek Orthodox church.

A leaflet issued by militants on Tuesday threatened to "target all Crusaders [a term frequently employed by Muslim Arabs to denote Christians] in the Gaza Strip until the pope issues an official apology."

Calling themselves "The Army of Guidance," the group announced that "all centers belonging to Crusaders, including churches and institutions, will from now on be targeted. We will even attack the Crusaders as they sit intoxicated in their homes."

A Christian leader in Gaza City told The Jerusalem Post his community has "appealed to the Palestinian Authority for protection. Christians here are keeping a very low profile and many of them would like to leave the area out of fear for their lives."

Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal told the Associated Press that security forces had been ordered to protect Christian sites, but he did not share the Gaza Christian community's sense of urgency.

"This is a new name and an unknown group. I think this is empty talk," said Abu Hilal.

But Dr. Walid Phares, a professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University, told Cybercast News Service that the name of the group is unimportant.

"These aren't really new organizations. These are the same Salafi (Wahabi) Jihadists, a mix of al Qaeda, Hizbu Tahrir, and elements from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who issue releases at every opportunity they see in 'taking the Jihad worldwide,'" said Phares.

And he doesn't doubt that they "would target Christians, both Western and locals."

The only thing that would keep the group from going on what Phares called a "systematic rampage" against local Christians would be the Hamas government's concern over international repercussions.

Yes, but they have been excused from accountability for so long by the international community, why should they fear repercussions now?

Contrast this to the light sentence given to the jihadist leader Abu Bakar Bashir for his involvement in the Bali bombings. From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

PALU, Indonesia - The execution of three Indonesian Christians on death row for inciting violence against Muslims six years ago loomed Thursday, with security forces on alert amid fears of religious strife.

Police said this week that Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marianus Riwu were to face a firing squad in religiously-divided Central Sulawesi province on Thursday....

The three poor farmers, who have denied charges that they masterminded grisly attacks against Muslims, had initially been scheduled for execution last month but were granted a last-minute stay of execution.

Pope Benedict XVI had sent a plea for clemency to the Indonesian president just hours beforehand, but authorities in the world’s most populous Muslim nation denied any link.

Rights activists have raised concerns about the fairness of their trial and complained that few others have been convicted for violence that rocked Central Sulawesi in 2000-01, leaving those most responsible on the run....

Islamic groups have urged the government to proceed with the executions, but Indonesia’s Christian minority has protested.

About 1,000 people of various denominations took to the streets in Atambua, West Timor, on Thursday, to peacefully protest the executions and pray, police there told AFP by telephone.

Amnesty International on Wednesday said it was “deeply disappointed” to hear about the planned executions, which would be the first carried out in Indonesia since May 2005, according to the group.

Supporters of the trio fear that their case has become politicised and linked to the case of three Islamic militants who are on death row for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.

You are paying the Jizyah, along with all American taxpayers.

Like it or not, believe it or not, you have been paying the Jizyah. You're paying Jizyah to Egypt. For you have paid a portion of the $60 billion sent to Egypt, which is not and never could be an ally of an Infidel country. The regime of Hosni Mubarak is clever enough at continuing to exploit the memory of Saint Sadat. And decades that regime has been engaged in a kind of blackmail, so that the American government keeps allowing itself to believe that it must continue to fund Egypt -- or else.

Or else what? What can Egypt do that it is not already doing? It is a world center of antisemitism and anti-Americanism. The media campaigns against the United States have caused the Egyptians to be among the most hostile to Americans -- the source of that $60 billion -- of any people in the world. Egypt has failed as well to live up to any of the solemn promises it made to Israel in the American-brokered, or rather, Carter-and-Brzezinski-brokered, Camp David accords. Carter and Brzezinski did have plenty of help from a whole rogue's gallery: Gary Sick, William Odom, and so on. All of them were around in those days to help hector the Israelis into giving Sadat whatever he preposterously demanded. Since when does the victor in a series of wars have to beg and sue for peace from the loser? Since Israel became the victor in question, that's when.

James Lileks nails it (thanks to Doc Washburn for the link).

If you mock Islam with a drawing or a novel, you get riots and dead people. News of mishandled holy books yields riots and dead people. Insufficiently reverent short films by a Dutchman yields a dead person, specifically the Dutchman.

Now we add this detail: Quoting medieval religious colloquies is a reasonable justification for burning churches, shooting a nun and holding up signs demanding that the pope convert to Islam or saw off his own head. (There have been reports of carpal tunnel syndrome among radical Islam's enforcers, and they have requested we all help out.)

This is a new twist: Now history itself cannot be discussed. Since it's difficult to predict what else will enflame the devout, Islam has to be treated with unusual deference, like a 3-year-old child with anger management problems.

But it's not what we say that truly offends. It's what we are. The West's lack of interest in joining the Ummah is an affront in itself, and we broadcast our sins in High Infidelity. If you believed that the West's apostasy was an affront to God, you'd spend your leisure hours torching straw popes too.

Progressives at home and abroad seem oddly unconcerned. "Islamophobia," after all, is just a product of the BushCo junta's relentless fearmongering, and Benedict is the Nazi pope who personally swipes the condoms from people's bedroom drawers.

But it's an inconvenient truth, to coin a phrase, when the ranters show up with vibrating uvulas demanding the pope's assassination. (Would they be satisfied with a docudrama version? It would go over big at Cannes.)

Read it all. Read it again. Pass it around.

Mark Malloch Brown, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, is akin to a British civil servant in 1941 still urging "compromise with the limited aims of Mr. Hitler." He is yesterday's man, at the shell, the League-of-Nations lookalike, known still, ridiculously, as the "United" Nations.

Lately there has been much miching mallecho from Malloch Brown -- and far worse, far more dangerous to the safety of Infidels everywhere. His absurd recent remark that Hizballah "is an organization, however, whose roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda" is complete nonsense.

Brent Bozell III speaks truth to power about Islam and the media's double standard:

There are moments where it becomes painfully apparent that the media elites think that the only thing redeeming about Western culture is its ability to regret its existence. Their dream president is a lip-biting man from Arkansas, traveling the globe apologizing for every historic fault, real or imagined, America has ever committed.

This was exactly their mentality with Pope Benedict XVI over his remarks at the University of Regensburg. One wonders if any of his critics had bothered to read his address, the theme of which was the inseparability of faith and reason.

He quoted a Byzantine emperor -- who argued that God could never countenance the coercive violence of radical Islam, and therefore a radical Islam invoking God is irrational. Lost on the outraged was the other argument posed by Benedict: A religion that embraces reason but not faith is also bankrupt. That message was directed at radical Catholics. His call was for a serious and urgent "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions" based on faith and reason.

You would think that this call for a religion based on love and peace, not force, would ring well in peace-loving liberal newsrooms. But this lecture was ignored by the secular press until Muslim riots and threats broke out. Then, predictably and incredibly, the media demanded apologies -- but only from the pope. They treated him like a bumbling candidate for political office, a man too unschooled in the art of public relations, which they know so well. They called him "heavy-handed" and "clumsy." They auditioned on TV and radio shows to explain how the pontiff could be less "tone deaf."

They did not ponder how Muslim violence, from assassinating a nun in Somalia to blowing up Canadian solders in Afghanistan as they hand out candy to children, might be, to say the very least, "tone deaf."

This mind-numbing double standard was set perfectly (and ridiculously) by the New York Times editorial page on a sleepy Saturday, which lamented the pope's desire for a "uniform Catholic identity," which is "not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue." These people seem to have no clue that the holy father's first duty is to maintain a Catholic Church that is united and true to its historical roots. His first duty is to defend an ancient deposit of faith and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. This, to the sages of the New York Times editorial board, is an inherently offensive mission -- exclusive, intolerant, conservative.

Read it all.

No, Ahmadinejad didn't say that. It was his buddy Hugo Chavez, who seems all too ready to make common cause with the global jihadists: "Chavez Says U.S. Empire Will Soon Fall, Calls Bush 'Devil,'" from AP, with thanks to Rob:

UNITED NATIONS — The United States will soon lose its place as leader of the world, and the United Nations is a broken organization that is beyond repair, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday.

“The United States empire is on its way down and it will be finished in the near future, inshallah," Chavez told reporters, ending the statement with the Arabic phrase for "God willing."

Not only Muslims, but also many Arabic-speaking Christians use this phrase, but in context, it is unlikely that Chavez was intending to reach out to Christians.

Background here: Los Angeles: Hizballah apologist to get "human relations" award. Kudos to Steven Windmueller for showing some backbone.

Meanwhile, in a most telling admission, Commission President Adrian Dove says, "We were looking to find anybody from the Muslim community that was discouraging terrorism" -- and the best they could come up with was Maher Hathout.

"Firestorm grows; past recipient returns his own award," from the LA Daily News, with thanks to LGF:

The firestorm over the county Commission on Human Relations' decision to honor a local Muslim who has called Israel an "apartheid state" intensified Tuesday when a former recipient returned his award.

Steven Windmueller, interim dean of Hebrew Union College and a 1995 honoree, said the commission's selection of Maher Hathout denigrated the legacy of the award's namesake, John Allen Buggs.

"Buggs understood the art of negotiation, the value of integrity and the need for transparency. These themes should, in my judgment, reflect those who are so honored to receive this recognition. Sadly, I return this piece of art as my statement that in this instance the Commission has not met the standards set for us by John Allen Buggs," Windmueller wrote in a letter included with the award, which he returned by mail Tuesday afternoon.

Hathout, a 70-year-old retired cardiologist, was known as a bridge builder locally. But last month, his sharp criticism of Israel was publicized, outraging many of L.A.'s largest Jewish organizations....

Commission President Adrian Dove said it was unfortunate Windmueller had decided to return his award, which he received for work with the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

"We were looking to find anybody from the Muslim community that was discouraging terrorism, that was encouraging engagement in the dialogue and that was a potential bridge. While you may not have perfection, it is a starting point you can build upon," Dove said.

"I challenge you to find another party in Los Angeles who is a practicing Muslim leader who would be less controversial."

Well, what does that tell you, Dove? Must we be so desperate to find moderate Muslims that we'll settle for anything?

Thomas Hamza Muhammad Haidon is a Muslim reformer in New Zealand. He here offers a series of provocative observations on the recent murder of his friend Mohammed Taha in Sudan, and the prospects for reform in Islam.

The Islamist junta of Sudan is often considered the second most despotic republic in the Muslim world. An Islamically based regime since 1983, the central government in Sudan has been responsible for the wholesale murder of hundreds of thousands of black Christians and animists in Southern Sudan, and is undertaking a second genocide in the region of Darfur. The sources of Islam (along with a literalist interpretation of those sources) have served as the primary roadmap for these events. Political dissension in Sudan (and most Muslim states) is often equated with religious dissension, and far too often leads to accusations of blasphemy and apostasy. The purpose of this essay is to highlight (not necessarily memorialise or eulogise) a recent victim of this trend, and to discuss the impact and repercussions for the West and Muslim liberals of failing to respond accordingly to the burgeoning wave of Islamically inspired violence, which is becoming increasingly organised and sophisticated.

Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Taha and the Muslim Brotherhood

On 4 September 2006, Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Taha, the chief editor of the independent Sudanese daily Al-Wifaq, was kidnapped and later beheaded, presumably by terrorists sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. By all accounts, Ahmed was an Islamist. He was a founding member of the National Islamic Front (NIF), which established the murderous Islamist regime in Sudan, and also established close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. In his capacity as journalist and editor, on a number of occasions he both supported and challenged the government’s position on a number of issues. On a number of occasions he challenged the treatment of the peoples Southern Sudan, supported the liberalisation of shariah’ [Islamic law], questioned the regime’s brutal tactics in the West and criticised the economic direction of Sudan. However, in 2005, Ahmed as publisher undertook the measure that would unleash an irreversible and deadly chain of events by commissioning an article that dared to question the ancestral lineage of the Prophet Muhammad. At the time of publication, it is said that Ahmed vehemently criticised the article, but nonetheless printed it in the spirit of discourse.

As a consequence of the publication, thousands of Islamists from Khartoum Itnein to Khartoum As-sharq converged on the central Court in Khartoum, calling for the had’ [punishment] of death for Ahmed for the crime of blaspheming the Prophet, and for the crime of murtad’. Despite apologies and immediate retraction, Ahmed was prosecuted for blasphemy and apostasy by the government, which sought the penalty of death. Leading the charge was the notorious Musa Mohamed Ali, a prosecutor well known in Sudan for his penchant for apostasy prosecutions. While the government of Sudan has attempted to shift responsibility of the killing to Al-Qaeda, it is well known on the ground that the Muslim Brotherhood (with which myopic Western commentators have implored Western governments to engage) is responsible.

"John Reid should not come to a Muslim area, we do not want to see him." So evidently Abu Izzadeen does not accept British sovereignty over East London.

"Barracked" is the Queen's English for "jeered" or "heckled." "Reid barracked during speech to Muslims," from the Times Online, with thanks to Churchill:

The Home Secretary was barracked by a protester as he tried to address a hand-picked audience of Muslims in East London today in which he called on parents to monitor their children for signs of brainwashing by extremists.

John Reid was midway through a speech in which he urged Muslims to do more to root out potential terrorists when he was interrupted by a man identified as Abu Izzadeen.

Mr Izzadeen, a well-known Islamic extremist who has been investigated over remarks about the July 7 suicide attacks, brought a young boy with him into the meeting and said his aim was to disrupt John Reid’s speech.

He shouted down the Home Secretary, calling him a tyrant and yelling: "How dare you come to a Muslim area when you have arrested so many Muslims in this area."

Mr Izzadeen, a Muslim convert also known as Omar Brookes is said to be a former spokesman for the radical Islamic group al-Ghurabaa, an offshoot of al-Muhajiroun - both of which are now banned in the UK.

He came to public prominence last year after refusing to condemn the 7/7 London bombings, instead, describing the attacks as "Mujahidin activity" which would make people "wake up and smell the coffee".

That's sedition. It ought to be identified as such.

"I am furious I am absolutely furious - John Reid should not come to a Muslim area, we do not want to see him. John Reid, Tony Blair and George Bush’s crusade can all go to hell," he said today during Mr Reid’s speech.

"You all know as Muslims that we are treated as second class citizens," he shouted to the crowd. "How many Muslims have been arrested?"

How outraged this must make him, since he believes that it is the dhimmis who ought to be treated as second-class citizens, not Muslims. But seriously, he displays admirable chutzpah in praising the 7/7 bombers and then complaining that Muslims are being arrested.

Still shouting, Mr Izzadeen was ushered from the hall by a number of police officers and continued to address journalists outside as Mr Reid picked up the thread of his remarks. Minutes later though, a second protester again interrupted, shouting: "Enemy of Islam" and holding up placards reading, "John Reid Go To Hell" and "John Reid. You will pay."

Now there's a helpful sign of good will from the British Muslim community.

The Home Secretary had been expecting a tricky reception, and in a sign of the tension surrounding his visit, the precise location of today's meeting, in Leyton, East London, not far from the scene of the botched police raid in Forest Gate and the arrest of several suspects in connection with last month's alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners, had been kept secret.

Mr Reid defined the Government's campaign against terrorism as a contest of values rather than a battle of religions or ideologies, and he said that mainstream Islam shared a host of common values with rest of British society.

Anjem Choudary disagrees. See below.

He said that the values shared by Britain's Muslim community and the rest of the country were "deep and enduring and worth fighting for", adding that terrorists were not Muslims "in the true sense of the word".

Is that really for him to say? Isn't it for Muslims in Britain to prove by their actions? But we're still waiting for that.

He went on: "They are militants who seek to achieve their aims through the forces of terror and violence. They cloak their language in the rhetoric of Islamic teachings, but they behave in ways that contradict the very principles of the Islamic faith.

"They believe that the West is evil and that all modern values are corrupting to Muslims, when in fact, it is they who are wicked and ruthless and they who are corrupting young Muslim minds.

Urging parents to be on the lookout, he said: "There is no nice way of saying this. These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings. Grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others."...

Among others protesting today was Anjem Choudary, who objected to the insinuation that Muslim children may be brainwashed.

He said: "Muslims do not need British values. We believe Islam is superior, we believe Islam will be implemented one day. It is very rich for you to come here and say we need to monitor our children when your Government is murdering people in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"Muslims do not need British values. We believe Islam is superior, we believe Islam will be implemented one day." This is a call to replace British law with Sharia. If British officials have no problem with that, they should indeed not resist terrorism and non-violent efforts directed toward impose Sharia. But if they don't want to see Britain become an Islamic state, then they see such statements as seditious.

One of the older local residents attending the speech at Leyton Youth Centre was 55-year-old Shankat Khan, who welcomed the fact that Mr Reid had made the visit but said that it was very narrow to suggest that it was just Muslim children who were being targeted.

"What about the British parents? What about the Afro-Caribbean parents? We are as worried as other parents are but we need to be part of a wider society," he said....

What about British and Afro-Caribbean parents? Where are the British and Afro-Caribbean terrorists?

Responding to the Home Secretary's article in The Sun, the editor of the Muslim News said Mr Reid's comments were "worse than looking for reds under the bed", a reference to anti-communist witchhunts in America during the 1950s.

"The Home Secretary is generating a new climate of fear against Muslims, by not only suggesting they are all potential terrorists, but appears to be also trying to divide Muslims families," said Ahmed J Versi.

I wonder if Mr. Versi would be so kind as to provide us with a reliable way to distingish Muslims who are potential terrorists from those who are not.

Commenting on Mr Reid’s words, Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney General, said: "While John Reid’s remarks are relevant, he is in danger of repeating what the Prime Minister has already said; that Muslim extremism is a problem for the Muslim community. He needs to realise that it is a problem for all of us."...

"The Government has not shown itself able or willing to do the grinding, difficult work of eradicating the root causes of this problem."

And of course, Muslims themselves have no responsibility whatsoever to do any work on this problem. It's all up to the government.

No reasons given for the search, but it may be linked to this. "FBI Raids Mo. Islamic Leader's Home," from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- FBI agents searched the home of a prominent Islamic community leader and Iraq war critic, a bureau spokesman said, declining to reveal any reasons for the search.

A dozen agents searched the home of Shakir Abdul-Kaf Hamoodi and his wife on Monday, FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said. Agents removed boxes and computer equipment throughout the day, neighbors said....

Federal agents on Monday also raided the offices of a Southfield, Mich., Muslim charity organization, Life for Relief and Development, where Hamoodi has worked.In that raid, the warrants were based on a criminal assertion, but the affidavits were sealed, William Kowalski, an assistant special agent in the FBI's Detroit office, told the Detroit Free Press.

The Michigan charity's head of legal services, Ihsan Alkhatib, said the agents are investigating whether the charity conducted business in Iraq before the 2003 war in violation of legal sanctions against the country.

Alkhatib said the organization "did everything by the book."

Lanza declined to discuss whether the Michigan and Missouri searches were connected.

Hamoodi, 54, is a former University of Missouri engineering professor who now owns an international grocery store. He said he has worked as a paid organizer and fundraiser for the organization for several years. He said he cooperated fully with federal investigators.

"They came in, asked questions, I told them the answers and they left," he told the Columbia Missourian.

Hamoodi, who grew up in Iraq but has lived in Columbia for 21 years, has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and recently had his home defaced with graffiti.

The search came three days after bureau officials met with Muslims at a local mosque to try to improve community relations.

Bad dhimmi! How dare John Reid suggest that Muslims take some responsibility for violence committed in the name of Islam! What is he, some kind of Islamophobe?

From the Daily Mail, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The Home Secretary has urged Muslim parents to watch out for signs that their children are being groomed to become suicide bombers. John Reid told them they must regard their youngsters as potential recruits for firebrand preachers.

His extraordinary comments came in a speech to a specially invited Muslim audience at an east London location which was kept secret for security reasons. "There is no nice way of saying this," he said in a passage warning about the danger from extremist clerics.

"These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children for suicide bombing, to kill themselves in order to murder others. Look for the tell-tale signs now and talk to them before their hatred grows and you risk losing them forever. In protecting our families we are protecting our community."

His remarks were condemned by some Muslim leaders, who accused him of wanting parents to spy on their sons. Ahmed Versi, editor of the Muslim News, criticised Mr Reid, saying he was asking parents to inform on their children and implying that all Muslims were potential terrorists. It would generate a "new climate of fear" against Muslims, he said.

But meeting a 60-strong audience, hand-picked from London's Pakistani, Bangladeshi and north African communities, Mr Reid will suggest that some Muslim families turn a blind eye to danger signs. "I know it's not easy," he said. "I'm a parent of two boys and I know how hard it is to raise children and to know everything about them. "And I know how hard it is, sometimes, to see what is in front of our eyes - particularly when it is something that we do not agree with.

"But there are some circumstances when we need to intervene; when we need to challenge or confront their behaviour in order to protect them from others and to protect them from harm."

Carey continues to veer from anti-dhimmitude to dhimmitude and back again. "Carey backs Pope and issues warning on 'violent' Islam," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.”...

Lord Carey, who as Archbishop of Canterbury became a pioneer in Christian-Muslim dialogue, himself quoted a contemporary political scientist, Samuel Huntington, who has said the world is witnessing a “clash of civilisations”.

Arguing that Huntington’s thesis has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

Lord Carey went on to argue that a “deep-seated Westophobia” has developed in recent years in the Muslim world....

Lord Carey, who has continued to work in interfaith collaboration since his retirement in 2002, said that the relationship between Islamic countries and the West was “the most dangerous, most important and potentially cataclysmic issue of our day.” He described the two civilisations as “polarised and uncomprehending” and said that the Danish cartoons controversy last March showed “two world views colliding in public space with no common point of reference”.

He said the West had been largely responsible for “redrawing the map of the Middle East” and it was the “moral relativism of the West” that has outraged Muslim society. Most Muslims believe firmly that the invasion of Iraq is 2004 was solely about oil, he said.

He went on to defend the Pope’s fundamental thesis, that reason and religious faith can be compatible. “The actual essay is an extraordinarily effective and lucid thesis exploring the weakness of secularism and the way that faith and reason go hand in hand,” he said.

He said he agreed with his Muslim friends who claimed that true Islam is not a violent religion, but he wanted to know why Islam today had become associated with violence. “The Muslim world must address this matter with great urgency,” he said.

Where, oh where, can we find that true Islam?

Someone is asleep at the switch over at CAIR. You'd think with all their money, they'd be able to hire some help to monitor the foes of jihad more closely, but for some reason only yesterday (thanks to D. C. Watson for the heads-up) did CAIR get around to noticing Boston Globe writer Cathy Young's three-month-old hit piece in Prejudice magazine (aka Reason magazine) on Jihad Watch and Hugh Fitzgerald (as well as Little Green Footballs and Michelle Malkin).

CAIR, of course, did not inform its minions that I replied to Cathy Young and had an exchange with her. Unlike some others, we believe in free speech, and so you can find links to all of Cathy Young's original pieces, as well as my replies, here, here, and here.

I suppose Cathy Young is proud of herself today, as her work has proven so useful to a group of which several members have been arrested and convicted of various terrorism-related activities, and which no longer contests Anti-CAIR's characterization of it as a "terrorist supporting front organization" that "wishes nothing more than the implementation of Sharia law in America" and was "founded by Hamas supporters which [seek] to overthrow Constitutional government in the United States and replace it with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection."

What's more, for all of CAIR's professed anti-terrorism, it has never answered lingering questions about where it really stands in relation to jihadist activity, and has trumped up anti-Muslim hate crimes, apparently in order to manipulate American public opinion.

Brava, Cathy. You are proving to be very useful.

"Recently, Sondhi urged negotiations with the separatists in contrast to Thaksin's hard-fisted approach." Yeah, those origami were pretty tough.

"Thai Military Launches Coup, Takes Power From Prime Minister Thaksin," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Across the capital, Thais who trickled out onto barren streets welcomed the surprise turn of events as a necessary climax to months of demands for Thaksin to resign amid allegations of corruption, electoral skullduggery and a worsening Muslim insurgency in the south. Many people were surprised, but few in Bangkok seemed disappointed.

A few dozen people raced over to the prime minister's office to take pictures of tanks surrounding the area. "This is exciting. Someone had to do this. It's the right thing," said Somboon Sukheviriya, 45, software developer snapping pictures of the armored vehicles with his cell phone.

Thaksin recently alienated a segment of the military by claiming senior officers had tried to assassinate him in a failed bombing attempt. He also attempted to remove officers loyal to Sondhi from key positions.

Sondhi, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, will serve as acting prime minister, army spokesman Col. Akarat Chitroj said. Sondhi, well-regarded within the military, is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation.

Sondhi, 59, was selected last year to head the army partly because it was felt he could better deal with a Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, where 1,700 people have been killed since 2004. Recently, Sondhi urged negotiations with the separatists in contrast to Thaksin's hard-fisted approach. Many analysts have said that with Thaksin in power, peace in the south was unlikely.

Two considerations about this:

1. There were warnings in November 2003 to Muslims to leave major American cities. For whatever reason, they came to nothing. I am not saying this is another empty threat -- I have no information on it one way or the other -- but when Ibrahim Hooper leaves the country, I'll really be concerned.

2. Hamid Mir may be entirely correct, but he is just one source. There is no way to verify what he is saying at this point.

From WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The new al-Qaida field commander in Afghanistan is calling for Muslims to leave the U.S. – particularly Washington and New York – in anticipation of a major terror attack to rival Sept. 11, according to an interview by a Pakistani journalist.

Abu Dawood told Hamid Mir, a reporter who has covered al-Qaida and met with Osama bin Laden, the attack is being coordinated by Adnan el-Shukrijumah and suggests it may involve some form of weapon of mass destruction smuggled across the Mexican border.

"Our brothers are ready to attack inside America. We will breach their security again," he is quoted as saying. "There is no timeframe for our attack inside America; we can do it any time."

As WND has previously reported, el-Shukrijumah is a trained nuclear technician and accomplished pilot who has been singled out by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to serve as the field commander for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil....

"He is an American and a friend of Muhammad Atta, who led 9/11 attacks five years ago," said Dawood. "We call him 'Jaffer al Tayyar' (Jafer the Pilot); he is very brave and intelligent. (President) Bush is aware that brother Adnan has smuggled deadly materials inside America from the Mexican border. Bush is silent about him, because he doesn’t want to panic his people. Sheikh Osama bin Laden has completed his cycle of warnings. You know, he is man of his words, he is not a politician; he always does what he says. If he said it many times that Americans will see new attacks, they will definitely see new attacks. He is a real mujahid. Americans will not win this war, which they have started against Muslims. Americans are the biggest supporters of the biggest terrorist in the world, which is Israel."...

"We have a different plan for the next attack," he told Mir. "You will see. Americans will hardly find out any Muslim names, after the next attack. Most of our brothers are living in Western countries, with Jewish and Christian names, with passports of Western countries. This time, someone with the name of Mohamed Atta will not attack inside America, it would be some David, Richard or Peter."

He said there will be another audio message from bin Laden aired within the next two weeks.

Mir reportedly interviewed Dawood Sept. 12 at the tomb of Sultan Mehmud Ghaznawi on the outskirts of Kabul. Dawood and the al-Qaida leaders who accompanied him were clean-shaven and dressed as Western reporters. The al-Qaida commander had contacted Mir by cell phone to arrange the meeting.

"You have witnessed the brutality of the Israelis in the recent 34-day war against Lebanese civilians," said Dawood. "9/11 was a revenge of Palestinian children, killed by the U.S.-made weapons, supplied to Israel. The next attack on America would be a revenge of Lebanese children killed by U.S.-made cluster bombs. Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair are the Crusaders, and Muslim leaders, like (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf and (Afghani President Hamid) Karzai are their collaborators. We will teach a lesson to all of them."...

"Muslims should leave America," said Dawood. "We cannot stop our attack just because of the American Muslims; they must realize that American forces are killing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq; we have the right to respond back, in the same manner, in the enemy's homeland. The American Muslims are like a human shield for our enemy; they must leave New York and Washington."

Mir, the journalist, has reported previously that al-Qaida has smuggled nuclear weapons and uranium into the U.S.

"I am saying that Muslims must leave America, but we can attack America anytime," he said. "Our cycle of warnings has been completed, now we have fresh edicts from some prominent Muslim scholars to destroy our enemy, this is our defending of Jihad; the enemy has entered in our homes and we have the right to enter in their homes, they are killing us, we will kill them."

From Reuters:

Author Salman Rushdie (C) poses with fellow honorees Salim Mansur (L), Tashbih Sayyed (2nd L), Wafa Sultan (2nd R) and Nonie Darwish before the American Jewish Conference's 30th Annual Dinner, 'Profiles in Courage: Voices of Muslim Reformers in the Modern World,' in Beverly Hills, California, September 17, 2006. Rushdie was presented with the organization's highest honor, the Stephen S. Wise Humanitarian Award, during the event. REUTERS/Chris Pizzello (UNITED STATES)

Congratulations, Tashbih, and congratulations to all these courageous people. I had the honor of speaking on a panel with Nonie Darwish in Los Angeles last week, and she is doing immensely valuable work, as is Wafa Sultan. I look forward to the day in which you are all lionized by Muslim groups around the world.

And the American media gives him a free pass about his genocidal statements regarding Israel, and the statements by other Iranian leaders threatening to construct nuclear weapons. From DPA:

New York - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the United States and Britain late Tuesday as 'hegemonic powers' undermining the UN Security Council's credibility and effectiveness.

The much-anticipated address by the Iranian leader to the United Nations General Assembly offered no solutions to the dispute over his country's nuclear activities. Instead, Ahmadinejad blasted United States for waging the war in Iraq and Israel for occupying Palestinian territories.

He said that no organization in the UN can resist the will of the US and Britain, two of the five Security Council permanent members, along with Russia, France and China.

'Regrettably, the persistence of some hegemonic powers in imposing their exclusionist policies on international decision-making mechanisms, including the Security Council, has resulted in a growing mistrust in global public opinion, undermining the credibility and effectiveness of this most universal system of collective security,' he said.

As long as the Security Council is unable to act on behalf of the international community, it 'will never be legitimate nor effective,' Ahmadinejad said.

His country's nuclear activities are 'transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors.' He charged that the governments objecting to Iran's nuclear programme are themselves benefiting from nuclear energy.

'Some of them have abused nuclear technology for non-peaceful ends including the production of nuclear bombs, and some even have a bleak record of using them against humanity,' he said.

And he should know. Agca also called upon the Pope to resign. It seems as if almost everyone in the world, including Western leaders who should know better, wants him to bow before Islamic intimidation in one way or another. From the Evening Standard, with thanks to Mackie:

Pope Benedict faces a growing chorus of demands to make an unequivocal apology for remarks seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, despite attempts by Western leaders and churchmen to defuse the crisis.

The calls came as it emerged papal hitman Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981, has written to Pope Benedict XVI from jail, warning him not to go to Turkey as planned in November in the light of his remarks.

Agca, a Turk gave his ominous warning in a letter to an Italian daily newspaper....

In his two page letter to leading Italian Rome based daily La Repubblica, Agca, who was a member of the Turkish terrorist cell the White Wolves, wrote: "Pope Ratzinger listen to someone who knows these things very well.

"Your life is in danger. You absolutely must not come to Turkey. Pope Benedict you must know that between 1980 and 2000 I was in contact with various Western intelligence services and with the Vatican.

"In those twenty tears I learnt many things and I came into possession of many classified secrets."

The letter closed with Agca imploring Pope Benedict to resign for his own safety he wrote: "For your own welfare you must make a grand gesture of honour and resign.

"Then you must return to your native land (Germany) and in your place an Italian cardinal can be elected Pope, possibly (cardinal Dionigi) Tettamanzi or (cardinal Tarcisio) Bertone.

"Then the Vatican should become a centre of peace and fraternity. The world has a need of this it does not need hatred and vendetta."

The hatred and vendetta is coming only from one side, Agca.

Because the global jihad is advancing on many fronts, not all involving terrorism or violence, a strong military is not the only thing we need to defeat it. But it is -- especially when properly deployed -- an indispensable prerequisite. I have been reminded of this while reading Don't Tread On Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting by H. W. Crocker.

This book is not only briskly and brightly written, as are all his books, but it underscores the essential decency of the American fighting forces -- a fact we need to affirm unapologetically today in the face of jihadist propaganda, and as one principal manifestation of the superiority (yes) of the culture and civilization that we are defending.

By reminding the world of the nun's murder, the Pope intentionally or unintentionally puts the focus back where it should be: not on those whose words hurt others, which includes all of us at one time or another, but on those who kill because they are hurt by the words of others. From the Telegraph via the New York Sun, with thanks to Ruth King:

ROME — Pope Benedict condemned the killing of an Italian nun in Somalia, whose death has been blamed on a backlash by Muslims offended by his contentious speech last week.

Sister Leonella, born Rosa Sgorbati, 65, was shot in the back in Mogadishu last Sunday, a day after the Vatican issued a statement of regret for the worldwide uproar that followed the pope's decision to quote a 14th-century emperor who called Islam "evil and inhuman."

The pontiff said yesterday that Sister Leonella had been "barbarously killed" but expressed hope that her "spilled blood would become the seed of hope to build a real relationship between people." In a telegram of condolence to the nun's missionary order, Benedict XVI said he deplored "every form of violence" and that there should be more "respect for each other's religious beliefs."

Three people have now been arrested in Somalia for Sister Leonella's murder, although one accomplice is still on the run. The head of security for the Islamic party currently running Mogadishu, Sheik Yusuf Mohamed Siad, said the motive for the killing is still unclear.

President Bush and Secretary of State Rice underlined their support for the pope yesterday, as Western leaders rallied to defuse the crisis.

President Bush said Benedict XVI had been "sincere" in his apology, while Ms. Rice said the pope had a "love for humanity." She tried to portray the pope's use of the quote during a speech at Regensberg University as a naïve slip. "We all need to understand that offense can sometimes be taken when perhaps we do not see it," she said.

Of course he was sincere. He just wasn't apologizing for anything but that he had been misunderstood, and that those who misunderstood him took their misunderstanding to violent extremes.

But in any case, it is unseemly for Bush and Rice to be hastening to assure the Islamic world that the Pope's apology was sincere. In doing this they are both acting as if he did something that was actually wrong, which he did not, and that the Muslim response to his words was reasonable, which it wasn't. Instead, they should both be saying that the Muslim response of violent protests and killings is outrageous and intolerable, and that the protestors should find something more important to be upset about. Or even better, they should concentrate on trying to live productive lives as decent human beings.

We are moving to a new server, and things may be a little weird for awhile.

(Yes, I know that many articles are "Not Found." We're working on it!)

Thanks for your patience.

Classic Islamic law stipulates that Christians may live in peace in Islamic societies as long as they accept second-class status as dhimmis, which involves living within certain limits: not holding authority over Muslims, paying the jizya tax, not building new churches or repairing old ones, and...not insulting Allah or Muhammad. If they believe that a Christian has insulted them in some way, even inadvertently, his contract of protection -- dhimma -- is voided.

And now Musharraf is using Pope Rage to call for the UN to compel non-Muslims to submit to Muslim standards and restrictions on their speech, thought, and behavior.

"Pakistan calls for ban on 'defamation of Islam' in veiled attack on pope," from AFP, with thanks to Warren:

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf called for a ban on the "defamation of Islam" in a speech to the UN General Assembly in which he took a veiled swipe at Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks linking the Muslim faith to violence.

"We also need to bridge, through dialogue and understanding, the growing divide between the Islamic and Western worlds," Musharraf told the 192-member assembly. "It is imperative to end racial and religious discrimination against Muslims and to prohibit the defamation of Islam."

And in an indirect reference to Pope Benedict XVI, he added: "It is most disappointing to see personalities of high standing oblivious of Muslim sensitivities at these critical moments."

The irony meter has shorted out from overload.

From Israel National News, with thanks to Tom:

Muslims in Hamas-controlled Gaza have formed an ad hoc terrorist group promising to attack Christian targets to avenge the Pope’s choice of a quotation insinuating that Islam is prone to violence.

The group, which calls itself the “Army of guidance,” sent an announcement to news agencies based in Gaza saying that “every place relevant to Christians will be a target until the cursed infidel – the Vatican – apologizes to Muslims.”...

Last Friday, the 1,400 year old St. Perfidious Greek Orthodox church in Gaza was among seven Christian targets burned or vandalized throughout PA-controlled areas....

Perfidious indeed.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to notify you before it happened, but I just finished a marathon two-hour segment of the Michael Medved Show, debating Jeff Siddiqui of American Muslims of Puget Sound. You can still catch it in many places, including on a Podcast at Medved's site.

Where are the human rights advocacy groups on this? From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite militias are encouraging children — some as young as 6 or 7 — to hurl stones and gasoline bombs at U.S. convoys, hoping to lure American troops into ambushes or provoke them into shooting back, U.S. soldiers say.

Gangs of up to 100 children assemble in Sadr City, stronghold of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, and in nearby neighborhoods, U.S. officers said in interviews this week.

American soldiers have seen young men, their faces covered by bandanas, talking with the children before the rock-throwing attacks begin — and sometimes handing out slingshots so the volleys will be more accurate, the troops said.

"It's like a militia operation. They'll mass rocks on the last or second-to-last vehicle" in a U.S. patrol, said Capt. Chris L'Heureux, 30, of Woonsocket, R.I. "There's no doubt in my mind that they're utilizing these kids in a deliberate, thought-out way."

Al-Sadr's followers insist they are not organizing attacks by children.

"Such behavior by Iraqi children is spontaneous and the natural reaction from innocent children who are witnessing horrible deeds committed by the occupation forces in Iraq," Ali al-Yassiri, an aide to al-Sadr, told The Associated Press.

Sure, Ali. Tell me another.

Excellent observations from Anne Applebaum in, of all places, the Washington Post :

...we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

CAIR, eh? Once again: don't hold your breath, Anne.

The restoring of "order" by the Islamic courts in Somalia recalls the Restoration of Order after the supposed chaos and confusion (otherwise known as life itself, so damn messy without the Ordnung of the Totalitarian State) of the Weimar Republic. Watching of sports – strengst verboten. Playing of sports, also haram, unless participation in them is related to skills needed for Jihad. Here is how Al-Qaradawi, in his widely-read “The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam” (Al-Halal wal Haram fil Islam) puts it:

“There are many kinds of games and sports which the Prophet (peace be on him) recommended to the Muslims as a source of enjoyment and recreation which, at the same time, prepare them for worship and other obligations. These sports, which require skill and determination, and which also involve physical exercise and body-building activity, are related to the amrtial arts, training Muslims for the battlefields of jihad in the cause of Allah. Among them are the following.”

Al-Qaradawi then goes on to mention foot racing, wrestling (Abdullah’s sport at Deerfield), archery, spear play (not yet a varsity sport), and hunting (all those rich Arabs who go bustard-hunting in Pakistan, and elsewhere in Asia, consistently ignoring all the laws designed to conserve certain species). Even paintball, if it improves one's aim (a skill that could be transferred to guns) would -- as a substitute encouraging the same skills -- would be okay.

CNN astutely notes that the game appears to use the engine and many graphics from id Software's 1993 landmark title Doom. It may be a simple coincidence or a matter of the availability of the game platform (or that the game designers in question are writing on 1990's-vintage PCs). But on the other hand, the storyline of the original title and the sequels that followed -- that of a lone fighter taking on the minions of Hell, partly to save humanity, and partly to avenge his fallen comrades -- significantly parallels the jihadist mindset, especially among lone attackers like Mohammed Taheri-azar and Naveed Haq.

In any event, the game is another example -- like pro-jihad rappers -- of attempts to graft jihadist ideology onto pop culture, and by associating itself with something "cool," turning the medium at hand into a vehicle for indoctrination and incitement.

From the SITE Institute (images available at their page): "'Night of Bush Capturing' A Computer Shooting Game from the Global Islamic Media Front"

A first-person perspective computer game called "Night of Bush Capturing," was released to jihadist forums today, Friday, September 15, 2006, by the Global Islamic Media Front, a jihadist mouthpiece, and visual and print media organization. The game, which is a modification of an older game, "Quest for Saddam," features six-levels, culminating in a gun battle with a character representing U.S. President George W. Bush. Each of these stages, given titles such as: "Jihad beginning," "American’s Hell," "Searching for Bush," and "Bush hunted like a rat," contain a Mujahid with several weapons traveling around a U.S. forces’ camp, which is covered with pictures of Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. War nasheeds, jihadist songs, play in the background of each level. Upon completion of the game, "Takbir Allahu Akbar" is shouted.

The Global Islamic Media Front announced recently the game with a video trailer and images of in-game action. According to the advertisement, the game was distributed for "terrorist children".

This sort of thing is the fate of all too many would-be Muslim reformers in Muslim countries. Expect CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper and other "moderate Muslim" leaders in the U.S. to speak out forthwith on behalf of Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. But don't wait up. From Asian Tribune, with thanks to Twostellas:

Dhaka, 19 September, (Asiantribune.com): At approximately 1:30 PM Bangladesh time, a judge ruled that the government would begin its sedition trial of journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, possibly within fifteen days.

Choudhury is the Muslim journalist who was arrested by the Bangladesh government in 2003. He was imprisoned under often deplorable conditions and tortured after angering the government and radicals by warning his country about the rise of Islamist terrorism there, urging Bangladesh to recognize Israel, and advocating interfaith understanding and religious equality.

I received this kind email from a Muslim reader of Jihad Watch recently, and he has just given me permission to publish it on this site. We get so much hate mail in our Jihad Watch mail bags that it is refreshing and humbling to receive a message like this one.

Dear Mr. Spencer,

I have been reading your articles for quite some time.

I wanted to send you a private note, to let you know that I have come to have an extremely high regard for you, and the work that you do. I struggle to find anyone who can claim the same level of intellectual
honesty.

As one who is always searching for truth, your articles have begun to change my views on religion and politics.

I was raised a British Muslim. I held all of the stereotypical anti-western and anti-Israel views that I am sure you are familiar with.

However, after working and living in the US for some years, I have come to realize that all that I was told about Americans, were largely untrue. They are the kindest and most generous people I know.

I began to study the history of the founding fathers, and the great tradition of Liberty, on which America was founded. It was a revelation for me. I only wish that our Muslims knew more of the great contribution to civilization that was made by Jefferson, Washington, Adams and many others.

Whenever I return to my native England, I consider myself a humble ambassador of sorts. I tell my fellow Muslims that I have seen no people more friendly to peaceful Muslims, than Americans.

We might not have the same political views. I am against the Iraq war. I'd prefer to live in a Republic, as opposed to a Democracy. But through writings like yours, I find myself evermore informed and hence my own views constantly evolving. I see now that there is no room for today's Islam in any form of government, that Muslims complain far too much about being victims, and that we Muslims have a far greater responsibility to deal with the problems internal to our religion and culture.

I hope that you will continue to write, in the same manner that your many readers have come to admire. I hope that you will accept my humble thanks for all of the hard work you have put into informing readers, like me.

Anti-dhimmitude from D. C. Watson:

Once again, words have been spoken, or in this case quoted, sending the perpetually unhinged Muslim world on the warpath. The response to Pope Benedict's recent speech in Germany, in which he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor's negative opinion of Islam's founder Muhammad, was again self-defeating and destructive, and has come with the standard practice of Islamic leaders demanding an apology. An apology for what?

The quote: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

As the world has witnessed Muslims go wild over rumors of a Qur'an being dropped into a toilet, and over cartoons of their "prophet" Muhammad that were created and published in a Danish newspaper, it was all but a sure bet that that the Islamic world would come unglued over the Pope's recent address, as Islamists have hit the streets in protest against the truth.

Some Muslims will not be satisfied until the Pope actually becomes a Muslim. The Pope's first "invitation" to Islam came from Gaza. Now another comes from Qaddafi's son -- who challenges Benedict on the faith-and-reason grounds of the pontiff's original speech. "Pope asked to convert to Islam," from AFP, with thanks to Ray:

Tripoli - The elder son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has called on Pope Benedict XVI to convert to Islam immediately, dismissing last week's apology from the pontiff for offending Muslims.

"If this person were really someone reasonable, he would not agree to remain at his post one minute, but would convert to Islam immediately," Mohammed Gaddafi told an awards ceremony on Monday evening for an international competition to memorise the Qur'an.

"We say to the pope - whether you apologise or not is irrelevant, as apologies make no difference to us."

Gaddafi junior also hit out at "those Muslims who look for comfort in the words of a non-Muslim".

He said Muslims "should not look for charity from the infidel... but should fight Islam's enemies who attack the faith and the Prophet Muhammad".

Where on earth did Mohammed Gaddafi get that idea? I expect he will soon be receiving a strongly-worded letter from Ibrahim Hooper.

Some Muslims will not be satisfied with the Pope until his apology is sufficiently abject, his dhimmitude sufficiently secured. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

ANKARA, Turkey - Muslims in Turkey, Iraq and the Palestinian territories demanded Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI make a clear apology for his remarks on Islam, instead of saying only that he was "deeply sorry" that Muslims had taken offense.

The prime minister of Malaysia, which chairs the world's biggest Muslim bloc, said that Benedict's expression of regret was acceptable.

In Turkey, protesters said Benedict must make full amends before a planned November trip that would be his papacy's first visit to a Muslim nation.

"Either apologize, or do not come," read a banner carried by a group of demonstrators from a religious workers' union.

Iraq's parliament also rejected Benedict's explanation of his remarks, saying it was insufficiently clear.

The parliament "demands the pope take practical steps to restore respect to the Islamic world and its religion, and a clear-cut apology for what he said," lawmakers said in a statement read at a press conference.

Iraq's Parliament might consider doing their own bit to "restore respect to the Islamic world and its religion," by moving decisively and actively against violence committed daily in Iraq in the name of Islam. No, don't hold your breath.

As promised in last week's Publishers Weekly interview with me, this week's issue contains "a contrasting view of Muhammad and Islam," courtesy of Amir Hussain, author of a new introduction to Islam intended for a Christian audience, entitled Oil & Water: Two Faiths, One God.

RBL: What do you have to say about author Robert Spencer's assertion (RBL Q&A Sept. 6) that Muhammad founded the world’s most intolerant religion?

Hussain: The Muhammad that he describes is not my Muhammad.

Very well. But the Muhammad I describe is the Muhammad of the earliest biographers of the Prophet of Islam: Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa'd, as well as of the hadith collections Bukhari and Muslim, which Muslims generally consider most reliable. So if Amir Hussain's Muhammad is not this Muhammad, from where is he drawing his information?

RBL: Do you think he faces danger in writing a biography of Muhammad? And do you, in writing this book, put yourself in peril?

Hussain: If the book puts me in peril, it’s only because it puts me in touch with a larger audience. I think there might be people that are offended by the portrayal Spencer makes of Muhammad. Is there danger? Yes, there is. Will it happen? Probably not in North America.

I appreciate Amir Hussain's concern, and invite him to undertake large-scale efforts to convince his coreligionists that his benign picture of Muhammad is the accurate one, and that it is imperative for the survival of civilization itself that criticism even of Muhammad and Islam be allowed with no violent response.

Daniel Pipes hits the nail on the head in the New York Sun:

...The head of the Benedictine order, Abbot Notker Wolf, said the pope's quote was "a blatant allusion to Ahmadinejad," Reuters reported. Vatican insiders told the London Sunday Times that Benedict "was trying to pre-empt an aggressive letter aimed at the papacy by the president of Iran, which was why he cited the debate involving a Persian."

First reflection: Benedict has offered elusive comments, brief statements, and now this delphic quotation, but he has not provided a much-needed major statement on this vital topic of Islam. One hopes it is in the offing....

Second reflection: This new round of Muslim outrage, violence, and murder now has a routine quality. Earlier versions occurred in 1989 (in response to Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses"), 1997 (when the U.S. Supreme Court did not take down a representation of Muhammad), 2002 (when Jerry Falwell called Muhammad a terrorist), 2005 (the fraudulent Koran-flushing episode), and this February (the Danish cartoon incident)....

Third reflection: The Muslim uproar has a goal — to prohibit criticism of Islam by Christians and thereby to impose Shariah norms on the West. Should Westerners accept this central tenet of Islamic law, others will surely follow. Retaining free speech about Islam, therefore, represents a critical defense against the imposition of an Islamic order.

Hear, hear. Read it all.

Srdja Trifkovic eulogizes my late and much-missed friend Oriana Fallaci at Chronicles:

Of course she prompted countless howls of rage from coast to coast and from one side of the Atlantic to another, among the degenerates, cowards, masochists, madmen, and villains. (Christopher Hitchens, who is all of the above, has described Fallaci’s work as “a sort of primer in how not to write about Islam.”) They can relax now, and write mean-spirited obituaries of this “controversial author” who’s been “harshly criticized” for “inciting hatred against Islam.” She will be sorely missed by those of us who know what she knew, and who abhor what she abhorred.

Read it all.

I myself answered those "degenerates, cowards, masochists, madmen, and villains" in the person of Boston Globe writer Cathy Young, who may be none of those things but is certainly a blinkered dhimmi, here, here, and here.

Alas, we will not soon see another like you, Oriana.

In FrontPage this morning Andrew Bostom provides some illuminating background to Pope Rage (many news links in the original):

When Manuel II composed the Dialogue (which Pope Benedict excerpted), the Byzantine ruler was little more than a glorified dhimmi vassal of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, forced to accompany the latter on a campaign through Anatolia. Earlier, Bayezid had compelled the Byzantines under Manuel II to submit to additional humiliations and impositions—heavier tribute, which was already onerous—as well as the establishment of a special quarter in Constantinople devoted to Turkish merchants, and the admission of an Ottoman kadi to arbitrate the affairs of these Muslims.

During the campaign he was conscripted to join, Manuel II witnessed with understandable melancholy the great metamorphosis—ethnic and toponymic—of formerly Byzantine Asia Minor. The devastation, and depopulation of these once flourishing regions was so extensive that often, Manuel could no longer tell where he was. The still recognizable Greek cities whose very names had been changed into something foreign became a source of particular grief. It was during this unhappy sojourn that Manuel II’s putative encounter with a Muslim theologian occurred, ostensibly in Ankara.

Manuel II’s Dialogue was one of the later outpourings of a vigorous Muslim-Christian polemic regarding Islam’s success, at (especially Byzantine) Christianity’s expense, which persisted during the 11th through 15th centuries, and even beyond. The Muslim advocates’ (particularly the Turks) most prominent argument was the indisputable evidence of Islam’s military triumphs over the Christians of Asia Minor (especially Anatolia, in modern Turkey). These jihad conquests were repeatedly advanced in the polemics of the Turks. The Christian rebuttal, in contrast, hinged upon the ethical precepts of Muhammad and the Koran. Christian interlocutors charged the Muslims with abiding a religion which both condoned the life of a “lascivious murderer”, and claimed to give such a life divine sanction.

Manuel, and generations of Christian interlocutors, argued that the “Christ-hating” barbarians could never overcome the “fortress of belief,” despite seizing lands and cities, extorting tribute and even conscripting rulers to perform humiliating services. Manuel II’s discussions with his Muslim counterpart simply conformed to this pattern of polemical exchanges, repeated often, over at least four centuries.

Read it all.

I just got a call from a friend, telling me he was listening to CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper on an Atlanta radio station, and that Hooper named Jihad Watch in complaining about "Islamophobia."

Of course, he has done this in print as well.

As I have said before, the idea that we are provoking "Islamophobia" by reporting on jihad violence, but Muslims are not provoking it by committing those violent acts, is laughable. I again invite Hooper to consider matters for a moment from the infidel point of view. Here he is defaming Jihad Watch freely on America's airwaves, wringing his hands about "Islamophobia" and posing as a victim, when in fact several members of his organization have been arrested and convicted of various terrorism-related activities, and his organization no longer contests Anti-CAIR's characterization of CAIR as a "terrorist supporting front organization" that "wishes nothing more than the implementation of Sharia law in America" and is a group that was "founded by Hamas supporters which seeks to overthrow Constitutional government in the United States and replace it with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection."

Don't think infidels haven't noticed the dichotomy there, Ibrahim. For I believe that you, Mr. Hooper, are one of those who are responsible for the anger some non-Muslims feel toward Muslims today: these non-Muslims are not fools. They can see through posturing and disingenuousness. They see all the things that don't tally with your professed anti-terrorism, and see that you have never answered lingering questions about where your organization really stands. They can see how you trump up anti-Muslim hate crimes. But of course, I doubt any of this will cause you concern: after all, you are entirely willing to use that anger for your own purposes, with radio talk show hosts as your willing dupes.

I think it may be useful at this point to repeat a few suggestions I have made for how Muslims can improve non-Muslim perceptions of Islam and wipe out "Islamophobia" once and for all:

1. Focus your indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

Do those five things, Ibrahim, and voila! "Islamophobia" will vanish.

A new Fjordman essay:

Although not a religious person myself, I am usually in favor of a revitalization of Christianity in Europe. However, I sometimes have my doubts when I see how many, too many, church leaders consistently end up on the wrong side of issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration.

Bat Ye'or claims that dhimmitude in the Middle East has often progressed because Christian leaders have sold out their own people, either for short-term personal gains or in the mistaken belief that they have a "shared religious heritage" with Muslims. It is also frequently Christian leaders and bishops in the West who are calling for open borders for poor, destitute Muslims because "it is the Christian thing to do."

From "An evening with Ann… and Lynn," in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with thanks to Mackie:

First, Coulter found herself in the uncharacteristic position of being upstaged by her introducer, Mike Gallagher.

He told the audience he was fresh back from an hour-and-45-minute session which President Bush held in the Oval Office Friday afternoon with him and four other conservative talk show hosts: Atlanta’s Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t make it, he said.

Though he said this session was supposed to be off the record, Gallagher described it at some length, including Bush’s observation to the right-wing radio jocks that the War on Terror has to be about right versus wrong, “because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose.”

Fair enough. Certainly Christianity as such doesn't seem to have the unity, will, or moral strength for such a conflict right now. But the jihad is advancing not just against Christians. This is an opportunity for President Bush to call for a coalition of all the actual and potential victims of jihad violence and oppression -- Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims who reject the jihad ideology of conquest and subjugation, atheists, whatever -- to join together to defend the civilization of the West and universal human rights. There are many things about which we all disagree, but at this point we need to unite simply in order to survive. We can sort out our disagreements later.

I will not, however, be expecting Bush to do this anytime soon.

A superb New York Sun Editorial:

Hardliners in the war on Islamic extremist terrorism have long called for it to be treated as a war rather than a law-enforcement issue. Yet by allowing, in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of an Axis regime to come to New York and stay on Park Avenue at the Intercontinental Hotel The Barclay, President Bush is signaling that he's less than serious in his approach to a regime he marked, at the outset of his presidency, as evil. Those who recognize the Iranian threat are left with the law-enforcement option. Police Commissioner Kelly, District Attorney Morgenthau, or any enterprising federal prosecutor or G-Man has a perfect opportunity at hand to seize Mr. Ahmadinejad and to hold him as a material witness or even as a suspect. Years ago the Jewish Forward newspaper made a similar argument in respect of the Hafez al-Assad of Syria. It didn't happen, of course, and the Syrian occupation of Lebanon grew worse until the murder of Rafik Harari and the new outbreak of war.

An ample American legal record already holds the Iranian government responsible for terrorist attacks by Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As our Josh Gerstein reported on April 3, dozens of rulings, many of them by a federal judge in Washington, Royce Lamberth, have found Iran civilly liable for murders; courts have made verdicts against Iran totaling about $6 billion. A December 2003 fact sheet from the Republican Study Committee in the House of Representatives lists at least 52 Americans murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since 1993. Many of the victims are New Yorkers, and Iranian funding and training figured in many of the attacks, according to American and Israeli government and non-government reports on terrorist organizations.

Mr. Bush himself said earlier this month, "The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their willingness to kill Americans." The president said that Hezbollah, which Iran funds with hundreds of millions of dollars a year, is "directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans abroad. It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials."

Read it all.

There will be a protest tomorrow in New York City against the United Nations granting the Thug-In-Chief of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a platform to speak -- despite the fact that he is in violation of the U.N.'s own charter by calling for the total destruction of a fellow U.N. member state.

Please be there if you can.

National Solidarity Rally
Wednesday, September 20
12 Noon, Rain or Shine
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
2nd Ave. at 47th Street
New York City

Timothy R. Furnish, a perspicacious Assistant Professor of History at Georgia Perimeter College and author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden (Praeger, 2005), and with whom I recently participated in a FrontPage Symposium, has some excellent observations on Pope Rage (thanks to Tex):

One might think that Muslims would be offended because the head of the world’s largest Christian denomination considers them, well, unreasonable. But the rent-a-mobs in Gaza and Kashmir are proving the truth of his assertion in that regard. As for the numerous statements by Muslim spokesmen that the pope is “ignorant” of Islam and Islamic history—well, the reality is that they simply can’t handle the truth.

First, Muhammad was not just a man claiming that God spoke through him; he was also a political and military leader. Driven out of Mecca and taking the reins of power in Medina, Muhammad and the Muslims spread their faith not just via da`is (missionaries), but by the sword; in fact, Jews in Medina who refused to accept Muhammad’s prophethood (and who, to be accurate, were accused of plotting against King Muhammad) were killed or enslaved. The conquest of Mecca in 630 CE was accomplished at swordpoint, not by persuasion. The creation of a huge Islamic Empire by the first four caliphs, the Umayyads and the Abbasids (between 632 and the end of the first millennium CE) was carried out via conquest—not by handing out brochures. Granted, Jews and Christians within the Muslim-ruled territories from the Pyrenees to the Indus were not all forced to convert—but the relegation to second-class status known as dhimmah led, eventually, to the majority of people in North Africa and the Middle East converting to Islam.

The initial phase of Islamic conquests resulted in about half the territory of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire switching hands. For several centuries the borders stabilized and the Byzantines ruled a state pushed back into Anatolia and the Balkan Peninsula. But in the 14th century CE a new wave of Muslim jihadists, the Ottoman Turks, were again moving on Byzantine lands. This was the situation facing Manuel II, and no doubt his view of Islam as “evil and inhuman” was in no small measure influenced by watching what was left of his empire disintegrating. (Indeed, less than three decades after his death Constantinople would fall to the Ottoman ruler Mehmet II.) One might ask how many Muslims setting fire to Christian churches, or to effigies of the pope, are even aware of this? I suspect that even if they were, it would make no difference.

For, in the view of some Muslims, it is not unreasonable to spread their religion by violence, for two reasons: 1) it is the final revelation of God to humanity and 2) the Qur’an enjoins it. To paraphrase Dr. Henry Jones (Indiana’s father): “goose-stepping morons like yourselves should be reading your holy book instead of burning churches.” If they did, they would discover that:

* Surah Muhammad [47]:3 says “When you meet the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads….
* Surah Anfal [8]:12 says “I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the tips of their fingers.”
* Surah al-Nisa’[4]:74 says “Let those who would exchange the life of this world for the hereafter, fight for the cause of God….”
* Surah al-Nisa’[4]:56 says “The true believer fights for the cause of God, but the infidel fights for the devil.”
* Surah al-Nisa’[4]:101 says “The unbelievers are your inveterate enemies.”
* Surah al-Ma’idah [5]:51 says “Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends.”

Only in a truly Bizarro world can those passages NOT be an incitement for some to violence, to “evil and inhuman” acts. Are there other passages in the Qur’an mitigating these? Yes.4 But many of these more benevolent passages are also considered by many Muslims to have been abrogated by the more martial ones.

Read it all.

A press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- September 18, 2006 -- Quixotic Media, LLC announced today the upcoming DVD release of the feature documentary, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" -- An examination of Islam, Violence, and the Fate of the Non-Muslim World, following the limited theatrical release in July.

The DVD will be available nationwide on October 17.

As acts of Islamic terrorism have multiplied over the past years, numerous Western leaders have insisted that Islam is a "religion of peace," and that violence committed in its name contradicts the teachings of the Koran and the example of the prophet Muhammad. However, it's rare for this claim to receive serious scrutiny.

Now the question is finally being asked, "Is Islam itself violent?"

Through an examination of the Koran, other Islamic texts, and the example of the prophet Muhammad, this documentary establishes, through a sober and methodical presentation, that violence against non-Muslims is and has always been an integral aspect of Islam. 'Jihad,' while best translated as 'struggle,' as represented in the Koran and the life of Muhammad, means nothing less than organized warfare against unbelievers. Furthermore, Muhammad's life is the sacred and holy model that all faithful Muslims must follow today. Just as Muhammad waged war throughout Arabia in the 7th Century, his followers continued to conquer, enslave, and devastate other peoples and cultures on three continents.

An examination of Islam's doctrines is necessary now in order to understand the motivations of its faithful followers and the present violent conflicts around the globe.

Produced and directed by Gregory M. Davis and Bryan Daly, the film features interviews with noted experts on Islam including Robert Spencer, Serge Trifkovic, Bat Ye'or, Abdullah Al-Araby, and former terrorist Walid Shoebat.

The film running time is 98 minutes and is unrated but does not contain nudity, obscenity, or explicit violence.

John Esposito, the lean, mean, jogger, the recipient of Arab money for his Center (he boasts about that Arab money) of "Muslim-Christian Understanding," which is merely a facade for a group of apologists, with Esposito leading all the rest (Haddad, Voll, and others), attacks the Pope. He deliberately avoids the main point -- is there compulsion in Islam or isn't there? He dodges the issue of whether or not Islam has a long record of using violence, the violence of Jihad, the military conquest of vast territories in which large numbers of culturally much more advanced, wealthier, settled populations -- of Jews and Christians, of Zoroastrians and, later, Hindus and Buddhists -- were subject to at least forced dhimmitude, a condition of permanent degradation, humiliation, and physical insecurity, that naturally would lead some of those enduring this status, in order to escape it, to convert to Islam.

Is that not "compulsion in religion"? And of course there are all the mass murders of conquered non-Muslims, including the 60-70 million Hindus killed, and those who were terrified into, forced into, converting to Islam. Isn't that "compulsion in religion"?

Employees of Turkey's Directorate General for Religious Affairs want the Pope arrested when he sets foot in Turkey -- on the fanciful grounds that he has violated freedom of belief and thought. But they don't evidently think that this violates freedom of belief at all.

"Angry Turk workers urge Pope's arrest during visit," from Reuters, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

ANKARA (Reuters) - Employees of the state body that organizes Muslim worship in Turkey asked the authorities on Tuesday to open legal proceedings against Pope Benedict and to arrest him when he visits the country in November....

Employees of Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, presented a petition to the Justice Ministry asking it to launch a probe into the Pope's remarks and to detain him when he arrives, the Anatolian news agency said.

They said the Pontiff had violated Turkish laws upholding freedom of belief and thought by "insulting" Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.

The protesters held banners that read "Either apologize or don't come."

It is not uncommon for individuals or organizations in Turkey to seek legal action against world leaders whose actions they disapprove of. They have never succeeded.

Benedict is due to pay an official visit to Turkey on November 28-30, his first to a Muslim country since he became Pope.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has described the Pope's comments on Islam as "ugly" but the government has said it still expects the visit to go ahead on schedule.

The Diyanet controls all imams in Turkey, writes their Friday sermons and sends prayer leaders to Turkish communities abroad....

CAIR and other tireless conductors of Da'wa will never send out copies of the Hadith, unless of course they have carefully gone through them and left only the most anodyne or most impenetrable. They will not distribute, either, the life of Muhammad -- that is, the life of Muhammad that Muslims learn about, with the decapitation of the 600-900 bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, the murders of Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak, the marriage to little Aisha, aged nine, the attack on the inoffensive farmers of the Khaybar Oasis, the treachery -- "war is deceit" said Muhammad -- of the treaty made in 628 A.D. with the Meccans at Hudaibiyyah.

But the Qur'an they do distribute. They know that the recipients will scarcely be able to make their way through a work which is so confused, in parts so utterly incomprehensible (as Christoph Luxenberg and hundreds of other Western scholars have noted), so strange to Westerners in its arrangement, with passages that in English (or French for that matter) sound much milder than they are in the original, and of course, simply unlikely to be read all the way through, with proper understanding.

Anti-dhimmitude from Andy McCarthy at The Corner, as he skewers the Rosie-O'Donnell-Moral-Equivalence crowd:

Madd Drudge reports that, to pump up its sweeps-week ratings, NBC will air a Madonna concert in which the, er, maturing pop-diva will spoof ... the Crucifixion. [Hat tip: Steve Malzberg, sitting in today for Bill Bennett at Morning in America.]

Apparently, the show features, "Madonna, wearing a gittered [sic] crown of thorns, descend[ing] on a suspended mirrored, disco ball-type cross[,] singing her hit 'Live To Tell.'"

An NBC exec explained: "We viewed it and didn't see it as being inappropriate." Besides, the artist herself "considered the crucifixion a highlight of her show."

No word yet on any riotings, torchings, shootings, bombings, beheadings or other executions. But you know, with these rascals, it's just a matter of time.

Also, no word yet on whether NBC has considered airing "Submission," a film about the mistreatment of Islamic women. It hasn't been shown yet. You see, it's Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, was brutally murdered in 2004 by a not-so-moderate you-know-what named Mohammed Bouyeri, who pinned the corpse with a note calling for "jihad." (I hasten to add, of course, that, according to Muslim activists now providing sensitivity training to our federal agents, jihad is the peaceful "internal struggle against sin," not, God forbid, "holy war.")

The Iranians are apparently hoping to use Pope Rage to stoke up the world war they've been wanting. "Iranian leader urges more papal protests," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world, and Iran's supreme leader called for more protests over the pontiff's remarks on Islam.

[...]

"The pope's words have caused a deep wound in the hearts of Muslims that won't heal for a long time, and then only after a clear apology to Muslims," Egypt's religious affairs minister, Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, wrote in a column in the government daily Al-Ahram on Monday.

An influential Egyptian cleric, Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, called for protests after weekly prayers on Friday, but maintained they should be peaceful.

Extremists said the pope's comments proved that the West was in a war against Islam.

Al-Qaida in Iraq and its allies said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross," saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose the 'jizya' tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (being killed by) the sword."

Islam forbids drinking alcohol and requires non-Muslims to pay the "jizya" tax, though those who convert are exempt. The tax, sometimes called a head tax, has not been imposed in Muslim nations in about 100 years, though Islamic militant groups have tried to force non-Muslims to pay it on a local level in some countries.

"You infidels and despots, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism, when God's rule is established governing all people and nations," said the statement by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups in Iraq.

Another Iraqi extremist group, Ansar al-Sunna, challenged "sleeping Muslims" to prove their manhood by doing something other than "issuing statements or holding demonstrations."

"If the stupid pig is prancing with his blasphemies in his house," the group said in a Web statement, referring to the pope, "then let him wait for the day coming soon when the armies of the religion of right knock on the walls of Rome."

In Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the comments to call for protests against the United States. He argued that while the pope may have been deceived into making his remarks, the words give the West an "excuse for suppressing Muslims" by depicting them as terrorists.

"Those who benefit from the pope's comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests," he said, referring to the United States.

This morning Bryan Preston published a piece, "When Atheists and Secularists Quote Scripture," at Hot Air, that got blogger Dean Esmay's back up. Esmay has responded to it with a characteristically gracious and well thought-out post entitled "Unbelievabily Pretentious And Tedious Nonsense."

Now, I had some exchanges with Esmay some time ago, and had not intended to revisit his nasty little blog, but he makes some assertions in this that are simply false, and since some people may fall for them, they bear debunking.

Oy vey. The world seems full of silly people today. First, it was Kevin D. and his ridiculous slander of Muhammed (see "A (Re)Definition of Terms" below), and now I see Bryan Preston has an even sillier, and far more pretentious bit of Islamophobic tripe. I should know by now not to engage people who take Robert Spencer seriously, but what the heck.

Esmay never offered the slightest substantive response to my arguments here or here. Instead he continues to snipe -- an easy refuge for the intellectually unarmed.

His argument here is likewise substanceless, where it isn't simply false. The part that stuck out most for me was this:

Furthermore, it is fundamentally wrong to say that a scripture that was written later necessarily takes precedence over verses written earlier. That's utter mumbo-jumbo, and isn't even a Biblical principle let alone a Koranic one.

It is unfortunate actually that Preston has phrased part of his argument this way: "Spencer’s argument is that if any Koranic verses have abrogated any others, then the weight has to be given to the later verses–and they’re the violent ones." That is in fact not my argument, and it certainly isn't based on some principle that later verses necessarily cancel earlier ones, as Esmay misrepresents Preston as saying.

Abrogation in general is in fact a Qur'anic principle ("None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?" -- 2:106), although Islamic theologians have argued and do argue over what material specifically has been abrogated.

Many traditional Islamic theologians and Qur'an commentators argue that the violent verses of sura 9 abrogate more relatively tolerant material such as sura 109. This is not a newly-minted view "cherry-picked" by Osama bin Laden, as Esmay says; it is in fact a very ancient view. When discussing why Muhammad didn't begin sura 9 with the customary invocation bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim, in the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, an intriguing answer comes from a Qur'an commentary that is still highly valued today in the Islamic world, Tafsir al-Jalalayn. This is a fifteenth-century work by the renowned imams Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahalli (1389-1459) and Jalal al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Suyuti (1445-1505). The invocation, suggests this tafsir, “is security, and [Sura 9] was sent down when security was removed by the sword.”

Security’s removal by the sword meant specifically the end of many treaties the Muslims had made with non-Muslims. Another still-influential Qur'an commentator, Ibn Kathir (1301-1372) quotes an earlier authority, Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim, to establish that the Verse of the Sword, sura 9:5 ("slay the unbelievers wherever you find them") “abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater, every treaty, and every term.” He adds from another authority: “No idolater had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah was revealed.” And yet another early commentator, Ibn Juzayy (d. 1340) agrees that one of this verse’s functions is “abrogating every peace treaty in the Qur’an.”

This idea is crucial as a guide to the relationship of the Qur’an’s peaceful passages to its violent ones. Suras 16, 29, 52, 73, and 109 — the sources of many of the Qur'an's verses of peace and tolerance — are all Meccan. That means that many Muslims, guided by commentators such as those above and the imams who teach from them, see these suras only in light of what was revealed later in Medina. Being the last or next-to-last sura revealed, sura 9 is generally understood as being the Qur’an’s last word on jihad, and all the rest of the book — including the “tolerance verses” — must be read in its light.

Ibn Kathir states this explicitly in his commentary on another “tolerance verse”: “And he [Muhammad] saith: O my Lord! Lo! these are a folk who believe not. Then bear with them (O Muhammad) and say: Peace. But they will come to know” (Qur'an 43:88-89). The commentator explains that “say Salam (peace!) means, ‘do not respond to them in the same evil manner in which they address you; but try to soften their hearts and forgive them in word and deed.’” However, that is not the last word on the subject. As Ibn Kathir notes: “But they will come to know. This is a warning from Allah for them. His punishment, which cannot be warded off, struck them, and His religion and His word was supreme. Subsequently Jihad and striving were prescribed until the people entered the religion of Allah in crowds, and Islam spread throughout the east and the west.”

In other words, Muhammad gave peace a chance, with the pacific suras, and then understood that jihad was the better course.

A modern-day Chief Justice of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh ‘Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid, has taught that in the Qur'an, “at first ‘the fighting’ was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory.” He also distinguishes two groups Muslims must fight: “(1) against them who start ‘the fighting’ against you (Muslims) . . . (2) and against all those who worship others along with Allah . . . as mentioned in Surat Al-Baqarah (II), Al-Imran (III) and At-Taubah (IX) . . . and other Surahs (Chapters of the Qur’an).” (The Roman numerals after the names of the chapters of the Qur’an are the numbers of the Suras: Sheikh ‘Abdullah is referring to verses such as 2:216, 3:157-158, 9:5, and 9:29.)

This understanding of the Qur’an isn’t limited to the Wahhabi sect, to which Sheikh ‘Abdullah belongs. The Pakistani Brigadier S. K. Malik’s 1979 book The Qur’anic Concept of War (a book that made its way to the American mujahedin Jeffrey Leon Battle and October Martinique Lewis, and which carried a glowing endorsement from Pakistan’s then-future President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who said that it explained “the ONLY pattern of war” that a Muslim country could legitimately wage) delineates the same stages in the Qur’anic teaching about jihad: “The Muslim migration to Medina brought in its wake events and decisions of far-reaching significance and consequence for them. While in Mecca, they had neither been proclaimed an Ummah [community] nor were they granted the permission to take up arms against their oppressors. In Medina, a divine revelation proclaimed them an ‘Ummah’ and granted them the permission to take up arms against their oppressors. The permission was soon afterwards converted into a divine command making war a religious obligation for the faithful.”

Anyway, back to Esmay.

My objection to those who point to specific verses in the Koran that seem to endorse violence is that they're often quoted out of context. Christians who do that to their own Bible are annoying enough; those who do it to the holy works of other faiths are often practicing slander.

Would Esmay then say that Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, as well as Humaid and Malik are slandering their own faith? This is a widespread understanding within Islam. It is based, quite precisely, upon the context in which the various verses were revealed. Esmay is trying to pretend that Bryan Preston or I made it up, and then charge us with "Islamophobia" for doing so.

There is absolutely nothing anywhere in the Koran which says that it's okay to kill civilians in the name of Jihad--indeed, that's strongly forbidden.

I wonder if Dean Esmay has ever actually read the Qur'an. Anyway, what he is searching for is actually in the Hadith, such as this one that says: "During some of the Ghazawat [battles] of the Prophet a woman was found killed. Allah's Apostle disapproved the killing of women and children."

However, unfortunately in this as in so many other things Muhammad's words cut both ways, for there is also this: "The Prophet passed by me at a place called Al-Abwa or Waddan, and was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans)."

In other words, if you're exposing the pagans to danger, you can expose their civilians to danger also. Certainly there is abundant testimony from Islamic history to show that Muslims understood Muhammad's words here as allowing for action against civilians.

Nor does Esmay even mention the widespread contention among Muslim theologians, even the "moderate" Qaradawi, that civilians aren't civilians at all under some circumstances.

And it absolutely forbids suicide, with no exceptions made for warfare. Which means that everything that suicide bombers do, or that the 9/11 hijackers did, is completely contrary to the plain text of the Koran....

It forbids suicide, but promises Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111). This is the rationale behind suicide bombing. Did I make it up? No, it is commonly quoted by jihadists. Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of Al-Qaeda, quotes it in recounting why he went to Afghanistan to wage jihad. Cherry-picked? Ripped out of context? Contrary to the plain text of the Qur'an? Great. But it's easy for Esmay to convince his credulous readers. It's harder for peaceful Muslims to convince jihadists of this, because the jihadists actually know what's in the Qur'an.

Much is often made, for example, of the fact that Muhammed was a warrior for part of his career. Those who point this out rarely note that almost all of Muhammed's campaigns were defensive in nature; that the one time he endorsed something that we'd consider an atrocity (the murder of the men of a Jewish tribe that had attacked the Muslim community repeatedly) was less horrible than things that Moses endorsed when he was a military leader in the Bible; that all Muhammed's military campaigns were marked by very strict rules against killing innocents; and yes, some were given the choice to become muslims or die, but only those who had repeatedly attacked muslims and violated treaties with muslims were ever forced to make such a choice. In his entire 10 year career as a warrior, Muhammed's body count was probably well under 1,000 total, almost all of it defensive. And once he took control of Mecca from those who'd been attacking his followers, his military career promptly ended. That is what most muslims believe, anyway, and most historians I've read see little reason to dispute it.

Esmay has asserted all this about Muhammad but provides no source citations, so in effect he's asking us just to take his word for it. Well, no thanks. As it happens, I have a book coming out very soon about all this: The Truth About Muhammad. It is entirely based on the earliest sources for Muhammad's life -- all written by pious Muslims. And all it says is just what they say about Muhammad's words and deeds. Anyone and everyone, even Dean Esmay, is invited to go back to those sources and see if I what I say about Muhammad is accurate. Anyway, in tracing Muhammad's career, it illuminates why jihadists invoke his example, and what moderate Muslims must address about that example in order to bring about genuine Islamic reform, instead of the shallow evasion and denial that Esmay and his ilk take for the real thing.

Jihad Watch reader Cindy has alerted me to this story in the Bandar Beacon, aka the Washington Post, and comments: "Mind you, the article is not about how Muslims are increasingly harrassing us -- this is CAIR complaining that there has been a sharp rise in anti-Muslim attacks both on the street and on the Internet. Not that they named names...Too bad I'm not a statistician, otherwise I might be tempted to believe that reported incidents of harrassment would increase in direct proportion to the attacks upon the West by Muslims. Call me a cynic."

On CAIR's trumped-up hate crimes, see this piece by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha.

"Anti-Muslim Harassment Complaints Jump 30 Percent," from the Post:

Complaints of anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment registered with a national Muslim civil rights group jumped 30 percent in 2005 from the previous year, the group said today in releasing its annual report.

The 1,972 complaints made to the Council on American-Islamic Relations are the most the group has received since it began the annual reports following anti-Muslim incidents after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The group said it actually received 2,300 reports but deemed some of them illegitimate.

The number of complaints has continually risen since 1995, but began spiking significantly in 2003, the report said. CAIR officials said the jump between 2004 and 2005 seems to be due to "a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric fed by the Internet and also on talk radio," group spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said at a news conference. "You can't turn on the radio without hearing negative, bigoted comments about Islam."...

The highest number of complaints fall into the "due process" category, said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar; those include complaints such as racial profiling and unreasonable arrest or interrogation. Second are complaints of religious accommodation being denied and third are complaints of employment discrimination, according to the report.

CAIR officials pushed at the conference for law enforcement authorities to investigate complaints thoroughly. Federal officials "do a very good job," at investigating whether crimes such as arson or assault have a religious bias, but "you get more resistance at the local level."

However, the group said some post-Sept. 11 policy initiatives -- including the "infamous" Patriot Act, as the group described the law in announcing the report on its Web site -- have unfairly focused on Muslims. "Muslims take the brunt of it," Hooper said.

Unfortunately, Ibrahim, Al-Qaeda and other groups have also unfairly focused on Muslims in their recruitment efforts. Oddly enough, Al-Qaeda doesn't have too many Presbyterian members.

In an effort to combat ignorance about the faith, CAIR began offering free copies of the Koran and copies of a PBS documentary about the prophet Muhammad earlier this year after deadly rioting about the Danish cartoon controversy. The group said that 30,000 copies of the Koran and 14,500 copies of the documentary have been requested.

Of course, it's always all because of ignorance. If only we were enlightened, we wouldn't notice all the jihad violence all over the world every day.

The Archbishop of Sydney speaks truth to power again. "Pell links Islamists to violence," from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to David:

...Cardinal George Pell says "the violent reactions in many parts of the Islamic world" to a speech by Pope Benedict justified one of the very fears expressed in that address. "They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence," Cardinal Pell said in a statement yesterday.

He described as "unfortunately typical and unhelpful" attacks on the Pope's comments by two local Muslims, Taj el-Din al Hilaly, the Mufti of Australia, and Ameer Ali, from the Government's Muslim advisory committee....

Cardinal Pell begins by saying it is a sign of hope that "no organised violence has flared here in Australia … No one compared the Pope to Hitler or Mussolini (as in Turkey) or called for his murder as Sheik Malin did in Somalia. No group like the League of Jihadists in Iraq promised 'that the soldiers of Muhammad will come sooner or later to shake your throne and the foundations of your state'."

He adds: "Our major priority must be to maintain peace and harmony within the Australian community, but no lasting achievements can be grounded in fantasies and evasions."

He then details his criticisms of Sheik Hilaly and Dr Ali.

"It is always someone else's fault and issues touching on the nature of Islam are ignored.

"Sheik al-Hilaly often responds to criticism by questioning the intelligence and competence of the questioner or critic. So too with the Pope, whose speech he claimed was not what was expected of a holy person and indeed 'the Church needs to re-examine its thoughts about someone who doesn't have the qualities or good grasp of Christian character or knowledge'."

Cardinal Pell said Dr Ali misunderstood the Pope's speech and "called on Pope Benedict to be more like Pope John Paul II than Pope Urban II, who called the First Crusade. In fact the Pope's long speech was more about the weaknesses of the Western world, its irreligion and disdain for religion and he explicitly rejected linking religion and violence. He won't be calling any crusade."

But Cardinal Pell added: "Today Westerners often link genuine religious expression with peace and tolerance. Today most Muslims identify genuine religion with submission (Islam) to the commands of the Koran. They are proud of the spectacular military expansion across continents especially in the decades after the prophet's death. This is seen as a sign of God's blessing. Friends of Islam in Australia have genuine questions, which need to be addressed, not regularly avoided. We are grateful for those moderate Muslims who have spoken publicly."

Sheik Hilaly said Muslims had a right to be angered by the Pope's "veiled and not-so-veiled insults". But he agreed Muslims must answer hard questions and that terrorists misquoted religious texts to justify murders.

Important observations about the Pope Rage in Der Spiegel:

The pope has apologized for the outrage amongst Muslims sparked by his recent comments. But the episode proves once again that criticizing Islam is dangerous.

Twenty years ago in the German city of Bremen, Dutch comedian Rudi Carrell's life depended on police protection. His offense? In a satirical program on German television, he let fly with a lewd joke about the then leader of the Iranian revolution Ayatollah Khomeini. Mass demonstrations in Iran -- orchestrated, no doubt, by the government -- were the result. The threats of violence led to an apology by Carrell, and he never again made a joke about any Muslim -- at least not on television.

In February 1989, the Ayatollah then released a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie for his novel "The Satanic Verses." The book, he and other Muslim leaders claimed, was a grave misrepresentation of Islam. Rushdie's Japanese translator lost his life as a result of the fatwa and Rushdie himself went into hiding, though the Iranian leadership distanced itself from the fatwa in 1998. There remain, however, a number of fanatical Muslims who yearn to see Rushdie dead.

Feminist and Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian who recently left Holland, also lives under threat of murder. In addition to a number of interesting books about the oppression faced by women in the Muslim world, she also wrote the screenplay for the short film "Submission." In one scene, a verse from the Koran -- demanding that women bend to the will of their husbands -- is projected onto a woman's naked body. The film was provocative, and the filmmaker Theo van Gogh paid for it with his life. He was killed on the streets of Amsterdam by a Muslim fanatic.

And then there's Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who a year ago published a series of Muhammad caricatures in his newspaper. Months after they originally appeared, the Muslim world erupted in protest against the drawings. He too must fear for his life.

One thing should be kept in mind, however: The often violent protests that erupted in the Muslim world in the wake of the cartoon controversy have often been manipulated and fuelled by Islamists. The bile currently being flung at the pope is no different.

But the attacks against the pope are especially grotesque. The severe criticism -- often coupled with threats of violence -- directed at the speech held last Tuesday by Benedict XVI is not just an attack on the head of the Catholic Church. The malicious twisting of the pope's words and the absurd allegations made by representatives of Islam represent a frontal attack on open religious and philosophical dialogue.

That so many in the Muslim world joined the protests against the pope merely show just how influential Islamist extremist groups have become. The political goal of the Islamists is clear: any dispute between Christianity and Islam must obey the rules handed down by political Islamism.

Read it all.

More threats and murder, this time in the UK. "The Pope must die, says Muslim," from the Evening Standard, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

A notorious Muslim extremist told a demonstration in London yesterday that the Pope should face execution.

Anjem Choudary said those who insulted Islam would be "subject to capital punishment".

His remarks came during a protest outside Westminster Cathedral on a day that worldwide anger among Muslim hardliners towards Pope Benedict XVI appeared to deepen.

The pontiff yesterday apologised for causing offence during a lecture last week. Quoting a medieval emperor, his words were taken to mean that he called the prophet Mohammed "evil and inhuman".

He insisted he was "deeply sorry" but his humbling words did not go far enough to silence all his critics or quell the violence and anger he has triggered.

A nun was shot dead in Somalia by Islamic gunmen and churches came under attack in Palestine.

Choudary's appeal for the death of Pope Benedict was the second time he has been linked with apparent incitement to murder within a year.

The 39-year-old lawyer organised demonstrations against the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in February in Denmark. Protesters carried placards declaring "Behead Those Who Insult Islam".

Yesterday he said: "The Muslims take their religion very seriously and non-Muslims must appreciate that and that must also understand that there may be serious consequences if you insult Islam and the prophet.

"Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment."

He added: "I am here have a peaceful demonstration. But there may be people in Italy or other parts of the world who would carry that out.

"I think that warning needs to be understood by all people who want to insult Islam and want to insult the prophet of Islam."

As well as placards attacking the Pope such as "Pope go to Hell", his followers outside the country's principal Roman Catholic church also waved slogans aimed at offending the sentiments of Christians such as "Jesus is the slave of Allah".

As I have had occasion to explain many times lately, this accords with Muhammad's instructions to offer non-believers conversion to Islam or dhimmi status, and to fight them if they refused both.

From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Citing the words of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim religious leaders in the Gaza Strip on Sunday warned Pope Benedict XVI that he must "accept" Islam if he wanted to live in peace.

The warning, the first of its kind, came as many Christians in the West Bank expressed anger over a spate of attacks on churches in protest against remarks made by the pope about the Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad.

Two more churches in the West Bank were targeted on Sunday in protest against the pope's remarks, bringing to seven the number of churches that have been attacked over the past three days.

In Tulkarm, arsonists set fire to the only Orthodox church in the area, causing heavy damage to the 150-year-old structure. Local residents said the attack occurred shortly after 4 a.m, when a number of assailants forced their way into the church and tossed several fire bombs into the building.

Some Christian families said they were living in fear because of the attacks and called on the Palestinian Authority to do its utmost to protect churches and Christians.

At a press conference in Gaza City, a number of Muslim clerics said the pope's statements were "the result of his hatred for Islam and not the result of ignorance."

One of them, Dr. Imad Hamto, called on the pope to "repent and ask for forgiveness." He added: "We want to use the words of the Prophet Muhammad and tell the pope: 'Aslim Taslam'" Aslim Taslam is a phrase that was taken from the letters sent by the Prophet Muhammad to the chiefs of tribes in his times in which he reportedly urged them to convert to Islam to spare their lives.

Some Muslim scholars, however, have endorsed a more moderate interpretation of the term, arguing that its real meaning was that those who surrendered to the will of God would find peace.

Hamto and his colleagues accused Christians of "resorting to the power of the sword in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine."

They also called on the pope to direct his words to the Jews who, they claimed, were "spreading corruption and destruction."

Jihadists not mollified by the Pope's disavowal of any agreement with Manuel II Paleologos. "'Jihad' vowed over Pope's speech," from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group led by al Qaeda vowed a war against the "worshippers of the cross" in response to a recent speech by Pope Benedict on Islam that sparked anger across the Muslim world.

"We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said an Internet statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq's branch of al Qaeda.

"We shall break the cross and spill the wine. ... God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome. ... God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen," said the statement.

Trenchant words from the Telegraph, with thanks to Ruth King:

The combination of grievance-nurturing multiculturalism and instant headlines is having a disastrous effect on the worldwide Muslim community. There seems to be no limit to its spokesmen's willingness to voice outrage; and their messages are then picked up by fanatics who mount appalling attacks on Christians in Muslim countries. When was the last time a Muslim leader apologised for such atrocities?

The truth is that barbaric attacks happen weekly. No wonder that Benedict favours an urgent dialogue with Muslims on the subject of religious violence, rather than the usual touchy-feely exchange of compliments.

Well, he has started a dialogue now, albeit not quite in the way that he intended. And it is essential that it continue. A self-abasing apology from the Pope would have postponed that discussion yet again.

We suspect that Western public opinion is not displeased that Benedict has said the unsayable. Now it is time for other churchmen to tell their Muslim counterparts that, in addition to dishing out criticism, they must learn how to take it.

From the Jerusalem Post:

In an official statement presented to Muslim leaders over the weekend, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar expressed sorrow over Pope Benedict XVI's condemnation of Islam.

"I am very sorry about the deprecating things said against Islam," said Amar, in a letter that seemed to put the blame for the turmoil between Muslims and Christians on the shoulders of the Pope.

"Our way is to respect all religions, nations and peoples according to their customs," continued Amar. "As the prophet [Micah] said: 'For let all people walk everyone in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.

"And even when there is a struggle between peoples it is wrong to make it a religious struggle. Love truth and peace.'"

Four words: Jihad fi sabil Allah.

Fruman passed on Amar's statement to Sheikh Abdala Nimer Darwish, head of the Israeli Islamic Movement's moderate wing who relayed it to Sheikh Yusef Darwish, a popular Muslim leader living in Qatar.

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Amar called on both Christians and Muslims to put their differences behind them.

"These are two religions that have millions of followers," said Amar. "If they start quarreling who knows where it will lead. Both must stop the unnecessary talk and actions."

Only after being questioned repeatedly was Amar willing to denounce Muslim violence against Churches in the Holy Land.

"Our Muslim brothers would add respect to their religion if they outdid themselves and overcame the feelings of humiliation."

Sharia Alert from Minnesota: "Airport Check-in: Fare refusals in Minnesota," from USAToday, with thanks to RB:

Minneapolis-St. Paul is concerned that its taxi service is deteriorating. Citing their religious beliefs, some Muslim taxi drivers from Somalia are refusing to transport customers carrying or suspected of carrying alcohol. It started with one driver a few years ago, but the average number of fare refusals has grown to about three a day, says airport spokesman Patrick Hogan. "Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," he says. "Sometimes, several drivers in a row refuse carriage."

Taxi drivers and officials from the airport, taxi companies and the Muslim American Society are discussing how to address the issue. Partly out of concern that taxi drivers might be citing religion to avoid short-distance fares, the airport is now forcing drivers who refuse a fare to go to the end of the line for waiting taxis. It is not a popular decision among drivers, Hogan says.

The airport is expected to propose today that drivers who wish to avoid alcohol-toting passengers change the light on their car roofs, possibly to a different color. Hogan says the move will help let airport employees and customers know which taxis serve alcohol-carrying passengers. Drivers refusing a fare won't have to go to the end of the line. "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices. ... Our goal is simply to ensure travelers at (the airport) are well served."

Sharia Alert and Soccer Jihad Update from Reuters: "Somali Islamists shoot to stop English soccer viewing"

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali Islamist militia shot in the air on Sunday to disperse hundreds of youths watching an English Premiership soccer match, with two people injured in the melee, witnesses said.

Somalis have welcomed the Islamists' pacification of their capital since they took it over in June, but they are increasingly unhappy at signs of religious extremism such as closing down public viewing of films and sport.

Nearly 400 youths packed into the Duale cinema during the afternoon for the big game between Chelsea and Liverpool.

But they scattered when 30 militiamen rolled up on a battlewagon and ordered them out, witnesses said.

When some of the youths started throwing stones and burning tyres in protest, the militiamen opened fire.

"Two youths were injured, one was shot in the thigh while the other sustained hand injuries," local resident Abdullahi Mohamed told Reuters on the scene.

[...]

The movement's leaders want Somalia to be ruled by sharia law, but insist they have no intention of instituting a strict Taliban-style system. They say their main aim is to re-impose law and order after 15 years of anarchy and chaos since warlords ousted a dictator in 1991.

Some good news from Boston, via the Boston Globe, with thanks to Morgaan Sinclair:

NEWTON -- Al Qasemi College , which was founded in 1989 as the first institute of Islamic higher education in Israel, is trying to export revolutionary openness and liberalism to the wider Islamic world, leaders of the faculty told educators, Jewish leaders, and local Muslims during a four-day visit to the Boston area that ended yesterday.

Speaking at campuses, mosques, and the homes of Muslims, the Al Qasemi faculty said that it is time for Muslims to quit blaming others and examine their own responsibility for the troubles of Islamic civilization; time for Arab Israelis to call themselves Israelis, not Palestinians; and, above all, time for women to have full equality with men in the Muslim world.

All these assertions are considered radical, even incendiary, in much of the Arab Muslim world. But Mohammad Essawi , the president of the college, said such changes in thinking are needed to transform an education system in the Islamic world ``that is still in the 12th century and does not have an open mind."

``There is a huge opportunity to teach openness and pluralism in these societies," Essawi said yesterday.

Read it all.

Why can't George W. Bush or Tony Blair say the same things to Muslims in their countries? Anti-dhimmitude in Oz, from the Sunday Herald Sun, with thanks to all who sent this in:

AUSTRALIA'S Muslim leaders have been "read the riot act" over the need to denounce any links between Islam and terrorism. The Howard Government's multicultural spokesman, Andrew Robb, yesterday told an audience of 100 imams who address Australia's mosques that these were tough times requiring great personal resolve. Mr Robb also called on them to shun a victim mentality that branded any criticism as discrimination.

"We live in a world of terrorism where evil acts are being regularly perpetrated in the name of your faith," Mr Robb said at the Sydney conference.

"And because it is your faith that is being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem.

"You can't wish it away, or ignore it, just because it has been caused by others.

"Instead, speak up and condemn terrorism, defend your role in the way of life that we all share here in Australia."

Mr Robb said unless Muslims took responsibility for their destiny and tackled the causes of terrorism, Australia would become divided.

Mr Robb, the parliamentary secretary for immigration and multicultural affairs, said it was important for migrants to learn English.

"I see as critical the need for imams to have effective English language skills -- it is a self-evident truth that a shared language is one of the foundations of national cohesion," he said.

On the eve of Mr Robb's release today of a discussion paper on a new citizenship test, the chairman of the Government's Muslim Reference Group, Dr Ameer Ali, said Opposition Leader Kim Beazley's idea of a values test was silly, as was the need for a universal English test.

He called for an orientation program for new migrants akin to a university student's orientation week.

"Silly," eh? So it's not silly to admit a large number of immigrants without making any attempt to determine what they think of the values of their new country, and what they intend to do about the difference between their values and those of that country?

It isn't silly, it's suicidal.

Expect more threats and murder until he apologizes also. "Orthodox Church Archbishop attacks 'Islamic fanatism,'" from AND, with thanks to Tommy:

Johannesburg (AND) In yet another furore to grip the Christian community, the head of the Orthodox Church of Greece has joined the Pope controversy by attacking what he calls Islamic fanaticism in Africa. In a scathing attack, barely 48 hours after a Somali Islamic cleric called for Muslims to kill the Pope for his Tuesday utterances, Archbishop Christodoulos told a sermon in Athens that Christians in Africa were suffering at the hands of ‘fanatic Islamists'.

"Many Christians on the Black Continent (Africa) suffer from fanatic Islamists. The example of Roman Catholic monks who were slaughtered last year... because they wore the cross and believed in our crucified Lord is still recent,” said Christodoulos.

The Archbishop’s remarks come as the Muslim world is seething with anger over Pope Benedict XVI’s quoting of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said innovations introduced by the Prophet Mohammed (the Islamic supreme leader) were "evil and inhuman".

The Pope has already been forced in submitting that he was "deeply sorry" after hisremarks sparked outrage in the Muslim world, with Morocco calling back its envoy and Turkey casting doubts of Benedict’s scheduled visit in November – the first to a Muslim country.

In London, more manifestations of Pope Benedict's great error in implying in any way that Islam was not peaceful. From Joee Blogs (thanks to all who sent this in):

Holy Mass on a Sunday is the very source and summit of the Catholic week, so my family decided this Sunday to make the trip to Westminster Cathedral together. As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell" "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way" "Pope Benedict watch your back" and other hateful things.

Well, we should have known all along: the Zionists are behind Pope Benedict's remarks! Of course! From AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world.

The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon.

"The reality is that if we do not consider Pope Benedict XVI to be ignorant of Islam, then his remarks against Islam are a dictat that the Zionists and the Americans have written (for him) and have submitted to him."

"The American and the Zionist aim is to undermine the glorious triumph of Islam's children of Lebanese Hezbollah, which annulled the undefeatable legend of the Israeli army and foiled the Satanic and colonialist American plot," it said.

Another Pope Rage killing, or just a general jihad against nuns? "Witnesses: Italian nun killed in Somalia," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

MOGADISHU, Somalia - An Italian nun was fatally shot Sunday at the Somali hospital where she worked, eyewitnesses said.

The nun, who was not immediately identified, was shot at the entrance to S.O.S. Hospital in northern Mogadishu by two gunmen armed with pistols, said Mohamed Yusuf, a doctor at the facility, which serves mothers and children.

"The nun was shot in the back," Yusuf said. "She died of her injuries."

The Coptic Pope -- the one held hostage by the Muslims of Egypt, subject to their pressures, aware of the potential for mayhem and murder visited upon the Copts by Muslims at any time -- has denounced the Pope of Rome. We understand this. We understand that he is held hostage, and we dismiss these remarks even as we now dismiss the Michel Sabbaghs and Naim Ateeks and other "Palestinian" islamochristians who speak out of internalized fear, and also in some cases out of a misplaced identification of "Uruba" or "Arabness" with Islam. (That is an identification that Muslim Arabs insist on forcing on everyone who uses Arabic, and only the Maronites and the Copts, and not even all of them, have refused to fall for this aggrandizing and false definition of "Arab").

But here's the point. What if the world remains too fearful and confused ever to confront the truth? After all, those whose duty it is to instruct us remain unable to instruct us out of the fear and confusion from which Pope Shenouda is suffering. Or, still worse, they remain silent out of a diseased sympathy for Muslims, a belief that we should not tell the truth about Islam but try only to "win hearts and minds" of Muslims by lying to ourselves, as well as to them, about the nature of Islam. Yet the evidence is not only in the texts, not only in the 1350 years of Jihad-conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, but in the behavior of Muslims, mobs and rulers, clerics and generals and political figures and so-called "intellectuals" alike, all over the world.

Every schoolboy in Lebanon, Christian and Sunni Muslim, Druze and Shi’a Muslim, knows that Syria has always staked a claim to Lebanon. Long before the Assad dynasty arrived on the scene to see Alawite justice done, Syrians were lamenting the lopping off, as they saw it, of Lebanon from its natural place as part of Al-Shaam, Syria. Naturally, successive Lebanese governments just as forcefully rejected these Syrian claims. And these claims were, amusingly, not different in kind from the same claim made about Israel, which Syrian officials for so long insisted on calling “part of southern Syria.” This insistence became muted only when the Arabs, after the Six-Day War, decided it would be necessary to repackage the Lesser Jihad against Israel as a “struggle for the legitimate rights of the (recently invented) ‘Palestinian’ people.”

And everyone, schoolboy and Christian schoolgirl alike, knew that the reason for the Syrian claim was that Lebanon was much richer than Syria, its economy more advanced, its connection to the West (that is, France) closer, and the Lebanese diaspora more influential. Some of those Lebanese were, of course, the descendants of those who left Ottoman-ruled vilayets that are now part of Syria, not Lebanon, and the Ottoman passports for both kinds of emigrants often read “Turco.” The less advanced Syrians saw Lebanon as a source of riches.

Security will be tight around the Pope to protect him from those who are enraged that he would call for an end to religious violence. From Ynet News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Italian media reported that security around Pope Benedict XVI has been beefed up following the harsh responses to his remarks on Islam.

[...]

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that the pope’s comments were "ugly" and said the pontiff should withdraw them.

"The Pope spoke like a politician rather than as a man of religion," Erdogan said.

“We cannot accept these statements. The Islamic world cannot accept them. I think these statements cannot be accepted by the Christian and Catholic world either."

Hizbullah and Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim religious authority denounced the pope’s remarks, with the militant Shiite Muslim group warning of a global religious schism.

Hizbullah called on the Vatican to review the pope's "declared attitude which can lead to world divisions and from which the enemies of humanity - the neo-conservatives led by (US President George W.) Bush and the neo-racists and Nazis, the Zionists who attack civilians and the land - can benefit.”

'We will blow up all of Gaza’s churches'

The spiritual leader of Lebanon's Sunnis, the Grand Mufti Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, said the pope's remarks emanated either from "Ignorance and lack of knowledge or were deliberately intended to distort Islam."

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said “there should be no controversy; the pope has already explained his true intentions. The religious dialogue and the respect for every religion is a necessity, and religion doesn’t justify violence.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said of Benedict XVI: He is a great pope, with great intelligence.

Right-wing politician Roberto Calderoli said “I ask myself some crazy member of the Left will come forth and demand the pope’s resignation. According to the crazy people, he has offended the Muslim world. The holy father’s message is that of peace and dialogue.”

Five churches throughout the West Bank were attacked by Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs.

Firebombings left black scorch marks on the walls and windows of Nablus' Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches. At least five firebombs hit the Anglican church and its door was later set ablaze. Smoke billowed from the church as firefighters put out the flames

In a phone call to The Associated Press, a group calling itself the "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility for those attacks, saying they were carried out to protest the pope's remarks in a speech this week in Germany linking Islam and violence.

Later Saturday, four masked gunmen doused the main doors of Nablus' Roman and Greek Catholic churches with lighter fluid, then set them afire. They also opened fire on the buildings, striking both with bullets.

In Gaza City, militants opened fire from a car at a Greek Orthodox church, striking the facade. A policeman at the scene said he saw a Mitsubishi escape with armed men inside. Explosive devices were set off at the same Gaza church on Friday, causing minor damage.

On Friday night about 2,000 protesters gathered outside the Palestinian parliament building to express their anger at the pope's statement. "This is a new crusade against the Arab Islamic world. It comes in different forms, in cartoons or lectures ... They hate our religion," Ismail Radwan, a local Hamas official, told the rally.

During one rally gunmen in Gaza city opened fire at the Greek Orthodox church; no injuries or damage were reported. An unknown organization named “The sword of Islam claimed responsibility for the incident.

“We want to make it clear that if the pope does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up all of Gaza’s churches,” the group said in a statement.

And that will show the world how peaceful Islam is.

A carefully worded statement from Benedict XVI. "Pope says sorry to Muslims," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

“I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,” he told pilgrims at his Castelgandolfo summer residence.

“These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.

“I hope this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with mutual respect,” he said.

Pope Rage continues to heat up. From Ynet News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

The recent remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI on Islam are threatening to ignite the entire Muslim world. Op-Eds published in the Arab newspapers slammed the pope even after the Vatican’s apology. The most extreme opinion was voiced by Hani Pahas in the London-based Arabic-language daily newspaper Al-Hayat, who wrote “the pope’s comments may lead to war; we fear that the pope’s statements may lead to a war that we, Muslims and Christians alike, are trying to prevent through dialogue between East and West.

Hussein Shabakshy wrote in an article published by the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat “It is clear that such remarks only contribute to the fueling of the fire raging between Islam and the West. There is no difference between Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri speaking from their caves in Tora Bora and the stage of an important Christian saint. Both parties contribute to the world verbal weapons for mass destruction.”

Is that so? Which towers did the Pope bring down, and whom did he behead?

“The pope’s latest statement cannot be considered a slip of the tongue or a comic bit from a TV show; the situation here is different, and his remarks are indicative of an important and highly symbolic stance toward the religion (Islam) and the prophet of about a billion and-a-half Muslims,” he said.

“These are ignorant comments previously made by Adolf Hitler, who spoke of a supreme white race against all the other races, especially the African race.

Of course, the Pope didn't speak of races, or the superiority of anyone, and Islam is not a race.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said a Vatican statement on Saturday saying Pope Benedict was sorry for upsetting Muslims with his comments on Islam did not go far enough.

"We want a personal apology (from the Pope). We feel that he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Leader Mohammed Habib told Reuters.

The Grand Imam of the Al – Azhar University in Cairo, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi said the pope’s statements stem from complete ignorance regarding all that is related to Islam.

Other religious leaders throughout the Muslim world, including Iran, also slammed the pope.

The spiritual leader of Lebanon's Sunnis, the Grand Mufti Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, said the pope's remarks emanated either from "Ignorance and lack of knowledge or were deliberately intended to distort Islam."

"Reason is the substance of Islam and its teachings ... Islam prohibited violence in human life. Anyone who wants the truth (about Islam) must take it from Islam's holy book, the Koran, rather than from a dialogue or excerpts," he said.

Why don't all these Islamic clerics who are assuring us yet again that Islam has nothing to do with violence do something to rein in the Muslims who are committing acts of violence out of rage against the Pope?

From India's Daily Pioneer (thanks to Jack) comes "Pope is right on Islam," by Swapan Dasgupta:

At the height of the war in Lebanon two months ago, an assortment of Arabs, British Muslims, radical socialists and bleeding heart liberals marched through the streets of London with placards proclaiming "we are all Hezbollah." Since Pope Benedict XVI delivered his scholarly but contentious lecture in Regensburg last Wednesday, an equally unlikely assortment of individuals bound by a common distaste for Islamist terrorism have been whispering the counter-proclamation: "We are all Papists now."

Before rushing to take rival positions in the trench warfare of civilisations, it is prudent to remember that the contemporary Islamist assault on the "decadent" West, epitomised by "American imperialism", has long enjoyed the backing of influential Muslim theologians. This is, perhaps, the first time that the philosophical gulf between Islam and Western civilisation has been delineated by someone who wields authority in the Christian world.

Pope Benedict, unlike many of his colleagues in Rome, has not succumbed to either the pretensions of Christian universalism or the mumbo jumbo of inter-faith dialogue. He has rightly viewed both Christianity and the Catholic Church as load-bearing pillars of Western civilisation. He has disavowed the growing secularisation of national cultures and, by implication, called into question the moral relativism which accompanies the practice of multiculturalism in the EU.

In an article If Europe Hates Itself written when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, the Pope despaired about Europe's growing inability to distinguish good from evil: "The West reveals ... a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West ... no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure."

In November 2004, he despaired that secular ideology which is "imposed through politics... does not give public space to the Catholic or Christian vision (and) runs the risk of becoming something purely private and, thus, disfigured."

[...]

What the Pope argued last week is not strikingly original. Many of the contemporary critiques of Islam have dwelt at length on the fact that the apparent finality of the Quran has made it difficult for Islam to experience a Reformation. What is also undeniable is that whereas the claims of Islam to be a religion of peace have been unceasingly made, almost all the Islamists have justified their terrorism in terms of religious obligation.

Heinous crimes have been committed and justified in the name of religion. Concern has also been voiced that the tenets of brotherhood in Islam do not always extend to non-believers, making them incompatible with multi-religious existence.

These are issue which warrant dispassionate debate and dialogue. The Pope may have been injudicious in citing a 14th century assessment by a Byzantine emperor but the questions he has raised are relevant both in theological and political terms. What is alarming is the fierce reaction to his lecture. They suggest that any debate on Islam based on critical scrutiny is bound to be accompanied by threats and intimidation. Far from encouraging sympathetic understanding of Muslim societies, this climate of intolerance is certain to fuel Islamophobia.

Political correctness necessitates debunking the clash of civilisations but realities on the ground are beginning to suggest otherwise.

Eurabia Alert From the Jerusalem Post: "Al-Qaida cell targeted Oslo synagogue"

An al-Qaida-linked Algerian terror cell that was broken up by Italian police last fall was planning to carry out attacks on targets in Oslo, Norway, including the city's main synagogue.

Anne Sender, president of Norway's Jewish community, told The Jerusalem Post during a telephone interview from Oslo that local authorities had informed her shortly after the suspects were arrested in November that there existed a credible terrorist threat against the synagogue.

The plot came to light only this week in the wake of a report on Monday in the Norwegian Verdens Gang (VG) newspaper.

"At the time, we were informed by the government that some people had been caught in Italy and that police had found plans indicating that they were targeting the synagogue in Oslo," Sender said.

She added that the threat was considered sufficiently serious that, in its wake, Norwegian police decided to adopt additional, unspecified measures to boost security at the synagogue.

The terrorists, who resided in Italy but were allegedly plotting attacks against sites in Oslo, belonged to an Algerian-based group known as the GSPC, a French acronym which stands for the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.

The GSPC, which has links to al-Qaida, is a splinter faction that broke away from Algeria's Armed Islamic Group in 1996.

The GSPC is not only "has links" to al-Qaeda, but very recently pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

[...]

In the past few months, Oslo has been the scene of a number of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist incidents, including an attack on the synagogue last month, where an unknown perpetrator smashed glass windows and scrawled graffiti on the site after defecating near the entrance.

"99 percent of the time it is fine, it is safe, and there is no problem at all, but we do have these incidents," added Sender. "Maybe we are a little naive, but we always seem to think that Norway is separate, that it is different and that it is unaffected by what goes on in the rest of the world."

Islamic Tolerance Alert from AP:

LAHORE, Pakistan - Police raided a home in eastern Pakistan and arrested an Islamic militant suspected of planning an attack on minority Christians, police said.

The suspect, Tamim, alias Omar, 25, was nabbed Saturday morning in the Lari Adda neighborhood of Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province, said Masood Aziz, a senior police investigator.

Omar -- a Pakistani -- allegedly belonged to an outlawed militant group, and "he wanted to attack minority Christians next week," he said.

Aziz said they also seized one kilogram of explosives, four hand grenades and some bomb-making material during the raid.

He said Omar had received training in southern Afghanistan several years ago, but did not provide any further details.

Pakistan is the world’s second most-populous Muslim country. About three percent of its 160 million people are Christians.

Henry Kissinger’s accent has deepened ever since his Sammy-Glick days working for Nelson Rockefeller and training those Future Leaders of the World at Harvard Summer School (making his contacts, filling his Rolodex, spreading his fame, making his moves). He did all this no doubt to the chagrin of those who, purely in intellect but not in sammy-glickdom, were his clear superiors, such as Stanley Hoffmann (who alas came a cropper over Israel, and now over Islam --some who had taken his course "On War" thought he was Raymond Aron, and he turned out...not to be).

Kissinger never gave any sign of understanding Islam during his active career, before he began trading on government "service" to open Kissinger Associates and pocket a half-million a year from Bear Stearns. He is the kind of fellow whose "insights" and "understanding" are breathlessly reported by Barbara Walters ("well, Henry says this" and "Henry says that" to those on the other end of the telephone).

Pope Benedict XVI's statement that "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God" continues to prove itself incomprehensible to those who embrace the Verse of the Sword (9:5) as divine fiat.

From Haaretz: "Iraqi militant group threatens Vatican in Internet message"

An Iraqi insurgent group threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack over the pope's remarks on Islam, according to a statement posted Saturday in its name on the Web.

The statement, which came days after Pope Benedict XVI made comments deemed offensive by many Muslims, does not state the seat of the Holy See directly, but is addressed to "you dog of Rome" and threatens to "shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home."

"We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life," said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a Web site frequently used by militant groups.

The message, the authenticity of which could not be independently verified, also contained links to video recordings of what the group claimed were rocket attacks on U.S. bases.

[...]

The Mujahedeen Army's statement vowed, "our minds will not rest until we shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home."

That'll teach him to preach against religious violence. From AINA, with thanks to Tom:

(AINA) -- According to the website Islam Memo, one Christian was killed in Baghdad after the Pope's speech two days ago. The speech created a wave of anger throughout the Islamic world, including Iraq. A poster has been placed in many Baghdad mosques for the previously unknown group, "Kataab Ashbal Al Islam Al Salafi," (Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions). This group threatens to kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize in three days in front of the whole world to Mohammed.

Those Boy Scouts should have stuck to wood carving.

And this ain't no Robbie Coltrane movie. Hunt him down and kill him, says Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin. "Somali cleric calls for pope's death," from AFP, with thanks to News4U:

A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam.

Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah in a speech that he said was as offensive as author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.

"We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion," he said in Friday evening prayers.

"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," Malin, a prominent cleric in the Somali capital, told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.

"We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," he said.

Expect Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin to be burned in effigy by Muslims worldwide, for daring to suggest anything other than the proposition that "Muslims have no violent character." (Actually, of course, all too many self-proclaimed Muslim moderates are much more likely to criticize those who report on the Sheikh's words than they are to criticize the Sheikh himself. Hmmm. Now why is that?)

Raw Data from the Vatican: the Pope's speech at his meeting with the representatives of science in the Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006.

Esam Omeish, call your office.

"Convert from Islam to Christianity killed," from WND, with thanks to Twostellas:

Somali Christian sources report Ali Mustaf Maka'il, a 22-year-old college student and cloth merchant who converted from Islam to Christianity 11 months ago, was shot and killed in the Manabolyo quarter of Mogadishu.

According to a report from the Barnabas Fund, quoting a Christian source inside Somalia, the gunman was loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts, the Islamist organization that took power in Mogadishu in early June and now controls much of southern Somalia.

The report states the gunman shot Ali in the back Sept. 7 after he refused to join a crowd chanting Quran verses in honor of the lunar eclipse. Solar and lunar eclipses are significant in Islam and are accompanied by special congregational prayers. The Union of Islamic Courts confiscated Ali's body for 24 hours before delivering it to the grieving family, the report said.

The Barnabas Fund comments: "It seems that under the new Islamist rulers, who include hard-line jihadi elements, the tragic history of persecution and martyrdom for Somalia's tiny Christian community is set to continue and most likely to worsen."

Father Raymond J. de Souza speaks truth to power in the National Post (thanks to Twostellas):

The eruption of rage in some quarters of the Islamic world against Pope Benedict XVI requires that several tough things be said.

Painful though it may be, speaking frankly is necessary if there is to be honest and open dialogue between the Abrahamic faiths. Given the reaction to Benedict's address, though, one wonders if that dialogue is even possible.

[...]

Benedict was quoting a 14th-century Christian emperor, under siege from the Ottomans, defending the position that spreading religion by violence is contrary to the nature of God. The Emperor, quite reasonably given his circumstances, suggested to his Persian interlocutor such a view did not prevail in Islamic thought.

In response to this historical excursus in an academic lecture by one of the world's most erudite theologians, we are witnessing a wave of madness and malice, no doubt an embarrassment to millions of Muslims.

Roman Catholics are likely angry. Relations between adherents of the two religions simply cannot develop without all conducting themselves as mature adults.

It does a disservice to children to call the wild-eyed statements and deranged behaviour of the past days childish.

It is not only the obscenity of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terrorist band suppressed in several Muslim states, demanding an apology from anyone, let alone the Holy Father.

It is not only the grandstanding Pakistani politicians passing resolutions condemning a papal speech few read, and even fewer understood. It is not only the extraneous charges about the Holocaust and Hitler by the agitated and excited.

It is that we have seen this before.

When Pope John Paul II made his epic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Palestinian Muslim representatives jostled him on the Temple Mount, shouted at him, and, in one episode of maximum rudeness, abandoned him on stage during an interfaith meeting. Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, treated him to an anti-Semitic rant when the late pope visited Syria.

Catholic goodwill toward global Islam is severely attenuated by such continued maltreatment of our universal pastors.

And it is well past time that the maltreatment of history ceased too.

The irony of the accusations that Pope Benedict has a "Crusader mentality" is that he was speaking about the period in which the Crusades themselves took place.

Catholics have for quite some time now confessed the sinful and wicked shadows that marked the Crusades, but any suggestion the whole affair was about rapacious Christians setting upon irenic Muslims must be rejected.

After all, the formerly Christian lands of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia Minor were not converted to Islam by Muslim missionary martyrs. Those lands were conquered by the sword.

The Crusader idea was that they could be recovered. Who wronged who first is a fruitless historical inquiry, but historical honesty requires an admission that Muslims wronged as much as they were wronged against.

Actually, the recapture of all the lands conquered and Islamized by the warriors of jihad was never part of the Crusader program. But in any case, this is an excellent and, under the circumstances, courageous piece. Read it all.

Yesterday a Muslim named Alykhan Velshi was given space at NRO's The Corner to accuse me, in the course of attacking the Pope's remarks, of "not giving moderate Muslims any wiggle room in which to offer an internal-Islamic critique of the bin Ladenists." I responded here, and now Velshi has written "A response to Robert Spencer" at his website; his response is also linked at The Corner.

Robert Spencer replies to my post in the Corner.

Essentially, Robert challenges me, as he does all moderate Muslims, to "renounce definitively, the elements of Islamic theology that jihadists are using to wage war against non-Muslims around the world."

I do. Though the ease with which I do so will probably dissatisfy Robert Spencer.

It doesn't. Why do you think it would?

Robert wants me to admit there is a problem with Islam. Of course there is - thousands, possibly millions, are willing to commit suicide in its name. That's a very serious problem. But admitting there is a problem doesn't mean I'm agonising at the (minor) epistemological leap it took for me personally to renounce violent jihad. I think Robert Spencer and people who support him consistently trumpet the most violent interpretations of Islam, and then go on to make it seem as though those Muslims who are not violent are somehow betraying the essence of the faith.

"...make it seem as though..." Let's stay on firmer ground, shall we, Velshi? In fact, I have never said this. What I have actually said, many times, is that there is no universally recognized authority in Islam that can say what is true Islam and what isn't, but that jihadist Muslims will accuse and do accuse moderates of "betraying the essence of the faith."

Although I concede that those who advocate violent jihad point to actual texts in the Quran and early and subsequent Islamic practice, I believe their interpretation is wrong and the historical examples they cite are opportunistically chosen. This doesn't mean I'm denying the violent aspects of Islam that come from a literal reading of religious texts, just that I, as Muslims have for centuries, reject that literalism is the only way to interpret religious documents - in fact, I'll readily admit that the bin Ladenists aren't creating doctrine out of thin air, but they are distorting what is there considerably through their weirdly post-modern focus on literalism, which has less of a basis in Islam than common intuition would suggest. I don't want to get into the weeds of Islamic history and Quranic exegesis on a Friday evening, though.

All right. Now it's Saturday afternoon. When do you want to get into it? Not for me, mind you, but for those Muslims who are falling prey all around the world to this erroneous jihadist exegesis. If you could show them that it is erroneous, Velshi, you would be doing the world a great service.

I hope my response still satisfies Robert: I admit that there is much violence and intolerance inherent in verses in the Quran and elsewhere (although I disagree that it's as bad as Robert says it is) - still, I "renounce [it] definitively."

I couldn't possibly be more satisfied. Thanks. But in fact, it isn't all about me. I am still looking for a group of Muslims to mount some viable Islamic challenge to the jihadists, so as to curb their violence and combat their recruitment. I am assured by people all the time that it exists, but no one has ever managed to show it to me.

I can't speak for other Muslims - indeed, I refuse to do so, cherishing as I do my individuality and respecting theirs - but I can say that the doctrines of my particular subsect of Islam, the Shia Ismailis, make it easy for me to renounce violent jihad.

Great. Is there any chance that the Ismailis might be accepted as orthodox Muslims by the larger bodies of Sunnis and Shi'ites at any point in the near future, which would be an indispensable prerequisite for the wider dissemination of this perspective?

I don't know - maybe I should agonise over it more, but somehow I don't. With respect to my religious faith, I agonise more over memorising difficult prayer verses and singing religious songs in tune.

I don't however agonise over whatever it is that bothers the violent jihadists.

With respect, sir, maybe we do need a bit more agonizing, in the sense that we need more active challenges to the jihadists from Muslims who claim to reject their deeds and perspective. I hope we will see more in this vein from you in the future, and in the meantime I thank you for taking the time to write this reply, which in itself suggests that you have modified your earlier erroneous view that I leave Muslim reformers and would-be reformers no "wiggle room."

Bertone's words were reported here as that the Pope is "extremely upset that some portions of his speech were able to sound offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers..." But in the story below, Bertone says that the Pope is "is extremely sorry that certain passages of his speech appeared offensive to Muslim believers..." That sounds like the same statement to me. So is the Pope "upset" or "sorry," or both? Further clarification is needed.

"Pope 'sorry' for Islam comments," from AFP, with thanks to JE:

The Vatican's new Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone today said: "The Holy Father is extremely sorry that certain passages of his speech appeared offensive to Muslim believers and were interpreted in a way that does not correspond in any way to his intentions".

"The Pope is unequivocally in favour of dialogue between religions and cultures," he said.

He says the pontiff respects believers in Islam and hopes they will understand the true sense of his speech.

There had been widespread calls from political circles in Islamic countries for Pope Benedict to issue an apology.

In Turkey, the country the Pope is due to visit in November, a senior religious figure said the Pope should reconsider his trip for his own safety.

For his own safety? You mean, there are non-Muslims in Turkey who might threaten the Pope? Of course, we all know that "Muslims have no violent character."

Ha ha! Omar, you hockey puck! Stop it, you're killing me! From the Telegraph, with thanks to JE:

One of the leaders of a gang of Muslims allegedly planning to attack Britain joked about bombing the House of Commons during Prime Minister's Questions, a court was told yesterday.

Omar Khyam, from Crawley, West Sussex, said he had joked with friends about attacking Parliament but never meant it to be taken seriously.

Giving evidence in the second day of his defence at the Old Bailey, Khyam, 24, said he had been watching television in the flat he shared with Mohammed Babar, an American. "I remember watching, on Wednesday, Prime Minister's Questions. I said 'Imagine if you dropped a bomb right then and there. It would take out all the MPs'."

Ha ha! Somebody call Leno! This guy is priceless!

He said Babar and two other friends from Britain, "just laughed" and claimed that it was neither a serious proposition nor a plan.

But asked if he had ever met any members of al-Qa'eda, Khyam admitted: "Yes, probably."

Khyam admitted paying for a training camp on the Afghan border but said it was "just two tents and a few guns" and denied there had been any explosives training.

Just two tents and a few guns? Oh, well, then, it must have been peaceful.

The New Duranty Times (thanks to Seymour Paine) is at it again, in an unsigned editorial, "The Pope’s Words":

The Vatican issued a statement saying that Benedict meant no offense and in fact desired dialogue. But this is not the first time the pope has fomented discord between Christians and Muslims.

In 2004 when he was still the Vatican’s top theologian, he spoke out against Turkey’s joining the European Union, because Turkey, as a Muslim country was “in permanent contrast to Europe.”

A doctrinal conservative, his greatest fear appears to be the loss of a uniform Catholic identity, not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue.

The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.

Why doesn't the Times, or anyone, point out that riots and threats are not a constructive way to demonstrate that Islam is actually peaceful?

Why doesn't the Times, or anyone, invite Muslims to bring us, and live out, teachings of Muhammad that are not "evil and inhuman"?

Why doesn't the Times, or anyone, take any serious note of the ongoing persecution of Christians by Muslims, as examples of Muslims "fomenting discord" with Christians not just with words, but with lethal deeds?

Some recent examples:

Saudi Arabia: Four African Christians Deported

Molotov cocktail against Christian activist’s home in Bethlehem

Chaldean priest kidnapped in Baghdad

Pakistan: Muslim land-grabbers attack Christians

Egypt: Copts lose homes, freedom over spurious murder charge

And all those are just from the last month.

Apology looming? From CNN:

(CNN) -- Pope Benedict XVI has said he is "extremely upset" that his speech on Islam offended Muslims and expressed his respect for their faith, according to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement on Saturday the pope's position on Islam was unmistakably in line with Vatican teaching that the Church "esteems Muslims, who adore the only God."

The pope is "extremely upset that some portions of his speech were able to sound offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers and have been interpreted in a way that does not at all correspond to his intentions," Bertone added, according to The Associated Press.

The statement came as outrage over the pontiff's comments continued to mount around the world. Unknown assailants threw fire bombs on Saturday at two churches in the West Bank city of Nablus, following a day of Palestinian protests against the pope's remarks. No one was hurt.

And in Indonesia, up to 1,000 Muslims rallied in protest at the comments made earlier in the week by the pope, who was citing an obscure Medieval text that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam's founder as "evil and inhuman," video of the scene showed.

Outside the Palestinian Embassy in Jakarta, police looked on as protesters stood behind the gates waving flags while organizer Heri Budianto shouted, "God is great."

"Of course as we know the meaning of jihad can only be understood by Muslims," Budianto told the crowd. "Only Muslims can understand what jihad is. It is impossible that jihad can be linked with violence, we Muslims have no violent character."

Of course they don't. Those fire bombs just flew into those churches by accident.

And here comes another veiled threat of more violence from those who have no violent character:

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Saturday urged the pope to apologize and withdraw his controversial comments, according to The Associated Press.

"The pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created," the Bernama news agency quoted Abdullah as saying, AP said.

"The Vatican must now take full responsibility over the matter and carry out the necessary steps to rectify the mistake."

Pope Flap edging toward violence. From The Australian, with thanks to JE:

CAIRO: Muslim leaders yesterday condemned Pope Benedict XVI over comments he made about Islam on a visit to Germany and demanded he apologise.

A grenade exploded near the oldest church in Gaza City, injuring no one, and hundreds of Muslims in Indian Kashmir held a day-long strike with protests in the capital, Srinagar, as a statement from the Vatican failed to quell the anger in the Muslim world.

The Vatican's statement said the Pope had never meant to offend Islam when he quoted a Byzantine emperor on the prophet Mohammed's "evil".

It said a careful reading of Benedict's lecture at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday would show that "what really matters to the Holy Father is a clear and radical rejection of religious motives for violence".

And many in the Islamic world respond with outrage and violence. Bravo.

But whatever he said, if it offended Muslims, is no good in Pope Shenouda's book. Of course, the Coptic Pope is doubtless aware that if he says anything else at this juncture, his community will suffer.

"Egypt's top Christian leader denounces comments," from AP, with thanks to JE:

In the first reaction from a top Christian leader, the head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church said in remarks published today that Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam were "against the teachings of Christ".

Coptic Pope Shenouda III told the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper that he didn't hear the pope's exact words, but that "any remarks which offend Islam and Muslims are against the teachings of Christ".

"Christianity and Christ's teachings instruct us not to hurt others, either in their convictions or their ideas, or any of their symbols - religious symbols," Shenouda was quoted as saying.

Your Holiness, with respect, don't you think the Pharisees may have been hurt by Christ's words? His disciples thought so, and asked him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" (Matthew 15:12). But that doesn't seem to have stopped him.

Here is the latest from Steve Emerson at the Counterterrorism Blog on this shameful episode:

Add one more item to the list that makes Maher Hathout’s selection for a major human relations award so mind-boggling: His spirited defense of an accused -- and later convicted -- cop-killer.

Hathout, president of the Islamic Center of Southern California and a senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), already has a lengthy record of hate speech to his credit. He has called Israel a nation of butchers and accused the United States of state terrorism; he has justified the actions of Hizbollah and defended terrorist financiers.

Despite these seeming disqualifiers, the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations announced recently that the Muslim activist would receive its prestigious John Allen Buggs Award in ceremonies next month. The award is given annually for what the commission describes as “outstanding human relations work.” I wrote about the award on "New Republic Online" on August 31 (reprinted with permission) and will discuss the issue again on the Fox News Network.

And despite his long record of vitriolic statements, he has maintained -- as recently as a September 7 appearance on the Fox News Network, in which he tried to refute documentation of his extremism presented by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) -- that he is a moderate who condemns both Hizbollah and Hamas. More about that record below.

But now IPT has uncovered the tape of a speech that Hathout gave at a benefit dinner held to raise defense funds for Jamil Al-Amin at his trial on charges of shooting one Georgia sheriff’s deputy to death and seriously wounding another.

No fewer than a half-dozen times in the speech Hathout referred to Al-Amin as “our brother.” He said he would always take Al-Amin’s word over that of supposedly untrustworthy police. And he veered off into generalized charges of racism against the United States, and even piggybacked on the Al-Amin case his standard charges of “apartheid racial slaughtering” of Palestinians by Israel.

Read it all.

The AP has described the Islamic Movement as "Israel's largest Arab organization." Raed Salah is the leader of the "northern branch" in Umm al-Fahm, which, while it does not publicly call for the destruction of Israel, "denounces secular life and denies the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state."

From YNet News: "Salah: Caliph will sit in Jerusalem"

Head of the northern faction of the Islamic Movement Sheikh Raed Salah said Friday that "soon Jerusalem will be the capital of the new Muslim caliphate, and the caliph’s seat will be there."

Salah addressed an audience of 50,000 attending the Islamic Movement’s 11th annual rally in Umm al-Fahm. ...

Salah noted that history tells of many occasions in which the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was occupied by foreign conquerors, but the occupiers left after a short time, and thus will also be the fate of the Israeli occupation.

The Israeli occupation will leave Jerusalem soon. It will happen sooner than is thought," Salah said at the rally, which was held under the slogan "Al-Aqsa endangered".

[...]

Salah declared that ideas to divide the site still exist, but he reassured his audience: "There are all sorts of plans to divide the al-Aqsa mosque but they will not succeed."

During his speech the sheikh called on Arab nations to provide financial support, whether with cash or with gold, to help save the mosque and Jerusalem. He even called for the establishment of a fund for the purpose.

[...]

The former mufti of Jerusalem Ekrima Sabri and the archbishop of the Greek-Orthodox church who is considered close to the Palestinian Authority also spoke at the rally. Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Musa also sent his blessings to the assembly.

Mahathir's on a roll. From the Daily Times: "Muslims should have nukes"

ISLAMABAD: Muslim nations in the Middle East should arm themselves with nuclear weapons to deter Western enemies from attacking them, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Friday.

"They should have tanks, warplanes, warships, guns and missiles," Mahathir said. "Yes, they need to have nuclear weapons too, because only with the possession of such would their enemies be deterred from attacking them."

Mahathir, 81, who retired as prime minister in 2003, remains highly respected and influential throughout the Muslim world. He is currently on a lecture tour of Central and South Asia, and was addressing a conference on religious tolerance in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

[...]

When asked whether Muslim nations in the Middle East should acquire nuclear weapons, Mahathir replied, "Well, if you allow Israel to have them, why should the others not have them too?" Israel -- which has neither confirmed nor denied reports that it possesses nuclear arms -- is generally believed to have the world’s sixth-largest stockpile of such weapons, including hundreds of warheads.

Mahathir, a frequent critic of the Jewish state and its nuclear arsenal, stressed that he believed in a world free of nuclear weapons.

A quotation from Reuters:

"While I think we should not be selective in determining which nations should have, and should not have, I think the best thing we could do is to say is that all nations should not have nuclear weapons and in particular this very, very, very belligerent United States," Mahathir said.

The Daily Times article continues:

He said that the US-led war against terrorism had turned into a war against Islam and Muslims, because only countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria were currently being targeted.

Well, it's just that there hasn't been much state-sponsored terrorist activity being directed at the United States and its allies from, say, Bhutan.

Violent protests feared. Seething spreading elsewhere -- because the Pope dared suggest Islam is violent. None of those protesting seem to have realized that the best way to refute the Pope's statement that religious violence is unjustified would be to eschew religious violence.

From AP:

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Pakistan's legislature unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades.

Ralph Peters will no doubt be along presently to call the pontiff a right-wing bigot with genocidal longings.

Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that many fear could burst into violent protests like those that followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad....

Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party, said Benedict's remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet or, worse, a deliberate distortion.

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world," Kapusuz told Turkish state media. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."

"Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks, is going down in history for his words," Kapusuz added. "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."

Even Turkey's staunchly pro-secular opposition party demanded the pope apologize before his visit. Another party led a demonstration outside Ankara's largest mosque, and a group of about 50 people placed a black wreath outside the Vatican's diplomatic mission.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the pope should explain and "tell us what exactly did he mean. ... It can't just be left like that."

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi has tried to defuse anger, saying the pope did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities and insisting Benedict respects Islam. In Pakistan, the Vatican envoy voiced regret at "the hurt caused to Muslims."

But Muslim leaders said outreach efforts by papal emissaries were not enough.

"We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology — not through his officials," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric, told worshippers in Beirut....

In Cairo, some 100 demonstrators stood outside the al-Azhar mosque chanting: "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down with the pope!"...

In Britain, the head of the Muslim Council, a body representing 400 Muslim groups, said the emperor's views quoted by the pope were bigoted.

"One would expect a religious leader such as the pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism," said Muhammad Abdul Bari, the council's secretary-general.

Many Muslims accused Benedict of seeking to promote Judeo-Christian dominance over Islam....

Few in Turkey, especially, failed to pick up on Benedict's reference to Istanbul as Constantinople — the city's name more than 500 years ago — before it was conquered by Muslim Ottoman Turks.

Actually it remained Constantinople, although under the Turkish yoke, until the early 20th century.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended the German-born pope, saying his message had been misunderstood.

"It is an invitation to dialogue between religions and the pope has explicitly urged this dialogue, which I also endorse and see as urgently necessary," she said Friday. "What Benedict XVI makes clear is a decisive and uncompromising rejection of any use of violence in the name of religion."

In the United States, a Muslim group, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, asked for a meeting with a Vatican representative and urged more efforts at improving understanding between Muslims and Catholics.

"The proper response to the pope's inaccurate and divisive remarks is for Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts aimed at building better relations between Christianity and Islam," the group said.

Great. Memo to Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR: I'm a Catholic, and I volunteer for this dialogue.

Ralph Peters has followed up his mudslinging attack on no one in particular with a stinging email to California Republic, in response to an invitation to reply to my recent article about him. In this email, he names me and makes a number of false accusations. For the record, I will correct them here.

Thanks. No, I don't intend to reply to Spencer, Bostom and Co. Replying only gives them what they crave so desperately: Attention. Bostom, for example, has been panting for attention for his book and his views in my columns for years (he doesn't mention that, does he?). I'm tempted to publish some of the sycophantic e-mails this crowd has sent me over the years--just to let their groupies know how little integrity they have.

In fact, I have never sent even one email to Ralph Peters, sycophantic or otherwise. I do not even have his email address.

But this shouldn't be a personal matter--it's about ideas, about freedom, about defending our country, about getting it right. And I simply don't find close-minded loonies helpful--so I don't respond to their pleas for my time.

By the way, that's why I didn't "name names." First, it would have given them attention. And, second, it's my belief that it's okay to attack those more powerful than me by name, but it's ungentlemanly to attack the weak as individuals. And you shouldn't exaggerate the reach of these guys. The blogosphere inflates the image of a lot of little men, from the Timothy McVeigh Fan Club to pedophiles. If their views had genuine merit, they would be widely published in forums where they have to get past the editorial gates. But they're not widely published because they don't pass the quality or sanity tests. Their stuff is just self-important net-dweller hate-porn. And in a nation of 300 million, they'll be able to find a good number of fellow haters.

And please note that my attack was on their positions--their attacks (very poorly written, by the way) have been on me personally...on my integrity, my military services, etc.

It's interesting that he calls the work of those he hates "self-important net-dweller hate-porn" and then claims to take the high road. But again, he is making false statements. And if we are indeed the ones he meant in his column, and we are so insignificant, why did he see fit to spend a Post column attacking these shadowy evildoers at all?

Anyway, when "Spencer, Bostom, and Co." is the apparent group meant in the phrase "their attacks...have been on me personally," this is simply false on the face of it. Here is my full reply as it appeared in FrontPage. In it, this is everything I say about Ralph Peters: I say he is a "retired military officer and author of several books on this present conflict"; that his NY Post piece was "one of the most confused and irresponsible pieces I have ever seen in an American newspaper"; that he doesn't tell us who he is attacking in the piece, and that by not doing so he is "allowing himself the coward’s retreat of being able to deny, if challenged by anyone, that he had him in mind"; that he is "setting up straw men, blurring distinctions and drawing unnecessary conclusions"; and that he makes several "false assumptions."

Does that look like a personal attack to you? Do you see anything in there about his military service? I don't either. Do you see anything in there about his integrity, other than that his hit piece on a nameless, faceless "rotten core of American extremists" is cowardly -- which I stand by? Nope. My response was actually just what he says it wasn't: a reply to his positions, and an explanation of mine.

I have not attacked their personal lives, and won't.

Other than comparing us to Tim McVeigh and pedophiles, and saying we publish hate porn.

That's Brownshirt stuff. I've been out there risking my life, often alone, in the Muslim world while they've been sitting at home. They're like professors who've never really done anything but only know the world (in this case, Islam) from books. If they haven't seen the Muslim world first-hand, how do they know what it's really like? Just reading about it here in the USA is like trying to understand what sex is like just from the manuals.

Here Ralph Peters simply doesn't know what he is talking about. He has no idea what I have done or where I have been, and it is irrelevant anyway: jihadists are manifestly using Islamic teaching to further their goals, unchallenged by any significant movement of moderates, whether or not I have kissed the ground in Karachi or sunned myself in Kuala Lumpur.

As you know, I'm for waging a harder war on terror than we currently do. But what is the point of alienating a billion Muslims with our own hate speech? These guys are bigots. Period. No matter how they dress up their prejudices with quotes from dead Muslim clerics.

Oh, I have plenty of quotes from live ones, Ralph.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone nuts over another person (me, in this case) expressing his views. They cannot bear dissent from their narrow doctrines (sounds rather like the case they put against Islam).

I can bear dissent just fine. In fact, I'd be happy to debate you on this. I gave you a reasoned response to your piece, and all I get back from you, Colonel, is another shower of abuse and insults. Looks as if the one who can't bear dissent is not me.

They are resolutely against free speech and insist that their views are the only possible views--a very good definition of a fanatic.

The irony is getting a little thick in here, don't you think?

Finally, conservatism has always defended the individual against the mass. The left has raised the mass above the individual. Bostom, Spencer and co. describe Muslims as an undifferentiated mass.

Is that so? Can you quote me on that? Because if you can't, you might think twice about saying it. And of course, you can't come up with such a quote.

Of course, Peters is probably referring here to my assertion that all the schools of Islamic law teach violent jihad and the subjugation of unbelievers. Not in ancient times only, but today. Of course, unanimity does not equal an "undifferentiated mass," but never mind. If I am wrong in this, Colonel, show me the evidence, please. Enlighten me. Be so kind as to pull me out of the darkness. Show me the Islamic school or sect that teaches peaceful coexistence on an indefinite basis with non-Muslims, and is accepted as orthodox by the others. I'd love to see it.

Is that conservatism? Sounds like a bizarre form of anti-Muslim Marxism to me. Of course, in the end extremists are all the same--whether they end up on the ultra-right or ultra-left is just an accident. We forget that Nazi was an abbreviation for "national socialist."

Conservatism should be a big tent--but we have to keep the tentpoles out of the sewer.

I just have to draw the line at damning Islam as totally beyond hope.

Contrast this crude caricature with my words here, and tell me who is the frothing fanatic.

I'm not optimistic about the religion in the Middle East, that's certain. It faces self-imposed handicaps that may prove insurmountable. But Muslims elsewhere offer at least some glimmers of hope. Let's not extinguish those glimmers ourselves.

Finally, Spencer and Bostom are whiners and fear-mongers. But they don't offer serious solutions. Spencer, for example, never addressed the questions I've raised in interviews (he edits and mis-edits my remarks very selectively, lifting things wildly out of context--he'd be boohooing from here to Christmas if someone did that to him):

Actually, people do that to me more or less on a daily basis, and I just don't have that many hankies. But anyway, gee, I'm sorry about mis-editing your remarks, Colonel. I assure you it was unintentional. Perhaps you could furnish me with some examples of this misuse?

First, if Islam is totally hopeless, what do they propose to do about it (and I don't mean silly nonsense about a Muslim Vatican II)?

I have never said that "Islam is totally hopeless." If you think I have, produce the quote. Nor have I ever recommended a "Muslim Vatican II." If you think I have, produce the quote.

Anyway, to answer your question: What I have said, many times, including earlier today, is that the Muslim reformers on which you place so much hope need to repudiate the elements of Islamic teaching that jihadists use to recruit terrorists and incite violence. Why is that so farfetched or unreasonable?

Second, if all Muslims are in on a conspiracy to get us, why have the overwhelming number of victims of Islamist terror been other Muslims? Not just Sunni killing Shia, but Sunni killing Sunni.

I have never said that "all Muslims are in on a conspiracy to get us." If you think I have, produce the quote.

As for Muslims killing Muslims, this happens because of the phenomenon of takfir, or the declaring of other Muslims to be apostates or heretics or hypocrites, and thus lawfully killed.

How about our Kurdish allies? Are they in on the jihad?

Some are, some aren't, as with all groups.

Do Sunnis and Shi'as get together at secret-handshake meetings to plan our doom?

I would doubt it.

On the contrary, the great bloodshed looming ahead for Islam is the next round of Sunni-Shi'a warfare--they hate each other with an even deeper passion than Catholics and Protestants hated each other a few centuries ago.

Some do, some don't. There is an old Arabic saying with which I am sure Peters is familiar, given his extensive travels in the Middle East: "my brother against my brother, but both of us against our cousin." Sunnis and Shia will fight, but will also unite against non-Muslims. Witness the Shi'ite Iranian support for Sunni Hamas, etc.

Islamist terror must be dealt with ferociously. But we must not suggest that a hundred-billion Muslims are all Salafist violent jihadis. They're just not.

Nor have I said they are. If you think I have, produce the quote.

We all need to apply a little common sense.

You can say that again, Ralph. You can say that again. I thought that myself today when I read your new piece saying that violence in the Middle East is the fault of the Middle East itself, not of Islam. So by the logic of your first piece, does that mean that you are a bigot who thinks that all Middle Easterners, Muslim, Jewish, Christian whatever, are Untermenschen?

Also, what about non-Middle Eastern terrorists like Adam Gadahn or Richard Reid, etc. etc.? How did they get infected with Middle Easternism?

Anyway, just so I understand: if someone thinks the problem of terrorism comes from the Middle East as such, he's enlightened. But if he thinks that it comes from one aspect of one religion that originated in the Middle East, he's a bigot. Got it!

Personally, I would rather stand side by side with an honest Muslim-American than with a bigot whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower. They came over after World War I as exiles from the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

Conservatism doesn't engage in mass hatred. And America gives the individual a chance.

Best regards,

Ralph

Mass hatred, verboten: check. Defamation and misrepresentation: apparently a-ok.

Look at that sign. "Mr. Pope be with in your limits." What limits? Classic Islamic law stipulates that Christians may live in peace in Islamic societies as long as they accept second-class status as dhimmis, which involves living within certain limits: not holding authority over Muslims, paying the jizya tax, not building new churches or repairing old ones, and...not insulting Allah or Muhammad. If they believe that a Christian has insulted them in some way, even inadvertently, his contract of protection -- dhimma -- is voided.

So are these protestors warning the Pope to behave like a dhimmi, or else? I expect so. After all, so many Christians and post-Christians in the West in recent years have been willing, even eager, to accept such limits -- witness the chastened reaction to the Cartoon Rage riots, in which Church officials, government leaders, and others solemnly pontificated against "insults to religious figures." But it wasn't really a question of blasphemy then, and it isn't a question of insult now. It is a question of whether non-Muslims will submit to Muslim standards and restrictions on their speech, thought, and behavior.

And I hope that the Pope, for one, is not willing to do so.

As a Zionist Crusader myself, I am happy to welcome the Pope into the ranks of the Zionists.

"Pope's comments on Islam unite Iraqis" -- wow, George W. Bush should offer the Pope a cabinet post for that. Nothing else has managed to accomplish this so far. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Often divided by religious differences, Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Arabs united Friday in anger over remarks by Pope Benedict XVI referring to Islam and holy war.

Clerics from both communities, which are locked in a vicious cycle of reprisal attacks that have killed thousands of Iraqis, called the pontiff's comments an insult to the Muslim faith and its founder, Prophet Muhammad.

"We denounce this slander made by the pope on Islam and the figure of the Prophet Muhammad," Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi said in a sermon to about 5,000 people in the Shiite Muslim-stronghold of Kufa, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

"It is the second assault made on Islam and the prophet. Last year, and in the same month, the Danish cartoon assaulted Islam," he said, referring to caricatures of Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper that set off sometimes violent Muslim protests around the globe.

Yes. And it looks as if the reaction will be just as irrational and violent as Global Cartoon Rage.

At the Abdul-Qadir al-Gilani mosque in central Baghdad, Sunni cleric Mahmoud al-Isawi's sermon described the pope's comment as a "Western aggressive attack" that was "clearly showing its hatred toward our Islamic religion."

Shiite cleric Sheik Abdul-Kareem al-Ghazi, in Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, said the pope's comments ran counter to the Christian faith.

"The pope and Vatican proved to be Zionists and that they are far from Christianity, which does not differ from Islam. Both religions call for forgiveness, love and brotherhood," he said in a sermon delivered at the offices of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, where many people gather for religious services.

"Christianity does not differ from Islam," that is, in its Qur'anic form, which rejects the doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God and says that those who hold it are under Allah's curse (9:30). From the Islamic perspective, true Christianity is identical to Islam; it just doesn't happen to exist anywhere in the world today.

Al-Ghazi challenged Benedict or any other senior Vatican official to a debate, saying he would be willing to convert to Christianity if the pontiff managed to convince him of his views.

Well, I don't work in the Vatican, but I myself would be happy to debate you, Al-Ghazi.

"Fears of violent Mideast backlash to pope," from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

"We ask him to apologize this false reading of Islam," said Lebanese cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world's foremost Shiite religious scholars.

"We do not accept the excuse of the Vatican that the pope was not targeting Islam and had not intended to engage in a detailed study of jihad (the Muslim doctrine of holy war)," he added.

Fadlallah recently praised Hizballah for waging "a new battle of Khaybar." Khaybar, of course, was a Jewish community in Arabia against which the Muslim Prophet Muhammad waged an aggressive campaign of conquest and exile.

Outgoing Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya condemned the comments "in the name of the Palestinian people."

"These remarks go against the truth and touch the heart of our faith," Haniya said after weekly Muslim prayers in a Gaza mosque.

"The pope should revise his comments and stop attacking Islam, which is the religion of more than 1.5 billion people in the world," he added.

Hamas, of course, has glorified and celebrated violence against non-Muslims for decades. And here's some more:

Four home-made devices exploded during the day around the compound of Gaza City's oldest church, the Greek Orthodox, although there were no casualties and little damage.

In "INTERVIEW - No such thing as a moderate Muslim - ex-Malaysian PM," from the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist), the Jewish-conspiracymonger Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, tells us that there's no such thing as a moderate Muslim, because, you see, "we follow the true teachings of the religion and the true teachings do not teach us to bomb and kill people without reason."

Thanks, Mahathir. I feel so much better now. I have responded at greater length here. But I wanted to post Mahathir's remarks separately also, in order to make a few additional observations.

One is that while Mahathir gives with one hand, he takes away with the other. He is suggesting that Islam itself is moderate, but then he says, "the true teachings do not teach us to bomb and kill people without reason." Without reason? So what gives a Muslim good reason to bomb and kill people? Why, Israel, of course -- although Mahathir unsurprisingly doesn't allude to the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, from which comes Al-Qaeda and Hamas, was founded twenty years before the State of Israel was founded.

Although most of the men who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudis, Mahathir - whom Israel has in the past dubbed anti-Semitic - said he saw the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands as the root cause of Islamist extremism.

"They (the hijackers) had no direct link but there is a great deal of sympathy for the sufferings of the people of Palestine," he said.

"Maybe that is because they are co-religionists but it is not because their religion urges them to do so. The West tends to blame religion, they blame Islam for whatever happens and associate Islam with terrorism," he said.

More denial. It is not "the West" that has associated Islam with violence. It is Osama bin Laden, Zawahri, Zarqawi, and all the other jihad terrorists around the world. But of course, shame on us if we notice -- and all too many Western analysts fall for this.

Jonah Goldberg has posted this at NRO's The Corner from Alykhan Velshi, whom he identifies as an "occasional NRO contributor."

Mr Goldberg, You're right on one thing: the Pope hit a nerve. When Benedict quotes - approvingly, I might add - a Byzantine emperor from the 15th century who said, "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman", he's not giving moderate Muslims any wiggle room in which to offer an internal-Islamic critique of the bin Ladenists.

Look - I suppose I'm what one would call a moderate Muslim, though for reasons I won't get into I dislike the term (I also dislike being called a "compassionate conservative", the adjective being redundant and somewhat offensive). I support the Bush doctrine, have a favorable disposition towards Israel, and supported the right to publish the Danish cartoons. Yet I cringed when reading Benedict's speech, and not jut because of its laughable recounting of 15th century Christianity's embrace of reason and tolerance.

The problem with Benedict's speech, and it's illustrated perfectly by the quotation I cited above, is that it gives moderate Muslims no option other than to renounce our faith. When Benedict approvingly cites a source who says that Islam is "evil and inhuman", he's not offering a bold challenge to moderate Muslims, he's alienating them. There is a profound difference between, on the one hand, endorsing what Benedict said, and on the other, calling the enemy "militant Islamists", "Islamofascists", "Islamobolsheviks" (my personal favorite), or whatever. It's the difference, I suppose, between Robert Spencer and National Review, JihadWatch and AEI.

Just because the Muslim street is, in all its hypersensitivity, reacting like a woman who's just been told her pants make her look fat doesn't mean that Benedict was correct to say what he said, certainly not from the perspective of history and theology, nor I believe from that of the best way to win the GWOT.

But, then again, it looks like Juan Cole agrees with me - which could mean I'm ipso facto wrong.

Yes it does, but not only because of Juan Cole.

Velshi contends that by quoting the words "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman," Pope Benedict is "not giving moderate Muslims any wiggle room in which to offer an internal-Islamic critique of the bin Ladenists." Velshi adds that he doesn't even like the term "moderate Muslim," suggesting that the adjective is "redundant and somewhat offensive" -- in other words, to be a Muslim is to be moderate. But evidently Pope Benedict, Jihad Watch and I, as opposed to National Review and the AEI, do not offer "a bold challenge to moderate Muslims," but instead we are "alienating them."

Of course, Velshi has me wrong. The Jihad Watch FAQ has always spoken plainly about this: "Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts." Tashbih Sayyed, editor in chief of Muslim World Today, who speaks forthrightly about the need for Muslims to reject the elements of the Qur'an and Muhammad's example that give rise to jihad violence and the Sharia imperative, has recently become a member of the Jihad Watch Board of Directors.

What I have asked again and again of Muslims who identify themselves as moderate is this: that they acknowledge to exist, and renounce definitively, the elements of Islamic theology that jihadists are using to wage war against non-Muslims around the world. Instead, most of those who are known as moderates simply deny that these elements of Islam exist at all. I'm sorry, but that is not reform. That is deception. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformers didn't say, "The Church has never taught Transubstantiation and anyone who says otherwise is a hatemonger." They said, "The Church teaches Transubstantiation and it should stop doing so." Why is something like that, mutatis mutandis, too much to ask from Muslim reformers today? Why is it too much to ask that they say, "Jihad violence and the subjugation of unbelievers has been a continuing part of Islam, and we now reject it," instead of denying, in the teeth of the evidence, that these things are true at all?

Velshi's contention that "Muslim" need not be modified by "moderate" because it is redundant amounts to an assertion that Islam itself is moderate, i.e., peaceful and tolerant. It is interesting to note that Mahathir Mohamad, the "Jews-control-the-world" former Prime Minister of Malaysia, has just made essentially the same assertion: "There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim," he said. "We are fundamentalists in Malaysia. We follow the true teachings of the religion and the true teachings do not teach us to bomb and kill people without reason."

I am so glad to hear that, but the fact remains, as I have pointed out ad infinitum here, that jihad terrorists worldwide are committing violence on a daily basis and justifying it on the basis of Islamic teachings that are rooted in the Qur'an, the example of Muhammad, and the schools of Islamic law. The fact remains that all those schools of law teach violent jihad and the subjugation of unbelievers -- all of them, without exception. The existence of such laws make the phrase of another Jihad Watch Board member, Ibn Warraq, continually relevant: there are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. "Moderate Muslims" in this usage refers to those who bear the name of Muslim but simply want to go about their business and live ordinary lives, without waging jihad against the kuffar. Obviously such people need also to acknowledge and reject the elements of Islam that give rise to fanaticism and violence, or their children or even they themselves will be susceptible to the jihadist appeal, based as it is on the plain words of the Qur'an and Sunnah.

And that makes it all the more crucial for people like Velshi to come to grips with these aspects of Islam that are evil and inhuman, yes, as the world saw when pious Qur'an-quoting Muslims brought down the Towers, and beheaded Nick Berg, and have committed thousands upon thousands of acts of violence around the world, justifying them all by Islam. These acts are evil and inhuman, and their perpetrators justify them by the Qur'an and Islam. I didn't originate that fact. And Muslims like Velshi only do their own cause a disservice by criticizing those who dare to point it out.

The Pope is not giving, and I'm not giving, peaceful Muslims a chance to fight the "bin Ladenists" because we point out that that is happening? Just the opposite, Velshi. The Pope is showing the way, and since you mention me also I'll say that in my small way I am also trying to show the way, to the only truly viable path to genuine Islamic reform. But only showing the way: of course, that reform can be accomplished only by Muslims, if it can be done at all. Do I think that reform is likely? I don't, and for two reasons: 1. Because the texts to which I refer do actually exist, and jihadists can and do use them to paint any Muslim reformer as a heretic or apostate -- thus putting his life in danger. And 2. Because of denial from moderates, such as I have been discussing: If you won't even admit there is a problem, Velshi, you will never, ever, be able to fix it.

Mel Brooks with The Producers has made it impossible for all time to parody this sort of thing. But here is The Producers come to life. "London opera on Qadhafi hits right note," from AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

LONDON -- Once seen by Washington as "the most dangerous man on the planet" but considered a charismatic hero by others, Libya's Colonel Muammar Qadhafi is the main character in a dazzling modern opera in London.

It has everything to keep spectators on the edge of their seats: images of the desert covered in oil and blood, documentary footage on war and revolution, bombs, missiles, rap music, and beautiful female bodyguards in red high heels.

More of an audiovisual spectacular than an opera, Gaddafi: A Living Myth, follows step by step the enigmatic Qadhafi and his times to the hip hop beat of the British group, Asian Dub Foundation....

The project was born three years ago when the musician Steve "Chandrasonic" Savale persuaded the then director of the English National Opera (ENO), which in turn asked the Asian Dub Foundation to do a piece on Qadhafi.

Savale, who wrote the script, was fascinated with Qadhafi because of his "dramatic duality."

"Who is Qadhafi?" asked Savale, speaking at the theater near Trafalgar Square.

"Is he a brutal tyrant, sponsor of some of the most destructive acts of terrorism of the last 50 years? Or is he a steadfast anti-imperialist champion of the oppressed peoples of the Earth? A misrepresented national hero? Or a paranoid narcissist? Or is he just a marginal figure that would be irrelevant if he did not have control of what so many powerful forces want: oil."

The whole Pope Flap shows who really insults Islam. When have we ever seen the headline, "Osama fears for his safety after hijacking Islam"? When have we ever seen angry Muslim protestors burning images of Osama, instead of brandishing them for the cameras?

But when the Pope suggests Islam is violent, Islam becomes...violent. Here a question for you Moral Equivalence fans: Have you noticed that "radical Christians," although just insulted by Rosie O'Donnell, are not rioting or threatening anyone's life?

From the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -- The Muslim world's scathing reaction to Pope Benedict's comments on Islam is the biggest challenge to face the pontiff yet and raises concerns over his security, diplomatic and Church sources said on Friday.

"My personal reaction was: 'This is a striking statement. Was it a rare slip-up?'" one source said about the pope's speech in Germany last Tuesday.

"One has to wonder why the pope, who is normally so careful about what he says or writes, and has a reputation for extreme care, did not realize the reaction that this could cause," the source added....

Maybe he realized it full well, and was trying to argue for the futility of violent reactions such as we are now seeing.

"I was quite surprised (by the speech)," one diplomat said. "He has put himself in a tough spot and it will be interesting to see what he does next."

Indeed it will. Let's hope he has the courage to keep telling the truth.

A growing chorus of Muslim leaders have called on the pope to apologize. Muslim scholars say his comments show little understanding of Islam and some say Islamic countries should threaten to break off relations with the Vatican.

One high-ranking Church source also also expressed fears for the pope's safety.

"While I think the controversy will go away, it has done damage and if I were a security expert I'd be worried," he said.

At least one Muslim leader, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, extolled Muslims to "respond in a manner which forces the pope to apologize." He did not elaborate.

Oh, I think it's abundantly clear what he means.

Sorry for the short notice, but I am scheduled to appear on Fox News with Neil Cavuto around 4:15 EDT this afternoon, to discuss (briefly) the recruitment of non-Arab converts to Islam by jihadist groups.

Meanwhile, I have been doing a great deal of speaking lately, including talks in Los Angeles Monday night and Stamford, CT last night. And the travels continue.

This AP image is making the rounds.

"How dare you say Muhammad spread his faith by the sword?"

What is the over/under for increased rage after Friday sermons?

Coming from a Turkish official is that a compliment or an insult?
From AP

Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted party joined a wave of criticism of Pope Benedict XVI on Friday, accusing him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades with remarks he made about Islam. A party official said the pontiff would go down in history "in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini" for his words.

In Florence.

She was one of the most fearless and courageous defenders Western civilization had in these latter days, and the West rewarded her by hounding, persecuting and vilifying her.

Such is the state of the society and culture she loved and tried to save from itself.

I was surprised and honored when she named me as one of her "comrades in arms...pals...buddies" in an appendix to the English edition of The Force of Reason. Many times in her last months, after she did me the honor of calling me her friend, I spent time with her that I will always hold dear. Her apartment in New York City was a mesmerizing and unique collection of artifacts from her marvelous career and a monument to her erudition and avid interest in human civilization, human achievement.

One indelible evening she invited me there -- no, summoned me there, in her inimitable way -- and we spent hours drinking fine wine and discussing the state of the world, and her fascinating and hilarious reminiscences of her encounters with the Ayatollah Khomeini, Archbishop Makarios, Henry Kissinger, Deng Xiaoping, Pope Benedict XVI, and so many others.

She was weak and ill, but her mind -- and her observations -- were as sharp as ever. During the evening a prominent conservative writer who is soft on the Islamic jihad in the way many mainstream conservatives are (following the wishful-thinking Religion of Peace That Has Been Hijacked By A Tiny Minority Of Extremists line) telephoned. Oriana took the call, spoke with him for awhile, and then hung up, turned to me, and said: "I don't like him! He is stupid!"

She always told the truth, no matter how unpopular, no matter how politically incorrect.

And as she began to slip away, I often thought to myself, What can I do for Oriana? Of course, the only answer was to do exactly what I am doing here at this site, and in my books, and in traveling around the country speaking, trying to alert people to the reality and magnitude of the global jihad.

I invite you, then, on this day of sadness and loss, to pay tribute to Oriana. There is no way we can make up for what we have lost in her. But the best way we can pay tribute to Oriana is by becoming Oriana. Let there be a hundred new Orianas today, a thousand new passionate and articulate and absolutely unbowed defenders of Western culture and civilization, with a fine contempt for all the many weapons of physical and psychological intimidation that the jihadists and their non-Muslim allies and tools in the Western media and government establishments use to try to silence and discredit us.

Buy her books. Give them to your friends and coworkers. Explain to them why she said -- as is quoted in the obituary linked above -- that "Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam." Explain to them why that matters for so much that they hold dear. Enlist them also in the anti-jihad resistance. And fight the jihad and Islamic supremacism the way she did, with the fire and light of truth, with an untiring defense for the rights and dignity of the human individual, with good humor, with immense joy in living, and with a love for the elements of the good life that the jihadis are determined to efface: art, music, love.

And when we prevail, we will be able to memorialize her fittingly, as a light that shone in our darkest days.

I will never forget her. How could I? I even have a phone message from her that I keep saving so that it doesn't disappear -- just so that I can hear her voice.

Ciao, Oriana. I love you.

May her memory be eternal.

Oil Weapon Update from AP:

SAN`A, Yemen - Suicide bombers tried to strike two oil facilities in Yemen with explosives-packed cars, but authorities foiled the attacks and four bombers and a security guard were killed, the government said Friday.

The attempts came ahead of this week's presidential elections, in which President Ali Abdullah Saleh faces a serious challenge for the first time since he became head of state in 1978.

They also came days after al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, issued a videotaped threat of attacks on the Persian Gulf and on facilities he blamed for stealing Muslim oil.

Khamenei emphasizes that these are the "lessons" of Islam to all of humanity. From the Islamic Republic News Agency: "Supreme Leader considers faith, resolve, Jihad as Islam's eternal lessons"

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in a message to the 7th annual meeting of the nationwide universities independent students Islamic association here Thursday said that faith, resolve and Jihad are the three elements required to materialize any goal and ideal.

The Supreme Leader pointed to the three elements as Islam's eternal lessons, which once elevated Muslims to the climax of history, adding that today they will serve to rescue them from captivity.

His citing of the the "climax of (Islamic) history" helps put to rest the possible suggestion that he is mainly concerned with an internal moral struggle, pointing instead to the model of the Muslim world as a conquering, military power.

"There is no doubt that the youth are most capable concerning these three basic elements," added Ayatollah Khamenei.

In his message, the Supreme Leader said that a community in which justice, spirituality and dignity are set on top of its goals is obliged to be faithful, determined and pursue Jihad.

"This is the same eternal lesson of Islam to its followers and the entire humanity," added Ayatollah Khamenei.

An interesting juxtaposition of an emphasis on "science" and a reference to the return of the Mahdi:

Elsewhere in his message, the Supreme Leader called on the independent students to trust divine promises, which are to be materialized in light of the vigilance of world nations.

Ayatollah Khamenei further called on them to attach value to their potentials and make optimum use of their capacities in scientific fields, adding, "The future belongs to you."

Another sign that France's years of courting the Islamic bloc have come to naught, though that country's "holier-than-thou" attitude among Western countries with respect to affairs concerning the Muslim world will almost certainly remain firmly in place in spite of this threat.

It also comes alongside the GSPC's announcement yesterday that it has formalized a closer relationship with al-Qaeda, stating: "After consultations, we decided to announce allegiance to Shaikh Osama bin Laden, and continue our jihad ... in Algeria under his leadership."

From YNet News:

Deputy al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged a militant Algerian Islamist group to punish "crusader nation" France, even though it vehemently opposed the US-led war in Iraq, a newspaper said on Thursday.

[...]

He also urged the GSPC -- the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat -- to sow fear "in the hearts of the traitors and the apostate sons of France" and to crush the "pillars of the Crusader alliance."

[...]

'Crusader nation'

But Anne Giudicelli, head of the Terrorisc (sic) security consultancy and who reviewed the whole tape, told Le Figaro the anti-France message had dominated the homepage of the internet website used by the GSPC for the past few days.

The group emerged from the Armed Islamic Group blamed for a massacre of civilians during a bloody insurgency against Algeria's military-backed government in the 1990s.

It is viewed as a major threat by the French security services and sources quoted by Le Figaro said it had switched its focus to taking part in the international jihad -- which means holy war in Arabic -- after losing influence at home.

Many French people believe their country is less of a target for Islamist-inspired attacks because of France's stance over Iraq, but officials say that cuts no ice with militants.

A ban of the traditional Muslim headscarf in secular state schools, close French intelligence links with its former North African colonies combating Islamist extremists, and its role in NATO operations in Afghanistan against the Taliban militia, have secured France's status as a "crusader nation," experts say.

France is also dispatching some 2,000 troops to join a peacekeeping force in its former protectorate Lebanon, putting it in the front line of a mission that Zawahiri has denounced.

On Monday, Pierrre de Bousquet de Florian, head of the DST domestic security service, said the threat of terrorist attack remained "very high and very international."

"For our Islamist adversaries, our country is frankly in the Western camp, the crusaders in their words, and we will be spared nothing," he told RTL radio on Monday.

Expect Sheikh Qaradawi and the head of the Muslim Brotherhood to denounce the GSPC forthwith for misrepresenting Islam and jihad. "Islamists vow to pursue jihad," from SA:

Dubai - A radical Algerian Islamist group known as the GSPC pledged its allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and vowed to pursue jihad in Algeria, according to a statement posted on the internet on Thursday.

"We pledge allegiance to sheikh Osama bin Laden... We will pursue our jihad in Algeria. Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes," said the statement signed by Abu Mossaab Abdelwadud, the emir of the group.

Bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed in a video message this week that the group had joined al-Qaeda and warned it would be a "thorn in the throat" of the West.

Rejects Algerian president

"Osama bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC (the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) has joined al-Qaeda," said Zawahiri, according to extracts of the video issued this week to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"We pray to God that they will be a thorn in the side of the American and French crusaders and their allies," he said.

From the Who's-Kidding-Whom Department: the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which has sprung Hamas and Al-Qaeda, and Sheikh Qaradawi, who has endorsed jihad-martyrdom suicide bombings, are demanding the Pope apologize for suggesting Islam is violent. And the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, reports it all, of course, with a straight face. Lombardi's dhimmi backpedaling, meanwhile, is unlikely to mollify anyone. "Muslim leaders condemn Pope's speech, want apology," from Reuters:

CAIRO (Reuters) - Muslim leaders on Thursday condemned Pope Benedict over comments he made about Islam on a visit to Germany and demanded he apologize.

The head of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood called on Islamic countries to threaten to break off relations with the Vatican unless the pontiff withdrew his remarks.

A top religious figure in Turkey suggested the pope should reconsider a trip he is planning to Turkey later this year.

The Vatican issued a statement to say the Pope had never meant to offend Islam.

[...]

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, whose organization is one of the oldest, largest and most influential in the Arab world, said the pope "aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world and strengthened the argument of those who say that the West is hostile to everything Islamic."

"The general guide (Akef) expressed his surprise that such comments should come from someone who sits at the summit of the Catholic Church and who has an influence over public opinion in the West," said a statement on the Muslim Brotherhood's official Web site, www.ikhwanonline.com.

The Vatican press office said in a statement the pope had not intended to carry out an in-depth study of jihad (holy war) and Muslim thinking about it, "even less to offend the sensitivity of the Muslim faithful."

"It is clear that the Holy Father's intention is to cultivate a position of respect and dialogue toward other religions and cultures, and that clearly includes Islam," the statement by chief Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

He said a careful reading of the Pope's lecture would show that "what really matters to the Holy Father is a clear and radical rejection of religious motives for violence."

In Turkey, the Anatolian state news agency quoted Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, as describing the Pope's words as "extremely regrettable."

"I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate," NTV's Web site quoted Bardakoglu as saying.

Bardakoglu, whose directorate controls all imams in Turkey and sends prayer leaders to Turkish communities abroad, recalled atrocities committed by Roman Catholic Crusaders during the Middle Ages in the name of their faith against Orthodox Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.

Benedict is due to visit Turkey, an avowedly secular state whose population is predominantly Muslim, in November at the invitation of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

In Qatar, prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi rejected the Pope's comments and said Islam was a religion of peace and reason.

"Muslims have the right to be angry and hurt by these comments from the highest cleric in Christianity," Qaradawi told Al Jazeera television. "We ask the pope to apologize to the Muslim nation for insulting its religion, its Prophet and its beliefs."

Or what?

The misunderstanders of Islam are busy in India these days. "Abducted photographer beheaded in J&K," from the Times of India, with thanks to Arjun:

SRINAGAR: Police on Thursday recovered the body of a photographer whose head had been chopped off after being abducted by militants in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, triggering anti-Pakistan protest by local residents, official sources said here.

The head of Shabir Ahmad Dar was recovered from saffron fields in Chandhara area on Thursday morning, while the body was found from Kruenchh village, about a kilometre away, the sources said. Dar, a resident of Hathiwara village, was abducted on Wednesday night.

Angry local residents staged a protest demonstration against the militants and also raised slogans against Pakistan demanding an end to terrorism in the state, they said.

Memo to the angry local residents: don't hold your breath.

And police did nothing. "Stone pelting by Muslims on Ganesh idol: Many injured," from the Daily Sanatan Prabhat, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

Tulzapur, Maharashtra: On Anant Chaturdashi, the last day of Sri Ganesh festival, a procession was taken out for immersion of Sri Ganesh idols by 'Veer-Shaiva Tarun Mandal' at Katgaon (Tal. Tulzapur, Maharashtra). While the procession was passing by a mosque, some Muslims pelted stones at the procession causing damage to Sri Ganesh idol and injuries to many people participating in the procession.

The Muslims were shouting slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad' while pelting stones. Due to the damage caused to the idol, people were livid with anger. The situation in Katgaon became quite tense. Members of the Ganesh Mandal called the police and demanded to register complaint against those Muslims. The idol was immersed only after an assurance was given to arrest the culprits.

The devotees who participated in the procession, however, told that while registering complaint against the miscreants, police have mentioned in their FIR that due to pelting of stones at the procession, loud-speaker has been damaged. When the residents and members of the Ganesh Mandal asked the police to write a true report, instead of taking action against the Muslims, police started threatening the members. In fact, the police inspector said that if the members tried to insist on writing a complaint, he would register a complaint against the members of Ganesh Mandal and give evidence against them.

Sayyid Qutb has got ya by the throat, Henry Kissinger's got you tied up in knots. Seriously, Henry, wow. No way. Clash of civilizations? Really? Zowie. What was your first clue?

From AFP, with thanks to Jihad Watch News Editor Anne Crockett:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that Europe and the United States must unite to head off a "war of civilizations" arising from a nuclear-armed Middle East.

In an opinion column in the Washington Post, the renowned foreign policy expert said the potential for a "global catastrophe" dwarfed lingering transatlantic mistrust left over from the Iraq war.

To head it off, Henry counsels dhimmitude:

"A common Atlantic policy backed by moderate Arab states must become a top priority, no matter how pessimistic previous experience with such projects leaves one," Kissinger wrote.

"The debate sparked by the Iraq war over American rashness vs. European escapism is dwarfed by what the world now faces.

"Both sides of the Atlantic should put their best minds together on how to deal with the common danger of a wider war merging into a war of civilizations against the background of a nuclear-armed Middle East."

How can they do that, Henry, when the best minds are one side of the Atlantic are doing their best to make that clash of civilizations a reality?

"The church and the Western public, because they saw Islam as the enemy, went on crusades." No mention, of course, of the 450 years of jihad conquest that preceded that. "Turkish cleric attacks pope's remarks about Islam," from AP, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

ISTANBUL, Turkey Turkey's top Islamic cleric asked Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday to take back recent remarks he made about Islam, and unleashed a string of counteraccusations against the Christian church, raising tensions before the pontiff's November visit - his first to a Muslim country.

Religious Affairs Directorate head Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who sets the religious agenda for Turkey, said he was deeply offended by the pope's remarks Tuesday during his pilgrimage in Germany, about Islamic holy war, calling them "extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate."

Bardakoglu said that "if the pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity" of others in the Christian church, then the situation was even worse....

The pope made his remarks on Islam in a speech in which he quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,'" he quoted the emperor as saying.

Clearly aware of the delicacy of the issue, Benedict added, "I quote," twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam and described them as "brusque," while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.

In remarks to Turkey's state-owned Anatolia news agency, Bardakoglu said Thursday that he expected an apology from the pope and said it was the Christian church, not Islam, that popularized conversion by the sword.

"The church and the Western public, because they saw Islam as the enemy, went on crusades. They occupied Istanbul, they killed thousands of people. Orthodox Christians and Jews were killed and tortured," he said....

"They (the Christians) saw war against those outside the Christian world as a holy duty," Bardakoglu continued. "That's why the Western clerics always have in the back of their minds a crusade mentality and the idea of holy war," he claimed.

Sure, Bardakoglu. That's why there's an organized movement of Christians committing violence worldwide in the name of Christianity today, and justifying it by reference to Christian texts.

Bardakoglu said he suspected Benedict had the same mentality and asked the pope to "look in the mirror" before making remarks against Islam.

"If there's a religious antagonism in the West, it's the responsibility of the logic-ignoring Christian church," he said....

Of course. It's never the responsibility of Islam or Muslims, no matter what.

Under criticism for its lack of objectivity, the London-based Amnesty International announced Wednesday that Hizbullah's firing of thousands of rockets into Israel amounted to "war crimes."

The findings, which appear in a new 15-page report, come three weeks after the human rights group issued a previous report which called Israeli strikes "war crimes," but failed to mention Hizbullah's rocket attacks. –from this news article

This tiny postscript comes two weeks after the massive manuscript ("'Israelis Committed War Crimes,' says Amnesty International") was distributed far and wide. To the little addendum, dangling, The Times will devote a tiny particle of an article, deep inside -- not the massive coverage given to that massive "Israelis Committed War Crimes" manuscript published to worldwide acclaim a few weeks ago.

Why bother with the addendum, the little lean-to, the pretend-condemnation of heroic Hizballah? To establish a claim to "fairness." To establish a claim to "equal-opportunity" denunciation. To farcically pretend that Amnesty International, Ms. Khan's nasty little domain, which has little in common (just like the U.N.) with what it started as and what it was intended to be, is fair.